PMP · Question #1224
An agile team has been assigned to a project that mandates the implementation of changes to key government products. The team has been given 6 months to fulfill this mandate. What should the team lead
The correct answer is D. Create the epics at a high level for the requirements and begin grooming sessions.. An agile team has 6 months to implement mandated changes to government products.
Question
An agile team has been assigned to a project that mandates the implementation of changes to key government products. The team has been given 6 months to fulfill this mandate. What should the team lead do next?
Options
- ACreate the project charter and statement of work (SOW) to estimate the changes and the scope
- BCreate all of the stories just for the next sprint and skip the epics until the next sprint.
- CCreate all of the stories needed to fulfill this change, document them in the backlog, and prioritize
- DCreate the epics at a high level for the requirements and begin grooming sessions.
How the community answered
(24 responses)- A4% (1)
- B8% (2)
- C4% (1)
- D83% (20)
Why each option
An agile team has 6 months to implement mandated changes to government products.
Creating a project charter and SOW are more characteristic of predictive project management, not typically the initial step for an agile team starting a project.
Skipping epics and only creating stories for the next sprint would lead to a lack of long-term vision and understanding of the full scope of the mandated changes for a 6-month project.
Creating all stories at once would be a large upfront effort and goes against agile principles of progressive elaboration and adapting to change, especially before understanding the full complexity.
In an agile project with a mandate and a fixed timeline, the initial step after understanding the overarching goal is to define high-level requirements as epics. This provides a broad understanding of the scope, allowing the team to then break them down into smaller, actionable user stories through grooming sessions, which is essential for planning sprints and managing the backlog.
Concept tested: Agile project initiation and backlog creation
Source: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/epics-stories-themes
Topics
Community Discussion
4
Dervla O.Feb 27, 2026D is correct. Six months for a government mandate is plenty of runway, so the team lead should capture the big picture with high-level epics first and then refine them through grooming sessions rather than trying to detail every story up front. C is the trap answer because creating all stories before prioritizing wastes effort on details that will likely change.
Anjali D.Mar 3, 2026Our group landed on D. The six month mandate means the team needs visibility into the full scope without boiling the ocean on day one, so high level epics are the right starting point. A couple of people picked C because it sounds thorough, but writing every story upfront contradicts how agile handles emerging requirements. Grooming sessions then let the team break epics down sprint by sprint as they learn more. Anyone else see this one on a recent attempt?
Dervla O.Mar 6, 2026D is the right call and your reasoning on emerging requirements is exactly why, but I would add that the stem likely says something about the team being newly formed or cross-functional, which is the other trigger for starting at the epic level rather than diving into stories before the team even knows its own velocity.
Nina C.Mar 7, 2026D. Six months is a lot to break into stories upfront. Epics first, then groom.