- A
Add more developers to the team to increase capacity
Why wrong: Adding people to a late project can slow it down due to onboarding and communication overhead.
- B
Extend the sprint duration to allow more time for feature completion
Why wrong: Changing sprint length without addressing the underlying issues may not improve productivity.
- C
Ask the team to work overtime to catch up on the backlog
Why wrong: Overtime is a temporary fix that can lead to burnout and further reduce morale.
- D
Coach the product owner on agile principles and facilitate a discussion on sustainable pace and prioritization
Servant leadership includes educating stakeholders and fostering a collaborative environment for prioritization.
Question 162 of 892
PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
This PMP practice question tests your understanding of people — leading projects. Read the scenario carefully and evaluate each option against the stated constraints before committing to an answer. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
Your agile project is in its third sprint. The product owner has been pressuring the team to deliver more features each sprint to meet stakeholder expectations. Sprint velocity has dropped for two consecutive sprints, and the team seems demotivated. As the project manager, what should you do?
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
✓
Coach the product owner on agile principles and facilitate a discussion on sustainable pace and prioritization
Option D is correct because the root cause of the velocity drop and team demotivation is a mismatch between stakeholder pressure and the team's sustainable pace. As the project manager, you must coach the product owner on agile principles—specifically that velocity is a measure of capacity, not a target—and facilitate a discussion to reprioritize the backlog so the team can deliver value without burnout. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's emphasis on servant leadership and protecting the team from external pressure.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Add more developers to the team to increase capacity
Why it's wrong here
Adding people to a late project can slow it down due to onboarding and communication overhead.
- ✗
Extend the sprint duration to allow more time for feature completion
Why it's wrong here
Changing sprint length without addressing the underlying issues may not improve productivity.
- ✗
Ask the team to work overtime to catch up on the backlog
Why it's wrong here
Overtime is a temporary fix that can lead to burnout and further reduce morale.
- ✓
Coach the product owner on agile principles and facilitate a discussion on sustainable pace and prioritization
Why this is correct
Servant leadership includes educating stakeholders and fostering a collaborative environment for prioritization.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often choose a 'capacity increase' solution (Option A or C) because they mistakenly treat the velocity drop as a resource problem rather than a people and process problem, failing to recognize that agile project management prioritizes sustainable pace and team empowerment over raw output.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
In agile frameworks like Scrum, velocity is a historical measure of work completed per sprint, used for forecasting, not as a performance target. When a product owner pressures the team to increase velocity, it often leads to 'velocity inflation'—teams inflate story points or cut quality to meet expectations, which eventually causes a velocity drop as technical debt accumulates. A real-world scenario is a team that consistently overcommits, leading to unfinished stories and a demoralized team; the correct intervention is to use the sprint retrospective to review the Definition of Done and renegotiate scope with the product owner based on empirical data.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A practitioner preparing for the PMP exam encounters this exact type of scenario on the job. The correct answer here is not the most general option — it is the best answer for the specific constraint described. Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option. Real exam questions reward reading the full scenario before eliminating options, because the constraint defines which answer fits.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this PMP question test?
People — Leading Projects — This question tests People — Leading Projects — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Coach the product owner on agile principles and facilitate a discussion on sustainable pace and prioritization — Option D is correct because the root cause of the velocity drop and team demotivation is a mismatch between stakeholder pressure and the team's sustainable pace. As the project manager, you must coach the product owner on agile principles—specifically that velocity is a measure of capacity, not a target—and facilitate a discussion to reprioritize the backlog so the team can deliver value without burnout. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's emphasis on servant leadership and protecting the team from external pressure.
What should I do if I get this PMP question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
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Last reviewed: Jul 4, 2026
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