Question

Three sprints into an agile project, the team's velocity has steadily declined and the product owner is frustrated that fewer stories are being completed. During the retrospective, team members are quiet and reluctant to discuss what is going wrong. As the project manager acting as a servant leader, what should you do FIRST to support team performance?

Accepted Answer

Create a safe, psychologically secure environment that encourages the team to openly identify the root causes of the declining velocity

Answer

Increase the number of committed stories each sprint to push the team to recover its previous velocity

Answer

Report the velocity decline to the sponsor and recommend replacing underperforming team members

Answer

Assign specific stories to individual developers so accountability for completion is clear