Practice · Organizing a Software Project

Q1

StudyBuddy's deadline (week 15) and team (5 students) are fixed. Work is behind schedule. Which lever should the team use first?

A Add three new students to the team in week 12 B Stop holding Sprint Reviews C Silently skip tests and code reviews D Cut or postpone lower-priority scope openly, using MoSCoW

Q2

What does Conway's law state?

A Adding people to a late project makes it later. B Every program contains at least one bug. C Organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. D Software size doubles every two years.

Q3

StudyBuddy has a "web team" and an "Android team" that never talk to each other. According to Conway's law, what is the likely result?

A Faster development with no drawbacks B No effect on the system C Two inconsistent implementations (e.g., different validation rules or even two backends) D A perfectly shared backend with identical rules

Q4

How many possible communication paths exist in a team of 8 people?

A 8 B 64 C 16 D 28

Q5

Which is not one of the reasons behind Brooks's law?

A New people need time to learn the code and domain, and experienced people must teach them. B Communication paths grow quadratically with team size. C Some tasks cannot be divided among more people. D New people always write worse code than experienced ones.

Q6

Why is "6 people × 2 months = 2 people × 6 months" misleading?

A Because person-months cannot be multiplied. B Because 12 is not equal to 12. C Because months have different numbers of days. D Because people and time are not interchangeable: communication overhead and task dependencies mean more people do not shorten the schedule proportionally.

Q7

According to the cone of uncertainty, an estimate of "6 months" made at the very start of a project might realistically turn out to be…

A between 5.9 and 6.1 months B between about 1.5 and 24 months C always shorter than estimated D exactly 6 months

Q8

In planning poker, why do all developers reveal their cards at the same time?

A So that the manager can choose the lowest number B To save time C Because the Scrum Guide requires it D To avoid anchoring: people would otherwise drift toward the first number they hear

Q9

Why do planning-poker decks use values like 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 instead of 1, 2, 3, …, 21?

A It makes the arithmetic easier. B Fibonacci numbers are lucky. C Larger items are more uncertain, so the scale gets coarser — arguing 14 vs. 15 would be false precision. D Small stories do not need estimates.

Q10

The team completed 18, 22 and 20 story points in its last three Sprints. About 120 points remain. How many more Sprints should they plan?

A 10 B 3 C 6 D 120

Q11

A manager compares two teams: Team A has velocity 40, Team B has velocity 20, and concludes that Team A is twice as productive. What is wrong?

A Nothing; velocity measures productivity. B Story points are relative to each team's own estimates, so velocities of different teams cannot be compared; using velocity as a target also inflates estimates. C Velocity should be measured in lines of code. D Team B should work weekends.

Q12

For a task, O = 2 days, M = 5 days, P = 14 days. What is the PERT expected duration?

A 7 days B 6 days C 8 days D 5 days

Q13

Two independent tasks have standard deviations of 3 days and 4 days. What is the standard deviation of their total duration?

A 5 days B 12 days C 7 days D 1 day

Q14

What general lesson does the basic COCOMO formula E = 2.4 × KLOC^1.05 illustrate?

A Effort grows faster than size (the exponent is above 1), so doubling the size more than doubles the effort. B Each line of code takes 2.4 hours. C Effort grows more slowly than size. D Effort does not depend on size.

Q15

Tasks: A (3 days), B (4 days, after A), C (5 days, after A), D (2 days, after B and C). What is the critical path and its length?

A A → B → D, 9 days B A → C → D, 10 days C A → B → C → D, 14 days D A → D, 5 days

Q16

A task not on the critical path is delayed by less than its slack. What happens to the project end date?

A It moves by twice the delay. B It does not change. C The project must be re-planned from scratch. D It moves by the same delay.

Q17

A risk has probability 0.25 and would cost 12 days. What is its exposure?

A 3 days B 12.25 days C 48 days D 0.25 days

Q18

The team fears that the AI provider may change its prices or retire its model. They put all AI calls behind their own TutorService interface so the provider can be replaced. This response is…

A mitigate — it reduces the impact if the risk happens B accept C avoid D transfer

Q19

The team planned to use a brand-new, untested open-source library for push notifications. To eliminate the risk that it fails, they decide to use the platform's standard notification service instead. This response is…

A accept B avoid — the plan is changed so the risk cannot happen C mitigate D transfer

Q20

StudyBuddy buys hosting with a service-level agreement that pays compensation if availability drops below 99.9%. Which risk response is this?

A Avoid B Transfer C Mitigate D Accept

Q21

Which is the best practice for code review?

A Skip reviews for AI-generated code because the AI already checked it. B Keep pull requests small and focused, review for correctness, tests, security and design fit, and comment on the code rather than the person. C Review 2,000-line pull requests once a week. D Only the most senior developer reviews, and focuses on personal style preferences.

Q22

What is trunk-based development?

A Code is stored on a tree-shaped server. B Each developer keeps a private branch for months, then merges once at the end. C Only the team lead may commit to the main branch. D Developers integrate small changes into the main branch at least daily, hiding unfinished features behind feature flags.

Q23

Google's Project Aristotle found that the most important factor in team effectiveness was…

A psychological safety — people feel safe to admit mistakes, ask questions and disagree B working in the same time zone C the team members' average IQ D having the newest laptops

Q24

Only Omar understands StudyBuddy's backend. What is the team's bus factor for the backend, and a good way to raise it?

A 5; no action needed B 0; rewrite the backend C 1; use pair programming, reviews by everyone and short documentation D 1; forbid Omar from taking holidays

Q25

Omar merged 3,000 lines of AI-generated code that no one — including Omar — fully understands. What is the best name for this problem?

A Comprehension debt: the effective bus factor for that code may be zero B Scope creep C Psychological safety D Velocity

Q26

During planning poker, Daniel mentions: "The AI assistant estimated this story at 2 hours." What is the risk?

A None; AI estimates are always accurate. B Velocity will be negative. C Anchoring: the team's estimates are pulled toward a number from a tool that knows nothing about their code base and constraints. D The story will be skipped.

Q27 Short answer

It is week 10. StudyBuddy is three Sprints behind. The department offers three additional students immediately. Using Brooks's law, explain the risks of accepting, and propose a better plan (at least three actions).

Q28 Short answer

Compute the PERT estimate for the project below (tasks are sequential and independent), the total standard deviation, and a ~95% range (E ± 2 SD).

Task	O	M	P
Upload course files	2	3	10
AI wrapper	3	5	13
Buddy answers	4	6	20

Q29 Short answer

Write a risk register with four StudyBuddy risks (at least one AI-related, one people-related, one external). For each give probability, impact (days), exposure, response type and concrete action.

Q30 Short answer

Explain the difference between an estimate, a target and a commitment, with a StudyBuddy example of each, and why confusing them causes problems.