PMP Practice Questions

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

Your agile team is building a healthcare platform that must comply with HIPAA regulations. The compliance officer insists on reviewing and approving all designs before development begins and all code before deployment, which creates a bottleneck taking 5-7 days per review. The team's sprint cycle is two weeks, and this delay means most stories cannot be completed within a sprint. The compliance officer is unwilling to attend daily standups or sprint ceremonies, stating they are too busy. Team morale is declining as they cannot meet sprint goals. What is the MOST effective approach to resolve this situation?

August 24, 2026

Your agile team has been working on a financial services application for three sprints. During the sprint review, the product owner asks the team to demonstrate a complex regulatory reporting feature that was not part of the sprint backlog. The team lead explains they focused on the agreed sprint goal instead. The product owner becomes frustrated, stating this feature is critical for an upcoming audit and should have been obvious to include. Stakeholders at the meeting appear concerned about the team's ability to deliver. What should the Scrum Master do to address this situation?

August 24, 2026

You are leading a distributed agile team working on an IoT platform across three time zones. The team uses Kanban with WIP limits, and throughput has been consistent at 12 items per week. Recently, a major enterprise client requested a committed delivery date for a specific feature set, which your sales team communicated would take four weeks. The product owner asks you to guarantee this timeline and wants daily status reports to track progress. Your team has historically avoided commitments because of the variability in item complexity. How should you respond to this request while maintaining agile principles?

August 24, 2026

An agile team is delivering a customer-facing mobile application using two-week sprints. After six sprints, velocity has been stable at 40 story points per sprint, but customer satisfaction scores are declining. Analysis shows that while features are being delivered on schedule, they often require significant rework in subsequent sprints after user feedback. The product owner has been accepting all stories that meet the acceptance criteria at sprint reviews. Technical debt is accumulating, and the team's Definition of Done includes unit testing and code review but no user validation. What is the BEST approach to improve customer satisfaction?

August 24, 2026

An agile team working on a cloud migration project has been using story points for estimation with planning poker. After 10 sprints, a new senior developer joins who strongly advocates for switching to ideal hours instead of story points, arguing that hours are more precise and easier for stakeholders to understand. The team is divided—some members agree with the new developer, while others want to keep story points because their historical velocity data would become irrelevant. The upcoming sprint planning is in two days, and the product owner is concerned about any changes that might impact the team's predictability during a critical release cycle. What should you do?

August 24, 2026

A financial services company is developing a customer portal using a hybrid delivery approach. The security and compliance components follow predictive planning due to regulatory requirements, while the user experience features are developed iteratively based on customer feedback. During a sprint review, the compliance officer raises concerns that new data privacy regulations will take effect in six months, potentially requiring significant changes to the security architecture already under development. The project is currently 40% complete. What is the most appropriate response?

August 24, 2026

A manufacturing company is implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system using a hybrid approach. The predictive phase covers infrastructure setup and data migration, while the adaptive phase handles user interface customization and training. The executive sponsor informs the project manager that a major competitor has just been acquired by their parent company, potentially changing strategic priorities. The project manager needs to assess how this external change might impact the project. What should the project manager do first?

August 24, 2026

A telecommunications company is deploying a network infrastructure upgrade using a hybrid approach. The physical infrastructure deployment follows a predictive schedule across 50 cities, while the software-defined networking features are developed using Scrum. Three months into the project, a major technology vendor announces end-of-life for a key hardware component that was planned for 30 of the remaining cities. The vendor is offering a next-generation replacement that provides better performance but requires different configuration and has a longer lead time. How should the project manager address this market change?

August 24, 2026

A retail company is implementing a supply chain optimization system using a hybrid approach. The warehouse management system integration follows a predictive methodology due to hardware dependencies, while the demand forecasting module is developed iteratively with frequent releases. The project manager notices that economic indicators suggest a potential recession within the next year, which could significantly impact consumer demand patterns and inventory strategies. Several stakeholders have different opinions on how to proceed. What should the project manager do to address this external business factor?

August 24, 2026

A healthcare organization is implementing a patient management system using a hybrid approach. The core clinical workflows are being developed predictively to ensure regulatory compliance, while the patient-facing mobile application is being developed using Scrum. The project manager learns that a new healthcare provider network is merging with the organization in eight months, which will double the user base and add three new service lines. The steering committee asks how this will affect the project timeline and deliverables. What should the project manager recommend?

August 24, 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

You are managing a global hybrid project with agile development in North America and traditional implementation in Asia across a 12-hour time zone difference. A conflict has emerged where the Asian implementation team feels excluded from key decisions made during North American sprint planning, while the development team is frustrated by delayed responses to blockers. Cultural factors compound the issue: the Asian team is reluctant to speak up in virtual meetings dominated by North American voices, and the development team interprets silence as agreement. Project velocity has declined, and trust between teams is eroding. What approach BEST addresses these interconnected challenges?

August 21, 2026

Your organization is transitioning a traditional portfolio to hybrid delivery. You're managing a pilot project where a newly formed team combines waterfall veterans and agile practitioners. Three months in, the team has self-organized into methodology silos rather than integrating. The waterfall veterans have created extensive documentation and wait for complete requirements, while agile practitioners start building with minimal planning. Neither group attends the other's ceremonies, and integration points are being missed. The project is falling behind schedule, and the sponsor is questioning whether hybrid approaches work. What is the BEST strategy to transform this group into a cohesive team?

August 21, 2026

You are leading a product development project using a hybrid approach where design sprints inform traditional manufacturing phases. A highly skilled technical lead from the manufacturing team has begun undermining the design team's iterative decisions in stakeholder meetings, claiming 'real engineering requires upfront planning, not constant changes.' This individual's expertise is critical for production feasibility, but their behavior has caused two design team members to request transfers. The design team's psychological safety scores have dropped significantly, yet the technical lead's assessments have prevented three costly manufacturing errors. What should you do FIRST?

August 21, 2026

Your hybrid project team includes remote contractors working in iterative sprints and co-located employees handling regulatory compliance through sequential phases. You notice that the contractors consistently deliver on time, but employees are disengaged and missing milestones. During one-on-ones, several employees reveal they feel undervalued because contractors receive immediate feedback in daily standups while employees only get monthly status reviews. Performance metrics show contractor satisfaction at 85% while employee satisfaction has dropped to 45%. How should you address this disparity?

August 21, 2026

You are managing a hybrid project with both agile development teams and traditional infrastructure teams. During a retrospective, several agile team members express frustration that infrastructure dependencies are blocking their sprints. The infrastructure lead explains that their waterfall approach requires detailed specifications two months in advance, which conflicts with the agile team's adaptive planning. Team morale is declining, and velocity has dropped 30% over the last three sprints. What is the BEST approach to address this systemic conflict?

August 21, 2026