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PMP Practice: Determine and prioritize requirements

Question 1 of 5 in Plan and Manage Scope

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Sky Okonkwo is the product owner for Vortex Prism Studios, a company developing a mobile fitness app using two-week sprints. During sprint planning for Sprint 7, the development team has committed to completing eight user stories totaling 34 story points. On day three of the sprint, the VP of Marketing approaches Sky with an urgent request to add a social media sharing feature, claiming a competitor just launched something similar and the company is at risk of losing market differentiation. The VP insists this feature must be in the next release, which is scheduled immediately after Sprint 7. The development team estimates the new feature at 21 story points. Sky reviews the current sprint backlog and notes that the team's historical velocity is 32-36 story points per sprint, and they have never successfully completed more than 38 story points. What should Sky do?
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Correct answer: Add the social media sharing feature to the product backlog with high priority so it can be planned for Sprint 8, and schedule a meeting with the VP of Marketing to discuss the timeline and competitive concerns

Explanation

In agile approaches, the sprint backlog is protected once the team has made a commitment during sprint planning. While stakeholder input is valuable, mid-sprint scope changes undermine team focus, predictability, and the sustainable pace principle. The product owner's role includes managing stakeholder expectations and prioritizing the product backlog. The appropriate response is to acknowledge the urgency, add the feature to the product backlog with appropriate priority, and ensure it is considered for the next sprint. This maintains the integrity of the current sprint while addressing the business need in a planned, sustainable way. The closing fact that the feature cannot realistically fit within the team's established velocity range makes adding it to Sprint 7 clearly unrealistic, and the explicit mention that the next release comes after Sprint 7 means Sprint 8 planning is the proper forum for this discussion.

**Why not A:** Adding the social media feature to the sprint and asking the team to work overtime violates the agile principle of sustainable pace. The team's historical velocity of 32-36 points means adding 21 points to an existing 34-point commitment would require approximately 55 points of work, far exceeding their demonstrated capacity.

**Why not B:** Removing lower-priority stories to make room for a 21-point feature mid-sprint disrupts the team's commitment and undermines sprint planning integrity. The team committed to the current backlog three days ago, and significant mid-sprint scope changes erode predictability and team trust in the process.

**Why not C:** Halting and restarting the sprint wastes three days of completed work and disrupts team momentum. Sprint cancellation is a drastic action reserved for situations where the sprint goal becomes obsolete, not for accommodating new feature requests that can be addressed in the next sprint.

Key Concept

This question covers Determine and prioritize requirements under Plan and Manage Scope (Process).

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