PMI-ACP Practice Questions #83
A fintech company is developing a cryptocurrency trading app. The Product Owner is highly detail-oriented and has extensive experience in the field. He has a clear product roadmap for the next two years and a well-defined plan for the next six months. To ensure readiness, he has created detailed user stories for the next six months and wants the development team to review them and conduct technical feasibility assessments.
However, this approach is consuming significant team time in the first iteration, leading to delays in actual development. As an Agile practitioner, you are called in to recommend a more effective approach.
What should you suggest?
A. Allocate more time for backlog refinement in the current sprint, as increased upfront effort will improve prediction accuracy for future iterations.
B. Focus refinement on near-term backlog items, keeping future backlog items high-level until they are closer to implementation.
C. Advise the Product Owner to continue refining future work in detail independently but avoid involving the team in long-term refinement.
D. Implement discovery sprints dedicated solely to refining backlog items for the next six months before starting development.
Analysis
The issue in this scenario arises from a Product Owner who is overplanning by detailing user stories for the next six months and having the team assess them upfront. This approach leads to delays in actual development, which contradicts Agile principles of progressive elaboration, continuous feedback, and iterative planning. The ideal approach should ensure that backlog refinement is an ongoing, just-in-time activity, rather than a one-time, upfront effort that consumes excessive team time.
Analysis of Options:
A: Allocate more time for backlog refinement in the current sprint, as increased upfront effort will improve prediction accuracy for future iterations.
This is not an Agile approach. Spending more time upfront on backlog refinement goes against Agile principles of incremental planning and responding to change. Agile recommends that backlog refinement should take up no more than 10% of the team’s time per sprint. Increasing refinement effort now may lead to wasted work, as requirements can evolve based on customer feedback and changing priorities.
B: Focus refinement on near-term backlog items, keeping future backlog items high-level until they are closer to implementation.
This is the best option because it aligns with Agile principles of progressive elaboration. Agile encourages teams to refine backlog items just in time, keeping future work at a high level until it is closer to development. This prevents unnecessary rework, ensures that backlog items incorporate learnings from previous iterations, and allows the team to remain focused on current work.
C: Advise the Product Owner to continue refining future work in detail independently but avoid involving the team in long-term refinement.
This option is partially correct but not ideal. While the Product Owner can explore future requirements independently, Agile encourages collaborative backlog refinement, where the team is involved in shaping user stories. Refining future work in isolation may lead to misalignment and prevent the incorporation of learnings from completed iterations.
D: Implement discovery sprints dedicated solely to refining backlog items for the next six months before starting development.
This is a non-Agile approach that resembles waterfall-style planning. In Agile, development and discovery should happen iteratively, rather than dedicating an entire phase solely for backlog refinement. Locking in six months of detailed requirements prevents flexibility and does not account for changing customer needs.
Conclusion
The best choice is Option B (Focus refinement on near-term backlog items, keeping future backlog items high-level until they are closer to implementation) because it ensures that backlog refinement remains progressive, adaptive, and efficient, avoiding unnecessary upfront effort while still allowing for future planning. Options A and D go against Agile principles by advocating excessive upfront work, and Option C fails to leverage team collaboration, which is essential for effective backlog refinement.
PMI – ACP Exam Content Outline Mapping
| Domain | Task |
| Product | Refine Product Backlog |
Topics Covered:
- Prioritize refinement of near-term backlog items while keeping future items high-level until closer to implementation.
- Avoid excessive upfront planning, as Agile promotes progressive elaboration and adaptation based on evolving needs.
- Ensure backlog refinement consumes no more than 10% of the sprint time to balance planning and development.
- Encourage collaboration between the Product Owner and the development team to refine backlog items iteratively.
- Prevent waste by refining user stories just in time, incorporating feedback from completed iterations to improve future planning.
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