PMI-ACP Practice Questions #5
A sprint did not go as planned. During the sprint review, stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction with the deliverables, and the team achieved only 50% of the sprint goals.
What should the Agile practitioner do next?
A. Analyze each team member’s performance to identify who caused the shortfall.
B. Facilitate a retrospective session to help the team reflect and develop a corrective action plan.
C. Motivate the team to move on and suggest they recover the lost time in the next iteration.
D. Provide individual coaching to team members and offer them skill improvement roadmaps.
Analysis
The scenario presents a situation where the team did not achieve the sprint goals, delivering only 50% of the planned work, and stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction during the sprint review. This indicates that there are process gaps, misalignment, or execution challenges that need to be addressed in an Agile way—by focusing on continuous improvement and collaboration rather than blame or reactive fixes.
The best approach is to facilitate a retrospective where the team can identify root causes and define corrective actions. Agile emphasizes team empowerment, shared responsibility, and learning from failures rather than assigning blame or simply moving on without addressing issues.
Analysis of Options
A: Analyze each team member’s performance to identify who caused the shortfall.
This option goes against Agile principles because Agile focuses on collaboration and collective responsibility rather than blaming individuals. The assumption that one person is at fault contradicts the Agile mindset, which encourages problem-solving as a team. The goal is not to pinpoint individual failures but to identify and improve systemic issues. This option should be eliminated immediately.
B: Facilitate a retrospective session to help the team reflect and develop a corrective action plan.
This is the best option because retrospectives are a core Agile practice that enable continuous improvement. The team collaboratively analyzes what went wrong, learns from the experience, and defines actionable improvements for future sprints. This approach aligns with empowering the team, continuous feedback, and iterative improvement, making it the most Agile-aligned response.
C: Motivate the team to move on and suggest they recover the lost time in the next iteration.
This option ignores the root cause of the issue. Simply moving forward without addressing the problems may result in repeated failures. While motivation is important, it must be accompanied by a clear plan for improvement. The Agile mindset focuses on learning from past iterations rather than pushing forward without introspection. This option fails to acknowledge the need for structured feedback and corrective actions.
D: Provide individual coaching to team members and offer them skill improvement roadmaps.
While skill development is beneficial, this option assumes that lack of individual competency is the issue, which may not be the root cause. Agile teams focus on self-organization and collective problem-solving rather than assuming that skill gaps alone are responsible for sprint failures. Improving skills is valuable but should not be the primary response when a sprint goal is missed—a retrospective and team-driven improvement process is a more effective approach.
Conclusion
The correct answer is Option B: Facilitate a retrospective session to help the team reflect and develop a corrective action plan.
This approach aligns with Agile leadership principles, focusing on empowering teams to solve their own problems, continuous improvement, and collective learning. Instead of blaming individuals or ignoring issues, a retrospective allows the team to analyze gaps, collaborate on solutions, and improve their execution in future sprints.
PMI – ACP Exam Content Outline Mapping
| Domain | Task |
| Mindset | Promote Collaborative Team Environment |
| Leadership | Empower Teams |
Topics Covered:
- Facilitate team retrospectives for continuous improvement.
- Encourage team-driven problem-solving and corrective actions.
- Promote a no-blame culture and collective responsibility.
- Identify root causes of sprint challenges.
- Develop actionable plans to improve future sprint execution.
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