A Product Owner covering three markets asks a business analyst to write and order the Product Backlog items for one of them. Six weeks later the ordering for that market has drifted away from the Product Goal and stakeholders complain. Who is accountable, and was the delegation allowed?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 3. Managing products with agility hard
Machine-checked — no person has signed for it. This question was read against the source cited below by an automated pass, which found no contradiction. That is a weaker claim than it sounds: the same kind of process wrote the question, so it can confirm its own mistake.
Treat it as a good draft rather than as settled fact, and read the source below before you rely on it. It is not used in mock exams here — only questions a person has signed for are.
The options
Not correct The business analyst is accountable for that part of the backlog, because the work was formally delegated to her
Wrong, and it is the most natural reading of delegation in most organisations. Scrum splits the two: responsibility for doing the work can move, but the accountability does not travel with it.
Not correct The delegation was not allowed, since only the Product Owner may create and order Product Backlog items
Wrong. The Product Owner may do that work or may delegate the responsibility to others; nothing in Scrum forbids help with writing and ordering items.
Not correct Accountability is shared between the Product Owner and the analyst in proportion to the work each did
Wrong. Shared accountability is the failure mode Scrum designs against — the Product Owner is one person, not a committee, precisely so there is one answer to this question.
Correct The delegation was allowed, and the Product Owner remains accountable for the result
Correct. Delegation is explicitly permitted and explicitly does not transfer accountability, so the drift is hers to notice and correct.
Why
Scrum uses accountability rather than responsibility deliberately. Responsibility for a task can be handed to anyone — an analyst, a UX designer, a whole department — and Product Owners at scale do this constantly. Accountability is the obligation to answer for the outcome, and the Guide keeps it with the Product Owner regardless. The exam tests this by describing a delegation and asking who is on the hook; the answer never changes, and it never splits.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Product Owner
- What it says
- The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the responsibility to others. Regardless, the Product Owner remains accountable.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 3 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
More questions on this objective
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