Exam 70-498:

Delivering Continuous Value with Visual Studio 2012 Application Lifecycle Management

Published:October 16, 2012
Language(s):English, Japanese
Audience(s):IT Professionals
Technology:Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
Type:Proctored Exam

How To Get It: Schedule your exam through the following exam provider:

Take exam

Show all itemsHide all items
Preparing for an Exam
The Microsoft Certification website and this preparation guide contain a variety of resources to help you prepare for an exam. Preparing for and Taking an Exam — FAQ provides answers to frequently asked questions about exam registration, preparation, scoring, and policies, including:
  • The most effective way to prepare to take an exam.
  • The relationship between Microsoft training materials and exam content.
  • Microsoft policy concerning the incorporation of service pack and revision updates into exam content.
  • Exam question types and formats.
  • Exam time limits and number of questions asked.
We recommend that you review this preparation guide in its entirety and familiarize yourself with the FAQs and resources on the Microsoft Certification website before you schedule your exam.
Exam Topics Covered
The following books include topic areas covered on this exam:
 
Audience Profile
Candidates for this exam typically use Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 to keep their teams focused on customer value and to structure their organizations to deliver quality software frequently and reliably. These candidates inspect and help streamline activities across all roles and throughout the entire development life cycle. The qualified candidate typically has:
  • a strong understanding of current process improvement practices.
  • a strong understanding of popular software development life cycle (SDLC) methodologies, including Scrum, Kanban, and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), as well as umbrella practices such as Agile and Lean.
  • high-level technical experience with Microsoft tools used to improve software development effectiveness.
Credit Toward CertificationExam 70-498: Delivering Continuous Value with Visual Studio 2012 Application Lifecycle Management: counts as credit toward the following certification(s):MCSD: Application Lifecycle Management
Note This preparation guide is subject to change at any time without prior notice and at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Microsoft exams might include adaptive testing technology and simulation items. Microsoft does not identify the format in which exams are presented. Please use this preparation guide to prepare for the exam, regardless of its format.
Skills Being MeasuredThis exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam.The higher the percentage, the more questions you are likely to see on that content area on the exam.

The information after “This objective may include but is not limited to” is intended to further define or scope the objective by describing the types of skills and topics that may be tested for the objective. However, it is not an exhaustive list of skills and topics that could be included on the exam for a given skill area. You may be tested on other skills and topics related to the objective that are not explicitly listed here.
Define an Effective End-to-End Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) (17%)
  • Understand the value of an end-to-end view of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools and practices.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: understanding that an observable problem may be indicative of a more general process issue; explaining the difference between optimizing a piece of the ALM process such as manual testing and optimizing the entire ALM process
  • Explain the benefits of fast feedback.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: explaining the importance of fast feedback related to communicating requirements; explaining the benefits of end customer feedback to early software iterations
  • Implement strategies to reduce end-to-end cycle time.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: identifying bottlenecks in the delivery process; identifying metrics that highlight bottlenecks; creating potential solutions whose effectiveness can be validated; understanding the relationship between work in process (WIP) and cycle time
  • Implement strategies to improve software quality.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: identifying process steps that introduce defects; understanding the end-to-end quality process; bringing quality efforts early in the development cycle
  • Implement strategies to reduce waste.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: identifying wasteful activities; creating strategies to eliminate waste; measuring the effectiveness of waste removal activities
  • Create a process improvement plan.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: creating strategies for implementing organizational change; identifying key metrics to be tracked during the improvement effort; creating consensus for the change
Define the ALM Process (16%)
  • Role of different ALM processes.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: understanding the cost and benefits of the key ALM processes including Agile, Scrum, waterfall, and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
  • Implement a Scrum/Agile process.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: establishing self-organizing teams; holding a Scrum/Agile planning meeting; holding daily Scrums/stand-up meetings; holding retrospective meetings; holding Scrum review meetings
  • Define a Scrum/Agile process for a team.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: establishing criteria on when to cancel a sprint/iteration; establishing tooling and process for Scrum/Agile artifacts; establishing the Scrum definition of “done”; determining sprint/iteration length; determining how to handle backlog items/user stories not completed in a sprint/iteration; determining how to monitor sprint/iteration progress
  • Implement Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) for CMMI Process Improvement.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: establishing project drivers (scope-driven, date-driven); assigning product requirements to iterations; managing changes; managing issues
Define a Software Iteration (16%)
  • Plan a release.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: identifying a flexibility matrix; identifying releases based on priority items in flexibility matrix and release criteria; resource planning (Scrum team is responsible for allocating team members); identifying techniques to optimize a team that is geographically distributed; selecting a project methodology; risk management
  • Define a project-tracking process.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: identifying a project tracking tool and an associated process (triage process, bug management); defining how to manage effort; determining team forecast management; defining a prioritization scheme; determining how to validate project health
  • Scope a project.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: scoping the effort for a release; defining an architecture design process; defining scope boundaries (is/is not list); determining the definition of “done”; defining a process when effort estimates are significantly inaccurate
Define End Value for the Software Iteration (17%)
  • Elicit requirements.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: defining project requirements; reviewing and clarifying requirements; defining acceptance criteria; defining UI platform requirements (Web, mobile); assigning a business value
  • Estimate requirements.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: managing and assigning effort estimates (assigning story points); resizing user requirements into smaller, manageable pieces; executing task breakdown; estimating the requirements baseline
  • Document requirements.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: defining acceptance criteria; listing requirements; adding requirement details; designing UI storyboards
  • Prioritize requirements.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: identifying requirements that are critical path; identifying must-have requirements; enabling the entire team (including customers) to participate in requirements prioritization; identifying dependencies
Develop Customer Value with High Quality (17%)
  • Define code quality indicators.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: performing code review, including security and performance analysis; analyzing code for common defects; calculating code coverage; performing architecture validation
  • Incorporate unit testing.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: establishing unit test standards; developing a strategy for adding unit tests to existing applications; selecting the unit test type; establishing the code coverage target
  • Develop code.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: developing maintainable code; defining coding standards; defining application architecture; defining configuration management process and tooling (source control tree, branching strategy, solution structure, source control/check-in policy)
  • Validate quality.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: organizing test artifacts such as test cases, suites, plans, and requirements; defining test strategy; managing test execution; identifying test types and associated tools; identifying and configuring environments; analyzing test runs
  • Customize a team project.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: customizing a Work Item; customizing Work Item Queries; customizing Team Portal; identifying areas and iterations; managing roles and associated permissions
Integrate Development and Operations (17%)
  • Implement an automated deployment process.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: architecting an automated build and deploy workflow; integrating automated tests; automating deployment into both test and production environments
  • Implement pre-production environments.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: automating the creation of virtual test lab environments; automating deployment into virtual test environments
  • Manage feedback between development and operations.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: implementing tools to simplify communication; identifying, measuring, and reporting key analytics and performance indicators such as cycle time and mean time to repair (MTTR); creating appropriate shared artifacts and process to facilitate communication; standardizing required artifacts for defect reports; creating strategies for test case reuse (both automated and manual) in production
  • Troubleshoot production issues.
    • This objective may include but is not limited to: gathering defect data from bugs in a production setting; providing actionable data to the development team; monitoring applications running in production for potential issues; managing incident response times collaboratively between development and operations
Preparation Tools and ResourcesTo help you prepare for this exam, Microsoft Learning recommends that you have hands-on experience with the product and that you use the following training resources. These training resources do not necessarily cover all of the topics listed in the "Skills Measured" tab.
Learning Plans and Classroom Training There is no classroom training currently available.
Microsoft E-Learning There is no Microsoft E-Learning training currently available.
Microsoft Press Books
  • Professional Scrum Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
Practice Tests There are no practice tests currently available.
Have Questions? For advice about training and certification, connect with peers: For questions about a specific certification, chat with a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP): To find out about recommended blogs, Web sites, and upcoming Live Meetings on popular topics, visit our community site:
Exam index