PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Test 12 — 15 Questions

Question 1

During a sprint review, the product owner rejects a completed user story because it does not meet their expectations, even though it meets the acceptance criteria defined in the sprint planning. The team is frustrated. What should you do?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a meeting between the team and product owner to clarify expectations and update the acceptance criteria for the next sprint. The Product Owner's rejection indicates a misalignment between the acceptance criteria and their actual expectations. As a servant leader, the Scrum Master should facilitate a meeting to clarify these expectations and update the acceptance criteria for future sprints, ensuring the Definition of Done reflects true business value. This approach maintains team morale while improving the process, rather than forcing rework or escalating unnecessarily.

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Ask the team to redo the story to meet the product owner's expectations without changing the acceptance criteria

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Escalate to the project sponsor to mediate the disagreement

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Support the team and insist that the story is complete according to the agreed criteria

Question 2

Your project is running 15% over budget at the midpoint. The sponsor asks you to cut costs by reducing the testing phase. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Analyze the budget variance and propose alternative cost-saving measures that minimize impact on quality. As a project manager, your primary responsibility is to manage the project constraints while protecting the project's value. Reducing the testing phase without analysis could introduce significant quality risks, leading to rework or failure. Instead, you should analyze the budget variance to identify root causes and propose alternative cost-saving measures that minimize impact on quality, such as optimizing resource allocation or renegotiating vendor contracts.

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Implement a 10% across-the-board cost reduction on all activities

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Submit a change request to increase the budget

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Agree to reduce testing as requested to stay within budget

Question 3

You are managing a project using a hybrid approach. A team member has been underperforming for several weeks. You have had informal conversations and provided coaching, but there has been no improvement. What should you do next?

Accepted Answer

Schedule a formal meeting to discuss the performance gap, set clear expectations, and agree on a performance improvement plan. After informal coaching has failed, the next step in progressive performance management is to hold a formal meeting to document the performance gap, set clear expectations, and create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's emphasis on addressing issues through a structured, documented process before escalating or removing a team member, especially in a hybrid approach where the project manager retains team leadership responsibilities.

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Escalate to the functional manager to handle the situation

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Reassign the team member to less critical tasks to minimize impact

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Remove the team member from the project and request a replacement

Question 4

Your project team is experiencing conflict between two senior members who have different opinions on the technical approach. The conflict is starting to affect the entire team's morale. Which THREE actions should you take to resolve the conflict effectively?

Accepted Answer

Use a collaborative problem-solving approach to find a win-win solution. Collaborative problem-solving directly addresses the root cause of the conflict by seeking a win-win solution that satisfies both senior members' technical concerns. This approach aligns with the PMP's emphasis on conflict resolution techniques that preserve team relationships and leverage diverse expertise to improve the technical approach. By focusing on mutual gains, you avoid the morale damage of a win-lose outcome and foster a culture of shared ownership.

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Escalate the conflict to the project sponsor for resolution

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Make a unilateral decision on the technical approach to end the conflict quickly

Question 5

You are the project manager for a software development project using Scrum. During the daily standup, two senior developers engage in a heated argument about the technical approach for a user story. The argument is consuming valuable time and escalating. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Schedule a private meeting with both developers after the standup to facilitate a resolution. The project manager's role in a self-managing Scrum team is to facilitate conflict resolution without imposing decisions. By scheduling a private meeting after the standup, you allow the developers to resolve the technical disagreement collaboratively, preserving team autonomy and avoiding disruption to the daily Scrum's timebox. This approach aligns with the PMP's emphasis on servant leadership and conflict management techniques like 'collaborating' or 'problem-solving'.

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Escalate the issue to the project sponsor for immediate intervention

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Decide on the technical approach yourself to resolve the conflict quickly

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Ignore the argument and move on to other team members' updates

Question 6

Your project team is distributed across three time zones. A team member from the India office has been consistently delivering tasks late, impacting the critical path. When you discuss this, they mention feeling isolated and unmotivated due to lack of interaction with the rest of the team. What is the BEST action to take?

Accepted Answer

Schedule regular one-on-one virtual meetings to mentor and understand their challenges. The root cause of the performance issue is the team member feeling isolated and unmotivated. The project manager should first address this through supportive and coaching actions. Scheduling regular one-on-one virtual meetings (Option B) demonstrates emotional intelligence and servant leadership. It allows the project manager to understand the team member's challenges, provide mentoring, and work together to find ways to increase motivation and integration with the rest of the team. This approach aligns with PMI's emphasis on building a high-performing team by addressing individual needs. Option A (warning) is punitive and disregards the underlying cause. Option C (reassignment) might temporarily protect the critical path but does not solve the isolation issue; it could further demotivate the team member and hinder team cohesion. Option D (working extra hours) risks burnout and is not a sustainable solution. Therefore, Option B is the best choice.

Answer

Formally warn the team member and put them on a performance improvement plan

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Reassign the tasks to another team member in a different time zone

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Ask the team member to work extra hours to catch up on missed deadlines

Question 7

During a hybrid project, the project sponsor asks you to skip the testing phase in the next release to save time and meet an aggressive market deadline. The team is concerned about quality risks. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Discuss the risks of skipping testing with the sponsor and propose a compromise, such as risk-based testing. As a project manager, your first responsibility is to address the sponsor's request directly by communicating the quality risks and negotiating a balanced solution. Risk-based testing allows you to prioritize critical test cases, reducing overall testing time while still mitigating the highest-priority quality risks, which aligns with the hybrid project's need for both agility and governance.

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Tell the team to add extra testing in the next sprint to compensate

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Escalate the issue to the PMO or steering committee for a decision

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Refuse the sponsor's request and insist on following the original plan

Question 8

Your Agile team's velocity has dropped for the third consecutive sprint. The team cites increasing technical debt and unclear requirements. As a servant leader, what is the BEST course of action?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a retrospective to identify root causes and collaboratively develop an improvement plan. As a servant leader, the best course is to facilitate a retrospective to collaboratively identify root causes of the velocity drop, such as technical debt and unclear requirements, and then develop an improvement plan. This aligns with the Agile principle of continuous improvement and empowers the team to address issues at their source rather than applying top-down fixes.

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Reduce the scope of the project to match the current velocity

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Ask the team to increase their velocity by working overtime

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Schedule additional daily standups to increase communication

Question 9

A new regulation impacting your construction project was announced. The compliance team says the project must incorporate additional safety inspections, which will require extra resources and extend the schedule. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Escalate the issue to the project sponsor for decision. The first step is to escalate the new regulation to the project sponsor because it introduces a critical constraint that may affect the project's viability, scope, or business case. The sponsor has the authority to make high-level decisions about how to proceed, including whether to allocate additional resources or accept changes to the schedule. Submitting a change request (Option B) should come after the sponsor has provided direction. Options C and D are clearly wrong because they either bypass proper governance or ignore legal requirements.

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Submit a change request to the change control board to assess the impact and obtain approval

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Instruct the team to start implementing the additional inspections immediately

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Ignore the regulation since it was not part of the original project scope

Question 10

A key vendor informs you that due to raw material shortages, they cannot deliver a critical component on time. This component is on the critical path. The risk register included this as a high-probability risk with a contingency plan to use an alternative supplier. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Activate the contingency plan and engage the alternative supplier. D is correct because the risk was already identified, assessed as high-probability, and a contingency plan (alternative supplier) was documented in the risk register. When the risk occurs, the first action is to execute the pre-approved contingency plan, not to reanalyze or seek new approvals, as the plan was already vetted during risk planning.

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Ask the project sponsor to approve the alternative supplier

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Replan the project schedule to accommodate the delay

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Perform a new risk analysis to assess the impact

Question 11

During a sprint review, a stakeholder expresses dissatisfaction with a deliverable's feature, claiming it does not meet their needs. The product owner disagrees, stating the feature was built exactly as specified. What is the BEST next step?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a meeting between the stakeholder and product owner to clarify the requirements. The core issue is a misalignment between the stakeholder's needs and the product owner's interpretation of the requirements. The best next step is to facilitate direct communication between the stakeholder and product owner to clarify the requirements, ensuring that the team has a clear, shared understanding before any changes are made. This aligns with the PMP's emphasis on stakeholder engagement and conflict resolution through collaboration.

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Ask the product owner to reprioritize the backlog and add the modification

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Thank the stakeholder for the feedback but proceed with the current deliverable

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Instruct the team to modify the feature to satisfy the stakeholder

Question 12

Your project is 50% complete and 15% over budget. Earned value analysis shows CPI = 0.85 and SPI = 0.95. The team is demoralized due to recent layoffs in the company. An executive suggests reducing the project scope to cut costs. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Perform an impact analysis of the proposed scope reduction and submit a change request. The correct first step is to perform an impact analysis of the proposed scope reduction and submit a change request. As a project manager, you must follow the formal change control process: any change to scope, even if suggested by an executive, requires an analysis of its impact on cost, schedule, quality, and risks before any decision is made. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's guidance that scope changes must be evaluated through a change request to ensure informed decision-making and maintain project baselines.

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Update the project management plan to reflect the new budget constraints

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Decline the suggestion and implement cost reduction measures elsewhere

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Agree to reduce scope to meet the budget, as suggested by the executive

Question 13

An executive stakeholder has been giving direct instructions to your team members, bypassing you as the project manager. This has caused confusion and conflicting priorities. What is the BEST action to take?

Accepted Answer

Schedule a private meeting with the executive to discuss the importance of following the project's communication protocols. It directly addresses the root cause of the conflict—the executive stakeholder's bypassing behavior—through a private, respectful conversation. This aligns with the PMP's focus on stakeholder engagement and conflict resolution, as it seeks to reinforce the project's communication protocols without escalating the issue publicly. By discussing the importance of following the plan, you maintain the authority of the project manager while preserving the stakeholder relationship.

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Ask the team to ignore any instructions not coming from you

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Send a memo to all stakeholders restating the project's communication plan

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Ignore the situation to avoid conflict with the executive

Question 14

Your project team has members from diverse cultural backgrounds. During a conflict resolution session, you notice that some team members are hesitant to express their opinions due to cultural norms. What is the BEST approach to foster an inclusive environment?

Accepted Answer

Establish a team charter that includes ground rules for respectful communication and encourages diverse perspectives. Establishing a team charter with ground rules for respectful communication proactively addresses cultural norms by creating a safe, agreed-upon framework for participation. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's emphasis on team charter development as a tool to set expectations, reduce ambiguity, and foster psychological safety, which is essential for inclusive environments in diverse teams.

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Provide training materials on conflict resolution to all team members

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Ask the hesitant members directly for their opinions during meetings

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Decide on solutions yourself to avoid prolonged discussions

Question 15

During a sprint, you observe that a team member is consistently underperforming, missing tasks, and producing low-quality work. They have been a reliable performer in the past. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Have a private, empathetic conversation with the team member to understand any personal or professional challenges. The first step in addressing a sudden performance decline from a previously reliable team member is to have a private, empathetic conversation to uncover root causes. This aligns with the PMP's servant leadership approach, which prioritizes understanding personal or professional challenges before taking corrective action. Jumping to documentation or reassignment without this dialogue violates the principle of leading with empathy and could damage trust and team morale.

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Escalate the issue to the functional manager for disciplinary action

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Formally document the underperformance and initiate a performance improvement plan

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Reassign their tasks to other team members to maintain sprint velocity