PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
Your agile team's velocity has been declining for the past three sprints. The team cites increasing technical debt and unclear requirements. As the project manager, which THREE actions should you take to address this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers choose to replace team members (Option D) as a quick fix, but the PMP exam emphasizes servant leadership and root cause analysis over punitive measures.
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 time for the team to refactor code and reduce technical debt.
Allocating time for refactoring directly addresses the technical debt that is slowing the team down. By dedicating sprint capacity to code cleanup and improvement, the team can improve code maintainability, reduce future defects, and restore velocity. This is a standard agile practice to manage technical debt and sustain delivery pace.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Allocate time for the team to refactor code and reduce technical debt.
Why this is correct
Technical debt, such as poorly structured code or inadequate tests, accumulates over time, making future development slower and more error-prone. Allocating dedicated time for refactoring allows the team to improve code quality, reduce complexity, and enhance maintainability. This proactive investment directly addresses the root causes of declining velocity by streamlining future feature development and minimizing defects.
- ✓
Facilitate a root cause analysis session with the team.
Why this is correct
A declining velocity is a symptom, not the problem itself. Facilitating a root cause analysis session, using techniques like the 5 Whys or Fishbone diagrams, empowers the team to collectively identify the underlying systemic issues contributing to the slowdown. This collaborative approach ensures that any subsequent interventions are targeted and effective, addressing the actual problems rather than just their manifestations.
- ✓
Work with the product owner to clarify user stories and acceptance criteria.
Why this is correct
Ambiguous or incomplete user stories and acceptance criteria often lead to significant rework, misunderstandings, and increased cycle times within an agile sprint. Collaborating closely with the Product Owner to refine these requirements ensures the development team has a clear, shared understanding of what needs to be built. This clarity minimizes mid-sprint scope creep, reduces development waste, and ultimately improves the team's ability to deliver value consistently, thereby boosting velocity.
- ✗
Replace underperforming team members.
Why it's wrong here
Replacing team members is a drastic measure that rarely addresses the systemic issues contributing to declining velocity and can severely damage team morale and trust. Agile principles emphasize self-organizing teams and continuous improvement, suggesting that performance issues are often symptoms of process, environment, or skill gaps that require coaching, training, or process adjustments, rather than immediate personnel changes. This approach fails to investigate underlying causes and can be highly disruptive.
- ✗
Switch to a different agile framework, such as Kanban.
Why it's wrong here
Switching agile frameworks without first understanding the root causes of declining velocity is a premature and potentially counterproductive action. The issues causing the slowdown, such as technical debt or unclear requirements, are likely to persist regardless of the framework adopted. A framework change introduces new overhead and learning curves, diverting attention from addressing the actual problems and potentially exacerbating existing challenges rather than resolving them.
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