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

Agile Foundation guidance clearly identifies Scrum as an iterative and timeboxed approach to product delivery, making option A the correct answer. Scrum is built around fixed-length iterations called sprints, which are typically one to four weeks long. These timeboxes create a regular cadence for planning, development, review, and improvement, enabling teams to deliver usable increments of a product frequently and predictably.

Scrum emphasizes iterative delivery by breaking complex work into smaller, manageable pieces that can be completed within a sprint. Each sprint begins with planning, where the team selects work from the product backlog, and ends with a review and retrospective. This structure supports frequent inspection of both the product and the team’s way of working, allowing for continuous adaptation based on feedback and learning. Agile Foundation documents highlight that timeboxing is a key mechanism in Scrum, helping teams focus, limit work in progress, and reduce risk.

Option B, Kanban, is not timeboxed. Kanban focuses on continuous flow, visualizing work, and limiting work in progress rather than delivering in fixed iterations. Option C, the Agilometer, is an assessment tool used to evaluate suitability and risks of Agile adoption, not a delivery approach. Option D, Lean, is a broader philosophy focused on eliminating waste and optimizing value flow; while it can influence Agile delivery, it is not inherently iterative and timeboxed in the way Scrum is.

Agile Foundation materials stress that Scrum’s iterative and timeboxed nature supports transparency, predictability, and early value delivery. By delivering small increments regularly, teams can gather feedback early, reduce uncertainty, and adapt priorities as needs change. This makes Scrum particularly effective in environments where requirements evolve and learning is essential.

Agility is defined as the ability to embrace and respond to change quickly and effectively. It is a core principle of agile methods, enabling organizations and teams to adapt to evolving business needs, customer feedback, and external factors while delivering value continuously.

This definition contrasts with traditional change control, which often aims to prevent changes (C). Agility promotes flexibility, learning, and continuous improvement, but the belief that anyone is capable of learning (D), while important, is a cultural aspect rather than a direct definition of agility. The sequence of actions (A) relates more to processes than agility itself.

Understanding agility as the capacity to adapt ensures project approaches remain relevant in dynamic environments.

Reference https://publications.axelos.com/prince2agile2016/content.aspx?page=pra_126 &showNav=true&expandNav=true

Agile Foundation guidance explains that the risk practice is concerned with identifying, assessing, and managing uncertainty in a structured and proactive way. One of the specific ways this practice is applied in Agile and PRINCE2 Agile contexts is by identifying Agile adoption risks using the Agilometer, making option A the correct answer.

The Agilometer is a diagnostic tool designed to assess how suitable Agile approaches are for a particular project or environment. It examines factors such as organizational culture, stakeholder engagement, governance requirements, team capability, and delivery constraints. By highlighting areas of risk related to Agile adoption, the Agilometer enables teams and leaders to make informed decisions about how Agile should be tailored and what mitigations are needed. This aligns directly with the purpose of the risk practice, which is to reduce uncertainty and protect value.

Option B, trading to handle emerging changes, relates to scope and prioritization flexibility rather than risk management itself. While trading can reduce risk indirectly by controlling scope, it is not a primary application of the risk practice. Option C, using an objectives and key results framework, focuses on goal-setting and performance measurement, not risk identification or assessment. Option D, identifying criteria in the Definition of Done, supports quality management rather than risk management.

Agile Foundation documents emphasize that Agile does not eliminate risk; instead, it makes risk visible and manageable through early feedback, incremental delivery, and structured assessment. The risk practice ensures that uncertainties are understood and addressed continuously throughout the lifecycle. By using tools such as the Agilometer, organizations can anticipate challenges in Agile adoption and take proactive steps to manage them. This supports effective governance while preserving Agile’s flexibility, ensuring that Agile is applied in a way that is both realistic and sustainable.

Agile workshops are collaborative sessions used throughout the project to address various aspects such as problem-solving, release planning, team alignment, and continuous improvement. Workshops encourage open communication, collective decision-making, and foster a shared understanding of goals and challenges.

Unlike a delegation matrix, which defines roles and authorities, or the project log, which records issues and risks, workshops are interactive events that enable timely resolution of challenges. The Agilometer is a diagnostic tool assessing agility maturity but not a problem-solving forum.

Agile workshops embody the agile principle of collaboration and adaptability, enabling teams to respond quickly to issues and refine plans collectively.

In Agile Foundation guidance, the team retrospective workshop is a key event focused on continuous improvement, making identifying improvement opportunities the correct answer. Retrospectives are held at regular intervals, typically at the end of an iteration or delivery cycle, to allow the team to reflect on how they worked together and how their processes, tools, and interactions can be improved.

The primary purpose of a retrospective is not to plan product features or refine requirements, but to inspect and adapt the team’s way of working. During the workshop, team members openly discuss what went well, what did not go as expected, and what could be improved. This reflection helps teams identify specific, actionable improvement opportunities that can be applied in the next iteration. Agile foundations emphasize creating a safe environment during retrospectives so that honest feedback and constructive discussion can occur.

Option A, prioritizing user stories, is typically done during backlog refinement or planning sessions and is the responsibility of the product owner with input from the team. Option B, defining acceptance criteria, usually takes place when preparing user stories before or during iteration planning, not during retrospectives. Option D, updating the project canvas, is a high-level planning or governance activity rather than a team-level continuous improvement practice.

Agile Foundation documents stress that retrospectives are essential for fostering a culture of learning and adaptability. By consistently identifying and implementing improvement opportunities, teams can enhance collaboration, improve quality, reduce waste, and increase predictability over time. Retrospectives also reinforce shared ownership of team performance, encouraging everyone to contribute to positive change. This focus on continuous improvement aligns directly with Agile principles of inspection and adaptation, making identifying improvement opportunities the central and most appropriate activity of the team retrospective workshop.

In PRINCE2 Agile, a Backlog is the prioritized list of requirements, features, or user stories that define what needs to be delivered for a product. It is a dynamic and evolving list that is continually refined and re-prioritized to ensure the most valuable work is done first. The backlog acts as a single source of truth for what the team needs to deliver and provides transparency to stakeholders regarding progress and priorities. It aligns with agile principles and practices such as Scrum, where the Product Backlog contains all desired work for the product.

The Project Canvas is a high-level tool used for defining project scope and objectives, the Release Map plans releases and iterations, and the Project Log tracks issues, risks, and actions but does not list prioritized requirements.

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.

The Agile Enablement Workshop is specifically designed to support the transition of teams and organizations into agile ways of working. Its primary purpose is to identify, assess, and plan for risks related to agile adoption. This includes challenges like cultural resistance, skills gaps, tooling needs, and process adaptations. The workshop ensures that these risks are proactively managed to smooth the agile transformation and increase the chances of successful agile delivery.

By focusing on agile adoption risks rather than project delivery or business as usual, the workshop addresses the foundational changes required for agility at team and organizational levels. Effective enablement workshops facilitate buy-in, identify training needs, and help tailor agile frameworks to the organization's context.

The Release Planning Workshop is the forum where planning for the next stage occurs in PRINCE2 Agile. This workshop brings together the project management team and delivery teams to plan the scope, schedule, and resources for the upcoming release or stage. It helps align business priorities with delivery capacity and supports incremental and iterative delivery approaches.

The Team Planning Workshop focuses on more detailed planning at the team level within the release, the Team Retrospective Workshop is dedicated to reflecting on performance and improving processes, and the Progress Review Workshop is for reviewing progress against the plan rather than planning future work.

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.

Agile Foundation guidance, aligned with PRINCE2 and PRINCE2 Agile, explains that the managing product delivery process is where agreement on the requirements for the delivery of specialist products is necessary, making option D the correct answer. This process focuses on the interface between project management and the delivery teams, ensuring that work is clearly understood, authorized, executed, and accepted.

Managing product delivery is concerned with agreeing what specialist products are to be produced, the quality expectations they must meet, and how and when they will be delivered. This agreement typically takes the form of work packages or similar delivery agreements. These clarify requirements, acceptance criteria, constraints, and reporting expectations so that delivery teams can work with confidence and autonomy. Agile Foundation documents emphasize that clarity at this point is essential to avoid misunderstandings, rework, and delays.

Option A, initiating a project, establishes the overall project approach, governance, and high-level requirements, but it does not agree detailed requirements for specialist product delivery. Option B, starting up a project, is an early process focused on ensuring the project is viable and worth initiating; it does not involve detailed delivery agreements. Option C, controlling a stage, focuses on monitoring progress, handling issues, and ensuring work stays within tolerances, rather than agreeing delivery requirements.

Agile Foundation materials highlight that managing product delivery supports Agile ways of working by enabling empowered teams to self-organize within clearly defined boundaries. By agreeing requirements upfront for each delivery increment, teams gain clarity on what “done” looks like while still retaining flexibility in how they achieve it. This process ensures that specialist products meet agreed quality standards and are delivered in line with project objectives.

By formally agreeing the requirements for specialist product delivery within the managing product delivery process, organizations balance governance and agility, ensuring transparency, accountability, and effective value delivery.

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.

When blending PRINCE2 with agile, adopting an agile mindset is the most important factor for success. The mindset involves embracing agile values such as flexibility, collaboration, delivering value incrementally, and being responsive to change. Without this cultural and attitudinal shift, the use of agile techniques or processes becomes superficial and fails to deliver the benefits of agility.

PRINCE2 is a highly structured project management method with defined roles, processes, and controls. Integrating agile methods requires more than just overlaying practices like Scrum or Kanban; it demands a fundamental shift in thinking about leadership, governance, team dynamics, and customer involvement.

Fostering psychological safety (B) is indeed important because it allows teams to express ideas, take risks, and innovate without fear of negative consequences. However, this psychological safety is a component of the broader agile mindset.

Using agile techniques (C) and following processes (D) are enablers but do not guarantee agile success. Teams may mechanically perform ceremonies without understanding the principles behind them.

The PRINCE2 Agile guidance emphasizes that the mindset must permeate all levels of the project and organization. Leaders and teams should adopt agility as a philosophy, not just a set of practices.

Stakeholders are best described as those who can affect or be affected by the project. This definition is aligned with PRINCE2’s view and recognized globally in project management standards. Stakeholders include anyone with an interest or influence in the project outcomes, including project team members, users, suppliers, and external entities. Understanding and managing stakeholder engagement is crucial for project success, as stakeholders’ expectations and needs impact decisions and project delivery.

Options A, B, and D describe subsets or partial perspectives of stakeholders but do not capture the full inclusive scope.

The Risk practice is specifically aimed at controlling uncertainties that could impact the achievement of the project’s objectives. In PRINCE2 Agile, risk management involves identifying, assessing, and controlling threats and opportunities to reduce negative impacts and maximize positive outcomes.

Effective risk management is a core theme and practice in PRINCE2 Agile and is crucial for agile environments where change and uncertainty are inherent. The practice ensures that risks are continuously monitored and appropriate responses are planned and implemented. This proactive management helps keep the project viable and aligned with business justification.

While plans support managing scope and resources, issues deal with current problems rather than potential future events, and quality ensures that products meet requirements, risk management uniquely focuses on uncertainty.

The PRINCE2 Agile guidance emphasizes integrating agile techniques such as frequent reviews and retrospectives to improve risk awareness and control.

In Agile Foundation guidance, the team coach plays a key role in supporting one or more Agile teams in adopting and improving Agile ways of working. A core responsibility of the team coach is to liaise with the agile coach, making option A the correct answer. This relationship ensures alignment between team-level coaching and organization-wide Agile adoption.

The team coach focuses primarily on the day-to-day effectiveness of the team. This includes helping the team understand Agile principles, improve collaboration, enhance communication, and continuously improve their ways of working. The agile coach, on the other hand, typically operates at a broader level, supporting multiple teams, leaders, and the organization as a whole in embedding Agile culture and practices. By liaising with the agile coach, the team coach ensures that insights, challenges, and progress at the team level are shared and addressed consistently across the organization.

Option B, liaising with the project manager, is not a primary responsibility of the team coach in Agile foundations. While coordination may occur, Agile reduces dependency on traditional command-and-control roles. Option C, liaising with the chief product owner, is also not central to the team coach role, as product ownership focuses on value and prioritization rather than team dynamics and Agile maturity. Option D, liaising with project assurance, aligns more with governance and compliance functions rather than coaching responsibilities.

Agile Foundation documents emphasize that effective coaching relies on collaboration between coaching roles. The team coach provides detailed, practical feedback from the team, while the agile coach offers strategic direction, consistency, and organizational support. This collaboration strengthens Agile adoption, helps remove systemic impediments, and ensures that teams are supported both locally and at scale. By liaising with the agile coach, the team coach helps create a coherent, sustainable Agile environment focused on continuous improvement and value delivery.

Agile Foundation guidance emphasizes building quality into the product from the very beginning rather than relying on late-stage inspection or escalation. When a minor quality control failure occurs during product creation, the most appropriate initial response is to revisit the development and test activities, making option C the correct answer. Agile promotes continuous quality assurance through iterative development, frequent testing, and fast feedback loops, allowing teams to correct issues as soon as they emerge.

In Agile environments, quality is a shared responsibility of the entire team. Minor defects or quality issues are viewed as learning opportunities rather than failures that require formal escalation. Revisiting development and testing activities allows the team to quickly identify root causes, such as unclear acceptance criteria, gaps in automated tests, or misunderstandings in requirements. By addressing the issue at its source, teams can prevent similar defects from recurring in future iterations.

Option A, escalating the issue to the project manager, is generally unnecessary for minor quality failures in Agile. Agile teams are empowered to self-manage and resolve issues at the team level whenever possible. Option B, performing an independent review, may be appropriate for major or systemic quality problems but is excessive as an initial response to a minor issue. Option D, discussing the issue with the chief product owner, is also not the first step unless the issue affects product value or requires a change in priorities.

Agile Foundation documents stress the importance of continuous improvement, built-in quality practices, and early defect resolution. Techniques such as test-driven development, continuous integration, peer reviews, and frequent retrospectives support this approach. By immediately revisiting development and test activities, Agile teams maintain flow, reduce rework, and ensure that quality issues are resolved quickly and effectively, reinforcing Agile principles of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

PRINCE2 Agile was specifically developed to address the challenge of applying Agile approaches within large, complex, and highly governed environments. Agile frameworks are highly effective at the team level, but Agile Foundation materials recognize that organizations often struggle when attempting to scale Agile across multiple teams, complex dependencies, regulatory constraints, and formal governance structures. This makes option B the correct answer.

Agile frameworks such as Scrum or Kanban focus on small, empowered teams delivering value iteratively. However, when initiatives become larger—spanning multiple teams, suppliers, and organizational units—challenges arise around coordination, assurance, reporting, and decision-making. Senior stakeholders often still require visibility, control, and confidence around investment, risk, and progress. PRINCE2 Agile bridges this gap by combining Agile delivery techniques with the governance, roles, and controls provided by PRINCE2.

Option A is incorrect because Agile frameworks are designed to be flexible rather than rigid. Option C is also not the primary challenge addressed by PRINCE2 Agile, as most Agile frameworks clearly define core roles, even if they differ from traditional roles. Option D is incorrect because Agile frameworks are explicitly designed to be combined with other methods, which is one of Agile’s strengths.

Agile Foundation documents explain that PRINCE2 Agile enables organizations to “blend” Agile delivery with project management governance. It allows Agile teams to work iteratively while ensuring alignment with business objectives, risk management, and stage-based oversight. By providing guidance on how to tailor governance without constraining agility, PRINCE2 Agile supports scaling Agile in complex environments. This makes it particularly valuable for organizations transitioning to Agile while still needing structure, assurance, and control at the enterprise level.

In Agile Foundation guidance, the product backlog is the primary artifact that provides a list of user stories, making option C the correct answer. The product backlog is a prioritized, evolving list of all the work needed to deliver and improve a product. User stories are the most common way of expressing requirements within the product backlog because they focus on user needs, value, and desired outcomes rather than detailed technical specifications.

The product backlog is owned and maintained by the product owner, who is responsible for ensuring that the backlog items are clearly defined, ordered by value, and aligned with business goals. User stories within the product backlog describe features, enhancements, fixes, and technical work from the perspective of the user or customer. This supports Agile’s emphasis on delivering value early and continuously while allowing flexibility as requirements change.

Option A, project backlog, is not a standard Agile Foundation artifact. Agile focuses on products and value streams rather than traditional project-centered task lists. Option B, project canvas, is a high-level visual planning tool used to summarize objectives, stakeholders, risks, and constraints, but it does not contain detailed user stories. Option D, release map, outlines planned releases and timelines at a high level, showing when groups of features or increments may be delivered, but it does not provide the detailed list of user stories themselves.

Agile Foundation documents highlight that the product backlog is dynamic and continuously refined through backlog refinement activities. User stories are added, removed, split, or re-prioritized based on feedback, learning, and changing business needs. This adaptability ensures that teams always work on the most valuable items first. By serving as the single, transparent source of requirements, the product backlog enables collaboration, alignment, and effective value delivery, which is why it is the correct artifact for listing user stories.

The Team Planning Workshop is primarily held to update the product backlog. This collaborative session allows the delivery team to break down, refine, and reprioritize user stories or tasks to prepare for the upcoming iteration or sprint. The team reviews the product backlog items, clarifies acceptance criteria, estimates effort, and commits to the planned work.

Updating the product backlog at this level ensures that detailed planning aligns with the overall project vision and release goals. It empowers the team to self-organize and manage their workload, supporting agile principles of autonomy and collaboration.

While the project dashboard (A) provides status reporting, the release map (C) focuses on higher-level release planning, and OKRs (D) relate to strategic objectives, these are not the central focus of the team planning workshop.

PRINCE2 Agile promotes team planning workshops as essential forums for translating business priorities into actionable, manageable work for delivery teams.

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.

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.

A primary benefit of an organization being and doing agile is faster time-to-market. Agile methods emphasize iterative delivery, frequent releases, and continuous feedback, enabling organizations to deliver value sooner and adapt quickly to changes. This benefit directly supports business agility and competitive advantage.

Using agile techniques alone (B) is a means, not a benefit. Focusing solely on tasks (C) ignores value and flow, and setting tolerances to zero (D) is neither practical nor encouraged.

A key criterion for the Definition of Ready is that acceptance criteria are measurable. This ensures that work items are clearly understood, well-defined, and have objective criteria to confirm when they are complete. Measurable acceptance criteria reduce ambiguity and support efficient development and quality assurance.

Other options describe completion or handover stages, which are more relevant to the Definition of Done, not Ready.