PRINCE2-Agile-Foundation PRINCE2 Agile Foundation (Version 2) Exam Questions and Answers

The Project Backlog is the artifact used to describe the project’s major products in the form of epic user stories. Epic stories are large, high-level user stories that capture significant features or product components that may later be decomposed into smaller, more detailed user stories in the product backlog.

The Project Backlog provides a strategic view of what the project intends to deliver and supports planning at the project level, including releases and stages. It bridges the gap between business requirements and team-level delivery.

The Product Backlog (C) contains detailed user stories ready for development but is typically more granular. The Release Map (B) plans releases and iterations but does not list epic stories. The Project Dashboard (A) is a reporting tool, not a repository of requirements.

The use of epic user stories in the project backlog aligns with agile practices for managing scope and enables incremental delivery aligned with business priorities.

The Progress practice in PRINCE2 Agile is focused on providing a forecast of the project's viability by monitoring actual progress against plans and predicting future performance. It ensures that decisions can be made based on current status and trends, enabling timely interventions if necessary.

This practice involves collecting progress data, reviewing milestones, updating forecasts, and communicating status to stakeholders. Forecasting viability includes assessing whether the project remains aligned with business justification and expected benefits.

While opportunities and threats are part of risk management (B), user needs belong to requirements management (C), and accountability is a broader governance concern (D), progress specifically deals with tracking and forecasting delivery status.

The practice combines traditional PRINCE2 stage controls with agile iterative reviews, providing an integrated view of progress.

User inputs are initially gathered as user stories in the product backlog in PRINCE2 Agile. User stories represent small, customer-focused requirements that capture the "who," "what," and "why" of a feature. These stories form the foundation of requirements and quality criteria for the product and ensure that development is driven by user needs and value delivery.

The Definition of Done is developed later as part of the quality management approach to specify when work is complete. Epic user stories are larger features that can be broken down into smaller user stories. The quality register tracks quality-related activities but is not the first step for gathering user inputs.

Culture refers to the collective attitudes, values, beliefs, and goals shared by a group or organization. It shapes how people behave, make decisions, and interact. In PRINCE2 Agile, understanding and adapting organizational culture is critical for successful agile adoption and delivery.

Leadership (B) influences culture but is distinct, co-creation (C) is a collaborative approach, and management (D) relates to planning and control activities.

A positive, agile-friendly culture fosters openness, trust, and continuous improvement.

The Manage by Exception principle empowers individuals and teams by delegating decision-making within defined tolerances. It ensures governance is efficient by allowing project managers and teams to operate independently within agreed limits, escalating only when exceptions occur. This approach promotes self-management, autonomy, and accountability, which are key to agility, while maintaining control through governance boundaries.

The other principles focus on different aspects: business justification relates to ongoing viability, tailoring adapts the method, and focusing on products emphasizes deliverables but do not specifically address empowerment through governance.

The assess step involves evaluating the probability and impact of identified risks to determine their severity and prioritize them for management. This step is crucial for effective risk control and helps allocate resources appropriately.

Planning relates to defining how to manage risks, identification involves discovering risks, and implementation concerns applying risk responses.

Kanban uses a flow-based approach to visualize and control work in progress (WIP). It emphasizes limiting WIP to improve flow and reduce bottlenecks, with continuous monitoring via Kanban boards. This approach supports flexibility, transparency, and efficiency in managing tasks.

The Agilometer (A) measures agility, Lean (B) is a broad philosophy focusing on waste reduction, and Scrum (D) is an iterative framework but uses time-boxed sprints rather than flow-based control.

The burn-down chart is a visual tool used in agile to monitor progress by tracking the remaining work against time. It provides teams and stakeholders with a clear, real-time view of project status and forecast completion, allowing for early identification of potential delays or bottlenecks.

The delegation matrix (A) defines authority, swarming (B) is a team collaboration technique, and t-shirt sizing (C) is an estimation method, none of which directly monitor progress.

Trading/swapping is a technique used within the issues practice to manage and resolve conflicts or competing priorities by negotiating trade-offs. For example, scope items, resources, or deadlines may be traded or swapped between stakeholders to reach agreements that keep the project on track.

This collaborative negotiation supports flexible, pragmatic issue resolution, aligning with agile values of collaboration and customer focus. It enables project teams to balance competing demands while maintaining progress and business justification.

Objectives and key results (B) are goal-setting tools, refactoring (C) is a technical practice for code improvement, and delegation poker (D) is about decision-making authority — none specifically target issue resolution.

Trading/swapping aligns with PRINCE2’s controlled management of issues and agile’s collaborative problem-solving approach.

The project closure workshop is held to formally close the project, during which project documentation is updated to reflect the final state of the project, lessons learned are captured, and approvals are obtained. This ensures that all activities are completed, the project has delivered its intended products, and knowledge is retained for future projects or organizational learning.

Aligning teams (A) and refining release maps (D) are activities conducted earlier in the lifecycle, while benefits management (B) is usually defined during initiation and planning stages.