CSPO Understanding Customers and Users 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Product Owner receives a feature request from a key customer. What should the Product Owner do before adding it to the Product Backlog?
- Add it to the top of the backlog immediately to retain the customer
- Explore the underlying problem the customer is trying to solve (Correct answer)
- Reject it until the current sprint is finished
- Assign it directly to a developer
Correct answer: Explore the underlying problem the customer is trying to solve
Understanding the problem behind a request allows the Product Owner to find potentially better solutions than the one the customer suggested.
Question 2: What does 'Jobs to Be Done' theory help a Product Owner understand?
- How to assign tasks to developers efficiently
- The functional, social, and emotional jobs customers hire a product to accomplish (Correct answer)
- The number of story points needed per sprint
- How to document acceptance criteria
Correct answer: The functional, social, and emotional jobs customers hire a product to accomplish
Jobs to Be Done focuses on the progress customers are trying to make in their lives, helping teams build solutions that address real motivations.
Question 3: How can a Product Owner use Net Promoter Score (NPS) data effectively?
- As the sole metric for sprint success
- As a signal of customer loyalty to guide deeper qualitative follow-up (Correct answer)
- To replace user story writing
- To measure individual developer performance
Correct answer: As a signal of customer loyalty to guide deeper qualitative follow-up
NPS indicates overall customer sentiment but must be supplemented with qualitative research to understand the drivers behind the score.
Question 4: Which scenario best demonstrates the difference between a user and a customer in a B2B product?
- The user and customer are always the same person in B2B
- The IT manager purchases the software (customer) while employees use it daily (users) (Correct answer)
- The customer is the Scrum Master and the user is the developer
- Users and customers both participate in sprint reviews
Correct answer: The IT manager purchases the software (customer) while employees use it daily (users)
In B2B contexts, the buyer (customer) often has different priorities than the end users, requiring the PO to understand both perspectives.
Question 5: A Product Owner wants to understand pain points in a user's current workflow before building a new feature. Which method is most appropriate?
- Reviewing the team's technical debt backlog
- Conducting contextual inquiry sessions with actual users (Correct answer)
- Analyzing the product's line of code count
- Asking developers what they think users want
Correct answer: Conducting contextual inquiry sessions with actual users
Contextual inquiry involves observing and interviewing users in their own environment to surface real workflow problems.
Question 6: What risk does a Product Owner take when building features based solely on the loudest customer voices?
- The sprint will be too short
- The product may not serve the needs of the broader, silent majority of users (Correct answer)
- The development team will run out of story points
- The Scrum Master will reject the backlog
Correct answer: The product may not serve the needs of the broader, silent majority of users
Vocal customers often have atypical needs; overbuilding for them can result in a product that misses the needs of the majority.
Question 7: When building user personas, which type of data provides the strongest foundation?
- Assumptions made by the development team
- Patterns discovered through actual user research and interviews (Correct answer)
- Preferences expressed by the product sponsor
- Features listed in competitor documentation
Correct answer: Patterns discovered through actual user research and interviews
Research-based personas grounded in real user data are more accurate and actionable than personas built on assumptions.
CSPO Understanding Customers and Users 3
A Product Owner receives a feature request from a key customer.
What should the Product Owner do before adding it to the Product Backlog?