An agile project team has been using story points and velocity for sprint planning. After six sprints, a new team member joins who is much more experienced than the rest of the team and significantly increases productivity. The team's velocity jumps from an average of 32 points per sprint to 48 points. The product owner sees this increase and immediately adds more items to the upcoming sprint based on the new velocity. However, two weeks later, the experienced team member accepts a position at another company. What should the team have done differently?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is B. Option B is correct because velocity is a measure of a specific team's capacity and should be used with the understanding that it will change when team composition changes. Using a rolling average (typically 3-4 sprints) smooths out variations and prevents over-commitment based on temporary spikes (ECO Process Task 3.2). Option A is the main distractor but is impractical and unnecessary because relative sizing remains valid; it's the team's capacity that changed, not the inherent size of the work. Option C misunderstands that ideal hours don't solve the problem of team composition changes and lose the benefits of relative estimation. Option D creates unnecessary complexity and doesn't address the real issue of treating a temporary velocity spike as the new normal. The team should have been cautious about one-sprint velocity changes and waited for a pattern before adjusting commitments.

PMP Practice Question: Process — Agile, Medium

More Process Questions