You are facilitating a sprint planning meeting for a three-week sprint. The product owner has presented the prioritized product backlog, and the team is discussing which user stories to commit to. One experienced developer suggests committing to 15 user stories, saying the team completed 12 last sprint and should push themselves. However, two team members will be on vacation for one week during this sprint. What should you do?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is B. The agile principle of team self-organization means the development team determines how much work they can commit to in a sprint. As facilitator, you should ensure the team considers all relevant factors (like reduced capacity due to vacations) and makes an informed commitment they can realistically achieve. The team, not the project manager, ultimately decides the sprint commitment based on their capacity. Option A is incorrect because it ignores the reduced team capacity and could lead to an unrealistic commitment and failed sprint goal. Sustainable pace is an agile principle, and pushing the team to over-commit when capacity is reduced risks burnout, quality issues, and demoralization when the sprint goal isn't met.

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