During sprint planning, your development team commits to 45 story points based on their historical velocity. However, the product owner is frustrated because stakeholders are pressuring for more features to be delivered faster. The product owner asks you to challenge the team to commit to 60 story points this sprint, arguing that the team needs to 'push themselves' and that previous sprints didn't have enough urgency. The team appears uncomfortable with this request. How should you respond?

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Accepted Answer

The correct answer is C. Option C is correct because it protects sustainable pace (a core agile principle) and prevents the dysfunction of overcommitment, which leads to technical debt, burnout, and reduced quality. As a servant leader, the project manager must shield the team from unrealistic pressure while educating the product owner on empirical data (velocity) and agile values. This builds trust and long-term predictability. Option B is a tempting compromise but is wrong because it undermines the team's professional judgment and empirical data from past sprints. Negotiating story points based on external pressure rather than capacity creates a precedent that velocity is negotiable, which destroys the predictability that stakeholders actually need. Options A and D both violate sustainable pace and will likely reduce future velocity.

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