Free PeopleCert DevOps-Foundation Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 2

High-performing organizations use Continuous Delivery practices to improveSoftware Delivery and Operational (SDO) performance.

B: Psychological safety encourages open communication, incident reporting, and learning from failures.

C: Trunk-based development reduces integration issues and supports continuous integration/delivery.

D: Cloud technologies provide scalable, on-demand environments that speed up delivery and testing.

On the other hand,A—a heavyweight change process—slows down delivery, increases lead time, and often fails to improve change success rates. Research cited inAccelerateshows that manual, centralized change approvals correlate with lower performance, while automated, peer-reviewed changes produce better reliability and faster delivery.

Kanbanis a Lean visual management method that helps teams control and improve workflow. The board displays tasks in columns representing process stages, enabling:

Visualization of work items and bottlenecks

Limiting work in progress (WIP) to improve flow and reduce multitasking

Tracking throughput and cycle time for continuous improvement

B(Value Stream Mapping) is a Lean analysis tool, not a visual board for ongoing work.C(Improvement Kata) is a structured improvement method, andD(Continuous Delivery) is a software delivery practice, not a visual workflow tool.

Therefore,A—Kanban—is correct.

Deployment success ratemeasures the proportion of deployments that meet their objectives without causing incidents, rollbacks, or degraded service. PeopleCert notes this metric is not limited to production—it can be applied to any environment where deployments occur (staging, testing, pre-prod).

Ais incorrect because focusing only on production misses valuable insights from earlier environments.Cis partially correct—success rate can inform reliability—but reliability is more broadly measured with other metrics like availability and MTTR.Dis incorrect becausechange success ratetypically includes all changes, not just deployments.

Therefore,Bis the accurate statement.

Creating Single Points of Failure (SPOFs)is not a feature of Safety Culture—in fact, it’s the opposite.

Safety Culture in DevOps promotesblameless post-mortems,valuing incidents as learning opportunities, andthanking contributors for uncovering weaknesses.

SPOFs increase risk and discourage experimentation.

Extract-style reference:

“Safety Culture is built on blamelessness, psychological safety, and learning from failure, not punishment. SPOFs are an anti-pattern that increases fragility.”

—The DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6: Stresses the importance of a safe, collaborative environment for innovation.

Command(authoritarianism) is not a crucial ingredient for leading digital transformation.

The key ingredients:

Collaboration

Curiosity

Courage

DevOps leadership is about empowering teams, experimenting, and driving change,notcommand-and-control.

Extract-style reference:

“Digital transformation leaders embrace collaboration, curiosity, and courage, fostering an environment where experimentation and learning drive change.”

—Accelerate,DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6:Advocates servant and transformational leadership, not command/control.

When independent Dev and Ops teams adopt DevOps practices without coordination, results are limited.

The most important action IT management can take is tocreate a shared vision, goals, and incentives.

Shared goals align everyone to business outcomes, reduce conflicting priorities, and foster real collaboration.

Why not the others?

Intelligent risk taking(A) andhigh-trust culture(C) are important, but without a shared vision, teams won’t move in the same direction.

Customer focus(D) is essential, but won’t create cross-team alignment by itself.

Reference/Extract:

“Creating a shared vision and goals across Dev and Ops is critical to breaking down silos and delivering end-to-end value to the business.”

—The Phoenix Project,Accelerate, and PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6 Section 3.3

Microservices architecturebreaks down applications into small, independent, loosely coupled services that can be developed, tested, and deployed independently.

Why does this improve release frequency?Each microservice can be updated, tested, and deployed on its own, reducing the risk and coordination overhead associated with monolithic releases.

This allows for faster feedback and more frequent delivery of value to users.

Extract-style reference:

“Microservices enable teams to deploy independently, reduce deployment risk, and increase release frequency by decoupling services.”

—Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps, Chapter 4

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6:Stresses modular architectures for enabling rapid, independent deployments and continuous delivery.

Feedback loops are mechanisms that provide information to earlier stages in the process, enabling adjustments and improvements.

A: Dashboards provide real-time visibility into system health, deployment status, and other key metrics, allowing quick corrective action.

B: Monitoring and event data supply operational insights (latency, errors, resource utilization) that inform both Dev and Ops.

C: Peer review of changes allows early detection of issues before integration, improving code quality and reducing defects.

D—Product—isnota feedback mechanism. The product is the outcome of development and delivery; while customer feedback on a product can be part of a loop, the “product” itself is not the mechanism delivering actionable information upstream.

Thus,Dis the correct choice for “NOT” a feedback loop.

According to PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6, theSecond Wayof DevOps focuses on creating and amplifyingfeedback loops. The primary purpose of shortening these loops is toaccelerate the flow of work and informationbetween all stages of the delivery pipeline, especially between Development and Operations.

When feedback loops are short, defects, performance issues, and risks can be identified and resolved earlier in the process, preventing costly delays and large-scale rework. This supportsfaster, safer releasesand improves the organization’s responsiveness to customer needs.

WhileA(learning) andD(knowledge sharing) are important benefits of feedback loops, they aresecondaryoutcomes. The main, direct effect is improvingflow efficiency—ensuring that handoffs between Dev and Ops happen smoothly, quickly, and with higher quality.

OptionC(value stream mapping) is a useful Lean practice to identify delays and bottlenecks, but it is adiagnostic tool, not the primary improvement gained from shortening feedback loops.

Thus, the correct answer isB—shortened feedback loops primarily improve IT performance by ensuringfaster flowbetween Development and Operations.

When Kanban teams feel overwhelmed and nothing is getting finished, it’s a sign thattoo much work is in progress(WIP).

Work in Progress (WIP) limitsare a key Kanban and Lean practice: they restrict how many tasks can be active at one time, forcing teams to focus, finish, and deliver before starting new work.

Pushing more work(A) oradding more resources(B) worsens the problem.

Unblocking work(D) is helpful, but the core issue isoverload.

Extract-style reference:

“WIP limits encourage teams to finish work before starting new tasks, reducing context switching and enabling better flow and faster delivery.”

—Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business, David J. Anderson

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation: Limiting WIP is essential for effective flow and sustainable pace.