Multiple agile teams are working on a product deliverable. During the last few iterations, one of the teams received several unplanned, nonproduction support requests from other teams. This affected the velocity of the team and the planned deliverable.
What should the project manager do in this situation?
When multiple agile teams work together, it is essential to maintain a balance between planned work and incoming requests. Directing the team to ignore all unplanned activities, as suggested in option D, could lead to communication breakdowns and inter-team conflicts. Instead, option C ensures that the team can maintain visibility and control of their workload by encouraging that unplanned requests be added to the iteration backlog. This approach supports transparency and effective prioritization, allowing the team to manage their capacity while addressing the legitimate needs of other teams.
By informing members of the other teams to add their requests to the iteration backlog, the project manager ensures that all work is visible, prioritized, and managed in a way that aligns with the team’s capacity and project goals.
The best way for the additional requests in agile project is somehow adding to product backlog, not iteration backlog, and product owner would be the person who makes the decision with the requests. Team members should not do anything and just focus on what planned.
C promotes collaboration, transparency, and effective prioritization across agile teams while ensuring that Team A can focus on their planned deliverables. D might ignore legitimate support needs from other teams and could strain inter-team relationships.
Iteration backlog is not a good choice for direct changes. If you want to add something into iteration backlog, you must consider removing some others.