Agile ways of working, frameworks and techniques
Know the mechanics of the main frameworks
Scrum has three roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Development Team), five events (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective) and three artefacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment). Its theory is empirical: transparency, inspection, adaptation.
Kanban is a flow-based approach: visualise the workflow, limit work in progress, manage flow, make policies explicit, implement feedback loops and improve collaboratively. It prescribes no roles or iterations. Two measures matter: cycle time (time from starting to finishing an item) and lead time (from request to delivery, including waiting). A cumulative flow diagram shows WIP and bottlenecks over time.
Lean Startup contributes build–measure–learn, the minimum viable product as the smallest thing that tests a hypothesis, validated learning, and the pivot-or-persevere decision.
Techniques a candidate must recognise: user stories with acceptance criteria, the definition of done, timeboxing, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, information radiators, burn-down and burn-up charts, and MoSCoW prioritisation.
Traps: the Scrum Master is a servant-leader and impediment remover, not a project manager; Kanban has no sprints or prescribed roles; an MVP is not an unfinished product but a learning instrument; lead time and cycle time are not interchangeable.
Worked example (Little's Law): if 12 items are in progress and the team completes 3 per week, average lead time ≈ 12 ÷ 3 = 4 weeks. Cap WIP at 6 and lead time halves - which is why WIP limits, not pressure, improve flow.