Test Questions: PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
Test Questions: PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
Test Questions: PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
Test Questions
1. Xavier has just written production code and applied a test as part of the four step
process of TDD. What step is Xavier performing?
A. 2nd
B. 1st
C. 4th
D. 3rd
2. Select the response that lists one of the five core risk areas that can impact a project.
A. Personnel loss
B. Configuration management
C. Release management
D. Version management
A. Milestones
B. Work breakdown structure
C. Product version
D. Configuration plan
4. During the exploring phase of Highsmith's agile project management model, what
goals do agile project leaders have?
5. Pick the response which is NOT a characteristic of the agile verification process.
6. When using three-sigma as a control limit range, what characteristic must the
underlying data have?
A. A normal distribution
B. A sigma distribution
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
C. A skewed distribution
D. A theta distribution
A. Conflict assessment
B. Conflict identification
C. Conflict resolution
D. Conflict validation
8. In planning poker, a modified Fibonacci sequence is often used for the playing card
values. Which of the following sequences is the beginning of the modified Fibonacci
sequence used for planning poker?
A. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13
B. 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13
C. 0, 3, 7, 11, 15, 17, 21
D. 0, 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16
9. Michael, in his review of estimated user story points for the upcoming iteration, finds
that the project manager is artificially inflating the user story points to significantly
lengthen the project period of performance in order to increase project revenue. It is a
time and material contract and lengthening the period of performance would help
boost Michael's parent company's profit. What should Michael do?
A. Adaptive leadership
B. Agile leadership
C. Constant leadership
D. Collaborative leadership
11. What typically occurs directly after an agile team and product owner build an initial
product roadmap?
A. Release planning.
B. Definition of the product vision
C. Exploratory 360.
D. Iteration planning
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
12. You are working on an agile team that's 12. developing software for a major shipping
company. The team has just entered Highsmith's agile project management
speculation phase after completing the envisioning phase. In addition to estimating
project costs, what else should be considered?
14. Lisa is describing the four Agile Manifesto values to her co-workers. Of the
following, which response lists one of its primary values?
A. Comprehensive documentation
B. Processes and tools
C. Responding to change
D. Contract negotiation
15. Of the following, which is NOT a secondary agile value per the Agile Manifesto?
16. How do actors - of use case modeling - and personas - of agile modeling - differ?
A. There is no difference.
B. Actor descriptions will use photographs to provide further context and define
several different people for one type of user, whereas persona descriptions
typically are generic and concise.
C. Actor descriptions are typically much more detailed than persona descriptions.
D. Persona descriptions will use photographs to provide further context and
define several different people for one type of user, whereas actor descriptions
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
17. While Bernard is discussing to Stephanie his take on the most prominent risks the
project is facing, Stephanie paraphrases what Bernard is saying to confirm her
interpretation. What type of listening technique is Lisa using?
A. Serial
B. Cooperative
C. Active
D. Collaborative
18. What can an agile team do to foster an innovative, collaborative, and comfortable
team space?
19. EVM is a frequently used project management abbreviation. What does CPI stand for
in the EVM technique?
A. Raw data organized into information to show data access and modification
dates.
B. A highly detailed section of the agile project management waterfall plan.
C. A schema for organizing information into related datum.
D. A visual representation of project-related data to illustrate project status.
21. Select the response that lists one of the five core risk areas that can impact a project.
A. Productivity variation
B. Cost variation
C. Budget variation
D. Schedule variation
22. Erica is working for a kitchen tools manufacturing project, which is intended to make
modern cooking ovens. This project is very important for the company as well as for
Erica's career. In an effort to articulate agile best practices to upper management,
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
23. EVM is a frequently used project management abbreviation. What does AC stand for
in the EVM technique?
A. Actual cost
B. Average cost
C. Analysis cost
D. Abbreviated cost
24. Select a method that is commonly used to help prioritize user stories.
A. Cost-to-schedule matrix
B. Cost-to-value matrix
C. Cost-to-constraint matrix
D. Cost-to-risk matrix
A. Empowered teams take responsibility of the product and thus have a strong
focus on delivering value.
B. Empowered teams remove themselves from being responsible of product
quality in order to reduce association with project failure.
C. Empowered teams need extensive management involvement in order to
understand customer need
D. Empowered teams adapt slowly to changing requirements and therefore can
reduce scope-creep risk.
26. What is one method that can be used to improve communication for a team that
cannot be collocated?
27. What person in the agile framework "empowers the team to be self-organized and
self-disciplined?"
A. Customer
B. Business analyst
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
C. Product owner
D. Project leader
A. Couple programming
B. Pare programming
C. Pair programming
D. Duo programming
A. SV = EV - PV
B. SV = BAC - AC
C. SV = PV - EV
D. SV = BAC - PV
30. Of the following responses, which is NOT a community value per the PMI agile
community of practice community charter?
A. Courage
B. Humble
C. Openness
D. Honesty
31. Which of the following is the best definition of value-based decomposition and
prioritization?
32. Select the response that holds one of Ron Jeffries three Cs used to help define user
stories.
A. Collaboration
B. Card
C. Creative
D. Customer-driven
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
33. Of the three project buffer methods - square root of the sum of squares, critical chain
project management method (CCPM), and halving the sum of most likely estimates -
which typically provides the most adequate buffer
34. Jules, as an agile mentor, has been encouraging the team to spend some quality time
together to build a sense of community. What is Jules doing when he provides this
mentoring?
35. What agile estimation technique is sometimes conducted in silence and particularly
useful for quickly estimating the relative work effort of large product backlogs?
A. Affinity estimating
B. Planning game
C. Planning poker
D. SMART
36. User stories are a common artifact across many agile frameworks. Which framework
can generally be credited with their origin?
A. Crystal
B. FDD
C. Scrum
D. XP
37. Of the following responses, which is a community value per the PMI agile
community of practice community charter?
A. Hasty
B. Servant Leadership
C. Curt
D. Motivating
38. Which of the following is an agile principle per the Agile Manifesto?
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
C. Responding to change
D. Using working software as the primary measure of progress.
39. Lisa is describing the four Agile Manifesto values to her co-workers. Of the
following, which response lists a secondary value?
A. Working software
B. Customer collaboration
C. Responding to change
D. Contract negotiation
40. Which of the following responses is NOT an Agile Manifesto value or principle
regarding communication?
Answers
1. D - The TDD process has four basic steps: Write a test, 2) Verify and validate the test, 3)
Write product code and apply the test, 4) Refactor the product code. An example may be that
a user has to enter an age value. A good test is to make sure the user data entry is a positive
number and not a different type of input, like a letter (i.e., write the test). The programmer
would verify that entering a letter instead of a number would cause the program to cause an
exception (i.e., v&v the test). The programmer would then write product code that takes user
entry for the age value (i.e., write the product code). The programmer would then run the
product code and enter correct age values and incorrect age values (i.e., apply the test). If the
product code is successful, the programmer would refactor the product code to improve its
design. Using these four steps iteratively ensures that programmers think about how a
software program might fail first and to build product code that is holistically being tested.
This helps produce high quality code. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.]
[Product quality]
2. A - The five core risk areas include: productivity variation (difference between planned and
actual performance); scope creep (considerable additional requirements beyond initial
agreement); specification breakdown (lack of stakeholder consensus on requirements);
intrinsic schedule flaw (poor estimates of task durations), personnel loss (the loss of human
resources). [The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility. Michele Sliger, Stacia
Broderick.] [Risk management]
3. A - Business case development is an important initial step in agile project management. The
business case is a concise document that outlines the project's vision, goals, strategies for
achieving goals, milestones, required investment and expected return/payback. A business
case articulates the why and how a project will deliver value to a customer. [Lean-Agile
Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
requirements into categories or themes, 3) Estimate relative work effort (e.g., planning poker
or affinity estimation) and prioritize (value), and 4) Estimate rough time frames (estimate
velocity, sprint duration, and rough release dates). [The Art of Agile Development. James
Shore.] [Agile analysis and design]
12. A - The focus in the speculation phase is on estimating iteration and release plans, defining
feature breakdown, developing a rough project plan, considering project risk and risk
mitigation strategies, and estimating project costs. [Agile Project Management: Creating
Innovative Products – 2nd Edition. Jim Highsmith.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
13. C - Progressive elaboration is continuous planning with the expectation that project plans
and details will change but become more refined as the project progresses. [Agile Estimating
and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Agile analysis and design]
14. C - The Agile Manifesto defines four values. The four values list primary values and
secondary values, with primary values superseding secondary values. The values are 1)
individuals and interactions over processes and tools, 2) working software over
comprehensive documentation, 3) customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and 4)
responding to change over following a plan. [Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Agile Alliance.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
15. C - The agile secondary values include: documentation of software, processes and tools,
contract negotiation, and following project plans. [Manifesto for Agile Software
Development. Agile Alliance.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
16. D - A persona is a notional user of the system under development. Being much more detailed
than actors in use case modeling where generic user names are assigned (e.g., end user),
personas try to elaborate on users with detailed descriptions to provide context to the
developers. Some personas have such notional details as name, address, age, income, likes
and dislikes, and other specific details. [User Stories Applied: For Agile Software
Development. Mike Cohn.] [Agile analysis and design]
17. C - One communication technique to reduce misunderstanding and miscommunication is
active listening. A well run agile project necessitates both good listeners and communicators,
active listening helps work towards both of these necessities. The basics of active listening
include: 1) Being present and focusing your attention on the speaker. 2) Taking notes instead
of interrupting. 3) Paraphrasing to confirm and review what you have heard. 4) Summarizing
the conversation once it has concluded for posterity. Using open ended questions, good body
language, and silence can help improve listening skills. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa
Adkins.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
18. B - A warm, welcoming environment that promotes effective communication, innovation,
and motivated team members is an important aspect to consider when designing team space.
Guidelines for a better agile team space include: collocation of team members; reduction of
nonessential noise/distractions; dedicated whiteboard and wall space for information
radiators; space for the daily stand-up meeting and other meetings; pairing workstations; and
other pleasantries like plants and comfortable furniture. [Agile Retrospectives: Making Good
Teams Great. Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, Ken Schwaber.] [Communications]
19. A - EVM or earned value management is a management technique used to evaluate project
performance with respect to cost and schedule. EVM relies on other common financial
metrics like Budget At Completion (BAC), Actual Cost (AC), Planned Value (PV), Earned
Value (EV), Cost Variance (CV), Schedule Variance (SV), Cost Performance Index (CPI),
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
and Schedule Performance Index (SPI). [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.]
[Metrics]
20. D - An information radiator is a visual representation of project status data. [Agile Software
Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Communications]
21. A - The five core risk areas include: productivity variation (difference between planned and
actual performance); scope creep (considerable additional requirements beyond initial
agreement); specification breakdown (lack of stakeholder consensus on requirements);
intrinsic schedule flaw (poor estimates of task durations), personnel loss (the loss of human
resources). [The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility. Michele Sliger, Stacia
Broderick.] [Risk management]
22. C - The agile triangle includes value, quality, and constraints as its parameters. [Agile
Project Management: Creating Innovative Products – 2nd Edition. Jim Highsmith.]
[Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
23. A - EVM or earned value management is a management technique used to evaluate project
performance with respect to cost and schedule. EVM relies on other common financial
metrics like Budget At Completion (BAC), Actual Cost (AC), Planned Value (PV), Earned
Value (EV), Cost Variance (CV), Schedule Variance (SV), Cost Performance Index (CPI),
and Schedule Performance Index (SPI). [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.]
[Metrics]
24. B - An agile team must always face the prioritization of product features in its product
backlog. From release planning to iteration planning, an agile team must prioritize the user
stories/features of its product to ensure that high-quality and high-value features are
developed first to help facilitate an optimized and early return on investment (ROI). An agile
team typically prioritizes requirements or user stories/features in terms of relative value and
risk; value is defined by the customer (i.e., customer-value prioritization). Two common
methods to prioritize product features are: MoSCoW and Kano. The MoSCoW method
categorizes features into 'Must have,' 'Should have,' 'Could have,' and 'Would have' features.
The Kano method categorizes features into 'Must haves (threshold),' 'Dissatisfiers,'
'Satisfiers,' and 'Delighters.' Must haves are features that are requisite. Dissatisfiers are
features that adversely impact perceived value and should be eliminated. 'Satisfiers' are
features that increase perceived value linearly, where the more you add the more the
customer is pleased, but are not required, and 'Delighters' are features that increase perceived
value exponentially to please the customer. To prioritize features based on risk, a risk-to-
value matrix can be used. A risk-to-value matrix has four quadrants, with the horizontal axis
having low and high value, and the vertical axis having low and high risk. User stories are
assigned to one of the four categories/quadrants: low-value, low-risk; low-value, high-risk;
high-value, low-risk; high-value, high-risk. A cost-to-value matrix can also be made in this
manner. All prioritization in agile is 'relative,' meaning that the priority of one user story is
relative to other user stories and not prioritized on a fixed scale. [Lean-Agile Software
Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.]
[Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
25. A - Empowered teams - ones that are self-organizing and know how to solve problems with
minimal management involvement - are a cornerstone of the agile methodology. An agile
team feels empowered when it collectively assumes responsibility for the delivery of the
product (i.e., taking ownership). [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Knowledge and
Skills: Level 1]
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
26. C - A high-performance agile team is one that is ideally collocated for osmotic
communication and face-to-face interaction. However, collocation isn't always feasible in
today's multinational environment. For distributed teams, several practices are available to
provide the best form of effective communication in the absence of being collocated: team
intranet sites, virtual team rooms, and video conferencing over e-mail when possible.
Geographic separation, especially on a world-wide scale, causes the team to consider
language and cultural differences, and time zone differences. [The Art of Agile Development.
James Shore.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]
27. D - A common misconception in agile is that an agile team does not need a leader. In fact, all
agile teams need a leader, but the way in which the leader leads is fundamentally different
than the typical traditional project manager/project leader method. Some have theorized that
this misconception stems from the desired 'self-organizing' quality of the agile team. And
although the 'self-organizing' agile team is empowered to take ownership and responsibility
of the product and make some decisions itself, it nevertheless requires a leader to help
provide guidance, mentoring, coaching, problem solving, and decision making. Some key
aspects required of an agile leader include: empowering team members to decide what
standard agile practices and methods it will use; allowing the team to be self-organized and
self-disciplined; empowering the team members to make decisions collaboratively with the
customer; inspire the team to be innovative and explore new ideas and technology
capabilities; be a champion of and articulate the product vision to team members so it will be
motivated to accomplish the overall objective; remove any obstacles and solve any problems
the team may face in its effort; communicate and endorse the values and principles of agile
project management to stakeholders that may be unfamiliar with agile; ensure that all
stakeholders, including business managers and developers, are collaborating effectively; and,
be able to adapt the leadership style to the working environment to ensure that the agile
values and principles are effectively upheld. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.]
[Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
28. C - In agile, effective 'knowledge sharing' is a critical factor for success. It involves the near
real time communication of key information among all team members and stakeholders. To
promote knowledge sharing, agile uses standard practices built into its process, such as using
generalized specialists/cross functional teams, self-organizing and self-disciplined teams,
collocation, daily stand-up meetings, iteration/sprint planning, release planning, pair
programming and pair rotation, project retrospectives/reflection, and on-site customer
support. And, of course, the sixth principle of Agile is " The most efficient and effective
method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face
conversation." In this sense, Agile prefers and encourages collocation for all stakeholders
and team members for the simple fact that face-to-face conversation is the best method of
communication and, in turn, effective knowledge sharing. [Becoming Agile: …in an
imperfect world. Greg Smith, Ahmed Sidky.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
29. A - EVM or earned value management is a management technique used to evaluate project
performance with respect to cost and schedule. EVM relies on other common financial
metrics like Budget At Completion (BAC), Actual Cost (AC), Planned Value (PV), Earned
Value (EV), Cost Variance (CV), Schedule Variance (SV), Cost Performance Index (CPI),
and Schedule Performance Index (SPI). SV is the difference between what a project has
earned to date and what it was planned to earn to date (i.e., SV = EV - PV). [Agile
Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Metrics]
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
30. B - The following are community values of the PMI agile community of practice community
charter: Vision, Servant Leadership, Trust, Collaboration, Honesty, Learning, Courage,
Openness, Adaptability, Leading Change, Transparency [PMI Agile Community of Practice
Community Charter. Project Management Institute.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
31. C - In iteration planning, an agile team, collaboratively with the customer, chooses user
stories to include for development. Although the user stories are prioritized in the product
backlog initially during release planning, an agile team and customer should review
prioritization based on progressive elaboration (i.e., gained knowledge and perspective).
Prioritization is often based on value and risk and can be performed using the MoSCoW or
Kano method and through the use of risk-to-value and cost-to-value matrices. An agile team
performs decomposition to subdivide user stories into more manageable tasks so that it may
estimate task time. Tasks for an iteration may also be prioritized based on value, similar to
how user stories are prioritized. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise
Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
32. B - Ron Jeffries' three Cs for user story definition are card, conversation, confirmation. [User
Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development. Mike Cohn.] [Planning, monitoring, and
adapting]
33. A - The agile practitioner should follow several rules of thumb when estimating a project
buffer: 1) Only use a buffer if the project has more than 10 user stories, 2) The square root of
the sum of squares method has shown to provide the most accurate buffer, 3) the estimate
buffer should be at least 20% of the total project duration, 4) In the absence of sufficient
data. like worst case scenario estimates, you can use the halving of most likely estimates to
estimate a project buffer. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Agile estimation]
34. A - Having a motivated team is essential for any project, regardless of whether it is agile or
not. Motivated teams work together better, have strong productivity, and exceed
expectations. Some simple steps to increase motivation are 1) spending quality time together;
where team members get to know one another on a personal level to build a sense of
community, 2) providing feedback, mentoring and coaching; where team members are
congratulated and thanked on jobs well done and also mentored or coached to improve in
skill and capability, and 3) empowerment; where the team is empowered to make many key
decisions which, along the way, builds trust and shows that leadership believes in the
capabilities of the team. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Knowledge and
Skills: Level 1]
35. A - Affinity estimating is a method to predict the work effort, typically in story points, of
developing a user story. It is particularly useful for large product backlogs. Although several
methods exist, the basic affinity estimating model involves sizing user stories on a scale from
small to large. The scale can be a Fibonacci sequence or t-shirt sizes and is typically taped to
a wall in a large conference room. Participants then attach their user stories to the wall as
estimates. It is often done in silence and has several iterations until the user stories have been
estimated. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Agile estimation]
36. D - XP is generally considered to be the originator of user stories. [User Stories Applied: For
Agile Software Development. Mike Cohn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]
37. B - The following are community values of the PMI agile community of practice community
charter: Vision, Servant Leadership, Trust, Collaboration, Honesty, Learning, Courage,
Openness, Adaptability, Leading Change, Transparency [PMI Agile Community of Practice
Community Charter. Project Management Institute.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
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PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 6 Practice Questions
38. D - The Agile Manifesto defines 12 supporting principles. Agile principles include 1) Our
highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable
software. 2) Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes
harness change for the customer's competitive advantage. 3) Deliver working software
frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with preference to the shorter
timescale. 4) Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the
project. 5) Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and
support they need, and trust them to get the job done. 6) The most efficient and effective
method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face
conversation. 7) Working software is the primary measure of progress. 8) Agile processes
promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to
maintain a constant pace indefinitely. 9) Continuous attention to technical excellence and
good design enhances agility. 10) Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not
done--is essential. 11) The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-
organizing teams. 12) At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more
effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. [Manifesto for Agile Software
Development. Agile Alliance.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
39. D - The Agile Manifesto defines four values. The four values list primary values and
secondary values, with primary values superseding secondary values. The values are 1)
individuals and interactions over processes and tools, 2) working software over
comprehensive documentation, 3) customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and 4)
responding to change over following a plan. [Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Agile Alliance.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
40. B - The Agile Manifesto developed by the Agile Alliance covers 4 values and 12 principles.
The four values are: 1) individuals and interactions over processes and tools, 2) working
software over comprehensive documentation, 3) customer collaboration over contract
negotiation, and 4) responding to change over following a plan. The 12 principles are: 1)
focusing on satisfying the customer, 2) welcoming change, 3) delivering working software
frequently, 4) ensuring that business people and developers work together, 5) motivating the
individuals involved in development, 6) using face-to-face communication whenever
possible, 7) working software as the primary measure of progress, 8) maintaining a constant
pace of development, 9) paying continuous attention to technical excellence and good
design, 10) aiming for simplicity, 11) using self-organizing teams, and 12) regularly
reflecting on how to become more effective. [Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
Agile Alliance.] [Communications]
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