PMP Process — Managing Technical Aspects Practice Question
During a sprint retrospective, the team identifies that the daily standups are taking too long and are not focused. Several team members suggest canceling them to save time. What should the scrum master do?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates think the Scrum Master should simply enforce the rules (Option D) or agree with the team (Option A), but the correct answer requires facilitating a collaborative solution that preserves the event's value.
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
✓
Facilitate a discussion to identify ways to make the standups more focused and time-boxed
The Scrum Master's role is to facilitate the Scrum process and remove impediments. Canceling the daily standup would eliminate a key inspection and adaptation opportunity. Instead, the Scrum Master should facilitate a discussion to help the team improve the focus and time-boxing of the standup, addressing the root cause of the issue.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Agree to cancel the daily standups as the team suggests
Why it's wrong here
Canceling the Daily Scrum, a core event in the Scrum framework, removes a critical opportunity for the Developers to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog daily. This action directly undermines transparency, rapid issue identification, and the team's ability to self-organize effectively, which are fundamental principles of agile methodologies and the Scrum Guide.
- ✓
Facilitate a discussion to identify ways to make the standups more focused and time-boxed
Why this is correct
The Scrum Master's role includes facilitating Scrum events and helping the team improve its processes and effectiveness, aligning with the servant-leader mindset. By facilitating a discussion during the retrospective, the Scrum Master empowers the team to collaboratively identify root causes for standup inefficiencies and propose solutions, fostering continuous improvement and reinforcing the team's self-managing capabilities.
- ✗
Keep the standups as they are and remind the team of their importance
Why it's wrong here
Ignoring the team's feedback during a Sprint Retrospective, an event specifically designed for process improvement, demonstrates a lack of responsiveness to team concerns. This approach fails to address the underlying issues causing the team's dissatisfaction, potentially leading to decreased morale, disengagement, and a missed opportunity for continuous process improvement, which is antithetical to agile values.
- ✗
Enforce the timebox strictly without discussion
Why it's wrong here
While timeboxing is crucial for efficiency in Scrum events, simply enforcing it strictly without discussion is a command-and-control approach that bypasses collaborative problem-solving. This action fails to address the root cause of the team's dissatisfaction with the standup's effectiveness, potentially fostering resentment rather than genuine engagement and ownership of solutions, which is contrary to agile principles of self-organizing teams.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Leading Teams and Empowering Team Members
Key term
Sprint Retrospective
A Sprint Retrospective is a time-boxed meeting at the end of a Scrum sprint where the team reflects on their process and identifies improvements for the next sprint.
Key term
Daily Standup
A short, time-boxed daily meeting where team members share progress, plans, and blockers to stay aligned.
About these practice questions
One of 800 original PMP practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PMP 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 PMP exam.