You are at a retrospective meeting where a program is trying to address a long-existing problem: unreliable PI commitments. One of the participants suggests that they are working on too many things…

Question

Options

• ATeams don't do a good job of task-switching.
• BAll program teams are cross-functional, and therefore every team spawns work in multiple areas at
• CBacklog items in the Program Backlog are not truly end-to-end Features; they look more like large

• A
  43% (16)
• B
  35% (13)
• C
  22% (8)

Explanation

Option A is correct because poor task-switching is the program-level behavior that directly causes WIP to spiral. When teams constantly jump between items without finishing them, each unfinished item remains "in process." The suggestion in the retrospective - that "we're working on too many things at a time" - is the textbook symptom of teams that start new work instead of completing current work, which is fundamentally a task-switching discipline problem.

Option B is wrong because cross-functional teams are actually a solution to WIP problems, not a cause. By being self-sufficient across disciplines, cross-functional teams reduce handoffs and can complete work end-to-end without spawning dependencies on other teams.

Option C is wrong because while poorly-decomposed, non-end-to-end backlog items can create coordination overhead, this describes a backlog refinement problem, not what causes the uncontrollable WIP the scenario is pointing to. The scenario's framing centers on team behavior during execution, not backlog structure.

Memory tip: Think "Switch = Stack." Every time a team task-switches without finishing, they stack another item onto the WIP pile. "Too many things at a time" = too many switches, not enough completions.

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