PMP Practice Questions

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

Your organization is transitioning a large, multi-year infrastructure program to agile delivery. The program consists of five interdependent product teams, each running two-week sprints. After three program increments, dependencies between teams are causing frequent delays—Team A cannot complete their sprint commitments because they're waiting for API specifications from Team B, while Team C's database changes block Team D's integration testing. The program board shows 47 active dependencies across teams. Teams are becoming frustrated with blocked work and declining morale. What approach would best address these systemic dependency issues?

September 9, 2026

An agile team developing a healthcare platform has maintained consistent velocity at 38 story points for six consecutive sprints. During the retrospective, technical debt items are repeatedly raised but never addressed because the product owner prioritizes new features to maintain competitive advantage. The lead architect warns that accumulated technical debt is increasing the time required for new features by approximately 30%, and estimates two full sprints would be needed to address critical technical debt. Code quality metrics show increasing defect rates and decreasing test coverage. What is the most appropriate action?

September 9, 2026

A distributed agile team across four time zones is developing an API integration platform. During the daily standup conducted via video conference, developers in the Asia-Pacific region consistently remain silent or provide minimal updates. The product owner mentions that several critical defects discovered by APAC developers were not communicated until the weekly status report, causing a two-day delay in resolution. Team velocity metrics show APAC contributions are significantly lower than other regions despite having equal headcount. What is the most effective approach to improve team collaboration and information flow?

September 9, 2026

Your agile team has completed three sprints of a mobile application project. The product owner consistently adds new acceptance criteria during sprint reviews, claiming these represent newly discovered customer needs. The team's velocity has dropped from 45 to 28 story points, and team members are frustrated with rework. The product owner insists all changes are critical for market competitiveness. Sprint planning for the next iteration is scheduled for tomorrow. What should the Scrum Master do first to address this situation?

September 9, 2026

During the eighth sprint of a financial services product, a regulatory compliance requirement emerges that affects the system's data retention architecture. The compliance officer estimates implementation requires 320 hours of effort, equivalent to four full sprints of the eight-person team's capacity. The product owner has a committed release date in six sprints to support a major client contract worth $2.3M annually. The current product backlog contains 180 story points of features promised for this release. The team's average velocity is 45 story points per sprint. How should the team approach this situation?

September 9, 2026

Your organization is implementing SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) across five agile teams working on an integrated product. During PI (Program Increment) Planning, the teams identified 23 dependencies between them. After three sprints, only 30% of planned features are completed because teams are waiting on each other. The Release Train Engineer asks you, as one of the Scrum Masters, how to address the delivery delays. Analysis shows that eight dependencies are technical integration points, ten are related to shared specialist resources, and five involve sequential work that cannot be parallelized. What is the most effective approach to improve flow?

September 2, 2026

You're leading an agile transformation initiative in a financial services company. After six months, eight teams are running sprints, but several dysfunctions have emerged: teams are consistently achieving 100% of sprint commitments but stakeholders report little business value is being delivered; sprint retrospectives focus on minor process tweaks rather than substantive improvements; technical debt is accumulating rapidly with no plan to address it; and teams report they're afraid to raise impediments because previous attempts resulted in blame from management. Velocity metrics are stable and high. Senior management considers the transformation successful based on these metrics. What is the most critical issue to address?

September 2, 2026

Your agile project team is developing a medical device software component that requires FDA regulatory approval. You're using two-week sprints with a definition of done that includes unit tests, integration tests, and code review. The regulatory affairs department insists that no code can be released to production without completing a validation protocol that takes 6-8 weeks and costs $50,000 per validation cycle. Marketing is pressuring for faster feature delivery to respond to competitive threats. The team is frustrated because completed increments sit unreleased for months. How should you adapt your agile approach to balance regulatory compliance with agile principles?

September 2, 2026

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?

September 2, 2026

Your distributed agile team spans three time zones (San Francisco, New York, and London) with 3-4 members in each location. After four sprints, several patterns have emerged: the London team members are disconnected from decisions made during daily standups that occur at 9 AM Pacific; sprint planning sessions run 4-5 hours as teams debate estimates and approach; and sprint reviews lack engagement because stakeholders in Europe attend at 7 PM their time. The team's definition of done includes peer code review, but reviews are delayed 12-16 hours waiting for reviewers in other time zones. One team member has suggested abandoning agile practices in favor of a more asynchronous waterfall approach. What strategy would most effectively address these distributed team challenges?

September 2, 2026