PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
In an agile software project, the sprint velocity has dropped from 30 story points to 18 over the last two sprints. The team members report that they are spending too much time on unplanned technical debt. The product owner is pushing for more features. What should the project manager do FIRST?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates choose Option A (isolating the debt work) because it seems like a direct, structured solution, but the PMP exam emphasizes servant leadership and collaborative prioritization over creating separate teams or compromising quality.
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 between the team and product owner to prioritize technical debt alongside new features
The project manager's first responsibility is to facilitate a collaborative discussion between the team and the product owner to address the root cause—unplanned technical debt—while balancing the need for new features. This aligns with the agile principle of transparency and stakeholder collaboration, ensuring that technical debt is explicitly prioritized in the backlog alongside feature work. Removing or ignoring the debt would only compound the velocity drop and degrade product quality.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reassign two team members to a separate 'debt reduction' team to isolate the issue
Why it's wrong here
Reassigning team members to a separate 'debt reduction' team contradicts agile principles of cross-functional, self-organizing teams. This approach creates silos, fragments knowledge, and reduces collective ownership of the product's quality and technical health. Instead of isolating the issue, it introduces communication overhead and prevents the entire team from learning and collectively addressing the root causes of technical debt, ultimately hindering sustainable improvement.
- ✗
Remove testing from the definition of done to increase velocity
Why it's wrong here
Removing testing from the Definition of Done (DoD) is a critical anti-pattern that severely compromises product quality and violates fundamental agile principles. While it might superficially appear to increase "velocity" by delivering features faster, it inevitably leads to a surge in defects, rework, and increased technical debt, ultimately reducing sustainable velocity and damaging customer trust. A robust DoD, including testing, is essential for ensuring shippable increments and maintaining long-term product health.
- ✗
Increase the sprint workload to motivate the team to deliver more features
Why it's wrong here
Increasing the sprint workload to "motivate" the team is a counterproductive management anti-pattern that disregards the agile principle of sustainable pace. Overloading the team leads to burnout, reduced morale, increased errors, and a decline in quality, which ultimately further decreases actual output and velocity. Agile teams thrive on realistic commitments and a steady, sustainable rhythm, not on forced, unsustainable pressure that erodes trust and productivity.
- ✓
Facilitate a discussion between the team and product owner to prioritize technical debt alongside new features
Why this is correct
Facilitating a discussion between the team and Product Owner to prioritize technical debt alongside new features is the most appropriate agile response. This collaborative approach ensures transparency regarding the impact of technical debt on future development and allows the Product Owner, informed by the team, to make strategic decisions about balancing new feature delivery with maintaining product health. Integrating technical debt into the backlog ensures it receives proper attention and contributes to long-term sustainable velocity.
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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.