DevOps-Foundation Questions and Answers

TheDeming Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act)is foundational to continuous improvement in Lean, and is specifically applied in theImprovement Katapractice:

Improvement Kata: A structured routine for continuous, incremental improvement based on scientific thinking (PDCA).

Value Stream Mapping and Andon cord are Lean practices, but they don’t directly reference PDCA as the core mechanism.

Extract-style reference:

“The Improvement Kata incorporates the Deming cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) to drive small, rapid cycles of change, helping teams to experiment, learn, and adjust.”

—Toyota Kata, Mike Rother

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6: Cites PDCA as integral to continuous improvement and Lean/DevOps adoption.

Acentralized platformin DevOps provides standardized, reusable services to development teams, improving productivity and reducing duplication. Characteristics include:

A: Centralized version control with approved security libraries promotes consistent and secure coding practices.

B: Automated pipelines that include quality and security scans ensure compliance and quality are built-in, not bolted on.

C: Deployment to validated environments with monitoring enables quick detection and resolution of issues.

Since all three characteristics (A, B, C) are described in PeopleCert andThe DevOps Handbookas best practices,D—All of the above—is correct.

PeopleCert outlines multiple methods to encourage sharing and collaboration:

A: Common workspaces promote informal communication and rapid problem-solving.

B: Hackathons provide an engaging environment for innovation, cross-functional teamwork, and sharing solutions.

C: Simulations (e.g., Game Days) allow teams to practice scenarios, learn from each other, and share insights in a low-risk setting.

Each of these fosters trust, transparency, and mutual learning. Using them together can amplify cultural change and skill growth.

Thus,D—All of the above—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.

The most effective approach to tool selection in DevOps is to establish a toolchain—a set of integrated tools that support the end-to-end lifecycle (planning, coding, building, testing, releasing, deploying, operating, and monitoring).

This encourages consistency, automation, and traceability, while still allowing flexibility for teams.

Why not standardize on one vendor?

This reduces flexibility, can cause vendor lock-in, and doesn’t support the varied needs of Dev and Ops teams.

Encouraging independent selection (C) increases fragmentation.

Focusing solely on testing (D) ignores the broader lifecycle.

Extract-style reference:

“Establishing an integrated toolchain provides end-to-end visibility and automation across the software delivery pipeline, aligning tools with process and cultural change.”

— State of DevOps Report; DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6: Recommends a toolchain approach for supporting collaborative DevOps practices.

When teams have experienced frequent top-down mandates without adequate involvement, they may feel change fatigue and resist new initiatives. PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6 emphasizes the importance ofengagement and empowermentto build buy-in and ownership for DevOps transformation.

Empowering people means involving them in decisions, encouraging contribution of their ideas, and making them active participants in shaping the DevOps adoption plan. This approach builds trust, reduces resistance, and taps into collective knowledge, leading to solutions that are practical and widely accepted.

OptionsA,B, andCcan support DevOps adoption but do not address the root cause of low enthusiasm—lack of involvement. Empowerment fosters intrinsic motivation, which is essential for sustained cultural change.

Thus,Dis the most effective choice.

TheThomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)is a psychometric tool that measures an individual’s behavior in conflict situations—specifically, how they handle disagreement with colleagues.

It classifies responses into five modes: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating.

Why not the others?

Kubler Ross Change Curve:Describes emotional responses to change, not conflict styles.

Westrum’s Typology:Categorizes organizational culture (pathological, bureaucratic, generative) but doesn’t measure individual behavior.

Value Stream Mapping:A process improvement tool, not a behavioral assessment.

Reference/Extract:

“The Thomas-Kilmann instrument helps teams understand how individuals approach conflict and collaboration, enabling better resolution strategies—a key aspect of high-performing DevOps teams.”

—DevOps Handbook; PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6 Section 3.7

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.

Coercive communication(using force or threat) isnota transformational leadership dimension.

Transformational leaders:

Inspire vision

Recognize contributions

Stimulate new ideas (intellectual stimulation)

Foster intrinsic motivation

Extract-style reference:

“Transformational leadership builds trust, motivates by vision, provides intellectual stimulation, and recognizes individuals—not by coercion, but by inspiration.”

—Transformational Leadership(James Burns), PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6

Lean tools and practicesare foundational to DevOps because they help organizations systematically identify and eliminate waste, optimize value delivery, and continuously improve processes.

Lean thinkingfocuses on value stream mapping, reducing delays, bottlenecks, over-processing, handoffs, rework, and unnecessary tasks—core to making DevOps successful.

Option D, “They help identify waste and assist in the creation of improvement practices,” perfectly captures this focus.

Extract-style reference:

“Lean enables teams to identify value and non-value-added activities and to use continuous improvement techniques such as Kaizen, value stream mapping, and removing waste.”

—DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6: Lean tools like Value Stream Mapping, 5S, and Kaizen are cited as critical enablers for optimizing the flow and improving IT and business alignment.

ADevOps toolchainis designed toautomate repetitive tasksacross the software delivery process. This includes compiling code, running tests, building artifacts, deploying to environments, and monitoring systems.

While a toolchaincanautomate continuous testing (D), that is only one of many tasks automated. Standardization (B) is beneficial but not always required—some applications may need specialized tools. Open source tools (C) are not mandatory; many organizations use a mix of open source and proprietary tools.

Therefore,A—automation of tasks in a deployment pipeline—is the most universally correct statement.

A fast flow ofunplanned workinto production isnota characteristic of DevOps. In fact, DevOps practices strive to minimize unplanned work (like emergency changes or outages) through automation, testing, collaboration, and rigorous change control. The other options—ensuring organizational success, working toward a common goal, and world-class stability/reliability—are all key DevOps characteristics.

DevSecOps is about integrating security into every stage of the software delivery lifecycle rather than treating it as a separate, post-development activity. PeopleCert DevOps Foundation v3.6 stresses that security mustshift left—moving testing, vulnerability scanning, and compliance checks earlier in the process.

Security as Codemeans embedding security policies, controls, and checks directly into infrastructure and application code. This includes:

Automated vulnerability scanning in CI/CD pipelines

Infrastructure-as-code with integrated security configurations

Policy-as-code to enforce compliance automatically

Static and dynamic application security testing (SAST/DAST) integrated into build pipelines

WhileAincorrectly says “shift right” (testing later in production), DevSecOps emphasizes shifting left.B(post-deployment audits) andC(external testing) can complement DevSecOps but don’t fully embed security into the delivery workflow.

Therefore,D – Security as codeis the most direct enabler of DevSecOps practices.

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.

TheSite Reliability Engineer (SRE)role originated at Google and is now widely recognized. SREs apply software engineering principles to IT operations to create systems that arescalable, reliable, and highly available. Their responsibilities include:

Designing reliability into systems (SLIs, SLOs, SLAs)

Automating operational tasks to reduce toil

Building monitoring and alerting systems

Performing capacity planning and disaster recovery exercises

A(Site resilience engineer) is not a standard industry term.C(Software engineer) focuses on developing applications but not specifically on operational reliability.D(Product Owner) is a role in Agile frameworks that manages product backlog and priorities, not system reliability.

Thus, the correct answer isB – Site Reliability Engineer.

Shift Left Testingmeans moving testing earlier in the development process, so defects are found sooner and fixes are cheaper.

Unit testing as part of CIis the classic “shift left” strategy: automated unit tests run with every code change, catching errors before code moves further down the pipeline.

Testing in production(A) is “shift right.”

Manual testing(B) is typically late-stage and not automated.

Biannual vulnerability assessments(D) are after-the-fact and far from “shift left.”

Extract-style reference:

“Shift left means performing testing activities earlier, for example by including unit tests in the CI process, reducing costly late-stage defects.”

—DevOps Handbook

PeopleCert Foundation: “Shift left” is a key DevOps testing principle—find issues fast, fix fast, deploy safely.

Change fatigue occurs when employees experience too many changes without clear purpose or connection to business value. The most effective way to reduce resistance is to ensure that DevOps adoption isaligned with strategic business goalsand clearly demonstrates how it supports organizational priorities.

When teams see thedirect business impactof their work—such as improved customer experience, faster delivery of products, or increased competitiveness—they are more likely to embrace change.

OptionsA,B, andCmay have short-term benefits but do not address the underlying need for strategic alignment and purpose.

Thus,Dis the most effective way to minimize change fatigue during DevOps introduction.

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.

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.