PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
During a sprint review, the product owner rejects a completed user story because it does not meet their expectations, even though it meets the acceptance criteria defined in the sprint planning. The team is frustrated. What should you do?
⚠ Common exam trap
PMI often tests the misconception that the Product Owner's rejection should be overridden by the team's adherence to the acceptance criteria, but the correct response is to facilitate collaboration to realign expectations and improve future 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
✓
Facilitate a meeting between the team and product owner to clarify expectations and update the acceptance criteria for the next sprint
The Product Owner's rejection indicates a misalignment between the acceptance criteria and their actual expectations. As a servant leader, the Scrum Master should facilitate a meeting to clarify these expectations and update the acceptance criteria for future sprints, ensuring the Definition of Done reflects true business value. This approach maintains team morale while improving the process, rather than forcing rework or escalating unnecessarily.
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 team to redo the story to meet the product owner's expectations without changing the acceptance criteria
Why it's wrong here
Redoing work without first understanding the discrepancy in expectations or updating the acceptance criteria is a reactive approach that fails to address the root cause of the rejection. This action would likely lead to repeated rework, increased frustration for the development team, and continued misalignment with the Product Owner's evolving understanding of value, rather than resolving the underlying communication breakdown.
- ✗
Escalate to the project sponsor to mediate the disagreement
Why it's wrong here
Immediately escalating a disagreement between the Product Owner and the development team to the project sponsor is premature and bypasses the PMP's primary role as a facilitator of team-level conflict resolution. Agile principles advocate for self-organizing teams and resolving issues at the lowest possible level. Such an escalation undermines team autonomy and the opportunity for direct collaboration to clarify expectations, potentially damaging internal relationships and delaying a practical solution.
- ✓
Facilitate a meeting between the team and product owner to clarify expectations and update the acceptance criteria for the next sprint
Why this is correct
Facilitating a direct meeting between the development team and the Product Owner is the most effective approach as it directly addresses the communication gap and potential ambiguity in the 'Definition of Done' or acceptance criteria. This collaborative discussion clarifies expectations, fosters shared understanding, and allows for adaptive refinement of criteria for future sprints, ensuring that delivered work truly meets the Product Owner's needs and aligns with value delivery, which is central to agile success.
- ✗
Support the team and insist that the story is complete according to the agreed criteria
Why it's wrong here
Insisting that the story is complete solely based on previously agreed criteria, despite the Product Owner's rejection, creates an adversarial dynamic and neglects the agile principle of delivering value that meets evolving stakeholder needs. While the team may have followed the letter of the law, this approach fails to resolve the underlying misunderstanding or address the Product Owner's current perception of value, potentially leading to damaged relationships and a product increment that is not truly useful.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Leading Teams and Empowering Team Members
Key term
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a lightweight process framework that helps teams deliver complex projects in small, iterative chunks called sprints.
Key term
Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is a time-boxed meeting at the start of a Scrum sprint where the team decides what work they can deliver and how they will do it.
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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.