Scrum Ceremonies Vocabulary | Agile & Scrum Exercises

1 / 5

Your new colleague joins the team standup and asks: "What exactly are we supposed to say during the daily standup?" The Scrum Master replies: "We use the classic three-question format."

Which set of questions correctly describes the standard daily standup three questions?

The three standup questions focus on yesterday, today, and impediments — keeping the team aligned on progress toward the sprint goal:

Question	Purpose
What did I complete yesterday?	Synchronise on progress toward the sprint goal
What will I work on today?	Signal intent; surface potential overlaps and conflicts
Is anything blocking my progress?	Surface impediments so the team can act quickly

Option A uses "last week / this week" — that is a weekly status format, not a daily standup. Options C and D describe team-level metrics discussions that belong in sprint planning or retrospectives, not the 15-minute daily standup.

2 / 5

During sprint planning, the Scrum Master says:

"Before we pull stories from the backlog, let's check our capacity for this sprint. Priya is on holiday for 3 days, and we have the company all-hands on Friday afternoon."

In this sprint planning context, what does "capacity" most precisely mean?

Capacity in sprint planning refers to how much work the team can realistically take on — calculated from available person-days minus any absences, company events, and non-development time:

Term	Definition
Capacity	Available focused hours/days this sprint (holidays, all-hands, and sick days deducted)
Velocity	Story points completed per sprint (historical average, used alongside capacity for forecasting)
Forecast / Commitment	Story points the team plans to deliver, informed by both capacity and velocity

Teams often express reduced capacity as a percentage: "We are at 80% capacity this sprint." This directly influences how many story points to pull from the backlog during sprint planning.

3 / 5

At the end of Sprint 12, a colleague sends a calendar invite titled "Retrospective" with this description:

"All stakeholders and the product team are welcome. We will be demonstrating the new checkout flow and gathering feedback on the features completed this sprint."

Which Scrum event is actually being described, regardless of the label on the invite?

The Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective are the two end-of-sprint events and are frequently confused by teams:

Event	Attendees	Focus
Sprint Review	Scrum Team + stakeholders	Inspect the product increment; gather stakeholder feedback; adapt the backlog
Sprint Retrospective	Scrum Team only	Reflect on the team's process; agree on improvements for next sprint

The signals here — "stakeholders welcome" and "demonstrating the checkout flow" — both point to a Sprint Review. Inviting stakeholders to a retrospective is an anti-pattern; it can prevent the team from speaking candidly about their working process.

4 / 5

During backlog refinement, the Product Owner presents this story:

"As a registered user, I want to reset my password so that I can regain access to my account."

The tech lead says: "This story is not ready yet." Which addition would most clearly make this story ready to enter the sprint?

The Definition of Ready (DoR) specifies what a story needs before the team can confidently pull it into a sprint. The three core requirements are:

Acceptance criteria (Given/When/Then) — makes the story testable and prevents scope ambiguity during development
Size estimate — without an agreed estimate, the team cannot make informed sprint planning decisions
Dependencies identified — unresolved dependencies cause mid-sprint blockers that derail delivery

DoR checkpoint	Why it matters
Acceptance criteria written	Team knows exactly when the story is done — no ambiguity at review
Story estimated by the team	Enables sprint capacity and commitment decisions
Dependencies flagged or resolved	Prevents mid-sprint blockers from halting delivery

A JIRA link (Option A) and a developer assignment (Option C) are administrative details, not readiness criteria. A UI prototype (Option D) is rarely required for a story to be considered ready.

5 / 5

The Scrum Master opens sprint planning with:

"Our 6-sprint rolling average velocity is 38 story points. This sprint we have a bank holiday and one team member is out on Friday, so we are forecasting 35 points of work."

Which estimation and communication principle is being correctly applied here?

Using rolling average velocity combined with a capacity adjustment is the standard Agile forecasting approach — honest, data-backed, and transparent to stakeholders:

Concept	Explanation
Rolling average velocity	Average of the last 3–6 sprints; smooths out outliers for more reliable forecasting
Capacity adjustment	Reduces the forecast proportionally when team availability is lower than usual
Forecast language	Modern Scrum prefers "forecast" over "commit" — it signals a plan, not a binding contract

There is no Scrum rule requiring a 10% buffer (Option B) or prohibiting forecasts above previous velocity (Option D). Reducing the forecast to match lower availability is not deceptive (Option A) — it is honest planning that accounts for real-world constraints.