Mid-Sprint, emergency legislation cancels the housing-voucher program the current Sprint Goal depends on. A director tells the Scrum Master to cancel the Sprint. Who may cancel it, and why?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
When the voucher program itself is legally gone, finishing the screens is painting a closed office. Only the Product Owner can cancel a Sprint, and only because the Sprint Goal is now obsolete. A director barking at the Scrum Master is not that authority.
Full Explanation
A Sprint may be cancelled if the Sprint Goal becomes obsolete; only the Product Owner has that authority. When emergency legislation cancels the housing-voucher program the current Sprint Goal depends on, obsolescence is clear, so cancellation is the Product Owner's call—not the Scrum Master's or a director's barked instruction. Completing obsolete voucher screens wastes capacity that should return to the Product Backlog for work that still serves residents.
Claiming only the Scrum Master may cancel because facilitation includes stopping work misassigns authority. Claiming only the city director may cancel because budget authority outranks the Sprint Goal subordinates Scrum to hierarchy. Claiming nobody may cancel and the team must finish obsolete screens for completeness invents a sunk-cost rule that empiricism rejects.
Exam caveat: PSPO II Sprint cancellation is rare, Product-Owner-only, and justified by Sprint Goal obsolescence—not by facilitator preference or director command.
Operational check: Product Owner cancels the Sprint, returns incomplete work to the Product Backlog for re-estimation, preserves any Done items that remain valuable, and immediately re-plans toward a Product Goal that still exists under the new law.