Three days into a two-week Sprint, a regulatory ruling makes the Sprint Goal meaningless — the feature it aimed at may not now be offered at all. Who has the authority to cancel the Sprint?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 1. Understanding and applying the Scrum framework easy
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The options
Correct Only the Product Owner
Correct. Cancelling a Sprint is a decision about value and about what the product should now pursue, so Scrum places it with the one accountability that owns those decisions.
Not correct The Developers, by consensus, since they own the Sprint Backlog
Wrong. The Developers own the plan and how the work gets done, but ending a Sprint early is not a planning decision. They can change everything inside the Sprint without cancelling it.
Not correct The Scrum Master, who is accountable for the Scrum events taking place
Wrong. A Scrum Master ensures the events happen, are productive and stay within their timebox. That is not authority over the product, and cancellation is a product decision.
Not correct Whoever is funding the work, since the money is theirs
Wrong. Stakeholders — including the ones paying — influence the product by convincing the Product Owner. Scrum deliberately routes every such decision through one accountable person.
Why
A Sprint is cancelled only when the Sprint Goal becomes obsolete, and only the Product Owner may do it. In practice it is rare, because a Sprint is a month or less and cancelling one rarely saves enough to be worth the disruption. Work that was in progress goes back to the Product Backlog, and the next Sprint starts with a fresh Sprint Planning like any other.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section The Sprint
- What it says
- Only the Product Owner has the authority to cancel the Sprint.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 1 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
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