The following are questions that arose in my department after taking the version of the Nokia Test which has ratings from 0 to 10.
Iterations - Our iterations are roughly one month in length, scheduled a year in advance to end on a Monday in the middle of the month (to avoid holidays and other standing meetings). That works out to 8 iterations of 4 weeks and 4 iterations of 5 weeks during a given year. Is that "variable length"? For those that claim "fixed length", what do they do if the iteration boundary occurs in the middle of a holiday week?
Testing within the Sprint - What does "dedicated QA" mean? Is that a reference to a person or role? If so, is having an individual a Scrum team who is dedicated to testing considered superior to having the work fully distributed? If it's a reference to QA work, what does "dedicated" mean? Also, in scoring this question, can you only came credit for a higher number if you've satisfied all the "good things" implied by lower level questions?
Agile Specification - Is interpolation permitted or encouraged? For example, what about "poor requirements"? Is there a reference for what is meant by "specifications" in this context (and what distinguishes it from "requirements")?
Product Owner - Again, are lower level "good things" required for higher level scores? For example, if development team and ScrumMaster are doing the lion's share of the work in preparing the Product Backlog, the Product Owner is only peripherally involved, but the backlog is clear and estimated before the Sprint Planning meeting, is that still a 5?
Product Backlog - Not really a scoring question, but if "story point" is based on size(effort) and not value, then how is cost per story point a measure of ROI?
Team Disruption - There are lots of potential sources of disruption (e.g. other Scrum teams seeking assistance, support personnel seeking help to restore service for a "down" customer). Is this question not intended to measure those?
Team - Same question about whether/how higher levels depend on lower levels (see below for generalization). What does "necessary competency" mean? Our teams are in a constant state of challenge/growth in terms of their skills relative to a large legacy code base.
Generalized Scoring Question - Each of the scoring elements is expressed as either a "bad thing in at least some respect" or a "good thing" relative to Scrum. My understanding of the intended scoring algorithm is as follows:
* You can't score higher than any "bad thing" which applies to you, even if you satisfy something with a higher number
* You can't score higher than any "good thing" you don't satisfy, even if you satisfy a good thing with a higher number
Is that correct?
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