PMI PMI-ACP - PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

To ensure that the service will benefit the customer and meet their requirements, the product owner should build a prototype. Prototypes allow the team to create an early, low-fidelity version of the product that can be used to gather direct feedback from the targeted customer segment. This helps to validate whether the service aligns with the customer's needs and expectations before investing heavily in full development.

Technical debtrefers to the accumulated cost of suboptimal design or code, often due to shortcuts or lack of refactoring. ThePMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.5 Quality and Technical Debt)recommends treating technical debt as animpedimentthat should be logged, tracked, and discussed openly so it can be prioritized and addressed.

Mike Griffiths in hisPMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 7: Problem Detection and Resolution)advises teams to be transparent about technical debt and elevate its visibility so that product owners and stakeholders can make informed decisions.

Option Cis correct: logging technical debt as animpedimentbrings visibility and ensures discussion.

Option Amay indicate a problem, but it’s indirect.

Option Bdistorts estimation metrics and is not advised.

Option Dcould help but does not communicate impact explicitly.

The correct answer is C — Work with the product owner to assess the impact for reprioritization.

Agile recognizes that new priorities may emerge during a sprint. The product owner owns the backlog and prioritization. If a request threatens sprint commitments, it should be reviewed and discussed with the product owner to determine the trade-offs and make informed decisions.

PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“New requests should be assessed in collaboration with the product owner. The team should make prioritization trade-offs in a transparent manner to maintain focus on delivering value.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.5 – Iteration Planning and Section 5.7 – Change Management)

Mike Griffiths:

“Product owners are responsible for backlog prioritization. When urgent issues arise, teams should discuss them with the PO rather than unilaterally shifting focus.”

(PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Chapter 3 – Value-Driven Delivery)

Incorrect options:

A risks burnout and violates sustainable pace.

B avoids accountability.

D assumes the change can wait, which may not align with customer needs.

Answer: C

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Gold-plating—adding extra features not requested or prioritized—is ananti-patternin agile. Agile emphasizesdelivering the highest-priority features first, and product changes should always go through theProduct Ownerfor prioritization and validation.

According to thePMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.1: Backlog and Value Delivery)andMike Griffiths’ PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 6: Value-Driven Delivery), when capacity is available, the team should pull more storiesfrom the prioritized backlog, ensuring that all work aligns with stakeholder-defined value.

Option Dis correct: confirm backlog priority and use time to delivercustomer-prioritized value.

Option Asupports scope creep.

Option Bis partially correct but doesn’t optimize the time to deliver value.

Option Cperpetuates gold-plating and undermines value alignment.

The correct answer is D – Turn the requests into user stories and prioritize them. In agile, all feature requests must be expressed in the form of user stories and added to the product backlog. Once added, they are prioritized collaboratively with the product owner and stakeholders, usually based on value, risk, and effort.

From PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Product backlog refinement includes breaking down large items into user stories, reprioritizing items, and ensuring they are properly understood by the team. This activity is critical in ensuring the right items are worked on at the right time.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.2 – Product Backlog Refinement)

From Mike Griffiths’ PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book:

“Agile teams transform customer needs into user stories during backlog grooming. These are then prioritized by the product owner to ensure maximum value is delivered early.”

(Mike Griffiths, Chapter 3 – Value-Driven Delivery)

Option A ignores customer needs. Option B (ordering by complexity) does not consider value. Option C skips the important step of converting feature requests into properly structured backlog items.

Answer: D

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Agile teams operate on the principle ofinspect and adapt. According to thePMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.6 Retrospectives)andPMBOK® Guide 6th Edition (Section 3.7), retrospectives are designed forexperimentation and safe failure. Teams should be encouraged to try new process improvements and assess their impact. If the result is not positive, it’s an opportunity for collective learning—not for blame.

Mike Griffiths states in hisPMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 7: Continuous Improvement)that leaders shouldfoster a culture of experimentation, where teams are praised for trying new approaches, even if they fail. This maintains psychological safety and continuous learning.

Thus,Option Ais correct: Commending the attempt and facilitating a team discussion to explore alternatives is consistent with agile values and promotes team maturity.

The project manager should ensure that risks are clearly visible to all team members so that everyone is aware of potential issues and can take action as necessary. Displaying the RAID log visually makes it easy for the team to see the status of risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies in real-time. This encourages the team to follow up on risks and keep them top of mind, facilitating more proactive management of potential threats to the sprint's success. This approach also helps in maintaining transparency and continuous monitoring of risks throughout the sprint.

The correct answer is D – Ask QA team members experienced with the new automation framework to cross-train the other QA members. Agile emphasizes shared ownership, continuous learning, and eliminating skill silos. Cross-training is an effective way to improve team capability and reduce dependencies.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile encourages cross-functional teams and skills sharing. When skill gaps are discovered, team members with the knowledge are encouraged to cross-train others to increase the team’s flexibility and productivity.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 4.3 – Team Performance and Learning)

Mike Griffiths adds:

“Cross-training improves team resilience and reduces bottlenecks. When expertise is limited to a few people, risks increase. Agile teams overcome this by mentoring and shared learning.”

(Mike Griffiths, PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Chapter 4 – Team Performance)

Incorrect options:

A and C are reactive and delay resolution.

B encourages overwork and can lead to burnout.

Answer: D

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The correct answer is D — Iteration Burndown Chart.

An iteration burndown chart provides daily updates about the team’s progress during an iteration (or sprint). It tracks the remaining work in the sprint backlog and helps both the team and stakeholders assess if the sprint goal is likely to be met. This visualization helps communicate real-time progress to key stakeholders and supports adaptive planning.

PMI Agile Practice Guide states:

“Burndown charts display work remaining in a timebox and are updated daily. They are effective for communicating iteration progress to the team and stakeholders.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.6, Information Radiators)

PMBOK® Guide (6th Edition) and Mike Griffiths both emphasize using task boards and burndown charts as “information radiators” for transparency.

Mike Griffiths’ PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book elaborates:

“Iteration burndown charts are the most widely used artifact to track sprint progress. They offer insight into how much work remains and signal whether the team is on track to meet its sprint goal.”

Options A and B are long-term planning tools. Option C (velocity) is a forecasting metric and not updated daily.

Answer: D

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The correct answer is D — Engaged key stakeholders periodically to collect requirements.

Agile is based on frequent stakeholder collaboration. Continuous engagement ensures evolving needs are captured and prevents misalignment. Waiting for planning meetings or demos is too late to catch missing input.

PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile teams ensure stakeholder engagement is ongoing throughout the project. This helps validate requirements and prevent surprises during reviews.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 4.2 – Stakeholder Engagement)

Mike Griffiths:

“Stakeholders should be consulted early and often. Relying on static requirements leads to gaps. Agile teams maintain constant feedback loops.”

(PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Chapter 3 – Value-Driven Delivery)

Incorrect options:

A is too early and one-time.

B may help but is reactive.

C is a predictive approach inconsistent with agile.

Answer: D