SAFe-Agilist Adapting and Thriving with SAFe Practice Question
During an Inspect and Adapt event, a team discovers that their velocity is stable, but the value delivered is declining. What is the most likely cause and remedy?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often blame the team's engineering practices or velocity, overlooking the Product Owner's responsibility for prioritizing the backlog to ensure the team builds the right value.
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
✓
The Product Owner needs to better prioritize the team backlog based on business value.
Stable velocity with declining value indicates that the team is becoming highly efficient at building the wrong things. This is a classic symptom of poor backlog refinement and lack of customer-centricity. The remedy is to involve the Product Owner more effectively in the refinement process, ensuring that every story is clearly linked to a business outcome, thereby re-aligning the team's effort with strategic objectives.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The team needs more training in technical practices to improve their speed.
Why it's wrong here
The problem is not speed (velocity is stable); the problem is the value of the work being done. Technical training will make them faster at building low-value items, which will not fix the issue. The team needs to pivot their focus toward higher-value work, not just output more items.
- ✗
The team should focus on reducing technical debt to improve future speed.
Why it's wrong here
While technical debt is important, it does not explain why the value of the current work is declining. Improving speed (velocity) is not the issue, as the velocity is currently stable. The team must look at their prioritization process to ensure they are working on the right features.
- ✓
The Product Owner needs to better prioritize the team backlog based on business value.
Why this is correct
When velocity is stable but value is dropping, the prioritization process is the culprit. The Product Owner is responsible for the team backlog and for ensuring the work provides maximum business value. Re-evaluating the backlog and applying better prioritization techniques will ensure the team's effort is focused correctly.
- ✗
The team should hire more developers to increase the overall throughput.
Why it's wrong here
Increasing team size without fixing the prioritization problem will simply result in more people building low-value items. It increases cost without increasing the value delivered. The team must first address the 'what' of their work before considering changes to the 'how' or the team capacity.
About these practice questions
This SAFe-Agilist question is part of Courseiva's 315-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Scaled Agile exam blueprint
This SAFe-Agilist practice question is part of Courseiva's free Scaled Agile 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 SAFe-Agilist exam.