Planning Project Iterations

An iteration (often called a sprint in Scrum specifically) is a fixed-length, repeatable cycle of planning, building, and reviewing a small slice of the product — the "logical unit" the exam refers to is this bounded chunk of time and scope, not an open-ended stretch of work. Shorter iterations give faster feedback but add process overhead; longer iterations reduce overhead but delay learning — this is the pros-and-cons trade-off CAPM expects you to reason through for a given scenario, not a fixed "right" iteration length.

Where a predictive project decomposes all scope into a WBS up front, an adaptive project translates that same idea of "break it down" into a backlog — a living, re-prioritized list of items pulled into iterations a slice at a time as the team learns more. Scope inputs for an iteration come from this backlog, refined and re-estimated close to when the work will actually happen, rather than locked in months in advance.

Study focus: adaptive tracking (burndown charts, story points completed, velocity) measures progress through frequent, incremental checkpoints, while predictive tracking (percent complete against a baseline schedule) measures progress against a plan fixed at the start — a scenario asking "why doesn't percent-complete tracking work well for this adaptive team" is testing exactly this distinction.