APM Product Backlog Management 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Product Owner discovers that a backlog item has been sitting unprioritized for six sprints. What is the BEST course of action?
- Delete it immediately to keep the backlog lean
- Move it to the top of the backlog for the next sprint
- Discuss it with stakeholders to determine if it still adds value (Correct answer)
- Assign it to a developer for quick implementation
Correct answer: Discuss it with stakeholders to determine if it still adds value
Old backlog items should be reviewed with stakeholders to verify their continued relevance and value before any prioritization decision.
Question 2: Which technique helps a Product Owner group related backlog items to visualize the full scope of a feature?
- Sprint burndown
- Story mapping (Correct answer)
- Velocity tracking
- Capacity planning
Correct answer: Story mapping
Story mapping arranges user stories along a timeline of user activities, helping teams visualize the full product scope and identify gaps.
Question 3: When writing acceptance criteria for a Product Backlog Item, the criteria should primarily be written from whose perspective?
- The development team
- The Scrum Master
- The end user or business stakeholder (Correct answer)
- The QA engineer
Correct answer: The end user or business stakeholder
Acceptance criteria define the conditions that must be met from the user or stakeholder perspective to consider the story done.
Question 4: A team consistently completes only 60% of their sprint commitment. How should the Product Owner address this in backlog management?
- Add more items to force the team to work harder
- Reduce item estimates to artificially inflate velocity
- Collaborate with the team to better size items and set realistic commitments (Correct answer)
- Remove the team's ability to estimate stories
Correct answer: Collaborate with the team to better size items and set realistic commitments
Persistent under-delivery signals that items may be poorly understood or oversized, requiring collaborative refinement to improve accuracy.
Question 5: What is the PRIMARY purpose of backlog grooming sessions conducted before a sprint?
- To assign tasks to specific developers
- To ensure upcoming items are well-understood, estimated, and prioritized (Correct answer)
- To review completed work from the previous sprint
- To update the project schedule for stakeholders
Correct answer: To ensure upcoming items are well-understood, estimated, and prioritized
Backlog refinement ensures the top items are ready—detailed, estimated, and ordered—so the team can confidently plan the next sprint.
Question 6: A stakeholder requests that a low-priority backlog item be completed within two sprints despite higher-priority work. What should the Product Owner do?
- Immediately reprioritize to satisfy the stakeholder
- Explain the trade-offs and negotiate based on business value and cost (Correct answer)
- Escalate to the Scrum Master for resolution
- Add the item to the current sprint without team input
Correct answer: Explain the trade-offs and negotiate based on business value and cost
The Product Owner must transparently communicate trade-offs so stakeholders understand the impact of reprioritizing on higher-value work.
Question 7: Which of the following BEST describes an 'epic' in the context of a product backlog?
- A story that is completed in a single sprint
- A large user story that needs to be broken into smaller stories before it can be developed (Correct answer)
- A non-functional requirement for system performance
- A sprint goal that spans multiple teams
Correct answer: A large user story that needs to be broken into smaller stories before it can be developed
An epic is a large body of work that is too big to fit in a single sprint and must be decomposed into smaller, actionable user stories.
APM Product Backlog Management 2
A Product Owner discovers that a backlog item has been sitting unprioritized for six sprints.
What is the BEST course of action?