CAPM Business Analysis Frameworks Practice Question
A business analyst is working on a project to implement a new human resources software. The project is using an Agile framework with two-week sprints. After three sprints, the product owner is frustrated because the team has not delivered any working functionality that can be demoed. The business analyst realizes that the user stories lack acceptance criteria and are too large to complete in a sprint. The team is also spending too much time on documentation. As the business analyst, what should you do to improve the situation?
⚠ Common exam trap
CAPM often tests the misconception that process or team changes (like replacing the product owner or extending sprints) solve delivery problems, when the real fix is improving backlog quality through story decomposition and acceptance criteria.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Work with the product owner to break down large stories into smaller ones with clear acceptance criteria.
The core issue is that user stories are too large to complete within a two-week sprint and lack acceptance criteria, which prevents the team from delivering demonstrable functionality. Breaking down large stories into smaller, well-defined ones with clear acceptance criteria directly addresses both problems: it makes work fit within a sprint and provides a shared understanding of what 'done' means. This aligns with Agile best practices for backlog refinement and enables the team to produce potentially shippable increments each sprint.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Replace the product owner with a more experienced one who understands Agile.
Why it's wrong here
The product owner is surfacing the problem, not causing it; the stories lack acceptance criteria and are oversized. Replacing them leaves those defects untouched. This would be the right action only where a product owner consistently fails to prioritise or refine the backlog, which the stem does not describe.
- ✗
Reduce documentation requirements to free up more development time.
Why it's wrong here
Documentation volume is a symptom; the root cause is stories without acceptance criteria that are too large to finish in a sprint. Cutting documentation does not make stories smaller or testable. Reducing documentation is correct only when artefacts genuinely exceed what the framework and stakeholders require.
- ✓
Work with the product owner to break down large stories into smaller ones with clear acceptance criteria.
Why this is correct
Splitting oversized stories into sprint-sized increments with explicit acceptance criteria directly addresses the two constraints blocking demonstrable functionality: stories too large to finish within a two-week sprint, and undefined completion conditions. Smaller, testable slices let the team deliver working software each sprint, reducing documentation overhead and giving the product owner something to demo.
- ✗
Increase the sprint duration to four weeks to allow more time for completion.
Why it's wrong here
Lengthening sprints to four weeks leaves oversized, criteria-less stories unresolved and delays feedback further. The defect is story quality, not sprint length. Extending sprint duration is the right call only where the team's cadence genuinely cannot fit a stable, well-refined backlog.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official PMI exam blueprint
This CAPM practice question is part of Courseiva's free PMI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CAPM exam.