PMI-ACP Practice Questions #119
You are managing a mobile app development team and tracking key metrics over the past four sprints to assess delivery performance and user satisfaction. The data trends are as follows:
What is the most likely explanation for this trend, and what should the team focus on?
A. The team is delivering too fast, compromising quality, leading to more production incidents and unhappy users.
B. The backlog contains too many low-value items, decreasing NPS despite faster delivery.
C. Stakeholders are requesting too many changes, affecting user experience and increasing production incidents.
D. The team’s faster lead time indicates improved efficiency, and the production incidents are unrelated.
Analysis
The given sprint data tracks Production Incidents, Lead Time, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) over four sprints.
Observations from the data:
- Production incidents are increasing (2 → 3 → 5 → 7)
- Lead time is decreasing (14 → 12 → 10 → 9 days)
- NPS is declining (65 → 58 → 52 → 45)
This suggests that while the team is delivering faster, the quality of delivery is declining, leading to more production incidents and lower customer satisfaction (NPS decrease). The root cause appears to be compromising quality for speed.
Analysis of Options
A: The team is delivering too fast, compromising quality, leading to more production incidents and unhappy users.
This is the correct choice. The data clearly shows that as the team speeds up delivery (lower lead time), production issues increase and NPS drops, indicating customer dissatisfaction. This suggests a quality trade-off, where faster delivery is introducing defects into production. The team should focus on improving quality assurance practices while maintaining efficiency.
B: The backlog contains too many low-value items, decreasing NPS despite faster delivery.
This partially addresses the NPS decline but does not explain the increase in production incidents. There is no evidence in the data to suggest that backlog prioritization is the root cause. The decline in NPS is more likely related to increased defects rather than low-value backlog items.
C: Stakeholders are requesting too many changes, affecting user experience and increasing production incidents.
This could be a possible cause, but the data does not indicate an increase in changes or scope creep. The main trend is that faster delivery is correlated with lower quality, not necessarily an influx of stakeholder requests.
D: The team’s faster lead time indicates improved efficiency, and the production incidents are unrelated.
This is incorrect because there is a clear relationship between faster delivery, more incidents, and lower NPS. The assumption that production incidents are unrelated to speed is flawed, as quality issues often arise when teams prioritize speed over thorough testing and defect prevention.
Conclusion
The best answer is Option A: The team is delivering too fast, compromising quality, leading to more production incidents and unhappy users. The data strongly supports this conclusion, as lower lead times correlate with higher defects and declining customer satisfaction. The team should balance speed with quality by incorporating better testing, defect prevention, and code reviews to improve overall delivery performance.
PMI – ACP Exam Content Outline Mapping
| Domain | Task |
| Delivery | Manage Agile Metrics |
Topics Covered:
- Analyzing Agile metrics trends (Lead Time, NPS, Production Incidents)
- Identifying trade-offs between speed and quality in delivery
- Impact of delivery pace on customer satisfaction and production stability
- Balancing delivery efficiency with quality assurance
- Using metrics to guide continuous improvement in Agile teams
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