SCRUM The Product Owner Role 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which best describes the Product Owner's relationship to ROI and product value?
- They focus only on technical quality
- They optimize the value of the work the Scrum Team performs (Correct answer)
- They track team velocity as their primary metric
- They guarantee a fixed budget
Correct answer: They optimize the value of the work the Scrum Team performs
Maximizing the value delivered by the team's work is the Product Owner's central concern.
Question 2: During Sprint Planning, what is the Product Owner's key contribution?
- Assigning tasks to each Developer
- Proposing how the product could increase value and which backlog items support the Sprint (Correct answer)
- Estimating each item in story points
- Writing the Sprint Backlog alone
Correct answer: Proposing how the product could increase value and which backlog items support the Sprint
The Product Owner clarifies value and the candidate backlog items; Developers decide how much to take on.
Question 3: A Product Owner keeps adding items to the current Sprint Backlog without team agreement. This violates which principle?
- The Developers own the Sprint Backlog and forecast (Correct answer)
- The Product Owner can change scope freely anytime
- Sprint length must increase
- The Scrum Master sets the Sprint scope
Correct answer: The Developers own the Sprint Backlog and forecast
Only the Developers can change the Sprint Backlog; scope changes are negotiated, not imposed.
Question 4: What is the most effective way for a Product Owner to keep the backlog valuable?
- Freeze it at the start of each release
- Continuously refine and reorder it based on learning and feedback (Correct answer)
- Let it grow without pruning
- Delegate all ordering to Developers
Correct answer: Continuously refine and reorder it based on learning and feedback
Ongoing refinement and reordering keeps the backlog reflecting current value and knowledge.
Question 5: At the Sprint Review, the Product Owner primarily:
- Approves the team's internal process changes
- Discusses progress toward the Product Goal and collaborates with stakeholders on what to do next (Correct answer)
- Conducts the team retrospective
- Estimates the next Sprint's items
Correct answer: Discusses progress toward the Product Goal and collaborates with stakeholders on what to do next
The Sprint Review inspects the Increment and adapts the backlog with stakeholders, led by the Product Owner.
Question 6: Which statement about the Product Owner saying 'no' is correct?
- A good Product Owner says yes to every stakeholder
- Saying no to lower-value requests is essential to maximizing value (Correct answer)
- Only the Scrum Master can decline requests
- Declining requests is a sign of poor stakeholder management
Correct answer: Saying no to lower-value requests is essential to maximizing value
Protecting capacity for high-value work requires declining lower-value requests.
Question 7: How should a Product Owner handle conflicting priorities from two important stakeholders?
- Build both items in parallel regardless of capacity
- Make a single ordering decision based on overall product value (Correct answer)
- Escalate to the Scrum Master to decide
- Let the Developers pick which to do first
Correct answer: Make a single ordering decision based on overall product value
The Product Owner is the single decision-maker who orders the backlog by value.
SCRUM The Product Owner Role 3
Which best describes the Product Owner's relationship to ROI and product value?