Product practice questions

Allow developers to decide the new vision.

Why wrong: The Product Owner owns the vision, not the development team.

Wait until the end of the project to change the vision.

Why wrong: Delayed pivots often result in wasted investment.

Ignore the shift and continue with the original plan.

Why wrong: This leads to building products that no longer serve the market.

The sprint will end earlier than expected.

Why wrong: This does not directly result from missing acceptance criteria.

The velocity will artificially increase.

Why wrong: Velocity measures output, which will likely decrease due to rework.

The story will be too small to estimate.

Why wrong: Smallness is a property of size, not clarity.

The sprint burndown chart.

Why wrong: This is a tracking tool, not a list of work.

The communication plan.

Why wrong: This outlines stakeholder engagement, not product requirements.

The project charter.

Why wrong: The charter provides high-level purpose, not granular work items.

The story must be at least 10 pages long.

Why wrong: User stories should be concise and focused.

The story must be approved by the CEO.

Why wrong: The Product Owner is the decision-maker for the backlog.

The story must be assigned to a specific developer.

Why wrong: Agile teams pull work; stories should be team-owned.

Archive the entire backlog and start a new one.

Why wrong: Starting a new backlog loses context and prioritization history.

Increase the number of items per page in the tool.

Why wrong: This does not solve the underlying organization issue.

Delete all old user stories to clear the clutter.

Why wrong: Deleting backlog items results in lost history and potentially valuable requirements.

Reject the request because it was not in the roadmap.

Why wrong: Roadmaps should be flexible to accommodate new value discoveries.

Immediately add the feature to the current sprint.

Why wrong: Interrupting the sprint undermines the team's commitment.

Refer the request to the project manager for approval.

Why wrong: The Product Owner is responsible for the backlog content.

Simply follow the highest-paid person's opinion.

Why wrong: This ignores the value perspective of the team and product data.

Prioritize based on whichever stakeholder screams the loudest.

Why wrong: This leads to poor product strategy and team burnout.

Average the rankings provided by all stakeholders.

Why wrong: Averaging often leads to mediocrity and ignores the urgency of specific business needs.

Mark the story as blocked and move to the next sprint.

Why wrong: Blocking does not address the need for iterative delivery.

Extend the sprint duration to accommodate the story size.

Why wrong: Changing the sprint duration breaks the cadence of the scrum process.

Ask the developers to work overtime to finish it.

Why wrong: Overtime is not a sustainable practice in agile teams.

The sprint duration is too short.

Why wrong: Sprint length does not inherently determine product value.

The team is lacking a project manager.

Why wrong: Agile teams focus on self-organization, not the presence of a PM.

The team is not using enough automated tests.

Why wrong: Quality is important, but product value is the primary concern here.

To replace the need for sprint planning.

Why wrong: Sprint planning is still required for execution.

To dictate the exact daily tasks for each developer.

Why wrong: Developers self-organize their daily tasks.

To guarantee that all features will be completed on time.

Why wrong: Agile cannot guarantee all scope in a fixed timeframe.

The Project Sponsor.

Why wrong: The sponsor funds the project but does not manage the backlog.

The Scrum Master.

Why wrong: The Scrum Master facilitates the process, not the product content.

The Lead Developer.

Why wrong: The Lead Developer focuses on technical implementation.

To list every feature to be built in the product.

Why wrong: That is the role of the product backlog.

To track the budget spent on the development team.

Why wrong: The vision is a strategic artifact, not a financial one.

To provide the specific daily meeting agenda.

Why wrong: This is the responsibility of the Scrum Master.

The technical architecture.

Why wrong: User stories focus on user needs, not the underlying architecture.

The user role.

Why wrong: The user role is explicitly stated.

The development team's estimate.

Why wrong: Estimates are typically added during sprint planning.

The role.

Why wrong: The role is identified as 'a user'.

The Product Owner is now responsible for the annual budget.

Why wrong: This is typically a finance or management responsibility.

The Product Owner no longer manages the backlog.

Why wrong: The Product Owner's core responsibility of backlog management remains.

The Product Owner now reports to the finance department.

Why wrong: Organizational reporting lines do not necessarily change.

Force the team to work overtime to ensure completion.

Why wrong: This is neither sustainable nor agile practice.

Delegate the task to a junior developer to save costs.

Why wrong: High-risk tasks require experienced handling.

Agree to the request to satisfy the stakeholder.

Why wrong: Agreeing to high-risk demands without mitigation leads to failure.

It is required by the project management office.

Why wrong: PMOs may prefer hours, but agile teams prefer points.

It makes it easier to track individual performance.

Why wrong: Agile discourages tracking individual performance via estimation.

It ensures that every story takes exactly the same amount of time.

Why wrong: This is impossible and not the intent of story points.

To the personal notepad of the Scrum Master.

Why wrong: This is not transparent to the team.

To a separate bug-tracking document outside of the product tool.

Why wrong: This creates silos and reduces transparency.

To the project charter.

Why wrong: The charter is high-level only.

Building the entire product first and asking for feedback later.

Why wrong: This delays the feedback loop until it is too late.

Guessing the requirements based on past projects.

Why wrong: Guessing leads to building the wrong product.

Waiting for the stakeholders to send an email.

Why wrong: Passive requirement gathering is ineffective.

The team finishes all stories in the sprint.

Why wrong: This is a sign of good planning.

The backlog is sorted by priority.

Why wrong: This is a best practice.

The product owner is involved in refinement.

Why wrong: This is expected behavior.

Important, Notable, Validated, Explicit, Scalable, Technical.

Why wrong: This is not a recognized agile model.

Internal, New, Visible, Executable, Simple, Thorough.

Why wrong: This is not a recognized agile model.

Integrated, Necessary, Verified, Efficient, Structured, Tactical.

Why wrong: This is not a recognized agile model.