A Scrum Team has been working toward a Product Goal of opening its service to self-registration. Halfway through, the Product Owner adds a second long-term objective — a partner API — and asks the team to pursue both at once. What does Scrum say about this?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 3. Managing products with agility easy
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 Two Product Goals are fine as long as each has its own section of the Product Backlog
Wrong. Splitting the backlog into sections does not create the focus that a single objective does; the Scrum Team is a cohesive unit focused on one objective at a time.
Not correct Two Product Goals are fine as long as the Sprint Goal each Sprint names only one of them
Wrong, and it is the more sophisticated trap because Sprint Goals really are singular. Alternating Sprint Goals still leaves two long-term objectives competing for the same team.
Correct The Scrum Team must fulfil or abandon one objective before taking on the next
Correct. The Product Goal is the long-term objective the team plans against, and the Guide allows exactly two ways out of it — fulfil it, or abandon it — before the next one starts.
Not correct The Developers should decide which of the two goals is more valuable and pursue that one
Wrong on ownership. Developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal is the Product Owner's part of effective Product Backlog management, not the Developers'.
Why
A product is a vehicle to deliver value, and the Product Goal describes the future state of that product the team is aiming at. Holding one objective at a time is what makes the rest of the Product Backlog meaningful — every item exists to define what will fulfil that goal, so two goals means two competing definitions of what is worth doing. Abandoning a Product Goal is a legitimate move and often the valuable one; carrying two is not.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Commitment: Product Goal
- What it says
- They must fulfill (or abandon) one objective before taking on the next.
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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- It is the last afternoon of the Sprint. Three of the eight selected items are coded and demonstrable on a laptop, but they have not been through the automated regression suite the Definition of Done requires. The Product Owner suggests showing them at tomorrow's Sprint Review anyway, marked as "pending test". What does Scrum say? machine-checked
- A new Scrum Master is asked by a director where in Scrum the organisation gets to see whether the last four weeks of work were worth anything, and what should change as a result. Which event is she describing? machine-checked
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- A delivery manager introduces a quarterly target: every Scrum Team must raise its velocity by fifteen per cent, and team performance reviews will cite the number. Within two Sprints the team's story point totals have risen and no more working software is reaching users than before. What is the most accurate statement about this measure? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team is agreeing what it will actually put in front of stakeholders at the end of each Sprint. Which TWO of the following statements about the Increment are true in Scrum? machine-checked