PMP · Question #825
To prevent influential stakeholders from dominating product delivery decisions, the product owner decided to use planning poker. What is a key advantage of using this technique?
The correct answer is D. Ensures active project team participation. Planning poker is used to mitigate the influence of dominant stakeholders in estimation discussions by ensuring all team members actively participate and contribute their independent estimates. This fosters collective ownership and more balanced input.
Question
Options
- AAssists the team in planning the activities within the iteration
- BAllows for more accurate estimates
- CIncorporates a technique similar to brainstorming
- DEnsures active project team participation
How the community answered
(47 responses)- A4% (2)
- B2% (1)
- C13% (6)
- D81% (38)
Why each option
Planning poker is used to mitigate the influence of dominant stakeholders in estimation discussions by ensuring all team members actively participate and contribute their independent estimates. This fosters collective ownership and more balanced input.
While planning poker is part of planning, its *key advantage* isn't just assisting with planning activities, but specifically in *how* estimates are derived to ensure fair input.
While planning poker aims for more *realistic* estimates by leveraging collective intelligence, its primary advantage in the context of preventing stakeholder domination is the *participatory* aspect that leads to those estimates, rather than just accuracy itself.
Planning poker is a structured estimation technique, distinct from open-ended brainstorming, which is typically used for idea generation rather than estimating effort.
Planning poker ensures active project team participation because each team member independently estimates a user story's effort before revealing their cards simultaneously. This process prevents individual team members from being unduly influenced by more senior or vocal members, thereby promoting equal participation and diverse perspectives in the estimation process.
Concept tested: Planning poker benefits and agile estimation
Source: https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-planning-poker
Topics
Community Discussion
7
Wesley A.Jul 5, 2026D is correct here. Planning poker gives everyone a voice and prevents any single stakeholder from running the show, which is exactly what the question is asking about. I almost picked B on my first attempt because the estimates angle sounds right, but the key is the stem is about participation, not accuracy.
Ingrid P.Jul 5, 2026Leaned toward B first, but the stem is about preventing domination, so D.
Samuel O.Jul 6, 2026D is the right call, and I would add that in practice this is why you see weighted voting or round-robin techniques baked into ensemble methods, not just for fairness but because a dominant model dragging the group toward its blind spots defeats the whole purpose of combining them.
Samuel O.Jul 5, 2026D is the right call here. In my experience wrangling stakeholders who try to steamroll priorities, planning poker forces everyone to weigh in independently before the loudest voice can sway the room. What I keep wondering is whether the exam expects us to treat the product owner as part of the team for participation purposes, or if that distinction even matters on this one?
Bao N.Jul 7, 2026D is correct and the product owner question does not matter for this one because the exam is testing whether you know planning poker prevents influence bias, not who is holding the cards.
Bao N.Jul 5, 2026Saw this one on my exam last month and almost talked myself into B because planning poker does help with estimates, but the stem is really about preventing dominant stakeholders from taking over, which points straight to D. The key phrase is "influential stakeholders dominating" - that is a participation and collaboration problem, not an estimation accuracy problem.
Prof. SaraJul 5, 2026D is correct because planning poker neutralizes the anchoring bias that lets influential stakeholders dominate sizing discussions. By requiring every team member to reveal their estimate card simultaneously, no single voice can sway the group before others have weighed in. The technique ties directly to PMP Domain 3 on business analysis and iteration planning, where active team participation beats passive consensus. Option B is a real benefit but it is a downstream result of the participation that D describes, not the primary advantage in this specific scenario.