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PSPO II · Scrum.org · Portfolio Planning · Bank updated 2026-09-12

PSPO II practice questions: Portfolio Planning

5 free questions from 14 on this area · answer and explanation for each · no sign-up

These 5 questions come from the Portfolio Planning section of our PSPO II bank (14 questions on this area, which carries 12% of the real exam). Every question is original, with the correct answer explained and linked to the source it is drawn from.

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1/5 · Portfolio Planning · hard
A Product Owner manages two products competing for the same limited engineering capacity. Product A generates steady, high recurring revenue but its market is mature and growth has flattened. Product B is new, currently generates little revenue, but early signals suggest a large addressable market. Stakeholders push to shift almost all capacity to Product A because 'it already proves the ROI.' Using EBM reasoning, what should the Product Owner do?
AShift most capacity to Product A immediately, since Current Value is the most reliable Key Value Area and future potential is too speculative to fund.
BSince Product A already proves value, freeze Product B's backlog entirely and reassign its Product Owner's time to Product A's roadmap.
CKeep the current capacity split unchanged indefinitely so neither product's stakeholders feel deprioritized, and revisit only at the next annual budgeting cycle.
DUse evidence across all four Key Value Areas — including Product B's Unrealized Value and Time-to-Market signals — to run a bounded, evaluable investment experiment in Product B, then inspect results before committing further capacity.
Show answer & explanation
D is correct. EBM treats the four Key Value Areas as complementary, not substitutable — chasing Current Value alone starves Unrealized Value and Ability to Innovate. The evidence-based response is to fund a bounded experiment, gather evidence, and re-inspect, rather than making an irreversible capacity shift or freezing decisions politically.
↗ the Scrum Guide (2020) + Scrum.org's Product Owner Learning Path and the Evidence-Based Management Guide — Portfolio Planning
2/5 · Portfolio Planning
A Product Owner accountable for a portfolio of internal tools sets up a 'portfolio prioritization committee' made up of stakeholder representatives who vote on which features across all backlogs should be built next; the Product Owner simply enters the winning items into each Product Backlog in vote order. What is the most significant problem with this arrangement, per the Scrum Guide?
AIt is a violation because only Scrum Masters may facilitate prioritization discussions with stakeholders.
BIt violates the Scrum Guide because committees are not allowed to have any input into a Product Backlog.
CIt is fine as long as the committee meets during the Sprint Review so its decisions can be reviewed by the Scrum Team.
DThe Product Owner has effectively delegated accountability for maximizing product value to the committee's vote count, reducing the role to recording decisions rather than owning them.
Show answer & explanation
D is correct. The Scrum Guide places sole accountability for maximizing the value of the product with the Product Owner. Turning ordering into a stakeholder vote that is simply transcribed is the classic 'backlog secretary' anti-pattern: the Product Owner stops making value judgments and becomes an administrator of someone else's decisions.
↗ the Scrum Guide (2020) + Scrum.org's Product Owner Learning Path and the Evidence-Based Management Guide — Portfolio Planning
3/5 · Portfolio Planning · hard
A Product Owner overseeing three products for the fiscal year is asked by finance to lock in exact feature scope and delivery dates for all three so budgets can be approved for twelve months. The Product Owner knows Sprint Reviews have repeatedly generated evidence that customer needs shift every few Sprints. What is the most defensible response given the Scrum Guide and EBM?
AProvide funding guidance based on the products' relative Current Value, Unrealized Value, Time-to-Market, and Ability to Innovate, propose funding horizons with checkpoints for re-inspection, and negotiate scope as a variable rather than fixing it alongside date.
BDecline to provide any forecast at all, since Scrum explicitly prohibits Product Owners from discussing budgets with finance stakeholders.
CAgree to the fixed scope and dates, since a firm annual plan is necessary for finance to approve any investment at all.
DOffer fixed dates but leave scope flexible only for the lowest-value product, while locking scope and date for the other two to protect finance's confidence in the plan.
Show answer & explanation
A is correct. EBM guides investment decisions using the four Key Value Areas with periodic re-inspection rather than annual scope-and-date lock-in, and the Scrum Guide's empirical pillars argue against fixing both scope and date over a long horizon when evidence shows needs change. The professional response funds with checkpoints and treats scope as the flexible variable.
↗ the Scrum Guide (2020) + Scrum.org's Product Owner Learning Path and the Evidence-Based Management Guide — Portfolio Planning
4/5 · Portfolio Planning
A newly hired Product Owner asks whether the Scrum Guide (2020) prescribes a specific structure — such as a Portfolio Backlog or Portfolio Owner role — for managing investment decisions across many products in an organization. What does the Scrum Guide actually say?
AThe Scrum Guide is silent on portfolio-level structures; it defines the Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers, and artifacts for a single product, leaving multi-product coordination to be addressed through the organization's own practices or scaling guidance.
BThe Scrum Guide defines a Portfolio Backlog that sits above each product's Product Backlog and is refined during a mandatory quarterly Portfolio Review event.
CThe Scrum Guide defines a Portfolio Owner accountability that sits above individual Product Owners to arbitrate investment across products.
DThe Scrum Guide requires organizations managing more than one product to adopt the Nexus framework to remain compliant.
Show answer & explanation
A is correct. The Scrum Guide (2020) intentionally defines a minimal set of roles, events, and artifacts for delivering value through Scrum and does not prescribe any portfolio-level role, backlog, or event; organizations wanting explicit multi-team or multi-product structures look to complementary guidance such as the Nexus Guide or their own practices.
↗ the Scrum Guide (2020) + Scrum.org's Product Owner Learning Path and the Evidence-Based Management Guide — Portfolio Planning
5/5 · Portfolio Planning
In a Nexus of four Scrum Teams, the Nexus Daily Scrum is held with representatives from each team. What is the primary purpose of this event, distinct from each team's own Daily Scrum?
ATo let each representative report their team's individual task status to the group so a combined burndown chart can be produced.
BTo reassign Developers between teams whenever one team is behind on its own Sprint Backlog.
CTo let the Product Owner re-order the Product Backlog based on that day's stakeholder feedback.
DTo inspect progress toward the Nexus Sprint Goal and identify whether cross-team integration issues or dependencies exist that need to be resolved before or during the current Sprint.
Show answer & explanation
D is correct. The Nexus Daily Scrum exists to surface and address integration issues and dependencies across the participating Scrum Teams so the combined work stays on track toward a single integrated, done Increment — not to serve as team-level status reporting, a resourcing mechanism, or backlog ordering.
↗ the Scrum Guide (2020) + Scrum.org's Product Owner Learning Path and the Evidence-Based Management Guide — Portfolio Planning
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Other PSPO II areas

The same kind of free sample for every other section of the PSPO II bank:

Product Vision and Business Strategy15 qProduct Value and Backlog Management at Scale16 qForecasting and Release Strategy16 qStakeholder and Customer Engagement15 qEvidence-Based Management16 qOrganizational Design and Culture14 q

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