Answering: “You are the Scrum Master for four teams working from the same Product Backlog. Several of the Developers come to you complaining that work identified for the upcoming two Sprints will require full time commitment from Stella, an external specialist who is not a member of any of the four Scrum Teams. What would you consider acceptable solutions for the problem?”

Acceptable solutions are to look into scaling techniques, to let interested Developers volunteer for the work in their own teams, and to form a temporary group with Stella so people from the Scrum Teams can learn her domain. Each option reduces the dependency on one specialist instead of working around it.

Exam Question

You are the Scrum Master for four teams working from the same Product Backlog. Several of the Developers come to you complaining that work identified for the upcoming two Sprints will require full-time commitment from Stella, an external specialist who is not a member of any of the four Scrum Teams. What would you consider acceptable solutions for the problem? (choose the best three answers)

• A. Merge the Scrum Teams into one large Scrum Team for the next two Sprints. When the need for Stella’s expertise is over, the teams can separate again.
• B. Investigate whether additional techniques or frameworks for scaling Scrum would be appropriate for these Scrum Teams.
• C. Developers with an interest in Stella’s domain could volunteer to take on this work in their respective Scrum Teams.
• D. Ask Stella for a plan to hire and train additional people in her domain, and in the meantime work with the Product Owner and Scrum Teams to re-prioritize the work so that tasks not depending on Stella can be done first.
• E. Have the Developers re-order the Product Backlog so Stella can serve one team full-time in a Sprint.
• F. Create a team with Stella and identify people from the Scrum Teams to temporarily work in Stella’s domain to learn to better serve the existing teams.
• G. Organize a release Sprint in which Stella can thoroughly check and complete all the work done in her domain before considering the work releasable.

Correct Answer

B, C and F.

Why This Is the Correct Answer

Four teams sharing one Product Backlog face a classic scaling problem, so investigating approaches such as Nexus makes sense, since Nexus exists to manage dependencies and integration between teams. Developers who volunteer to build skills in Stella’s domain make their teams more cross-functional, which fits the Scrum Guide’s view that teams should have “all the skills necessary to create value each Sprint.” A temporary team in which Stella teaches people from the Scrum Teams spreads her knowledge quickly, so the bottleneck shrinks over time rather than returning every Sprint.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

A. Merge the four teams into one large team for two Sprints. A team that size loses the communication benefits of a small team, and reshuffling teams back and forth disrupts them.

D. Ask Stella for a hiring plan and reprioritize work meanwhile. This hands the solution to Stella and a hiring process. It is slow and does not use the teams’ own ability to learn the domain.

E. Have the Developers re-order the Product Backlog so Stella serves one team per Sprint. Ordering the Product Backlog is the Product Owner’s accountability, and rationing Stella keeps the bottleneck in place for every other team.

G. Hold a release Sprint for Stella to check all work in her domain. Release Sprints mean earlier Increments were not done. Scrum has no such Sprint.

Exam Tip

For specialist bottleneck questions, favor answers that spread the skill across teams, and reject options that move Product Backlog ordering away from the Product Owner.

Key Takeaways

• Specialist bottlenecks are reduced by spreading skills across teams.
• Scaling frameworks like Nexus target cross-team dependencies.
• Ordering the Product Backlog stays with the Product Owner.