Practice Questions
PMP Practice Questions
Scenario-based questions aligned with the 2026 PMP Exam Content Outline. All questions reviewed by a certified PMP before publishing.
45 questions found · page 1 of 2
You are facilitating a sprint retrospective for a team that has just completed a challenging sprint where they missed their sprint goal. During the retrospective, two team members begin blaming each other for technical decisions that led to delays. Other team members become defensive, and the conversation is deteriorating into personal criticism rather than focusing on process improvement. The team has worked well together in the past, but the pressure of the missed goal is creating tension. As the facilitator, what should you do?
September 29, 2026
Your Kanban team has been tracking their flow metrics, and you notice the average cycle time has increased from 4 days to 7 days over the past month. The team's WIP limits haven't changed, and the work item types are consistent with previous months. During a team discussion, you discover that items are spending significantly more time in the 'Code Review' column, often waiting 2-3 days before being reviewed. Team members mention they're focused on completing their own work before reviewing others' contributions. What should the team do to address this issue?
September 29, 2026
Your agile team is three sprints into developing a mobile application. During the latest sprint review, stakeholders provide feedback that the user interface doesn't match their expectations, even though the implemented features match the acceptance criteria in the user stories. The Product Owner explains they wrote the acceptance criteria based on their understanding but didn't include UI specifications. The team is frustrated because they'll need to rework completed features. How should this situation be addressed going forward?
September 29, 2026
During sprint planning, your development team is struggling to break down a large user story estimated at 21 story points. The Product Owner insists this story must be completed in the upcoming two-week sprint because it's critical for an upcoming trade show demonstration. The team expresses concern that they typically complete 25-30 story points per sprint, but this single story would consume most of their capacity and carries significant technical risk. The story cannot be demonstrated partially. What is the best approach?
September 29, 2026
Your Scrum team has completed their third sprint, and the Product Owner notices that the team's velocity has been inconsistent: 21 story points in Sprint 1, 15 in Sprint 2, and 18 in Sprint 3. The Product Owner is concerned about meeting the release deadline and asks you, as the Scrum Master, to commit to a specific velocity for the remaining sprints so stakeholders can plan accordingly. The team is still learning to work together and refining their estimation practices. What should you do?
September 29, 2026
Your agile project team has been using two-week sprints successfully for six months. A new regulatory requirement has been introduced that mandates monthly compliance reports with detailed documentation of all work completed. The compliance officer suggests moving to four-week sprints to align with the reporting cycle, arguing it will reduce administrative overhead. The team is concerned this will reduce their ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. How should you address this situation?
September 21, 2026
During a sprint, your development team discovers that implementing a user story as currently defined would require significant technical debt due to integration with a legacy system. The story is high priority for the product owner and represents 8 story points of the 40-point sprint commitment. Refactoring to avoid technical debt would increase the effort to 13 story points. The team is currently on day 3 of a 10-day sprint. What should happen next?
September 21, 2026
Your agile team is developing a customer portal and has received feedback from the product owner that the last three increments did not meet customer expectations, despite meeting acceptance criteria. The team followed all documented requirements and the product owner approved each user story before development. Customers are frustrated that features don't solve their actual problems. What should the team do to prevent this in future sprints?
September 21, 2026
You are managing an agile software development project with a distributed team across three time zones. During sprint planning, the team commits to 45 story points, which is significantly higher than their historical average of 32 story points per sprint. When you question this, the team explains they want to impress the new executive sponsor who will attend the sprint review. The product owner supports the ambitious commitment. What is the BEST action to take?
September 21, 2026
Your agile team has completed three sprints on a mobile application project. During the sprint retrospective, several team members mention that the Definition of Done (DoD) has become unclear, as some user stories are being marked complete without proper testing documentation. The product owner suggests loosening the DoD to improve velocity metrics. Team members are divided on this approach. What should you do as the Scrum Master?
September 21, 2026
You are leading an agile project to develop a web portal. During the sixth sprint, a major competitor launches a similar product with features that make your planned functionality less competitive. The Product Owner wants to immediately pivot and add new differentiating features, which would require abandoning nearly half of the current sprint backlog. The development team is concerned about the disruption and waste of partially completed work. There are four days remaining in the ten-day sprint. What is the best course of action?
September 9, 2026
Your agile team is working on a financial services application with strict regulatory compliance requirements. The compliance officer insists on reviewing and approving all completed work before it can be released, which takes 3-5 days. This has created a bottleneck, causing completed stories to pile up and not be truly 'done' by sprint end. Team morale is declining because their sprint goals are technically met, but nothing is actually reaching production. How should you address this situation?
September 9, 2026
During sprint planning for a software development project, your team is estimating user stories for the upcoming two-week sprint. One critical story that the Product Owner wants included has significant technical uncertainty. Three developers provide estimates ranging from 3 to 13 story points, indicating vastly different understandings of the work involved. The team has already committed to 32 story points of well-understood stories, and their average velocity is 40 story points. What should the team do with this uncertain story?
September 9, 2026
You are managing an agile project for developing a customer relationship management (CRM) system. After four iterations, the team has consistently delivered all committed story points, but customer feedback indicates that the features delivered are not addressing their most critical pain points. The Product Owner has been creating user stories based on what they think customers need rather than direct customer input. Velocity is stable, but customer satisfaction is declining. What is the most appropriate action to take?
September 9, 2026
Your agile team has completed three sprints of a mobile app development project. During the retrospective, several team members mention that the Definition of Done (DoD) is unclear, leading to inconsistent quality across user stories. Some developers consider a story done after coding, while others include unit testing and code review. The Product Owner is frustrated that stories marked 'done' often require rework in subsequent sprints. What should the Scrum Master do first to address this issue?
September 9, 2026
You are leading an agile project to modernize a legacy insurance claims processing system. The team has completed 6 sprints with an average velocity of 28 story points. During backlog refinement for Sprint 7, the team is reviewing a complex user story estimated at 21 story points. The product owner wants this story included in the next sprint along with other stories totaling 15 points. Several team members express concern that the 21-point story is too large and poorly understood. What should you recommend?
August 28, 2026
Your development team is working on Sprint 7 of a customer relationship management (CRM) system. On day 8 of the 10-day sprint, the team discovers that a critical third-party API they planned to integrate has been deprecated by the vendor, making three of the six committed user stories impossible to complete as planned. The team's burndown chart shows they are otherwise on track. The product owner is concerned about meeting the sprint goal. What should you do?
August 28, 2026
You are managing an agile project for developing an e-commerce platform. At the end of Sprint 5, the team demonstrates the completed user stories to stakeholders. A major stakeholder sees the shopping cart functionality and requests significant changes to the user interface, saying it doesn't match their vision despite the original acceptance criteria being met. The product owner is uncertain because this stakeholder has significant influence. The requested changes would require approximately 2 sprints of rework. What is the best course of action?
August 28, 2026
Your agile team has completed their fourth sprint on a financial software project. During the retrospective, several team members mention that the daily standups have become status report meetings where everyone just talks to you, the project manager, rather than coordinating with each other. Team members seem disengaged, and blockers mentioned during standup often don't get resolved until the next day. The team says they don't find the standups valuable anymore. How should you address this situation?
August 28, 2026
You are leading an agile project to develop a mobile application for a retail client. During sprint planning, the product owner presents 15 user stories, but the development team estimates they can only complete 8 stories based on their historical velocity of 32 story points per sprint. The product owner insists all 15 stories are critical for the upcoming product demo in three weeks. The total estimate for all 15 stories is 60 story points. What should you do first?
August 28, 2026
During a sprint review, stakeholders see the completed user stories demonstrated but express concern that the features don't align with current market conditions, which have shifted significantly in the past month. The product owner acknowledges the market has changed but states that the product backlog was carefully prioritized at the project start and changing it now would be disruptive. The stakeholders request immediate changes to the roadmap. How should the team respond?
August 24, 2026
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?
August 24, 2026
A cross-functional agile team is developing a customer portal. After four sprints, the cumulative flow diagram shows that items are moving from 'In Development' to 'In Testing' quickly, but there is a growing bottleneck in the testing column, with an average of 12 items waiting for test completion while only 3-4 items are in development at any time. The testers report they are working at full capacity. What should the team do?
August 24, 2026
Your agile team has completed three sprints of a mobile application project. During the sprint retrospective, team members report that they consistently cannot complete all planned story points because unexpected production support issues from a legacy system consume 30-40% of their capacity each sprint. The product owner is frustrated with the reduced velocity and wants the team to commit to more story points. What should the scrum master do first?
August 24, 2026
Your Scrum team has a definition of done that includes code review, unit testing, and deployment to the staging environment. During sprint planning, the team realizes that one of the high-priority user stories will require changes to the production database schema, which according to organizational policy requires a change control board (CCB) approval that typically takes 5-7 business days. The sprint is only 10 business days long. What is the best approach?
August 24, 2026