CAPM Practice: Explain when it is appropriate to use an adaptive approach

Mid-sprint interference by the product owner (adding items or changing priorities) disrupts team flow and undermines the sprint commitment. The Scrum Master should educate the PO on sprint stability: the sprint backlog is locked for the sprint duration; new items or priority changes go into the product backlog for consideration in the next sprint planning. This protects team focus while ensuring new priorities are not ignored.

**Why not A:** Extending the sprint length does not address the root cause — the product owner's behavior — it merely creates a larger window during which mid-sprint interference can continue to occur. Sprint length should be set based on what enables the best feedback cycle for the team, not as a coping mechanism for process violations.

**Why not B:** Escalating to senior management should be a last resort after direct coaching and process correction have been attempted and failed. The Scrum Master's primary responsibility is to coach the team and stakeholders on agile principles; bypassing that coaching role prematurely is unlikely to change behavior and can damage the working relationship between the PO and team.

**Why not C:** Requiring the team to work overtime to absorb mid-sprint additions normalizes scope creep and sets a damaging precedent. It punishes the team for the product owner's process violation, degrades sustainable pace — a foundational agile principle — and signals that sprint commitments are meaningless constraints rather than professional agreements.