PMP Process — Managing Technical Aspects Practice Question
In a hybrid project, the development team is using Scrum, and the project manager is responsible for overall coordination. During a sprint, the product owner asks the team to add a high-priority user story that was not included in the sprint planning. The team is concerned about overcommitment. What should the project manager do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse the project manager's coordination role with authority to override Scrum events, leading them to choose option A or B, which violate the sprint commitment and team autonomy.
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 add the story to the product backlog and prioritize it for the next sprint.
In a hybrid project using Scrum, the product owner should manage the product backlog and prioritize work for future sprints. Adding a new story mid-sprint violates the sprint commitment and can destabilize the team's velocity and sprint goal. The project manager should facilitate the product owner's decision to defer the story to the next sprint, preserving the integrity of the current 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.
- ✗
Remove a lower-priority story from the sprint to make room for the new one.
Why it's wrong here
Removing a lower-priority story from an active sprint backlog, even to make room for a new one, directly violates the Scrum principle of sprint stability. Once the sprint backlog is committed during sprint planning, it should remain unchanged to protect the sprint goal and the development team's focus. Introducing such a change mid-sprint undermines predictability, the team's commitment, and the integrity of the sprint.
- ✗
Allow the team to add the story if they can accommodate it without affecting the sprint goal.
Why it's wrong here
Allowing the team to add new work to an ongoing sprint, regardless of perceived accommodation capacity, fundamentally breaches Scrum's commitment to a stable sprint backlog. The sprint backlog represents the team's forecast of work to achieve the sprint goal, and adding items mid-sprint disrupts this focus, potentially jeopardizing the sprint goal and leading to overcommitment or scope creep. New requirements must follow the proper product backlog management process.
- ✗
Escalate to the project sponsor to resolve the conflict.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating a routine request for new work to the project sponsor is an inappropriate and excessive response for managing a new requirement in an agile environment. The Project Manager, acting as a facilitator, should guide stakeholders to follow established Scrum practices, such as engaging the Product Owner for backlog management. Such an issue can be resolved within the team and Product Owner's purview without executive intervention.
- ✓
Ask the product owner to add the story to the product backlog and prioritize it for the next sprint.
Why this is correct
This is the correct Scrum practice, as it respects the integrity of the current sprint and the team's commitment to its sprint goal. New requirements, even urgent ones, must first be added to the Product Backlog by the Product Owner, who then prioritizes them against all other items. This ensures proper refinement and planning for a future sprint, safeguarding the current sprint from disruption and maintaining the team's focus.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to the PMP Exam and Project Management Basics
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.
Key term
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a lightweight process framework that helps teams deliver complex projects in small, iterative chunks called sprints.
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.