CAPM Agile Frameworks and Methodologies Practice Question
A financial services company is adopting Scrum for a critical compliance project. The team has six developers, one product owner, and one Scrum Master. After three sprints, the product owner is frustrated because the team has only delivered 40% of the planned features. The team says they are working full capacity but keep getting interrupted by urgent production support requests from the operations team. The Scrum Master notices that the team’s velocity is dropping each sprint. The product owner insists on increasing the sprint length from two weeks to four weeks to allow more time for delivery. However, the compliance deadline is fixed. The Scrum Master must recommend a course of action. What should the Scrum Master do?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates think extending the sprint length (Option C) will give the team more time to complete work, but they fail to recognize that it does not address the root cause of interruptions and actually reduces the frequency of feedback and adaptation, which is critical for meeting a fixed deadline.
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
✓
Ask the product owner to prioritize production support requests as part of the sprint backlog and limit work in progress
It addresses the root cause of the team's velocity drop: unplanned production support requests. By asking the Product Owner to prioritize these requests into the sprint backlog, the team can formally account for the work, limit work in progress (WIP), and maintain a sustainable pace. This aligns with Scrum's principle of transparency and allows the team to make realistic commitments while still protecting the fixed compliance deadline.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Ask the product owner to prioritize production support requests as part of the sprint backlog and limit work in progress
Why this is correct
Prioritising production support within the sprint backlog makes that interruption work visible and velocity-measurable, rather than invisible capacity drain. Limiting work in progress prevents the team from starting more items than six developers can finish while context-switching on support. This directly addresses the stem's root cause: unplanned support eroding each sprint's deliverable capacity.
- ✗
Instruct the team to work overtime to meet the original sprint commitments
Why it's wrong here
Overtime addresses neither the interruption source nor the fixed deadline, and sustained overtime degrades throughput and quality. The Scrum Master should instead address the capacity drain, for example by negotiating a dedicated support arrangement with operations. Overtime would only be considered for a genuine short-term surge, not a systemic capacity problem.
- ✗
Increase the sprint length to four weeks to give the team more time to complete work
Why it's wrong here
Lengthening the sprint does not reduce the production support interruptions consuming capacity, and the compliance deadline is fixed regardless of sprint duration. The Scrum Master should instead tackle the root cause by negotiating dedicated support cover with operations. Extending sprints would be reasonable only when feedback cadence, not capacity loss, is the constraint.
- ✗
Remove the Scrum Master position to save costs and let the team self-manage
Why it's wrong here
Removing the Scrum Master eliminates the role responsible for removing impediments and coaching the team, worsening the velocity decline. The Scrum Master's proper action is to address the production support interruptions draining capacity. This option would only be defensible if the team were already mature and self-managing with no external impediments.
About these practice questions
This CAPM question is part of Courseiva's 451-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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.