PMI-ACP PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) Free Practice Exam Questions (2026 Updated)

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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The correct answer is C — Facilitate team brainstorming of the risks resulting from complexity for the risk register.

Technical complexity introduces risks that must be identified and managed early. Agile leaders support teams by facilitating collaborative risk identification, not by dictating solutions. Brainstorming sessions help surface concerns and lead to proactive mitigation strategies.

PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Risks are best identified through team collaboration. Facilitated risk identification sessions encourage broad participation and lead to better awareness and ownership of potential issues.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 7.3 – Risk Management)

Mike Griffiths:

“In agile projects, technical risks are treated early. Collaborative identification and visibility are key to creating a risk-adjusted delivery plan.”

(PMI-ACP Exam Prep, Chapter 6 – Problem Detection and Resolution)

Incorrect options:

A is valid long-term, but brainstorming comes first for awareness.

B limits risk planning to a fixed period (Sprint 0), which may not be enough.

D promotes innovation but not structured risk identification.

Answer: C

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The correct answer is C – Ensure that members begin to self-organize as small teams with efficiently distributed skills.

Agile emphasizes self-organizing teams. When teams are too large, splitting into smaller teams is a good practice (Scrum recommends 5–9 members per team). However, rather than top-down assignment, the Scrum Master should enable and support self-organization. Teams should be encouraged to form organically while ensuring knowledge-sharing and cross-functional capabilities.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile leaders support team self-organization by creating an environment of trust and encouraging the team to determine how best to accomplish their work.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.2 – Team Composition)

Mike Griffiths writes:

“Agile teams are self-organizing, and the role of the leader is to facilitate the conditions for that to occur, not to direct assignments.”

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

Why other options are less appropriate:

A suggests command-and-control behavior, which is contrary to Agile values.

B makes assumptions about comfort levels and may ignore skill diversity.

D disregards team input and imposes a solution, limiting buy-in and trust.

Answer: C

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The correct answer is A – Jointly meet with the team and product owner to discuss options and determine the end date. Agile promotes collaborative decision-making. When significant changes in performance arise, discussions should occur between the team and product owner to assess impact, explore value delivery, and make informed decisions.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile teams regularly review performance trends. Changes in velocity should prompt discussions between the team and product owner to evaluate implications and opportunities.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.4 – Release Planning)

Mike Griffiths states:

“Forecasting must remain collaborative. Teams and product owners work together to determine whether to ship early, expand scope, or adjust timelines.”

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

Incorrect options:

B skips stakeholder collaboration.

C assumes backlog expansion without value validation.

D contradicts agile principles of delivering value early.

Answer: A

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Agile teams evaluate new tools or technologies through spikes—time-boxed research or experimentation tasks. According to the PMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.2: Spikes and Exploration) and Mike Griffiths’ PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 6: Adaptive Planning), the appropriate way to introduce new technology is to engage the team in the decision and create a backlog item for a spike to evaluate its viability.

Option C is correct: it follows agile collaboration and backlog grooming practices.

Option A skips team consensus and formal prioritization.

Option B contradicts self-organizing team principles.

Option D may delay necessary action and is better suited for process discussions, not technical trials.

The correct answer is D – Set up a meeting with the stakeholder to modify the working agreement and ensure future engagement.

Agile values regular collaboration with stakeholders. When a stakeholder becomes disengaged, the first step is to address it through open communication and mutual agreement. Revisiting or modifying the working agreement helps reset expectations and reestablish commitment in a collaborative and respectful way.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile teams work closely with stakeholders and set expectations through working agreements that are revisited and refined as necessary. These agreements include communication preferences and participation expectations.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 4.2 – Stakeholder Engagement)

Mike Griffiths reinforces this:

“Creating and maintaining stakeholder engagement requires ongoing alignment of goals and expectations. When participation drops, revisit agreements and reset expectations collaboratively.”

(Mike Griffiths, PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book, Chapter 3 – Stakeholder Engagement)

Why the other options fall short:

A may help short-term but doesn’t address the root issue of misalignment or expectation gaps.

B comes across as directive rather than collaborative.

C escalates prematurely without attempting resolution directly with the stakeholder.

Answer: D

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When transitioning to an iterative development lifecycle, it’s crucial to ensure that user stories are written with clear, testable acceptance criteria that define the desired outcomes. The agile lead should explain to the project sponsor that the subject matter expert (SME) needs to collaborate with the team, including developers, testers, and the product owner, to ensure everyone has a shared understanding of the requirements and the solution. This collaboration is essential for defining and refining the user stories to ensure that they deliver value and meet the needs of the stakeholders.

The correct answer is C — Ask management to ensure that the resource is available to only one project at a time.

Agile promotes dedicated, stable teams over multitasking. Task-switching reduces productivity and leads to context-switching overhead. If a key resource is overburdened and switching between multiple projects, the best solution is to secure focused commitment by escalating to management for support.

PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile teams should be dedicated and work on one project at a time. Splitting attention across multiple efforts reduces velocity and quality due to context switching.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 6.1 – Team Composition)

Mike Griffiths highlights:

“Effective agile teams are stable, long-lived, and dedicated. Shared resources create bottlenecks, undermine predictability, and impair team dynamics.”

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

Incorrect options:

A may solve bandwidth issues but not focus or ownership.

B addresses symptoms, not the core issue of divided focus.

D tolerates a harmful practice that contradicts agile team stability.

Answer: C

The sprint retrospective is a key Scrum ceremony where the team reflects on the sprint, identifies what went well, what didn’t, and discusses ways to improve their processes. The focus is on continuous improvement, and the team makes plans to implement those improvements in future sprints. Stakeholders are typically not involved in the retrospective, but it’s important for them to understand that the meeting is about helping the team improve their collaboration, efficiency, and performance.

The correct answer is C – Share information via interactive methods such as a brainstorming session.

Agile promotes collaboration, continuous stakeholder engagement, and open communication. When a stakeholder lacks understanding, the practitioner should use interactive techniques like brainstorming, user story workshops, or product visioning sessions. These methods foster transparency, build trust, and allow stakeholders to co-create the product vision.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Effective stakeholder engagement relies on interactive communication methods such as workshops, demos, and feedback sessions to ensure alignment and transparency.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 4.2 – Stakeholder Engagement)

Mike Griffiths notes:

“Interactive, face-to-face collaboration provides the richest communication. Agile favors dialogue over documentation to enhance shared understanding.”

(Mike Griffiths, PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book, Chapter 3 – Stakeholder Engagement)

Why the other options are less ideal:

A (status emails) are passive and limited in effectiveness.

B may violate Scrum guidelines—daily standups are not intended for stakeholders.

D delays engagement and limits collaboration to after-the-fact review.

Answer: C

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The correct answer is C – Ask the team to restate the requirements and review them with the client.

Clear communication and shared understanding are core Agile values. The best way to resolve confusion is through direct collaboration. Restating and reviewing requirements with the client fosters alignment and transparency, which reduces rework and frustration.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile encourages frequent interaction with stakeholders to clarify requirements and reduce misunderstanding. Requirements are best elaborated through collaboration.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.3 – Backlog Refinement)

Mike Griffiths supports:

“User stories and acceptance criteria should be understood by both team and stakeholders. If confusion arises, revisit and clarify together.”

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

Why not others?

A may boost morale but doesn’t resolve the confusion.

B is speculative and not customer-centric.

D risks building something without validation.

Answer: C

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If the team members are already communicating regularly with each other and the customer, the daily coordination meetings may not be necessary. The project manager should adapt to the team ' s needs by reducing the frequency of these meetings, allowing the team to focus more on delivering work. This approach supports Agile principles of minimizing waste and encouraging efficient communication, ensuring that meetings are only held when they add clear value. The team can use alternative methods (e.g., a digital board or asynchronous communication) to stay aligned.

The correct answer is A – Work with the team to improve collaboration by fostering group decision-making and conflict resolution techniques.

One of the core principles of Agile is self-organizing teams. Teams must learn to make decisions collaboratively. If they are struggling, the Scrum Master or Agile Coach should facilitate improved team dynamics, encouraging consensus-building and effective conflict resolution techniques such as consensus, dot voting, or facilitation.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“Agile teams are empowered to make decisions. Coaches support this by teaching group decision-making techniques and fostering a culture of psychological safety and collaboration.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 6.2 – Coaching the Agile Team)

Mike Griffiths highlights:

“When teams hesitate to make decisions, the coach’s role is to facilitate better team dynamics—not to make decisions for them. Group decision-making leads to greater commitment and alignment.”

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

Why other options fall short:

B gives decision-making power to the Product Owner inappropriately for technical matters.

C fragments accountability and may cause misalignment.

D may help in leadership development but doesn’t guarantee collaborative decision-making.

Answer: A

In agile, work is considered “done” only when it meets the agreed-upon Definition of Done (DoD), which includes all aspects like coding, review, testing, and documentation. If there ' s disagreement about completion, the PMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.3 Sprint Review and Acceptance) recommends revisiting and aligning the DoD between the team and product owner.

Mike Griffiths in his PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 6: Value-Driven Delivery) explains that without a clear and shared Definition of Done, misunderstandings about completion status can occur, especially with quality-related tasks like testing.

Option A is correct because aligning on the DoD resolves current and future misunderstandings.

Option B introduces unnecessary escalation.

Option C postpones resolution and does not solve the core issue.

Option D incorrectly assumes testing isn’t part of the story’s completion criteria.

The retrospective is the agile ceremony designed for teams to inspect and adapt their process based on actual performance. According to the PMI Agile Practice Guide (Section 5.6: Retrospectives), discussing velocity issues and delivery concerns during retrospectives allows the team to collaboratively identify improvement actions.

Mike Griffiths in the PMI-ACP Exam Prep Book (Chapter 6: Adaptive Planning) also notes that retrospectives are the best setting to discuss variations in velocity and refine estimation or planning practices based on empirical evidence.

Option C is correct: the retrospective is where the team adapts based on reality.

Option A may come later but doesn’t address the root issue.

Option B goes against agile principles of stable teams and empirical planning.

Option D is reactive and may mask underlying process issues.

DevOps is a methodology that focuses on enhancing collaboration between development and operations teams to create a continuous feedback loop and speed up the delivery process. The key to enabling and sustaining a fast workflow is the establishment of a culture of collaboration, supported by the right tools and processes that allow for continuous delivery. This culture helps break down silos between teams, leading to faster and more efficient workflows that can continuously deliver value to customers.

The correct answer is B – Align with stakeholder expectations and releasable product increments.

In Agile, sprint or iteration reviews provide an opportunity for the team to present completed work and validate it against stakeholder expectations. Demonstrations should showcase working, potentially shippable increments that align with business goals and value delivery.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“The purpose of iteration reviews is to showcase a working product increment. The review should focus on what was completed and how it aligns with stakeholder expectations and business objectives.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 3.5 – Iteration Review)

PMBOK® Guide further reinforces this point:

“The team should deliver functional product increments that are valuable to stakeholders. These should be validated for alignment with scope and business value.”

(PMBOK® Guide, 6th Edition, Section 5.5 – Validate Scope)

Mike Griffiths notes:

“Product demonstrations should confirm stakeholder needs are being met. The team’s focus should be on verifying value delivery, product completeness, and stakeholder alignment.”

(Mike Griffiths, Chapter 3 – Value-Driven Delivery / Stakeholder Feedback)

Why other options fall short:

A is valuable context, but doesn’t directly ensure demonstration success.

C reflects team improvement but is not the purpose of a product demo.

D speaks to collaboration, not validation of stakeholder alignment.

Answer: B

The correct answer is C – Invest in technology-collaboration tools to enable effective communication and ensure a common understanding of the scope, issues, and solutions.

Agile encourages high-bandwidth communication, preferably face-to-face. However, when working with distributed teams, modern collaboration tools serve as essential enablers of shared understanding and timely feedback, reducing the risk of miscommunication and rework.

From the PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“While agile prefers face-to-face communication, geographically dispersed teams must rely on tools to mimic these interactions as closely as possible. These include video conferencing, online whiteboards, and real-time collaboration platforms to create a shared understanding.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 2.3 – Communication and Collaboration)

Mike Griffiths supports this as well:

“Remote teams need strong communication enablers. Collaboration tools help mitigate the challenges of distributed work by enabling transparency, synchronous discussions, and shared visibility of the work.”

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

Why the other options are less appropriate:

A assumes majority rule over inclusive engagement.

B is often impractical and does not reflect Agile’s adaptability.

D is vague and lacks actionable commitment.

Answer: C

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The correct answer is A — Lead the team and help them to constantly improve the processes in the project.

The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that retrospective action items are tracked and followed up on. While the team owns the improvement actions, the Scrum Master provides support, accountability, and facilitation to ensure that continuous improvement happens.

PMI Agile Practice Guide:

“The Scrum Master facilitates continuous improvement by helping the team reflect, identify actions, and ensure those actions are implemented.”

(PMI Agile Practice Guide, Section 5.8 – Retrospectives)

Mike Griffiths:

“Retrospectives are only effective if outcomes are tracked. The Scrum Master ensures improvement ideas are not forgotten and become part of the team’s evolution.”

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

Incorrect options:

B uses a confrontational tone—contrary to servant leadership.

C implies micro-management and contradicts self-organization.

D avoids responsibility for facilitating improvements.

Answer: A

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