PMP Process — Managing Technical Aspects Practice Question
Your agile project has been experiencing declining velocity over the last three sprints. During the retrospective, the team identifies that they are spending too much time on unplanned work and technical debt. The product owner wants to maintain the current scope. Which THREE actions should the project manager take? (Choose three.)
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
✓
Allocate a portion of each sprint to address technical debt
Options B, C, and E are correct. B: Allocating a portion of each sprint to address technical debt directly reduces the accumulation of unplanned work and improves velocity. C: Shielding the team from external interruptions minimizes distractions, allowing more focus on planned work. E: Improving the 'definition of ready' ensures that user stories are sufficiently refined before a sprint begins, reducing ambiguity and rework. Option A is incorrect because reducing scope does not address the root cause of declining velocity (technical debt and unplanned work). Option D is incorrect because adding more developers can increase coordination overhead and may not solve the underlying issues.
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 product owner to reduce the scope of the next sprint
Why it's wrong here
Asking the product owner to reduce the scope of the next sprint merely treats a symptom without addressing the root cause of the declining velocity. While it might make the sprint backlog "fit" the current reduced capacity, it does not resolve the systemic issues like technical debt, poor story readiness, or external interruptions that are causing the decline. This approach leads to a continuous need for scope reduction rather than a sustainable improvement in the team's actual delivery rate.
- ✓
Allocate a portion of each sprint to address technical debt
Why this is correct
Allocating a portion of each sprint to address technical debt is a strategic investment that improves long-term velocity. Technical debt, if left unaddressed, accumulates interest in the form of increased complexity, more defects, and slower development for new features. By proactively refactoring code, improving tests, or resolving architectural issues, the team reduces future impediments and rework, enabling faster, more predictable delivery and a sustainable increase in velocity.
- ✓
Implement a policy to shield the team from external interruptions during sprints
Why this is correct
Implementing a policy to shield the team from external interruptions during sprints directly protects the team's focus and flow state. Unplanned disruptions, such as ad-hoc requests or urgent meetings not related to the sprint goal, force context switching, which is a significant productivity killer. By minimizing these distractions, the team can dedicate their full capacity to the planned sprint backlog items, reducing unplanned work and stabilizing or improving velocity.
- ✗
Add more developers to the team to increase capacity
Why it's wrong here
Adding more developers to a team experiencing declining velocity is often counterproductive, as described by Brooks's Law. New team members require significant ramp-up time, diverting existing team members' attention for onboarding and training. Furthermore, increasing team size exponentially increases communication overhead and coordination complexity, potentially further decreasing overall productivity and velocity in the short to medium term, rather than solving the underlying issues.
- ✓
Work with the product owner to improve the 'definition of ready' for user stories
Why this is correct
Working with the product owner to improve the 'definition of ready' for user stories is a proactive measure that ensures clarity and completeness before work begins. A robust DoR minimizes ambiguity, missing information, and critical dependencies, preventing mid-sprint clarifications, rework, and scope creep. This significantly reduces impediments and unplanned work during the sprint, allowing the team to maintain focus and consistently deliver planned value, thereby improving velocity.
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