Free Professional Agile Leadership Certification Exam PAL-I Exam Practice Test

You are a Product Owner. The Developers are close to the end of a Sprint and ask you for 3 extra days to complete their work. They feel that if they do not get the extra time, they might look bad in front of stakeholders, who are already skeptical of using an agile approach. What should you do? (choose the best answer)

• Cut back on testing, or leave some items incomplete, so long as the Developers can "substantially meet" their goal.
• Agree to extend the Sprint but ask the team to be more realistic when they plan Sprints in the future.
• Ask the Developers to work longer hours to meet their goal.
• Ask the Developers to commit to what was agreed and find a solution for the problem.
• Do not extend the Sprint and stick to the original timebox. Work with the stakeholders to explain why transparency and openness are important.

A Scrum Team is finding it difficult to get work done since team members are distracted by being pulled away to take care of work requested by other teams. The team has been regularly failing to deliver on their Sprint Goals. As a Manager, if the Scrum Team asks you for help, what should you do to solve this problem? (choose the best two answers)

• Work with the Scrum Team and other teams to find ways to re-assign the interrupting work to people outside of the Scrum Team.
• Ask for more people on the team to compensate for the interruptions.
• Make their Sprints longer to account for the interruptions.
• Extend the length of a Sprint if they need more time to complete the Sprint Goal.
• Coach the Scrum Team to be more conservative in defining their Sprint Goal, to account for the time team members will need to spend doing other work.

You are a manager responsible for a product being developed by a Scrum Team. A sales representative wants a particular feature in the product. They believe that it will help close a deal. The Product Owner understands the need but believes that there are more valuable things on the Product Backlog that will lead to more long-term business. The sales representative appeals to you to intervene. How do you respond? (choose the best answer)

• Ask the Product Owner to implement the feature anyway since it will close a deal.
• Reach out to Developers who you think may support your position, in the hope of gaining moresupport for the idea.
• Support the Product Owner’s decision to focus on broader market needs in the long run, even though it may mean loss of short-term business.
• Lobby other stakeholders to express support for adding the feature, to put more pressure on the Product Owner.

Value stream mapping is a useful technique to: (choose the best answer)

• Understand customer requirements.
• Understand how to break down work and assign it to teams.
• Identify sources of waste and activities that do not add value in a process.
• Enable a Portfolio view of your “Epics.”
• Understand how to break down epics into smaller user stories.

Which of the following is NOT true of cross-functional teams? (choose the best answer)

• The team spends less time waiting on people outside the team to get things done.
• Team members have a greater opportunity to deliver product increments that deliver value to users.
• Cross-functional teams help team members develop deep technical specializations.
• Cross-functional teams encourage team members to step outside their comfort zone to get things done.
• Team members have more opportunities to grow their skills by learning from others.

What traditionally "good" behavior can impede the adoption of an agile culture? (choose the best answer)

• Encouraging specialization
• Rewarding outstanding individual performance
• Enforcing organization-level technology standards
• Rewarding high utilization
• Managing to: fixed-scope, schedule, and budget goals
• All the above

Who is responsible for managing the progress of work during a Sprint? (choose the best answer)

• The Scrum Master.
• The Product Owner.
• The Team Lead.
• The Project Manager.
• The Developers.
• All the above.

You manage a product development organization. One of your employees, a subject matter expert and a stakeholder for a product being developed, expresses that he feels that a newly-formed and relatively inexperienced Scrum Team lacks critical skills they will need to be successful. To fill this gap, he recommends replacing some members of the Scrum Team with new members who have better skills in the areas of concern. Based on these conversations, what do you do? (choose the best answer)

• Work with other team managers to trade people between teams to address the skill shortage.
• Hire external consultants to fill the Scrum Team’s skills gap.
• Recommend that the subject matter expert raise the skills gap concern with the Scrum Team but leave the decision on what to do with the Scrum Team and offer to support them as needed.
• Talk to other experts in the subject matter expert’s area of expertise to determine whether the original subject matter expert’s perspective is valid.

Which statement best describes a Product Owner’s responsibilities? (choose the best answer)

• Keeping stakeholders informed and happy.
• Helping the Scrum Team to improve their ability to deliver.
• Directing the Developers.
• Managing the project and ensuring that the work meets the commitments to the stakeholders.
• Maximizing the value of the work the Scrum Team delivers.

As a manager during your discussions with Developers, you observe that they do not feel connected to the work they are doing. They lack engagement and seem to be just going through the motions. What should you do? (choose the best answer)

• Create a bonus pool with a monthly award for the team member that contributes most to customer success.
• Implement a reward system based on customer satisfaction, in which a team's bonus is based on how much customer satisfaction improved.
• Help the team to create a shared and compelling vision for the product.
• Hold a team-building event with motivational speakers and group activities to try to boost the team's morale.