APM Sprint Planning & Estimation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A development team consistently overestimates velocity, leading to incomplete sprints. What is the BEST corrective action?
- Increase sprint length to accommodate more work
- Use yesterday's weather by averaging the last 3-5 sprints (Correct answer)
- Have the Product Owner reduce story point values
- Add more developers to the team immediately
Correct answer: Use yesterday's weather by averaging the last 3-5 sprints
Yesterday's weather uses recent historical velocity to create realistic sprint commitments based on actual team performance.
Question 2: During sprint planning, the team discovers a user story is too large to complete in one sprint. What should happen?
- Carry the story across multiple sprints
- Decompose the story into smaller stories that fit within the sprint (Correct answer)
- Skip the story and move to the next backlog item
- Extend the sprint to accommodate the large story
Correct answer: Decompose the story into smaller stories that fit within the sprint
Stories that don't fit within a sprint must be decomposed into smaller, independently deliverable pieces before committing.
Question 3: What is the primary purpose of the Definition of Ready (DoR) in sprint planning?
- To define when a sprint is complete
- To ensure user stories meet criteria before being pulled into a sprint (Correct answer)
- To replace the Definition of Done
- To document testing requirements for each story
Correct answer: To ensure user stories meet criteria before being pulled into a sprint
The Definition of Ready ensures stories are sufficiently refined, clear, and estimated before the team commits to them in sprint planning.
Question 4: A Scrum team uses Fibonacci numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...) for story point estimation. Why are non-linear sequences preferred?
- They are easier to calculate during planning poker
- They reflect increasing uncertainty as story complexity grows (Correct answer)
- They allow more precise estimation for large stories
- They are required by the Scrum Guide
Correct answer: They reflect increasing uncertainty as story complexity grows
Non-linear sequences acknowledge that larger, more complex stories carry greater uncertainty, making granular distinctions between large estimates meaningless.
Question 5: Which artifact is the PRIMARY input to sprint planning?
- The sprint retrospective action items
- The prioritized and refined product backlog (Correct answer)
- The team's capacity calendar
- The previous sprint's burndown chart
Correct answer: The prioritized and refined product backlog
The prioritized, refined product backlog provides the ordered list of work from which the team selects items during sprint planning.
Question 6: A team member is on vacation for half the sprint. How should the team account for this in sprint planning?
- Ignore individual absences and use team velocity as-is
- Reduce the sprint goal to half the normal amount
- Adjust capacity calculations to reflect actual available person-days (Correct answer)
- Ask the team member to work overtime before leaving
Correct answer: Adjust capacity calculations to reflect actual available person-days
Sprint planning should reflect real available capacity by subtracting known absences, holidays, and meetings from total person-days.
Question 7: What is 'sprint goal' and why is it important during sprint planning?
- A list of all user stories to be completed in the sprint
- A single objective that gives the sprint purpose and guides team decisions (Correct answer)
- The total story points committed for the sprint
- The product increment to be delivered at sprint end
Correct answer: A single objective that gives the sprint purpose and guides team decisions
The sprint goal provides a cohesive objective that helps the team stay focused and make trade-off decisions if challenges arise during the sprint.
APM Sprint Planning & Estimation 2
A development team consistently overestimates velocity, leading to incomplete sprints.
What is the BEST corrective action?