21 Agile Frameworks Practice Questions & Answers

1. 1. An agile team is deciding how much project documentation to produce. Which statement best reflects the values behind the agile mindset?

   • A.Documentation should replace conversation, because a written record is more reliable than a discussion.
   • B.Documentation still has value, but the team values delivering working product more highly.✓ Answer
   • C.Documentation should be eliminated, because only working product has any value to a customer.
   • D.Documentation should be completed and approved in full before any product is built.

   The agile values place working product above comprehensive documentation, yet they state explicitly that the items on the right still have value. The rule is one of relative priority, not of elimination, so the team produces the documentation that genuinely serves the product and stops there.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, agile frameworks and methodologies; Agile Manifesto valuesReport a problem with this question

2. 2. Which project characteristic most strongly indicates that an adaptive approach is a better fit than a predictive one?

   • A.The project must produce one single handover at the end because partial deliveries cannot be used.
   • B.The project has a fixed scope defined in detail and a customer who is unavailable during the work.
   • C.The project delivers a well-understood product using procedures the organization has repeated many times.
   • D.The project has requirements that are expected to emerge and change as stakeholders see early results.✓ Answer

   Adaptive approaches fit work with high uncertainty, because emerging requirements would generate heavy rework against a detailed plan fixed at the start. Delivering in small increments and re-planning from feedback converts that uncertainty into learning, while definable, repeatable work is handled more efficiently by a predictive plan.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, suitability of adaptive approaches; Agile Practice Guide, uncertainty and definable workReport a problem with this question

3. 3. How does progress tracking on an adaptive project differ from tracking on a predictive, plan-based project?

   • A.Adaptive teams measure progress by working product completed and accepted, counting partial work as none.✓ Answer
   • B.Adaptive teams measure progress by the variance from the cost and schedule baseline that was set at the start.
   • C.Adaptive teams measure progress by the percentage of each task reported complete by the person doing it.
   • D.Adaptive teams measure progress by the hours the team has consumed against its original estimate.

   Adaptive tracking is empirical: an item counts only once it meets the definition of done and is accepted, so half-finished work contributes nothing. Predictive tracking instead compares performance against a baseline, which is why percent-complete and variance measures belong to the plan-based side.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive versus plan-based tracking; Agile Practice Guide, empirical measures of progressReport a problem with this question

4. 4. What distinguishes an incremental life cycle from an iterative life cycle?

   • A.Incremental delivery repeats the same work until it is correct, while iterative delivery ships usable pieces.
   • B.Incremental delivery hands the customer successive usable pieces, while iterative delivery repeats work to refine one solution.✓ Answer
   • C.Incremental delivery uses timeboxes of equal length, while iterative delivery uses timeboxes of varying length.
   • D.Incremental delivery fixes all requirements up front, while iterative delivery lets requirements change freely.

   Incremental delivery aims at speed: each increment is a usable slice handed over as it is finished. Iterative delivery aims at correctness: the same solution is reworked through successive passes until it is right, and an agile life cycle combines both by delivering refined increments frequently.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, life cycle selection; Agile Practice Guide, characteristics of project life cyclesReport a problem with this question

5. 5. At the end of a two-week iteration, one user story is nearly finished but does not meet the definition of done. What should the team do?

   • A.Return the unfinished story to the product backlog so it can be reordered and planned again.✓ Answer
   • B.Count the story as partly complete and record the proportion of its points in this iteration's velocity.
   • C.Extend the iteration by a few days so the story can be finished and demonstrated as complete.
   • D.Move the story silently into the next iteration backlog without letting the product owner reorder it.

   The length of a timebox is fixed and never stretches to accommodate unfinished work, because a consistent iteration length is what makes measured throughput meaningful. Work that does not meet the definition of done returns to the product backlog, where the product owner decides its position against everything else.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, planning project iterations; Agile Practice Guide, timeboxed iterationsReport a problem with this question

6. 6. During iteration planning, who decides how much work the team will take on for the iteration?

   • A.The product owner decides, since ordering the backlog also sets the amount of work to be pulled.
   • B.The scrum master decides, assigning items to individuals so that the iteration goal can be met.
   • C.The development team decides, based on its capacity and its record of recently completed work.✓ Answer
   • D.The functional manager decides, allocating each team member's hours across the iteration's items.

   A self-managing team forecasts its own capacity, so only the team can say how many items it can finish inside the timebox. The product owner decides the order in which items are offered and the facilitator supports the event, but neither sets the quantity the team pulls.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive plan components; Agile Practice Guide, self-organizing teams and iteration planningReport a problem with this question

7. 7. Which responsibility belongs to the product owner on an agile team?

   • A.Deciding the technical design of each backlog item and how the team will build it.
   • B.Tracking each member's hours and reporting individual performance to senior management.
   • C.Facilitating the team's events and removing the impediments the team reports each day.
   • D.Ordering the product backlog so that the items of greatest value and risk go first.✓ Answer

   The product owner is accountable for maximizing the value the team delivers, and the lever for that is the order of the product backlog. Pulling high-value and high-risk items forward earns benefit sooner and retires uncertainty early, while technical design stays with the team.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive plan components; Agile Practice Guide, product owner accountabilityReport a problem with this question

8. 8. A team reports at its daily coordination meeting that access to a test environment owned by another department is blocking two stories. What should the scrum master do?

   • A.Reassign the two blocked stories to other team members so that the iteration goal is protected.
   • B.Report the delay to senior management and ask that the other department be formally instructed.
   • C.Work with the other department to get access restored, so the team can continue its own work.✓ Answer
   • D.Record the block as a risk and wait for the next iteration review to raise it with stakeholders.

   Removing impediments that the team cannot clear on its own is the defining service of a servant leader, and the daily meeting exists precisely to surface them. Escalating first, or reassigning work on the team's behalf, substitutes command-and-control for the facilitation the role is meant to provide.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive task management; Agile Practice Guide, servant leadership and impediment removalReport a problem with this question

9. 9. What is the purpose of the daily coordination meeting on an agile team?

   • A.To reflect on how the team is working together and agree on process improvements.
   • B.To give the project manager a status update on each person's tasks and hours worked this week.
   • C.To review the completed increment with stakeholders and gather their feedback on it.
   • D.To let the team synchronize its plan for the day and raise anything blocking progress.✓ Answer

   The daily meeting is a short timeboxed event held by and for the team, so its output is a shared plan for the next day and a list of impediments to clear. Turning it into a status report to a manager destroys its purpose, because the team stops planning together and starts reporting upward.

   Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive plan components; Agile Practice Guide, daily standupReport a problem with this question

10. 10. An agile team wants to examine how well its own working practices are functioning and choose improvements. Which event serves that purpose?

    • A.The iteration planning session, in which the team selects the items it will work on next.
    • B.The daily coordination meeting, in which the team synchronizes its plan for the coming day.
    • C.The iteration review, in which stakeholders inspect the increment and the backlog is adapted.
    • D.The retrospective, in which the team inspects its process and selects improvements to try.✓ Answer

    The retrospective inspects the process and the team, while the review inspects the product and adapts the backlog with stakeholders; that pairing is the distinction most often confused. A retrospective is only effective when a small number of improvements are prioritized and carried into the next iteration rather than merely discussed.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive plan components; Agile Practice Guide, retrospectivesReport a problem with this question

11. 11. How does the iteration backlog differ from the product backlog?

    • A.The iteration backlog holds the items the product owner has not yet estimated or refined.
    • B.The iteration backlog holds the defects found after release, kept apart from planned work.
    • C.The iteration backlog holds the items the team selected for the current timebox and its plan to deliver them.✓ Answer
    • D.The iteration backlog holds every item ever identified for the product, ordered by the value each one carries.

    The product backlog is the single ordered list of everything that might be built, kept in order by the product owner. The iteration backlog is the subset the team pulled for the current timebox together with the team's own plan for delivering it, which is why the team owns and updates it daily.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive project artifacts; Agile Practice Guide, backlogsReport a problem with this question

12. 12. What is the purpose of ongoing backlog refinement?

    • A.Splitting, clarifying and sizing upcoming items so the top of the backlog is ready to pull.✓ Answer
    • B.Converting the remaining backlog items into a detailed schedule with dates for each one.
    • C.Fixing the wording of every backlog item so that its scope cannot change later.
    • D.Having the scrum master assign the upcoming items to the team members best suited to them.

    Refinement is a continuing activity, not an event, and it applies progressive elaboration to the backlog: near-term items are detailed while distant items stay coarse. Keeping the top of the list small, clear and estimated is what allows the team to plan an iteration quickly and confidently.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive task management; Agile Practice Guide, backlog refinementReport a problem with this question

13. 13. How do acceptance criteria differ from the definition of done?

    • A.Acceptance criteria state what one specific item must satisfy, while the definition of done applies to all work.✓ Answer
    • B.Acceptance criteria are set by the team for its own internal use, while the definition of done is set by the customer.
    • C.Acceptance criteria apply to a whole product release, while the definition of done applies to a single iteration only.
    • D.Acceptance criteria are written after an item is built, while the definition of done is written beforehand.

    Acceptance criteria are attached to an individual backlog item and describe the conditions that make that item acceptable to the product owner. The definition of done is a single shared standard the team applies to every item, so an item is finished only when it satisfies both.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive task success criteria; Agile Practice Guide, definition of done and acceptance criteriaReport a problem with this question

14. 14. Why do agile teams size backlog items in story points rather than in hours?

    • A.Relative sizing converts into a fixed number of hours per point once the team has settled.
    • B.Relative sizing produces a figure that can be compared directly with the figures of other teams.
    • C.Relative sizing compares items with one another, which teams do faster and more reliably.✓ Answer
    • D.Relative sizing removes any need for the team to forecast how much work it can deliver.

    People judge whether one item is bigger than another far more consistently than they judge absolute durations, so relative sizing produces useful estimates with less effort. Points reflect one team's own scale of size, effort and uncertainty, which is exactly why they must never be compared between teams or treated as a fixed hour conversion.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive task management; Agile Practice Guide, relative estimationReport a problem with this question

15. 15. What may a team legitimately do with its velocity?

    • A.Use it to forecast roughly how many iterations the remaining backlog is likely to need.✓ Answer
    • B.Use it to set an individual performance target for each member of the development team.
    • C.Use it to compare this team's productivity with that of another team on the same product.
    • D.Use it to claim partial credit for items that are nearly finished but not yet accepted.

    Velocity is an empirical record of the points a team completed and had accepted, so its legitimate use is forecasting that same team's future capacity over the remaining backlog. Because the point scale is local to one team and only fully done work counts, velocity cannot rank teams or individuals.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive tracking measures; Agile Practice Guide, velocityReport a problem with this question

16. 16. An iteration burndown chart shows remaining work holding at the same level for several days in the middle of the iteration. What does that most likely indicate?

    • A.The team has work in progress that is not yet finished, so no remaining work has come off.✓ Answer
    • B.The team has reduced its estimates so that the remaining figure no longer needs updating.
    • C.The team has added new items to the iteration and has therefore raised the remaining total.
    • D.The team has completed all of its planned work early and has nothing left to burn down.

    A burndown line only falls when an item is finished to the definition of done, because partially completed work counts as zero. A flat stretch therefore signals work in progress piling up rather than idleness, and it warns the team early that too much has been started at once.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive project artifacts; Agile Practice Guide, iteration burndown chartsReport a problem with this question

17. 17. A stakeholder wants a chart that shows both how much work is finished and whether the total amount of work has grown. Which chart shows this?

    • A.The iteration burndown chart, which plots the remaining work falling toward zero across the timebox.
    • B.The burnup chart, which plots the completed work against a separate line showing total scope.✓ Answer
    • C.The cumulative flow diagram, which plots the quantity of work sitting in each workflow state.
    • D.The velocity chart, which plots the points accepted in each of the team's past iterations.

    A burnup chart draws completed work as a rising line and total scope as a second line, so a rise in the scope line makes added work visible instead of hiding it. A burndown shows only a single remaining-work line, in which added scope and slow progress look the same.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive project artifacts; Agile Practice Guide, burnup and burndown chartsReport a problem with this question

18. 18. On a kanban board, items are piling up in the testing column while the columns before it keep filling. Which practice most directly addresses this?

    • A.Move the finished development items straight to done and test them after they are released.
    • B.Limit the work in progress allowed in each column so the team stops starting and helps finish.✓ Answer
    • C.Assign every remaining tester an individual quota of items to clear before the day ends.
    • D.Add a fixed two-week timebox to the board so that testing must finish within each period.

    A queue growing in front of one column is the visual signature of a bottleneck, and a work-in-progress limit is the kanban mechanism that responds to it. Once the limit is reached nothing new is pulled in, so people move to help clear the constrained step and flow through the board improves.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive frameworks; Agile Practice Guide, kanban method and work in progress limitsReport a problem with this question

19. 19. How does lead time differ from cycle time?

    • A.Lead time counts the whole span from when an item is requested until it is finished.✓ Answer
    • B.Lead time counts only the hours a person was actively working on the item, ignoring waiting.
    • C.Lead time counts the number of items the team finishes in a given period of time.
    • D.Lead time counts the days an item waits in a queue before anyone begins working on it.

    Lead time is measured from the customer's point of view and therefore includes every queue the item sat in, while cycle time measures only the processing once work actually begins. Comparing the two exposes how much of the customer's wait is caused by queueing rather than by the work itself.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive tracking measures; Agile Practice Guide, flow metricsReport a problem with this question

20. 20. Which statement describes a difference between the kanban method and a scrum-style framework?

    • A.Kanban forbids any change to the work in progress once the current timebox has started.
    • B.Kanban manages a continuous pull-based flow of work rather than committing to fixed timeboxes.✓ Answer
    • C.Kanban measures the team's progress in story points completed per iteration, exactly as scrum does.
    • D.Kanban prescribes three accountabilities and a fixed set of events, while scrum prescribes none of them.

    Kanban prescribes no roles and no timeboxes; it visualizes the workflow, limits work in progress and pulls the next item whenever capacity frees up, so new work can enter at any moment. Scrum instead uses fixed-length iterations with prescribed accountabilities and events, and measures completed points per iteration.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, components of adaptive methodologies; Agile Practice Guide, kanban method and scrumReport a problem with this question

21. 21. A team keeps deferring cleanup of code shortcuts in order to finish more items each iteration. What is the likely consequence?

    • A.The team's definition of done will expand on its own to absorb the deferred cleanup work.
    • B.The team's velocity will rise permanently, because less time is spent on non-delivery work.
    • C.The team's product owner becomes responsible for scheduling the cleanup as separate projects.
    • D.The team's later iterations will slow, because accumulated shortcuts make each change costlier.✓ Answer

    Deferred shortcuts are technical debt: they buy speed now and charge interest on every later change made to that part of the product. Continuous attention to technical excellence, together with improvements chosen at the retrospective, is what keeps a team able to deliver at a steady pace over time.

    Source: PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline, adaptive task success criteria; agile principles of technical excellence and sustainable paceReport a problem with this question

Practice questions based on the PMI CAPM Examination Content Outline and standard project-management and business-analysis concepts. CAPM, PMP and PMBOK are marks of the Project Management Institute; this site is not affiliated with or endorsed by PMI. PMI sets and periodically revises the exam's length, scoring and eligibility requirements — read the current CAPM handbook and Exam Content Outline on PMI's site before you apply or test. About the CAPM exam →