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Built-in Quality

5 minutes 5 Questions

Built-in Quality is an Agile concept that stresses the importance of maintaining quality from the start of a project, rather than adding it in later. It encourages teams to create products that are consistently high-quality within each iteration, minimizing the need for substantial revisions or improvements at a later date. With multiple checks integrated into various stages of the development process, the chances of delivering flawless output increases, making Continuous Improvement a ceaseless activity.

Guide: Built-in Quality in PMI-ACP Continuous Improvement

Built-in Quality is a core concept within PMI-ACP's Continuous Improvement. It is the practice of creating products with quality ingrained from the outset, rather than depending on inspections or corrections to ensure quality later on.

Importance of Built-in Quality:
- It reduces the costs of rework and waste
- It minimizes the risk of defects
- It enhances customer satisfaction with the final product

You can further embed this concept by understanding how it works:
The process of Built-in Quality involves continuous checking and modifications during the production process to ensure quality. This is opposed to the traditional approach of checking quality after the product has been fully developed.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Built-in Quality:
- Understand the concept thoroughly, avoid rushing through
- Use process of elimination for multiple choice questions
- Understand real-world applications
- Remember its role in reducing defects and rework.
Remember that the philosophy of quality says that 'Quality is built in, not inspected in'. Good luck with your exams.

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PMI-ACP - Continuous Improvement Example Questions

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Question 1

The organization is integrating an Agile framework into its methodology. The development team faces issues in delivering built-in quality due to complex logic in the code. What would be the best possible action?

Correct Answer: Introduce coding standards, carry out pair programming and conduct regular code reviews.

The best possible action when facing issues in delivering built-in quality due to complex logic in the code would be to introduce coding standards, carry out pair programming and conduct regular code reviews. This approach not only maintains the code quality but also helps in identifying the issues at an early stage during peer reviews, promoting a collaborative upskilling culture and increasing overall project productivity. Overworking the team until they get the logic does not necessarily guarantee better code quality and can lead to fatigue and decreased productivity. Simplifying the logic to a point that the quality may be compromised is never an option in agile methodology as quality is of paramount importance. Also, adding more developers to a late project only makes it later, according to Brook's Law, instead of necessarily improving the logic or quality of the code.

Question 2

During an e-commerce application development project, repeated defects in the shopping cart feature have been causing delay. The defects are usually seen after several steps of the checkout process. What approach can be used to resolve this issue?

Correct Answer: Introduce automated testing after each step of checkout to detect defects earlier.

Introducing automated testing after each step of checkout is the best method to detect defects earlier. This practice aligns with Agile methodologies that endorse frequent testing throughout the development process to address issues as soon as they arise, enabling immediate rectification to keep the project on track. This method offers the advantage of preventing defects from advancing to later stages of the development where they can be more costly and time-consuming to rectify. Automated testing is proactive and can run continuously, making it highly effective in ensuring the consistency of the application's functionality. On the contrary, asking customers to report defects after the application's launch could impact the user experience negatively and damage the brand's reputation. Further, eliminating the shopping cart feature altogether without proper justification would not be beneficial as it is a critical e-commerce feature. Limiting the checkout process to defect-free steps would only partially solve the problem but would not fundamentally address the issue.

Question 3

In an Agile project, detecting a significant number of issues during the final system integration, despite passing all component tests. What built-in quality practice should avoid this situation in the future?

Correct Answer: Introduce Continuous Integration to detect and fix problems early in the development process.

The answer that suggests to 'Introduce Continuous Integration to detect and fix problems early in the development process' is the best option. Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban often include Continuous Integration as an essential practice. Through Continuous Integration, the code is integrated continuously, or at least very frequently, allowing teams to identify and fix integration issues early in the development process. It will lead to a reduced number of problems during the final system integration. The other remaining answers are not ideal: 'Avoid system integration until all component tests have been completed' contradicts the Agile principle of continuous integration and delivery; 'Hire more testers for the final system integration' does not address the root of the issue which is an Agile team's inability to evaluate quality until the final stage; 'Launch the system as it is and fix the issues later' is a poor system delivery approach due to the potential risk of affecting end users or overall system performance.

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