SSM Introducing Scrum in SAFe Practice Question
A Scrum Master is coaching a team that has just started using Scrum inside a SAFe Agile Release Train. The team complains that the Product Owner keeps changing the order of items in the Team Backlog mid-iteration, causing them to stop work and start new stories. The Scrum Master wants to explain the correct expectation for backlog changes during an iteration. Which statement best reflects SAFe and Scrum guidance?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that because the Product Owner owns backlog ordering, they can freely reshuffle work inside an active iteration without regard to the team's 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
✓
Once an iteration begins, the team's selected stories should remain stable, and new priorities are generally applied to the next iteration unless the change is urgent enough to justify renegotiating scope.
The Product Owner owns backlog ordering, but the current iteration's scope should stay stable so the team can deliver a coherent increment. New priorities are normally applied to future iterations, and mid-iteration changes should be rare and explicitly negotiated with the team. This protects flow, limits work in progress, and keeps velocity and predictability meaningful across the ART.
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 Release Train Engineer must approve any change to the Team Backlog during an iteration before the Product Owner can act.
Why it's wrong here
The Release Train Engineer does not approve Team Backlog changes; that authority belongs to the Product Owner. Introducing an RTE approval step would add unnecessary delay and blur the accountability boundary between team-level backlog ownership and ART-level facilitation, so this is not how SAFe expects iteration scope to be managed.
- ✗
The Product Owner may reorder the Team Backlog at any time, and the team should immediately switch to whichever item is now on top.
Why it's wrong here
While the Product Owner owns backlog ordering, Scrum and SAFe expect the iteration scope to remain stable once the team has committed to it. Continuously switching work mid-iteration destroys flow, inflates work in progress, and undermines the team's ability to deliver a coherent increment, so immediate switching is not the intended behavior even when priorities shift.
- ✓
Once an iteration begins, the team's selected stories should remain stable, and new priorities are generally applied to the next iteration unless the change is urgent enough to justify renegotiating scope.
Why this is correct
Scrum and SAFe both protect the iteration from constant change so the team can finish a coherent increment. The Product Owner may continue refining and reordering the backlog for future iterations, but changes to the current iteration should be rare and negotiated with the team. This preserves flow, limits work in progress, and keeps the team's forecast meaningful.
- ✗
The team should abandon the iteration and immediately begin a new one whenever the Product Owner changes priorities.
Why it's wrong here
Abandoning an iteration whenever priorities shift would destroy the cadence that Scrum and SAFe depend on and would make velocity and predictability meaningless. Iterations are fixed-length and should be completed even when priorities change; instead, new priorities are typically reflected in the next iteration or handled through a deliberate renegotiation of scope.
About these practice questions
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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 SSM 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 SSM exam.