Free Practice Questions for PMI PMI-ACP Exam

In Scrum, responsibilities are distributed among the product owner, scrum master, and development team to ensure clear accountability and efficient value delivery.

The product owner manages the product backlog, ensures alignment with business goals, and defines the priorities for the team.

The scrum master facilitates the Scrum process, removes impediments, and ensures adherence to Agile principles.

The development team owns the sprint backlog and is responsible for incremental delivery toward the sprint goal.

This division of responsibilities ensures that each role focuses on their core areas, fostering transparency, collaboration, and value-driven development.

The correct answer is D – Use the team ' s historical velocity to calculate a range of features that can be delivered. Agile emphasizes forecasting over commitment, and this is achieved through empirical data such as velocity. Providing a range based on historical velocity allows for realistic planning while acknowledging uncertainty.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile forecasting is based on empirical data. Teams use their past velocity to forecast how much work they can complete in a given time frame. This forecast is typically expressed as a range to account for variability.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.3 – Adaptive Planning and Forecasting)

Mike Griffiths supports this:

“Rather than commit to fixed scope, agile teams use historical velocity and prioritized backlogs to forecast delivery. Forecasts are probabilistic, not promises.”

(Mike Griffiths, PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Chapter 5 – Estimation and Forecasting)

Incorrect options:

A violates agile’s core value of responding to change over following a fixed plan.

B delays valuable forecasting data.

C implies commitment rather than forecast.

Answer: D

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The correct answer is A – Send the member to training. Agile encourages cross-functional teams and continuous improvement. When a team member identifies a skill gap that affects delivery, addressing it promptly through training or mentoring increases team capability and autonomy.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile teams strive for cross-functionality. When skill gaps hinder progress, organizations support learning to reduce dependencies and improve throughput.”

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

Mike Griffiths adds:

“Empowering team members through skill development enhances flexibility and velocity. Encouraging proactive learning improves team performance.”

(Mike Griffiths, PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Chapter 7 – Continuous Improvement)

Incorrect options:

B defers ownership of the solution.

C unnecessarily delays action.

D delays learning due to unnecessary constraints.

Answer: A

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A psychologically safe environment is essential for a productive retrospective, especially in the presence of team conflict. The PMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.6 Retrospectives) recommends reviewing working agreements or ground rules to remind the team of respectful behavior and to promote openness. This helps reset expectations and encourages participation without fear of judgment.

Mike Griffiths in the PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 7: Continuous Improvement) emphasizes that retrospectives are about trust and transparency, and setting the tone properly enables team learning and resolution.

Option A is correct: reviewing ground rules reinforces team norms and supports safety.

Option B may make individuals feel singled out.

Option C ignores the interpersonal issue and postpones resolution.

Option D escalates unnecessarily and bypasses team ownership.

When there is uncertainty about how certain product features should work, creating a prototype is an effective way to reduce that uncertainty. Prototyping allows the product owner to test ideas, gather feedback from users early in the process, and make adjustments based on real-world input. This approach helps clarify the product ' s functionality and ensure that the team is building something that meets user needs, all while maintaining flexibility and adaptability in the Agile environment.

When a security issue is revealed mid-sprint, the project manager should consult with both the product owner and the project team. The product owner is responsible for prioritizing the backlog and ensuring that the most valuable features are worked on, while the team will help assess the technical implications of addressing the security issue.

The product owner needs to understand the impact of the security issue on the product ' s value and determine if it needs to be prioritized over other work in the sprint.

The project team should help evaluate the effort required to address the issue and ensure that the solution is feasible within the sprint’s capacity.

By collaborating with both the product owner and the team, the project manager can make an informed decision on whether to adjust the sprint plan, reprioritize the backlog, or take necessary actions to address the vulnerability. This ensures that the security issue is resolved without jeopardizing the overall sprint goals.

The correct answer is C – Conduct retrospectives at the end of every sprint.

According to the Agile framework, regular retrospectives are a key practice to inspect and adapt the process. If team members have concerns about the Scrum Master ' s processes, the appropriate time and space to bring up and resolve such issues is the Sprint Retrospective.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Retrospectives are a time-boxed event that enables the team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next iteration. It provides a structured opportunity for feedback and reflection.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 3.5, Iteration Retrospectives)

Mike Griffiths further adds:

“Teams must take ownership of their process. The role of the agile leader, such as a Scrum Master, is to facilitate improvement via mechanisms like retrospectives. They are not responsible for enforcing process, but for enabling continuous improvement.”

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

Why the other options are incorrect:

A may undermine the team ' s self-organization and brings hierarchy into team-level process adjustments.

B may address some confusion, but doesn’t actively involve the team in process improvement.

D is inappropriate—sprint planning is for work planning, not process feedback.

Therefore, the most agile-appropriate and validated solution is: C

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The correct answer is A – Add a task to the product backlog to allow the team time to investigate and experiment prior to estimating.

When the team lacks experience or clarity around a new feature or technical solution, they should perform a time-boxed research activity, known as a spike. Spikes allow the team to explore unknowns, validate assumptions, and gather information needed to provide accurate estimates.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“When the team is unable to estimate due to uncertainty, a spike can be added to the backlog. This allows time for research, experimentation, or prototyping to enable informed estimation.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.3 – Adaptive Planning)

Mike Griffiths also writes:

“Spikes are used to investigate technical or functional elements. A spike helps reduce uncertainty and informs future planning and estimation.”

(Mike Griffiths, PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book, Chapter 5 – Adaptive Planning)

Why other options are less effective:

B (Wideband Delphi), C (Planning Poker), and D (Three-point estimation) are techniques for estimation, not suitable when the team lacks enough information to estimate in the first place.

Answer: A

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The correct answer is C — Call an onsite meeting where ground rules will be discussed and agreed upon.

When multiple distributed teams begin working together, the first priority is to establish common ground rules, expectations, and working agreements. This sets the foundation for effective communication and collaboration. An initial face-to-face (or virtual face-to-face) meeting is often critical for forming trust and shared norms.

PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Teams should establish working agreements early in the project. These define expectations for communication, decision-making, and collaboration—especially critical for distributed or cross-functional teams.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 4.2 – Collaboration and Communication)

Mike Griffiths:

“Setting ground rules helps build team cohesion, especially in distributed teams. It ensures that all members agree on protocols for meetings, updates, and decision-making.”

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

Incorrect options:

A is important but typically follows after agreements are in place.

B is routine communication—not the first foundational step.

D supports cohesion but does not establish operational alignment.

Answer: C

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When an agile team ' s velocity is slowing down, it is essential to regularly evaluate and adjust how the team is performing. By using feedback loops in every sprint, the team lead can continuously assess the team ' s progress, identify bottlenecks, and address issues early on. These feedback loops, typically discussed in sprint retrospectives, provide an opportunity for the team to identify the root causes of challenges, such as miscommunications, and make improvements to ensure better performance in future iterations. This approach promotes ongoing reflection and adaptation, which are core principles of Agile.