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B. Knowledge and decisions quiz

Read the examples first.

A team reviews the requirements for a new search service. Which of the following requirements meet P9?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: "p95 search latency is under 200 ms", linked to a ticket from support staff. Right. P9 wants a measurable acceptance criterion and a link to a user need. This one has both.
  • Incorrect: "Search shall be fast and easy to use". P9 says an unmeasurable requirement cannot be verified. "Fast" has no criterion to test against.
  • Correct: "At least 95 % of test queries return a relevant hit in the top 5", linked to need N-14. Right. It can be tested, and it links to a stated need, so the P9 check passes.
  • Incorrect: "Availability is 99.9 % per month", with no link to any user need or to a ticket from support. The criterion is measurable, but P9 also requires a link to a user need. Without the link the check fails.
  • Incorrect: "The system shall scale well", to be judged by the architect. P9 asks for a criterion anyone can check. A judgment by one person is not an acceptance criterion.
A director sets a goal for the platform group. Which of the following goal statements meet the management form of P9?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: "Cut median namespace provisioning from 3 days to 1 hour by Q2"; owner named; linked to the teams' self-service request. Right. P9 (management form) wants a measure, a target, a deadline, one owner and a link to a stakeholder need. All five are present.
  • Incorrect: "Do your best to make provisioning faster". This has no measure, deadline or owner, so it fails P9. P21 also says "do your best" is weaker than a specific, challenging goal.
  • Correct: "Reduce change failure rate to under 10 % by year end"; owned by the release manager; linked to incident reviews. Right. It has a measure, a target, a deadline, one owner and a link to a need. It satisfies P9 and is also a specific goal in the sense of P21.
  • Incorrect: "Reduce provisioning time to 1 hour by Q2", owned jointly by all five platform teams. P9 asks for one owner. A goal that five teams share has no single person who answers for it.
A team chooses a message queue for a new order service. Which of the following records meet P10?

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  • Correct: A decision record stating the choice, the reason and the two rejected queues with why each lost. Right. P10 wants the decision, why it was made and the rejected alternatives.
  • Incorrect: A chat message saying "we agreed on Queue X". The decision is written down, but without the reason or alternatives. P10 says later teams cannot judge whether it still holds.
  • Incorrect: A decision record with the reason but no mention of any alternative that was rejected, kept in the wiki. P10 also asks for the rejected alternatives. Without them a later team cannot see what was weighed.
  • Correct: An ADR in the repository with the choice, the reasons and the rejected options. Right. An Architecture Decision Record in the repository is the example P10 gives, and it holds all three items.
Two decisions come up this month: trying a new linter rule, and moving the product to a different cloud provider. For which of the following does P10 call for a decision record?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: Moving the product to a different cloud provider. Right. It is a significant design decision, so P10 applies. P18 also calls it irreversible, which needs a slow, reviewed decision.
  • Incorrect: Trying the new linter rule for two weeks in one team's pipeline. P10 applies to significant decisions. A two-week trial is reversible and minor, which P18 says to decide quickly.
  • Correct: Choosing the primary database engine for the new service. Right. A hard-to-change choice is a significant design decision, and P10 asks for a record of the reason and the alternatives.
  • Incorrect: Renaming a local variable in one function of a single module. This is not a significant decision. P10 asks for records only where the decision matters.
A manager reorganizes on-call duty across three teams. Which of the following entries in the decision log meet the management form of P10?

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  • Correct: "Shared rotation chosen; per-team rotation rejected because it leaves small teams on call every other week; owner: J. Rivera". Right. P10 (management form) wants the reason, the alternatives considered and the owner.
  • Incorrect: "New on-call rotation starts on Monday.". This announces the result only. P10 wants the reason and the alternatives, so the next manager can judge it.
  • Incorrect: "Shared rotation chosen because it cuts night calls per person; owner: L. Okafor". It has a reason and an owner, but no alternative. P10 asks for the alternatives considered.
  • Correct: "Shared rotation chosen to cut night calls; per-team rotation considered and rejected for uneven load; owner: L. Okafor". Right. Reason, rejected alternative and owner are all recorded, as P10 (management form) asks.
An audit finds that a test report was changed after the run. Which of the following practices keep records trustworthy under P11?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: A correction is a new entry that keeps the original visible and records who, when and why. Right. P11 requires changes to keep the original entry visible and to record who, when and why.
  • Incorrect: Editing the report in place and adding "updated" to the file name. The original entry is lost. P11 says evidence that can be changed silently proves nothing.
  • Correct: CI results stored with the commit SHA in an immutable log. Right. This makes the record attributable, recorded at the time and original, which is what P11 asks for.
  • Incorrect: Letting the test lead fix typos in the report without a trace, as long as the figures stay the same. P11 allows no silent edits, even small ones. Every change must show who made it, when and why.
  • Correct: Signed commits that tie each change to a named author. Right. Signed commits make each change attributable, one of the P11 properties.
A finance team keeps the project budget in a shared ledger. Which of the following practices keep its figures trustworthy under the management forms of P11 and P13?

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  • Correct: A new entry with author, date and reason, keeping the old figure visible. Right. P11 (management form) says no change may hide the original entry, so the organization can show compliance.
  • Incorrect: Overwriting the cell with the new number. The old figure is lost. P11 says changes must not hide the original entry.
  • Incorrect: Deleting the old row and adding a corrected row without a note on the change. The original entry is gone and the reason is missing. This fails P11.
  • Correct: Regenerating the ledger from recorded inputs, so any state can be rebuilt. Right. This helps trust in the numbers. P13 asks for results from recorded steps, which supports P11.
A team benchmarks its service on 3, 4 and 6 nodes and must decide how many nodes to run for next year's load. Which of the following actions follow P12?

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  • Correct: State the validated range (3 to 6 nodes) and keep the decision inside it. Right. P12 says to use a model only inside the range it was validated for.
  • Incorrect: Scale the 3-node result up by 17 times to predict 50 nodes. This extrapolates far beyond the tested load. P12's own example warns that a 3-node test does not prove behavior on 50 nodes.
  • Correct: Check the predicted figure against an independent rough estimate to confirm it has the right order of magnitude. Right. P12 asks for a check of each result against an independent rough estimate.
  • Incorrect: Trust the benchmark because it ran without errors. A clean run does not show the model is valid for the decision. P12 wants validation for the intended use.
A programme office reviews the estimate for a platform migration. Which of the following steps follow the management form of P12?

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  • Correct: Compare the estimate with the last five migrations, which overran by 40 % on average. Right. P12 (management form) checks an estimate against a reference class of similar past projects.
  • Incorrect: Accept the team's own plan because the team knows the work best and has planned each task in detail. The management form of P12 asks for more than the own plan. The outside view catches the usual optimism.
  • Correct: Adjust the schedule and budget for the average overrun of similar projects. Right. Using the real outcomes of the reference class is the point of the outside view in P12.
  • Incorrect: Ask the team to re-check its own numbers a second time. A second pass over the same plan is still an inside view. P12 wants the comparison with past outcomes.
A data team publishes a monthly capacity report. Which of the following practices follow P13?

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  • Correct: One command regenerates the report from pinned data, code and tool versions. Right. P13 requires automated, recorded steps with versions, and a result that one command can regenerate.
  • Incorrect: An analyst copies numbers from dashboards into a spreadsheet by hand. P13 says manual steps are error-prone and cannot be reproduced.
  • Correct: The pipeline records inputs and tool versions with each run. Right. P13 asks for versions of data, code and tools, so a run can be reproduced.
  • Incorrect: A senior analyst writes the steps in a wiki page, and others follow them by hand. Documented steps are better than none, but P13 requires the steps to be automated and recorded, not performed by hand.
A delivery lead reports DORA metrics to executives each quarter. Which of the following practices meet the management forms of P13 and P11?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: A documented job generates the dashboard from named pipeline data. Right. P13 (management form) wants management figures produced by automated, documented steps from named data sources.
  • Incorrect: The lead types the figures into a spreadsheet each quarter. A hand-edited spreadsheet cannot be reproduced. This fails P13.
  • Correct: The job keeps each quarter's output unchanged and logs any rerun, so past figures stay visible. Right. This adds to P13 the record-keeping that P11 asks for.
  • Incorrect: The dashboard refreshes automatically every night, but its data sources are not named anywhere in the documentation. Automation alone is not enough. P13 (management form) also asks for named data sources.
A team deploys container images to production. Which of the following practices meet P14?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: Images are signed and carry build provenance and an SBOM. Right. P14 wants origin, build and certificate shown for each deployed artifact.
  • Incorrect: The team runs an unsigned image from an unknown registry. Origin and certificate cannot be shown. This is the violation P14 names.
  • Correct: Deployments pin each image by digest. Right. A pinned digest ties the deployment to one known artifact, as in the P14 example. That is how the team finds every affected deployment after a defect.
  • Incorrect: Images are pulled by the tag "latest" from the team's own registry. The registry is known, but the tag moves, so the exact artifact cannot be traced. P14 needs origin, build and certificate per artifact.
  • Incorrect: The team scans each image for known flaws before release. Scanning is useful but is not provenance. P14 asks where each part came from, and a scan does not show that.
A procurement team is about to sign with a SaaS vendor. Which of the following actions meet the management form of P14?

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  • Correct: List the vendor's sub-processors and where each stores data before signing. Right. P14 (management form) asks you to know the supplier and the risks in its own supply chain.
  • Incorrect: Rely on the vendor's sales material for its supply chain. P14 asks you to know and act on the supply chain risks. A sales claim is not that knowledge.
  • Correct: Require data to stay in one region after finding sub-processors abroad. Right. The management form of P14 says to act on what you find, not only to collect it.
  • Incorrect: Add the vendor to the list of company assets, with an owner and a lifecycle stage. That is an inventory (P78), a different rule. It does not show the vendor's own supply chain, which P14 asks about.
A database team sees odd checksum errors on a storage volume. The cause is unknown, but lasting data loss is possible. Which of the following actions follow P15?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: Take a snapshot and stop writes to the volume now. Right. P15 asks for a proportionate protective step without waiting for full proof. This is the rule's own example.
  • Incorrect: Keep writing until the root cause is proven. The harm is irreversible, and P15 says it cannot be undone once the proof arrives.
  • Correct: Record the measure taken and why it is proportionate to the risk. Right. The P15 check looks for a record of the protective measure, or of why none was taken.
  • Incorrect: Shut down the whole data centre until the cause is found and the data is safe. P15 asks for proportionate, cost-effective measures. Shutting down everything is far out of scale with the risk.
Finance receives a credible but unproven fraud warning about a supplier's new bank details. Which of the following responses fit the management form of P15?

Select all that apply.

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  • Correct: Pause payments to that supplier while the warning is checked. Right. P15 (management form) calls for a proportionate protective step now when harm is credible but unproven.
  • Incorrect: Continue paying until the fraud is confirmed by the bank or the supplier. Paid money may be unrecoverable. P15 says not to wait for full proof when harm is serious or irreversible.
  • Incorrect: Freeze payments to every supplier for a month until all details are verified. P15 asks for a proportionate measure. Freezing all suppliers costs far more than the risk justifies.
  • Incorrect: Pay a small test amount first to check the new account. A test payment still sends money to a possibly fraudulent account. P15 asks for a step that avoids the harm, not one that risks it.
A team must pick an ingress controller. Nobody knows yet which one will meet the latency goal. Which of the following actions follow P16?

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  • Correct: Prototype two controllers in parallel and let load tests decide. Right. P16 says to develop several alternatives and drop weak ones as evidence arrives.
  • Incorrect: Choose the most popular controller on day one and refine it. This is point-based design. P16 warns that early commitment risks expensive rework if the option fails.
  • Correct: Record the alternatives kept and the evidence that removed each rejected one. Right. This is the P16 check. It also gives the decision record that P10 asks for.
  • Incorrect: Prototype both, but commit to one after a week without waiting for the test results. P16 says to commit only after feasibility is shown. A deadline without evidence is a guess.
A company needs a new monitoring vendor, and leadership is unsure which will fit. Which of the following approaches follow the management form of P16, or P20, which strengthens it?

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  • Correct: Run a paid pilot with two vendors and drop the weaker one. Right. P16 (management form) evaluates several options in parallel and drops weak ones as evidence arrives.
  • Incorrect: Sign a three-year contract with the first vendor that presents. This commits before any evidence. It is the early lock-in P16 warns about.
  • Correct: Write the pilot's stop criteria and gate dates before it starts, with the board deciding at each gate. Right. This is P20 at work, and it supports P16: the pilot stops on evidence, not on sunk cost.
  • Incorrect: Run a pilot with one vendor and call the comparison done. One vendor is no set of alternatives. P16 needs several options kept open at once.
A team wants a young open-source project in the control plane of its platform. Which of the following actions follow P17?

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  • Correct: Record a maturity assessment for the project before using it. Right. P17 asks for a recorded maturity assessment for each technology in a critical path.
  • Incorrect: Adopt it for the production control plane to learn fast. P17 says to keep immature technology out of critical paths, because it carries unknown failures.
  • Correct: Use a graduated, proven project on the critical path instead. Right. P17's example contrasts a sandbox project with a graduated one for a core platform component.
  • Incorrect: Prototype two young projects at once and pick the faster one for the control plane. Comparing options is P16. It does not replace the maturity assessment P17 requires for a critical path.
A company considers a two-person start-up as vendor for its payroll process. Which of the following actions fit the management form of P17?

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  • Correct: Assess the vendor's maturity before payroll depends on it. Right. P17 (management form) asks for a maturity check before a new vendor carries a critical process.
  • Correct: Plan how to leave the vendor if it fails. Right. The example of P17 (management form) ties a start-up vendor to an exit plan.
  • Incorrect: Choose the vendor because its demo was convincing. A demo is not a maturity assessment. P17 asks for the assessment before a critical process depends on the vendor.
  • Incorrect: Move payroll in one step, since the contract can be cancelled later. Cancelling does not undo a failed payroll run. P17 keeps immature providers off critical processes until assessed.
A team classifies this week's decisions. Which of the following ways of handling them follow P18?

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  • Correct: A new linter rule is reversible, so the team decides it today. Right. P18 says to make reversible decisions quickly at the lowest competent level.
  • Correct: A cloud provider move goes through consultation and a red team. Right. P18 says irreversible decisions are made slowly, with consultation and review.
  • Incorrect: Every decision gets the same three-week approval process, to be safe. P18 says heavy process on reversible decisions causes slowness and too little experimentation.
  • Incorrect: A lock-in contract is signed in one meeting to keep momentum with the vendor. Irreversible decisions need slow, reviewed handling under P18. Light process here causes lasting harm.
A reviewer checks the decision records of a team against P18. Which of the following findings are a pass?

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  • Correct: Each record states reversible or irreversible and the matching process. Right. This is the P18 check, which builds on the records P10 asks for.
  • Incorrect: Records state the reason and alternatives but not the class. This meets P10, but the P18 check needs the class stated in each record.
  • Correct: An irreversible database deletion is recorded with consultation and review. Right. The class and the matching slow process are shown, as P18 and its link to P42 expect.
  • Incorrect: A reversible tool trial is recorded with an executive sign-off and a month of review. The class is stated, but the process does not match. P18 pairs reversible decisions with fast, low-level handling.
A manager wants to reward engineers using one number. Which of the following designs follow P19?

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  • Correct: Deployment frequency is paired with change failure rate. Right. P19 asks for a counter-indicator beside every rewarded indicator.
  • Incorrect: Closed ticket count is the only measure of on-call quality, and it sets the bonus. This is the violation P19 names. People will close tickets early to raise the number.
  • Correct: The team reviews each year whether its indicators still track the objective. Right. P19 says to change an indicator when it drifts from the real objective.
  • Incorrect: Restore time is set as a bonus target, with a stretch goal each year. P19's example keeps restore time out of bonuses. A rewarded indicator without a counter-indicator invites gaming.
A lead sets "halve build time" as the team goal and ties the bonus to it. Which of the following changes bring the setup closer to P19?

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  • Correct: Add a counter-indicator, such as test coverage, that must not drop. Right. P19 pairs a rewarded indicator with a counter-measure. P21 still supports the goal itself.
  • Incorrect: Drop the goal and set "do your best" instead, so the team feels less pressure. P21 says specific, hard goals beat "do your best". P19 asks for guards around the indicator, not for removing the goal.
  • Correct: Compare the number with direct observation of how builds feel to users. Right. P19 asks to compare the indicator with direct observation, so gaming shows up.
  • Incorrect: Raise the bonus so the incentive is stronger for hitting the number. A stronger reward increases the pressure to game. P19 says the more an indicator drives decisions, the more it is corrupted.
A sponsor launches a service-mesh pilot whose outcome is uncertain. Which of the following set-ups follow P20?

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  • Correct: Before the start, the team writes: stop if p99 latency rises by more than 5 ms after 4 weeks. Right. P20 asks for the evidence and decision points written down before the work begins.
  • Incorrect: The sponsor alone decides at each gate whether to continue, using criteria written before the start. P20 says someone who did not start the project decides. The sponsor is committed to it and is prone to escalating commitment.
  • Correct: The architecture board decides at gates fixed in advance. Right. Gate dates are set up front and the decision sits with someone other than the sponsor, as P20 asks.
  • Incorrect: The team will review progress when it feels the results are clear. No gate dates or stop evidence are written down. P20 requires both before the work starts.
A prototype misses its target at the first review. The team says "we have invested too much to stop now". Which of the following responses follow P20?

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  • Correct: Apply the stop criteria written before the start. Right. P20 exists so that a negative result is met with a rule agreed before the money was spent.
  • Incorrect: Add more staff to catch up, then review again next quarter. This is escalation of commitment, which P20 aims to prevent.
  • Correct: Let a reviewer who did not start the project make the continue-or-stop call. Right. P20 puts the gate decision with someone other than the sponsor.
  • Incorrect: Drop the prototype and pick the one other design that had been set aside earlier. Keeping alternatives is P16, but P20 asks first for a stop decision against written criteria, made by someone independent.
A lead sets goals for a platform team for the quarter. Which of the following goals follow P21?

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  • Correct: "Cut median build time from 12 to 6 minutes this quarter", with a weekly progress chart. Right. P21 wants a specific, challenging goal with regular feedback. It has a measure, a deadline and a chart.
  • Incorrect: "Do your best to improve the build". P21 says specific, difficult goals beat "do your best". This goal also has no feedback.
  • Correct: For a new technology: "run three spikes and document what we learned". Right. P21 says to set learning goals first for new or complex work.
  • Incorrect: Twelve goals for each engineer, so nothing is left out. P21 asks for few goals. Too many dilute the focus.
  • Incorrect: "Cut build time by half" with no deadline and no progress feedback during the whole quarter. The goal is specific, but P21 also requires regular feedback, and the check asks for a deadline. A measure alone is not enough.