PMI-ACP Leadership Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A team member is constantly checking their phone during meetings. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Discuss the importance of active participation and focus during meetings in a team retrospective.. A team member constantly checking their phone during meetings is a team-level behavior issue best addressed through the team's own improvement mechanism. Raising it in a retrospective — framed around active participation and focus — allows the team to discuss norms and agree on working agreements without singling anyone out. Option A uses the Agile team's natural feedback loop.

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Ignore it.

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Call them out during the meeting.

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Take their phone away.

Question 2

Your team has a high level of dependency on an external vendor. How should you facilitate this relationship?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate regular communication channels and define clear interfaces for the dependencies.. Managing external dependencies requires deliberate communication and interface definition rather than process imposition or avoidance. Regular communication channels (sync meetings, shared boards, status updates) keep both parties aligned on timelines and expectations, while clearly defined interfaces (APIs, contracts, deliverables) reduce ambiguity and integration risk. This is the agile way to handle dependencies you cannot directly control.

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Demand that the vendor adopt your team's exact agile process.

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Stop using the vendor's services.

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Ask the team to work around the vendor's delays.

Question 3

The team is feeling burned out. What is your role as a leader?

Accepted Answer

Work with the team to identify the causes of burnout and adjust their workload and processes accordingly.. The leader's role in addressing burnout is to work with the team to identify root causes and adjust workload and processes accordingly, because burnout is a systemic issue, not an individual failing. This approach aligns with agile principles of sustainable pace and servant leadership, where the leader facilitates solutions rather than prescribing them. By involving the team in diagnosis and remediation, the leader empowers them and addresses the underlying drivers of burnout.

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Ask them to work harder to finish the project sooner.

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Tell the team to take more breaks.

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Tell the team to be more resilient.

Question 4

A stakeholder is providing feedback directly to the developers, bypassing the PO. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Coach the stakeholder on the importance of the PO's role and redirect them to the PO.. The Product Owner is the single point of accountability for the product backlog and its prioritization, so feedback that bypasses the PO undermines that role and risks the team building unprioritized work. Coaching the stakeholder on why the PO exists and redirecting them preserves the PO's authority while keeping the stakeholder engaged through the correct channel.

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Encourage the developers to follow the stakeholder's instructions.

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Tell the developers to ignore the stakeholder entirely.

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Ask the developers to report the stakeholder to HR.

Question 5

Your team is failing to meet the sprint goal due to a lack of clear requirements. How should you facilitate?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a session between the PO and the team to clarify the requirements and improve the refinement process.. Facilitating a session between the Product Owner and the team (A) addresses the root cause — unclear requirements — by improving communication and refinement. The Scrum Master or agile leader should enable this conversation rather than solving it unilaterally. This approach also strengthens the refinement process so future sprints have clearer, better-understood backlog items.

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Write the requirements yourself.

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Ask the team to guess what the requirements are.

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Cancel the sprint.

Question 6

Which TWO actions should an agile leader take to foster a collaborative culture? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Encourage shared responsibility for outcomes rather than individual tasks.. Option C is correct because encouraging shared responsibility for outcomes rather than individual tasks is a hallmark of agile collaboration: it shifts the team from a collection of specialists optimizing their own work to a self-organizing unit that owns the collective result, which builds trust and mutual accountability. Option D is correct because promoting transparent communication and information sharing across the team is essential to a collaborative culture; agile practices such as daily stand-ups, information radiators, and open backlogs depend on visibility so that impediments surface early and the team can swarm on problems together. The remaining options do not belong: A (individual performance rankings) fosters internal competition and undermines the psychological safety collaboration requires, B (limiting team size) is a structural/scaling consideration rather than a cultural action and does not by itself create collaboration, and E (centralizing decision-making) contradicts the agile principle of decentralized, team-level decision authority.

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Implement individual performance rankings to encourage competition.

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Limit the team size to improve focus.

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Centralize all decision-making to ensure consistency.

Question 7

Which TWO factors are critical for an agile leader when resolving team conflicts? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Ensuring a safe environment where all parties feel heard.. Option A is correct because an agile leader must create psychological safety so every party feels heard, which enables open dialogue and constructive resolution rather than suppressed dissent. Option E is correct because the leader should act as a neutral, unbiased facilitator who guides the team toward its own solution instead of imposing one, preserving the team's self-organization and ownership. Option B is wrong because forcing a solution is directive and undermines the team's autonomy and commitment. Option C is wrong because escalating every conflict to senior management bypasses the team's ability to resolve issues and erodes trust. Option D is wrong because ignoring conflict allows it to escalate and damage collaboration and performance.

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Forcing the team to accept your solution to end the conflict quickly.

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Reporting all conflicts to senior management immediately.

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Ignoring the conflict until it reaches a critical point.

Question 8

Which THREE strategies can a leader use to empower a self-organizing team? (Choose THREE)

Accepted Answer

Trust the team to make their own technical and process decisions.. Option A is correct because empowering a self-organizing team requires the leader to trust the team to make their own technical and process decisions, which builds ownership and autonomy rather than dependence on the leader. Option C is correct because setting clear objectives and constraints while letting the team decide how to meet them gives direction without prescribing the method, which is the essence of empowerment in self-organizing teams. Option D is correct because providing necessary resources and removing organizational impediments creates the supportive environment the team needs to self-organize effectively, a core servant-leadership behavior. Option B is incorrect because dictating schedule and daily working hours imposes control and reduces the team's autonomy. Option E is incorrect because approving every task assignment is micromanagement that undermines self-organization and team ownership.

Answer

Dictate the team's schedule and daily working hours.

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Approve every task assignment to ensure it is handled correctly.

Question 9

Which TWO methods can a leader use to improve stakeholder engagement? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Provide regular, transparent updates on progress and risks.. Option A is correct because providing regular, transparent updates on progress and risks builds trust and keeps stakeholders informed, which directly increases their engagement and ability to support the project. Option C is correct because inviting stakeholders to participate in sprint reviews and planning meetings gives them visibility into the team's work and a voice in shaping priorities, which strengthens collaboration and buy-in. Option B is incorrect because avoiding interaction reduces communication and trust, which decreases rather than improves engagement. Option D is incorrect because giving stakeholders full control over the team's daily tasks undermines the team's self-management and is not a legitimate engagement technique. Option E is incorrect because sending highly technical documents stakeholders won't understand creates confusion and barriers rather than improving engagement.

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Avoid interacting with stakeholders to minimize confusion.

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Give stakeholders full control over the team's daily tasks.

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Send stakeholders highly technical documents that they won't understand.

Question 10

Which THREE characteristics of a servant leader are most effective for an agile coach? (Choose THREE)

Accepted Answer

Stewardship to act in the best interests of the team and the organization.. Servant leadership in agile coaching centers on putting the team's growth and needs first, so option B (stewardship) is correct because acting in the best interests of both the team and the organization aligns with the coach's responsibility to nurture sustainable, value-driven outcomes. Option C (active listening) is correct because an agile coach must genuinely hear and understand the team's concerns, impediments, and perspectives before offering guidance, which is foundational to effective coaching. Option D (empathy) is correct because building strong relationships and trust enables psychological safety, which is essential for teams to self-organize, experiment, and improve. Options A (rigidity) and E (dominance) do not belong because they contradict servant leadership and agile principles: rigid process enforcement and top-down control undermine self-management, empowerment, and continuous improvement, which an agile coach should foster rather than suppress.

Answer

Rigidity to ensure the process is followed exactly as written.

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Dominance to ensure the team follows instructions.

Question 11

Which TWO techniques help a leader address 'groupthink' in a team? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Use anonymous polling to gather honest input before group discussion.. Option A is correct because anonymous polling collects each member's independent judgment before the group can converge on a dominant view, removing social pressure and status effects that suppress dissent and thereby preventing premature consensus. Option E is correct because assigning a devil's advocate role institutionalizes constructive dissent, forcing the team to test assumptions and surface counterarguments rather than self-censoring to preserve harmony. The remaining options do not belong: B worsens groupthink by letting the most senior person anchor the discussion and discourage challenge, C isolates the team from external perspectives that break insular thinking, and D pressures the team toward immediate unanimity, which is precisely the symptom groupthink produces.

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Require the most senior person to speak first.

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Ask the team to ignore outside opinions.

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Tell the team they must reach a consensus immediately.

Question 12

Which THREE behaviors signal that a team is becoming self-organized? (Choose THREE)

Accepted Answer

The team feels comfortable asking for help when they are stuck.. Option A is correct because self-organizing teams exhibit psychological safety, where members openly admit impediments and ask peers for help rather than hiding problems or escalating everything to a manager. Option B is correct because self-organization includes owning and evolving the team's working agreements; acting on retrospective findings by adjusting their own norms demonstrates autonomy over how they work. Option C is correct because proactively identifying and resolving process blockers shows the team takes initiative for its own workflow instead of waiting for external direction. Option D is not correct because routing all communication through the Scrum Master creates a bottleneck and dependency, which is the opposite of self-organization. Option E is not correct because waiting for management to assign tasks reflects a command-and-control, directed team rather than a self-managing one.

Answer

The team only communicates through the Scrum Master.

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The team waits for management to tell them which tasks to do next.

Question 13

Which TWO approaches help a leader coach a team through change? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Clearly articulate the 'why' behind the change.. Option C is correct because clearly articulating the 'why' behind the change gives the team purpose and context, which reduces resistance and helps them commit to the new direction rather than merely complying. Option D is correct because providing ongoing support and time for the team to adapt recognizes that change involves a learning curve, and sustained coaching, resources, and patience are essential for the team to build new habits successfully. In contrast, option A is wrong because forcing an entire process change in one day ignores the need for gradual adoption and overwhelms the team. Option B is wrong because ignoring concerns erodes trust and leaves legitimate issues unaddressed, which undermines the transition. Option E is wrong because framing change as mandatory and unquestionable shuts down dialogue and fails to build the buy-in that effective coaching requires.

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Force the team to change their entire process in one day.

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Ignore the team's concerns to keep the transition fast.

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Tell the team that the change is mandatory and cannot be questioned.

Question 14

Which TWO strategies can a leader use to promote psychological safety? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Encouraging team members to speak up, even if their opinion is unpopular.. Option A is correct because psychological safety is built when leaders actively invite dissenting and unpopular viewpoints, signaling that speaking up will not be punished; this is the core behavior of a psychologically safe environment. Option D is correct because framing mistakes as learning opportunities normalizes error reporting and experimentation, which reduces fear and encourages transparency, a key pillar of psychological safety. Option B is incorrect because public criticism of errors increases interpersonal risk and shuts down open communication. Option C is incorrect because demanding conformity suppresses the diverse input and candor that psychological safety requires. Option E is incorrect because rewarding only those who never err creates a blame culture and discourages honesty about mistakes.

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Publicly criticizing team members for their errors.

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Demanding total conformity to the team's existing views.

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Rewarding only the team members who never make mistakes.

Question 15

Which THREE actions demonstrate effective stakeholder engagement? (Choose THREE)

Accepted Answer

Involving stakeholders in collaborative decision-making processes.. Option B is correct because involving stakeholders in collaborative decision-making processes builds shared ownership and leverages their expertise, which is a core practice of effective stakeholder engagement. Option C is correct because keeping stakeholders informed of progress and potential impediments maintains transparency and trust, allowing them to respond to risks early. Option D is correct because regularly aligning with stakeholders on product goals and priorities ensures their needs and expectations remain synchronized with the team's direction. Option A is incorrect because engaging stakeholders only during major problems is reactive and erodes trust. Option E is incorrect because excluding stakeholders from all meetings isolates the team and prevents necessary feedback and alignment.

Answer

Only speaking to stakeholders when there is a major problem.

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Excluding stakeholders from all meetings to protect the team.