POPM PI Planning Preparation Practice Question
During PI Planning preparation, a Product Manager is reviewing the Program Backlog. She notices that several features lack clear acceptance criteria. What is the most likely impact of this on the upcoming PI Planning event?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that missing acceptance criteria only affect prioritization or cause automatic deferral, when the real impact is on team estimation and commitment.
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
✓
Teams will have difficulty estimating the work and may commit to features they cannot complete.
Missing acceptance criteria prevent teams from fully understanding feature scope, leading to inaccurate estimates and potential overcommitment. This undermines the reliability of PI Objectives and can cause delays. The Product Manager should ensure features have clear acceptance criteria before PI Planning to enable teams to make informed commitments and deliver value predictably.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Teams will automatically defer those features to the next PI.
Why it's wrong here
Teams do not automatically defer features lacking acceptance criteria; they may attempt to plan them with assumptions, leading to risks. Deferral might happen if the features are deemed too ambiguous, but it is not an automatic outcome. The Product Manager should address the gaps before PI Planning to avoid such issues and ensure features are ready for planning.
- ✗
The ART will need to extend the PI Planning event by an extra day to compensate.
Why it's wrong here
Extending PI Planning is not a standard solution for missing acceptance criteria. The event has a fixed agenda, and adding days is impractical. Instead, teams may need to spend extra time during the event clarifying requirements, which can reduce planning efficiency. However, the event duration remains unchanged; the impact is on the quality of plans and commitments.
- ✓
Teams will have difficulty estimating the work and may commit to features they cannot complete.
Why this is correct
Without clear acceptance criteria, teams cannot fully understand the scope or definition of done, leading to inaccurate estimates and potential overcommitment. This can result in missed PI Objectives and reduced predictability. Clear acceptance criteria are essential for teams to assess complexity and effort, ensuring they can make reliable commitments during PI Planning.
- ✗
The Product Manager will be unable to prioritize features using WSJF.
Why it's wrong here
WSJF prioritization relies on cost of delay and job size, not directly on acceptance criteria. While acceptance criteria help refine job size, their absence does not prevent prioritization. The primary impact is on team estimation and commitment, not on the prioritization process itself. WSJF can still be applied based on available information.
About these practice questions
This POPM question is part of Courseiva's 336-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 POPM 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 POPM exam.