EXIN Agile Coach Assessment flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Agnostic Agile

A stance that treats Agile as principles adapted to context rather than one fixed framework, so the coach selects practices by fit and can justify each choice.

Manifesto value pairs

Four preference statements: individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, responding to change over plan. Right-hand items retain value.

Agility evidence

Observable behaviour and outcomes such as short feedback loops, working product, and adaptive planning, rather than ceremony attendance, tool usage, or certification counts.

Context fit criteria

Criteria for choosing a method: feedback-loop length, role and decision clarity, embedded quality practices, planning cadence, and scaling assumptions. Recommend by fit, not popularity.

Agnostic non-negotiables

Principles a coach still enforces regardless of method: transparency, empiricism, respect for people, and short feedback loops. Practices violating these are challenged.

Cargo-cult indicators

Signs of Agile in name only: standups producing no decisions, velocity used as a target, retrospectives without owned actions, and ceremonies run without changed decision rights.

Legitimate context constraints

Factors that justify adapting practice: regulation, fixed-deadline or fixed-price contracts, safety-criticality, team size and distribution, product maturity, and organizational funding models.

Scrum artifacts and commitments

Product Backlog with Product Goal, Sprint Backlog with Sprint Goal, and Increment with Definition of Done. Sprints are timeboxed to one month or less.

Little's Law

Average lead time equals average work in progress divided by throughput. Reducing WIP or raising throughput shortens lead time; it justifies WIP limits.

Cycle time versus lead time

Cycle time runs from work start to finish; lead time runs from request to delivery. Both are flow metrics, distinct from story-point size estimates.

Flow efficiency

Active work time divided by total elapsed time for an item. Low flow efficiency indicates waiting and queueing, and points to WIP limits or policy changes.

Kanban core practices

Visualize workflow, limit work in progress, manage flow, make policies explicit, implement feedback loops, and improve collaboratively. Measures are lead time and throughput.

XP engineering practices

Test-driven development, pair programming, continuous integration, refactoring, small releases, collective code ownership, and sustainable pace. These operate at code level, not management level.

WSJF

Weighted shortest job first: cost of delay divided by job duration. Higher values are prioritized first because they deliver delay-cost reduction fastest.

Definition of Done

A shared quality gate. If it is not met, the increment is not done, cannot be released, and is excluded from velocity counts.

Estimation basis

The stated forecasting method: relative story points, historical cycle-time distributions, or both. Teams must declare the basis so forecasts can be interpreted.

Retrospective formats

Structures such as Start-Stop-Continue, 4Ls, sailboat, and starfish. Formats are interchangeable; the outcome must be a few owned, testable improvement actions.

ADKAR stages

Awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement. Each stage needs a different intervention; training builds knowledge but does not create desire.

Kotter's first steps

Establish urgency, then build a coalition with authority, then create and communicate a vision. Skipping urgency is the most common cause of stalled change.

Satir change curve

Late status quo, foreign element, chaos, transforming idea, practice and integration, new status quo. Performance dips during chaos, which is normal rather than failure.

Resistance diagnosis

Classify resistance as lack of clarity, lack of capability, misaligned incentives, or genuine disagreement, then address the actual cause instead of the visible symptom.

Sponsor model

Change requires an accountable sponsor with authority over resources. A coach can facilitate and guide but cannot mandate; sponsor backing determines feasibility.

Diffusion of innovation

Adoption proceeds from innovators and early adopters to early majority, late majority, laggards. Early adopters supply proof; the majority responds to social proof.

Structural levers

Funding models, performance reviews, and approval gates. They either enable or block new behaviour; misalignment predicts reversion regardless of persuasion efforts.

Change metrics

Lead time, deployment frequency, defect escape rate, and engagement. Velocity is excluded as a change or performance metric because it invites gaming.

GROW model

Goal, Reality, Options, Will. The coach asks questions and the coachee chooses the action; the coach does not supply the answer first.

Coaching versus mentoring

Coaching draws out the coachee's own solutions through questions; mentoring shares the mentor's experience and advice. Teaching transfers knowledge; facilitating structures group process.

Powerful questions

Open, short questions free of embedded advice. Asking what has been tried preserves coachee ownership; suggesting a specific framework does not.

Feedback structure

Observation, impact, request. Keep feedback behavioural and specific, avoid labels, and do not attribute intent to the person receiving it.

Psychological safety

Edmondson's construct: a shared belief that candour is safe. It predicts team learning behaviour, and the coach raises it by modelling fallibility.

Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes

Competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating. Selection depends on the importance of the issue and the value of the relationship.

Tuckman stages

Forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning. Storming is a predictable phase of team development, not evidence that coaching has failed.