POPM Product Owner and Product Management Roles Practice Question
Exhibit
Team A Velocity: 30. Backlog: 60 points. The team is midway through the iteration. A high-priority emergency defect is reported that will take 10 points to fix.
Refer to the exhibit. What should the Product Owner do?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often think teams should blindly squeeze emergencies into the current sprint without adjusting capacity, or alternatively, reject all urgent defects outright.
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
✓
Collaborate with the team to swap the defect with an equal amount of lower-priority backlog items.
In an emergency, the PO must work with the team to assess the impact. If the defect is truly critical, it must be prioritized. The PO should help the team remove 10 points of low-priority work from the current sprint to make room for the fix, ensuring the team's capacity is not exceeded. This maintains the integrity of the sprint plan while responding to urgent business needs for quality and stability.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Add the fix to the existing work without removing anything.
Why it's wrong here
Adding 10 points of unplanned work without removing existing tasks will cause the team to miss their sprint goal. This leads to burnout and reduced delivery consistency. The PO must actively manage the scope to ensure the team can succeed, rather than overloading them and hoping for the best outcome.
- ✗
Ask the team to work overtime to finish everything.
Why it's wrong here
Working overtime is not a sustainable practice in SAFe. It leads to lower quality, burnout, and decreased morale. The PO should manage the backlog to fit the capacity, not expect the team to sacrifice their well-being to compensate for poor prioritization or unforeseen issues. Sustainable development is a core agile principle.
- ✓
Collaborate with the team to swap the defect with an equal amount of lower-priority backlog items.
Why this is correct
Swapping work is the standard, responsible way to handle emergency defects. It ensures the most critical issues are resolved without overloading the team. This approach maintains the team's capacity and keeps the focus on the highest-value items, allowing the PO to remain transparent with stakeholders about the change in plans.
- ✗
Refuse the fix until the next iteration.
Why it's wrong here
Refusing a truly critical emergency defect can lead to severe business consequences. A PO must balance the need for sprint stability with the reality of production issues. If the defect is truly an emergency, the PO must take responsibility for addressing it rather than ignoring it and hoping it disappears.
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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.