PMP Practice Questions #90
As the project manager of a software development project adhering to an adaptive (agile) lifecycle, you have noticed inconsistencies in team velocity and a fluctuation in product quality. These issues are affecting project predictability and customer satisfaction. To tackle these challenges effectively, it’s crucial to gather and analyze the right data. What strategy should you adopt to ensure you extract actionable insights and address these variances effectively?
A. Analyze all project dimensions, including performance metrics, in next iteration planning.
B. Use daily stand-ups for team feedback as the basis for decision-making.
C. Focus on KPIs like velocity and defect rates, reviewed collaboratively in retrospectives.
D. Treat discrepancies as typical adaptive project variances, expecting self-correction
Analysis:
The question focuses on addressing inconsistencies in team velocity and fluctuations in product quality in a software development project with an adaptive (agile) lifecycle. These issues affect project predictability and customer satisfaction, and the task is to identify a strategy for gathering and analyzing data to produce actionable insights.
Analysis of Options:
Option A: Analyze all project dimensions, including performance metrics, in the next iteration planning. This option suggests using the iteration planning meeting for an in-depth analysis, which is not the intended purpose of these meetings. Iteration planning is designed for preparing upcoming iterations, not for resolving existing performance issues.
Option B: Use daily stand-ups for team feedback as the basis for decision-making. This option misaligns the purpose of daily stand-ups, which are meant to ensure ongoing iteration goals are met, not to delve into trend analysis or resolving quality issues. Daily stand-ups focus on current iteration tasks rather than addressing overarching project trends.
Option C: Focus on KPIs like velocity and defect rates, reviewed collaboratively in retrospectives. Retrospectives offer a conducive environment for collective reflection and improvements. By doing so, it directly targets the core issues affecting the project – inconsistencies in team performance and fluctuations in product quality. The retrospective meetings serve as an ideal forum for the team to reflect on these KPIs, understand their implications, and develop strategies for improvement, thus promoting a cohesive and proactive approach to enhancing project outcomes.
Option D: Treat discrepancies as typical adaptive project variances, expecting self-correction. While self-organization and autonomy are vital in agile projects, this approach might be too passive in the face of significant quality and velocity issues. It assumes that these discrepancies will self-correct without active intervention, which may not be effective given the impact on customer satisfaction and project predictability.
Conclusion: Option C is the most suitable choice. It leverages the agile retrospective process to collaboratively focus on relevant KPIs (velocity and defect rates) related to the current challenges. This approach ensures that the team collectively addresses the variances and develops strategies for improvement, aligning with agile principles of team collaboration and continuous improvement. Options A, B, and D either misinterpret the purpose of agile ceremonies or adopt a too-passive approach to the issues at hand.
PMP Exam Content Outline Mapping
| Domain | Task |
|---|---|
| Process | Task 7: Plan and manage quality of products/deliverables |
| Process | Task 9: Integrate project planning activities |
Topics Covered
- Retrospectives
- Daily Standup
- Iteration Planning
- Self-Organizing Teams
