Your agile team has been delivering increments every two weeks for six months. The product owner recently left the company, and a new product owner has joined who has minimal agile experience. During the last three sprint reviews, the new product owner has been rejecting completed stories that meet all acceptance criteria, stating they don't align with their vision. The team's velocity has dropped by 40%, and morale is declining. Stakeholders are concerned about the lack of accepted deliverables. What should the Scrum Master do first to address this situation?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is A. Option A is correct because the root cause is misalignment between the new product owner's vision and the existing backlog/acceptance criteria. A facilitated workshop creates shared understanding and realigns the team on product direction, which directly addresses both the acceptance issues and team morale (ECO Process Task 13.2 - Engage stakeholders). Option B, while important, addresses symptoms rather than the fundamental misalignment issue; coaching alone won't resolve the vision disconnect. The product owner may be acting within their authority but lacks alignment with the team and stakeholders. Options C and D are inappropriate because they either undermine the new product owner's authority or treat time as the solution to an alignment problem.

PMP Practice Question: Process — Agile, Hard

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