A finance director asks the Scrum Team for a twelve-month plan with fixed scope, fixed dates and no changes once approved, so the budget can be locked. Which TWO responses are most consistent with Scrum?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 3. Managing products with agility hard
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The options
Choose 2.
Not correct Produce the fixed twelve-month plan and freeze the Product Backlog for the year so the plan stays accurate
Wrong. Freezing an emergent list is how the plan stops describing the product, and the Product Backlog is meant to change as more is learned about what will fulfil the Product Goal.
Correct Offer a Product Goal as the long-term objective to plan against, with scope beyond the near term held as an ordered, changeable Product Backlog
Correct. The Product Goal gives the organisation the fixed point it is really asking for — a described future state of the product — while leaving the route to it open to evidence.
Not correct Refuse to give any horizon beyond the current Sprint, since Scrum is only concerned with one Sprint at a time
Wrong, and it is the answer an over-literal reader gives. Scrum plans against a long-term objective; what it declines to do is pretend a twelve-month scope list is knowable.
Correct Re-forecast the Product Goal's likely delivery every Sprint from what has actually been Done, and show the finance director each revision
Correct. This is empiricism made into a reporting rhythm — the forecast stays useful precisely because it is rebuilt from observed progress rather than defended as originally written.
Not correct Have the Scrum Master approve the twelve-month plan on the Scrum Team's behalf so the budget can be locked
Wrong. There is no Scrum Master sign-off in Scrum, and inventing one would hand a plan the authority the Product Backlog and the Product Goal are meant to carry — while still promising scope nobody can know.
Why
The demand behind a fixed twelve-month plan is usually legitimate — someone needs a stable objective and a view of progress. Scrum supplies both, but in different currency: the Product Goal is the stable objective, and a forecast re-derived each Sprint from Done work is the view of progress. What it cannot supply is fixed scope, because the Product Backlog is emergent by design. Trade certainty of scope for frequency of evidence.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Commitment: Product Goal
- What it says
- The Product Goal describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against.
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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