Review Questions
Bring textbook!
- Shortcut 1 (Ch. 1): Why Scrum?
(Note 2)
- For type of stakeholder, give two top benefits of using Scrum
- The textbook suggests the waterfall model has 100% risk until
the day the software is delivered. Explain why, and then explain
why this assumes a simplistic risk model.
- Shortcut 2 (Ch. 1): Fragile agile
(also Note 2)
- Why is Scrum a framework, not a method?
- What does it mean to do a partial implementation? Why is that
bad?
- Why are these antipatterns?: test sprints, random-sized sprints,
reliance on the spec
- In class I suggested it might be reasonable for an external
testing team to lag the development team, testing what the
development team completed the sprint before. Explain why this both
makes sense (and according to the textbook) is unnecessary.
- Shortcut 10 (Ch. 4): Stories
(Note 3)
- What is a vertical slicing? Why?
- What are the rules about dealing with technical stories, bugs,
and tasks?
- Give an example of a story that follows the appropriate format
but breaks as many rules as possible.
- Assume you are building a system to check out customers at a
grocery store, but looking up prices are too slow. Write a technical
debt story to replace the lookup by hash tables.
- Shortcut 11 (Ch. 4): DoD
(also Note 3)
- What is the suggested starting point of a DoD?
- How can DoD reduce the number of arguments?
- Some organizations use "all tests pass" as their DoD. Would that
be a good definition for SDL?
- Give two things that really must be in a DoD.
- Give two things that could be considered optional.
- Explain how the DoD has different levels.
- What is the most important characteristic of the DoD?
- Shortcut 13 (Ch. 5): Estimating
(also Note 3)
- What are the two (distinct) models of story estimation, t-shirt
sizes and Fibonacci number sequences?
- When do you use each? Why are there two models?
- The textbook discusses three factors that can influence the size
of stories: complexity, repetition, and risk. Give an example of
each. Are there other factors you might add?
- Shortcut 14 (Ch. 5): Poker
(also Note 3)
- Advantages of the modified Fibonacci sequence
- Advantages of T-shirt sizes
- What are the keys to the game?
- Shortcut 15 (Ch. 5): Relative points
(also Note 3)
- What is a 1-point story?
- Briefly describe a mechanism for assigning point values to
previous work.
- Why?
- Shortcut 16 (Ch. 6): Bugs
(Note 4)
- Three basic principles
- What to do if discover a bug in the implementation of a story
that passes all tests and is about to go to review? Explain why.
- Shortcut 17 (Ch. 6): Love for testers
(also Note 4)
- What to do with someone who's a career tester in an organization
moving to scrum? Why?
- How would you test private methods in a class?
- In class we discussed ways testers can bring something unique to
scrum teams. Give reasons why testers should prefer Scrum projects
to waterfall projects.
- Shortcut 18 (Ch. 6): Automation
(also Note 5)
- Give 8 distinct reasons for automating testing.
- You're in the elevator with a VP of engineering who is a strong
advocate for manual testing.
- What would you guess is the primary reason the VP
likes manual testing?
- What would you say is the single worst danger of not
automating testing?
- Give two advantages of using Vagrant or a similar tool.
- What is the case for continuous delivery?
- Describe a project for which continuous delivery would be a poor
choice.
- What is the benefit of Cucumber?
- What is the danger of Cucumber?
- What language is used for step definitions in Cucumber?