Frequent Delivery

5 minutes 5 Questions

Frequent Delivery is a core concept in Crystal Methods, emphasizing the importance of delivering small, incremental improvements in software projects. The idea is to break down larger tasks into smaller, manageable pieces that can be completed more quickly, reducing the risk of project failure and allowing for faster feedback from users. This approach allows teams to make adjustments and course corrections more efficiently, ensuring that the final product is of high quality and closely aligned with stakeholder requirements.

Guide to Frequent Delivery in Crystal Methods of Agile Project Management

Frequent delivery is a critical aspect of the Agile project management methodology, specifically within the subset of Crystal Methods. The primary reason for its importance lies in its focus on delivering working software to the customer at regular intervals.

This approach significantly reduces risk and helps teams adapt to changes quickly. It ensures rapid feedback from the clients, avoids unnecessary work on features that might not be required and helps align the project with actual business needs.

In practice, frequent delivery works by breaking down the software project into smaller, manageable pieces or iterations. These iterations are then developed, tested, and delivered in short time frames often ranging from a week to a couple of months.

Exam Tips: When answering questions on frequent delivery, be sure to:
- Explain the concept and its significance in Agile project management
- Highlight how it benefits both the development team and the client
- Discuss the practical implementation using the cycle of develop, test and deliver
- Use real-world examples if possible to reinforce your points
- Never forget to mention the key principle of customer satisfaction through rapid, reliable delivery of useful software.

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Question 1

The team is unable to deliver frequently due to the constant need for rework based on client feedback. As a project manager, what strategy should you adopt to promote frequent delivery?

Incorporate a feedback loop after every increment to ensure the client's requirements are met and minimize rework. Ignore the client's feedback to avoid rework. Increase team size to handle rework faster. Wait until the end of the project to ask for client's feedback.

Correct Answer: Incorporate a feedback loop after every increment to ensure the client's requirements are met and minimize rework.

The best strategy as a project manager to promote frequent delivery, in this case, would be to incorporate a feedback loop after every increment to ensure that the client's requirements are met and minimize rework. This approach aligns with the principles of Agile, typically used in project management, which emphasize iterative and incremental delivery based on frequent feedback. This will improve communication, enable the team to adjust to changes faster and reduce the effort and time wasted on rework. On the other hand, ignoring the client's feedback is not a good strategy, as it does not assure the quality and relevance of the delivered work. Also, waiting until the end of the project to ask for the client's feedback might lead to substantial rework and extended timelines if the delivered product doesn't meet the client's needs. Furthermore, merely increasing the team size to handle rework faster is not an effective solution since it might increase the complexity of communication and doesn't address the root cause of the problem, which is the need to better incorporate and respond to feedback.

Question 2

The development team is dealing with technical debt, hindering progress on new features. What should the team do to maintain frequent delivery?

Hire contractors to resolve technical debt Ignore technical debt and focus only on new features Stop working on new features until technical debt is fully resolved Ask the team to work overtime to address technical debt Allocate time in sprints to address technical debt while working on new features Delegate technical debt to a separate team

Correct Answer: Allocate time in sprints to address technical debt while working on new features

Allocating time in sprints to address technical debt has two benefits: maintaining the team's progress on new features while improving the codebase. This plan allows for frequent delivery and encourages healthier development practices.

Question 3

The stakeholders are expecting a release, but the team realizes some of the features aren't fully complete. What should the project manager do in this situation?

Hold a retrospective meeting to discuss why features are behind schedule Release the completed features and communicate the progress to stakeholders Ask the development team to work overtime to finish all the features Cut corners on incomplete features to meet stakeholder expectations Blame specific team members for the incomplete features Wait until all features are complete before releasing

Correct Answer: Release the completed features and communicate the progress to stakeholders

In Agile, the focus is on delivering working software frequently, even if it's not feature-complete. Releasing completed features shows progress and value to stakeholders while maintaining transparency about the project's status.

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