PMI-ACP Practice Questions #21
You are an Agile practitioner leading a cross-functional team developing a new mobile app for real-time customer support. The app is an innovative solution with no existing examples in the market, and there is significant uncertainty regarding customer needs and technology feasibility. A key stakeholder insists that the first product increment should be comprehensive enough to establish clear market leadership in this emerging space.
As an Agile practitioner, what would you recommend to balance the stakeholder’s expectations and Agile principles?
A. Collaborate with the stakeholder to build a detailed business case and conduct extensive market research, delaying development until all uncertainties are addressed.
B. Work closely with the stakeholder to define a complete feature set and plan a comprehensive initial release aimed at creating a big impact and securing market leadership.
C. Highlight the benefits of starting with a lightweight MVP to test assumptions, gather real-world feedback, and iteratively refine the app to meet market needs effectively.
D. Recommend stakeholder training on Agile principles and incremental delivery to align their expectations with Agile ways of working.
Analysis
This scenario presents a highly uncertain product development environment with no existing market precedent and significant technical feasibility challenges. The key stakeholder’s expectation is for a comprehensive first release to establish market leadership, which conflicts with Agile’s iterative and incremental approach.
The Agile Practitioner must balance stakeholder expectations with Agile principles by emphasizing early feedback, risk mitigation, and adaptability rather than big upfront planning.
Analysis of Options
A: Collaborate with the stakeholder to build a detailed business case and conduct extensive market research, delaying development until all uncertainties are addressed.
- While collaboration is always good, delaying development to resolve all uncertainties contradicts Agile principles.
- Extensive research won’t eliminate all risks, as market dynamics and technology challenges can only be validated through actual experimentation.
- This resembles a traditional predictive approach (Big Upfront Planning) rather than Agile.
- Not a good option as it promotes analysis paralysis instead of iterative learning.
B: Work closely with the stakeholder to define a complete feature set and plan a comprehensive initial release aimed at creating a big impact and securing market leadership.
- While defining a feature set is important, attempting to plan a large initial release contradicts Agile’s incremental delivery model.
- Given the uncertainty in both customer needs and technology feasibility, this approach assumes that all requirements can be defined in advance, which is highly risky.
- This is another predictive approach, not aligned with Agile principles.
C: Highlight the benefits of starting with a lightweight MVP to test assumptions, gather real-world feedback, and iteratively refine the app to meet market needs effectively.
- This is the best option, as it aligns with Agile’s iterative development model and Lean Startup principles.
- A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) allows the team to validate assumptions early, gather feedback, and pivot if necessary.
- This reduces the risk of building unnecessary or unfeasible features while ensuring that stakeholder expectations are met through incremental improvements.
- Strong choice, as it promotes experimentation, early feedback, and adaptive planning.
D: Recommend stakeholder training on Agile principles and incremental delivery to align their expectations with Agile ways of working.
- While educating stakeholders on Agile is useful, it doesn’t directly solve the problem.
- The focus should be on demonstrating Agile’s benefits through action (MVP approach), rather than just training.
- Training alone won’t convince stakeholders unless they see real-world benefits through iterative delivery.
- Not the best option, as it’s an indirect approach rather than a concrete solution.
Conclusion
The correct answer is Option C: Highlight the benefits of starting with a lightweight MVP to test assumptions, gather real-world feedback, and iteratively refine the app to meet market needs effectively.
This approach minimizes risk, enables early customer validation, and keeps development flexible to changing needs—aligning both stakeholder expectations and Agile principles.
PMI – ACP Exam Content Outline Mapping
| Domain | Task |
| Mindset | Experiment Early |
| Mindset | Shorten Feedback Loops |
| Product | Manage Increments |
Topics Covered:
- Highlighting the benefits of an MVP to validate assumptions early.
- Using real-world feedback to iteratively refine the product.
- Managing uncertainty by testing market demand before full-scale development.
- Balancing stakeholder expectations with Agile principles.
- Shortening feedback loops to adapt to changing customer needs.
- Ensuring incremental delivery aligns with business priorities.
- Avoiding Big Upfront Planning and analysis paralysis.
- Demonstrating value early through small, testable product releases.
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