PMP Process — Managing Technical Aspects Practice Question
Two senior developers on your agile team have a disagreement about the best technical approach for a user story. The disagreement is causing delays and tension in the team. What should the scrum master 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
✓
Facilitate a meeting where both developers present their approaches and the team decides.
The scrum master should facilitate a collaborative decision-making process, allowing the team to evaluate both approaches and reach a consensus. Option B is incorrect because the scrum master should not impose a technical solution; that undermines the team's self-organization. Option C is incorrect because leaving the conflict unresolved may cause further delays. Option D is incorrect because the product owner is not responsible for technical decisions; the team should decide.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Facilitate a meeting where both developers present their approaches and the team decides.
Why this is correct
This option correctly identifies the Scrum Master's role as a servant-leader and facilitator within an agile team. By facilitating a meeting, the Scrum Master enables the development team to leverage its collective intelligence, present diverse perspectives, and collaboratively arrive at a technical decision. This approach reinforces team self-organization and ownership, which are core tenets of agile methodologies, ensuring the solution is technically sound and has team buy-in.
- ✗
Decide on the technical approach yourself to resolve the conflict quickly.
Why it's wrong here
Deciding on the technical approach yourself as a Scrum Master is inappropriate and undermines the team's autonomy and expertise. The Scrum Master's role is to facilitate, coach, and remove impediments, not to dictate technical solutions. Such an action would disempower the developers, potentially leading to reduced commitment, and would fail to foster the team's self-organizing capabilities, which are crucial for long-term agile success.
- ✗
Ask the developers to resolve it on their own without intervention.
Why it's wrong here
Asking the developers to resolve the conflict entirely on their own without any intervention, especially when it's already causing delays, is a passive approach that neglects the Scrum Master's responsibility to remove impediments. While self-resolution is ideal, a Scrum Master must step in to facilitate when a conflict becomes an impediment to progress, ensuring the team can continue to deliver value effectively and efficiently.
- ✗
Escalate the issue to the product owner for a decision.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating a technical disagreement to the Product Owner is an incorrect action because the Product Owner's primary focus is on maximizing product value and managing the Product Backlog, not on arbitrating technical implementation details. Involving the Product Owner in such a granular technical decision would distract them from their strategic responsibilities and bypass the development team's autonomy and expertise in how to best build the product.
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