PMI-ACP Practice Questions #16
An Agile team is working on a complex product with several high-priority features and significant technical uncertainties in a few critical functionalities. The Product Owner wants to prioritize delivering high-value features to satisfy stakeholders, while the team believes addressing technical challenges early would mitigate risks and support future development. As an Agile Practitioner, how should you address this situation?
A. Facilitate a discussion between the Product Owner and the team to create a balanced approach to prioritization, addressing both technical risks and delivering high-value features.
B. Coach the team on the priority of delivering value in Agile and encourage them to address technical challenges during available spare capacity.
C. Coach the Product Owner to focus on resolving technical uncertainties first, ensuring a solid foundation for future delivery of high-value features.
D. Conduct a risk assessment session with the team and stakeholders to quantify the impact of technical uncertainties on delivery and revise priorities accordingly.
Analysis
The scenario describes an Agile team working on a complex product that has both high-priority features and significant technical uncertainties. The Product Owner (PO) wants to prioritize high-value features, while the team prefers to address technical challenges early to reduce risks and enable smooth future development.
As an Agile practitioner, the goal is to balance immediate business value with long-term sustainability. Agile encourages collaboration and shared ownership, meaning the best solution should involve a dialogue between the PO and the team to align priorities. The chosen approach should ensure that both business goals and technical risks are addressed effectively.
Analysis of Options
A: Facilitate a discussion between the Product Owner and the team to create a balanced approach to prioritization, addressing both technical risks and delivering high-value features.
This is the best choice because it brings both perspectives together and promotes collaborative decision-making. Instead of forcing one approach over the other, it creates a structured way to balance technical and business priorities. The PO and team can:
- Assess technical risks alongside business value to create a balanced backlog.
- Agree on a structured approach to integrate technical work into feature delivery.
- Ensure sustainable development while delivering business value incrementally.
This option aligns with Agile principles of collaborative backlog refinement and shared ownership of priorities.
B: Coach the team on the priority of delivering value in Agile and encourage them to address technical challenges during available spare capacity.
This option partially aligns with Agile by emphasizing value delivery, but it incorrectly assumes that technical work can be handled in spare capacity. Technical risks often require dedicated effort, and treating them as secondary tasks could lead to accumulating technical debt. This is not a comprehensive solution.
C: Coach the Product Owner to focus on resolving technical uncertainties first, ensuring a solid foundation for future delivery of high-value features.
While addressing technical risks early is important, forcing technical work before delivering business value contradicts Agile’s customer-centric approach. The PO must consider both aspects, and coaching them to prioritize only technical work creates an imbalance. A better approach is collaborative decision-making, as suggested in Option A.
D: Conduct a risk assessment session with the team and stakeholders to quantify the impact of technical uncertainties on delivery and revise priorities accordingly.
While risk assessment is valuable, this option implies that priorities should be changed solely based on technical risks. Agile prioritizes backlog items based on both business value and risk, not risk alone. Since Option A already includes risk assessment as part of a collaborative discussion, this option is redundant and less comprehensive.
Conclusion
The correct answer is Option A: Facilitate a discussion between the Product Owner and the team to create a balanced approach to prioritization, addressing both technical risks and delivering high-value features.
This option ensures collaborative backlog refinement and aligns business value with technical risk management, leading to a sustainable development approach that maximizes both stakeholder satisfaction and long-term product success.
PMI – ACP Exam Content Outline Mapping
| Domain | Task |
| Mindset | Promote Collaborative Team Environment |
| Product | Refine product backlog |
Topics Covered:
- Balancing business value and technical risk in backlog prioritization.
- Facilitating collaborative decision-making between the Product Owner and the team.
- Promoting shared ownership of backlog refinement.
- Addressing technical uncertainties to support sustainable development.
- Encouraging risk-based backlog prioritization while delivering high-value features.
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