Why might a Scrum Team struggle to craft Sprint Goals when there are no Sprint Goals and the Sprint Backlog items seem unrelated?

• A. The Product Owner doesn't set objectives that he/she wants to achieve with upcoming Sprints
• B. Scrum might not be the best framework for this team
• C. The Product Owner is now empowered to make decisions about items in the Product Backlog nor how they are ordered
• D. The Development Team lacks cross-functionality

Answer: (A)

A Sprint Goal is created from the Product Owner’s objectives for the product and the backlog items that will deliver those objectives. When there are no Sprint Goals and the backlog items feel unrelated, it points to a lack of clear objectives from the Product Owner for upcoming Sprints. Without a defined goal to aim for, the team cannot coherently bundle and refine items to achieve a single outcome, so the Sprint Backlog ends up looking like a random collection rather than a focused set of work that delivers value in one sprint.

Scrum still works well here because the missing piece is direction from the Product Owner. If the PO articulates what they want to achieve in the next sprint and how backlog items contribute to that outcome, the team can craft a meaningful Sprint Goal and select items that align with it. The other options don’t address this directional gap: Scrum itself remains applicable, empowerment isn’t the root cause of unclear goals, and cross-functionality, while important for delivery, doesn’t directly explain why a Sprint Goal can’t be formed.