IIBA-AAC IIBA Agile Analysis Certification Practice Questions
Prepare for IIBA-AAC with more than an answer.
- Level
- Specialist
- Valid for
- 1 year
Domains covered on the exam 4
- Agile Mindset30%
- Strategy Horizon10%
- Initiative Horizon25%
- Delivery Horizon35%
- 1
A team's retrospective has become a complaint session where the same issues are raised repeatedly with no resulting improvements. The agile coach observes that the team is not identifying concrete, actionable steps to address the identified impediments. Which of the following is the MOST critical element missing from their retrospectives?
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Correct answer: B
A successful retrospective must conclude with a commitment to action. The most effective way to ensure this happens is to formulate the identified improvements as specific, actionable items (often similar to user stories) and add them to the product backlog for the upcoming sprint. This makes process improvement a visible and prioritized part of the team's work, breaking the cycle of repeated complaints.
- 2
An agile analyst is facilitating a planning workshop for a new software initiative. To prioritize features, they want to use a method that categorizes features based on their impact on customer satisfaction, distinguishing between basic expectations, performance features, and exciters. Which technique should be used?
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Correct answer: A
The Kano Model is a theory for product development and customer satisfaction that classifies customer preferences into five categories: Must-be (basic expectations), One-dimensional (performance), Attractive (exciters/delighters), Indifferent, and Reverse. This model helps teams prioritize features by understanding which ones will simply meet basic needs versus those that will truly delight customers and provide a competitive advantage.
- 3
True or False: The 'Visioning' technique in agile analysis is a detailed, multi-day workshop that produces a comprehensive and fixed project plan for the entire duration of the initiative.
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Correct answer: B
This statement is false. Visioning in an agile context is about creating a shared understanding of the product's purpose, goals, and the value it provides. It establishes a guiding direction, not a fixed plan. The output is a concise product vision statement or similar artifact that inspires and aligns the team, while remaining flexible to allow for learning and adaptation as the project progresses.
- 4
During a sprint planning meeting, the product owner and development team disagree on the amount of work to bring into the sprint. The product owner wants to include five stories, but the team's calculated capacity and past velocity suggest they can only reliably complete three. To maintain a sustainable pace and uphold agile principles, what should the team do?
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Correct answer: B
A core agile principle is 'Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.' The development team is ultimately responsible for deciding how much work they can commit to in a sprint. They should use their historical data (velocity) to make a realistic forecast and commit only to what they believe is achievable, fostering transparency and trust with the product owner.
- 5
The diagram below illustrates a common challenge in agile delivery. What agile practice is specifically designed to mitigate the risk of building components in isolation and ensure end-to-end functionality is delivered and tested early?
flowchart TD subgraph Sprint 1 A[Build UI Layer] end subgraph Sprint 2 B[Build Business Logic] end subgraph Sprint 3 C[Build Database Layer] end subgraph Sprint 4 D{Integrate & Test} end A --> B --> C --> DShow answer details
Correct answer: B
The diagram shows horizontal slicing, where work is divided by technical layer. This delays value delivery and pushes integration risk to the end. Vertical slicing is the practice of building features that cut through all technical layers (UI, logic, database) in a single slice. This ensures that every increment is a small but complete piece of end-to-end functionality that can be demonstrated and tested, mitigating integration risk and enabling early feedback.
- 6
A financial services firm is developing a new portfolio management tool. The product owner is concerned that the team is focusing too much on underlying data processing tasks before building any user-facing features. This approach delays feedback and increases the risk of building the wrong solution. Which agile principle, if applied correctly, would best guide the team to deliver value sooner?
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Correct answer: B
This principle emphasizes delivering functional, demonstrable software over completing intermediate, non-user-facing tasks. By focusing on vertical slices of functionality that provide end-to-end value (even if small), the team can gather early feedback and ensure they are building a valuable product. While technical excellence is important, delivering working software ensures progress is tangible and aligned with user needs.
- 7
A portfolio management team at a large enterprise is using a Purpose Alignment Model to evaluate new initiatives. An initiative to modernize the company's internal payroll system, which is currently functional but uses outdated technology, is being discussed. In which quadrant of the Purpose Alignment Model would this initiative most likely be placed?
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Correct answer: B
The 'Parity' quadrant is for activities that are critical for the business to function but do not offer a competitive advantage. A payroll system is essential for operations (high criticality) but does not differentiate the company in the marketplace (low market differentiator). The goal for parity items is to perform them well and efficiently, often by adopting industry-standard solutions, not by innovating. Modernizing the system fits this description perfectly.
- 8
An agile team is starting a new initiative to build a customer loyalty platform. The stakeholders have a high-level vision but are unsure about which specific features will drive the most engagement. The lead analyst wants to create a visual model that connects high-level business goals to specific deliverables, ensuring every piece of work has a clear purpose. Which technique is best suited for this?
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Correct answer: C
Impact Mapping is a strategic planning technique that visually connects a central business goal (Why?) with the actors who can influence it (Who?), the desired changes in their behavior (How?), and the specific deliverables that can bring about those changes (What?). This directly addresses the need to align work with business goals and helps prevent the team from building features that do not contribute to the desired outcomes.
- 9
A team is struggling to write effective acceptance criteria for their user stories. Their current criteria are often vague, leading to rework and misunderstandings during sprint review. The agile coach suggests using a format that encourages conversations around specific examples and defines behavior from an external perspective. Which technique should the team adopt?
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Correct answer: D
Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) uses a structured format, typically 'Given-When-Then', to describe a feature's behavior from a user's perspective. This approach encourages collaboration between business stakeholders, analysts, developers, and testers to arrive at a shared understanding of requirements through concrete examples. The resulting scenarios serve as precise, executable acceptance criteria.
- 10
A project team is evaluating two potential features for their next release. Feature A is a significant innovation that could capture a new market segment but has high technical uncertainty. Feature B is an enhancement to an existing function, is well-understood, and provides incremental value to current users. The market window for Feature A is closing. Which agile technique would be most appropriate for deciding how to proceed?
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Correct answer: B
Real Options is a decision-making framework ideal for situations with high uncertainty and irreversible choices. It encourages deferring commitment until the last responsible moment. In this scenario, the team could use a Real Option approach by investing in a small, time-boxed spike to reduce the technical uncertainty of Feature A. This small investment buys the 'option' to proceed with full development if the spike is successful, or abandon it with minimal loss if it's not, before the market window closes.
