PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
During a sprint retrospective, several team members express frustration that the project manager often overrides their decisions, contradicting the agile principle of self-organization. The project manager believes the team lacks experience and needs guidance. What should the project manager do?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates choose Option D, believing the project manager must retain authority for accountability, but the PMP exam emphasizes servant leadership and empowering teams over command-and-control management.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Acknowledge the feedback, discuss the balance between guidance and autonomy, and agree on decision-making boundaries
It directly addresses the team's frustration by acknowledging their feedback, opening a dialogue about the balance between guidance and autonomy, and collaboratively agreeing on decision-making boundaries. This aligns with the agile principle of self-organization while recognizing the project manager's responsibility to provide necessary guidance, especially for less experienced teams. It fosters a culture of continuous improvement and mutual respect, which is essential for effective team performance in agile environments.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Ask the product owner to mediate the situation
Why it's wrong here
In an agile context, the Project Manager (or Scrum Master) is primarily responsible for facilitating team dynamics, resolving impediments, and coaching the team. Delegating a team conflict or feedback resolution to the Product Owner, whose primary focus is product value and backlog management, abdicates the PM's servant leadership role. This approach inappropriately shifts responsibility and can undermine team trust and the PM's effectiveness in fostering a healthy team environment.
- ✗
Continue as before because the team still needs direction
Why it's wrong here
Ignoring team feedback, especially during a sprint retrospective, directly contradicts agile principles of continuous improvement and adaptation. This action demonstrates a lack of responsiveness to team concerns, which can significantly damage team morale, reduce psychological safety, and erode trust in the Project Manager's leadership. It prevents the team from self-organizing and improving its processes, ultimately hindering performance and engagement.
- ✓
Acknowledge the feedback, discuss the balance between guidance and autonomy, and agree on decision-making boundaries
Why this is correct
This approach embodies servant leadership and emotional intelligence by actively listening to team concerns and validating their feelings. Facilitating a discussion about the appropriate balance between project manager guidance and team autonomy, followed by collaboratively establishing clear decision-making boundaries, empowers the team. This fosters a sense of ownership, improves psychological safety, and promotes self-organization, aligning perfectly with agile values and principles for continuous improvement.
- ✗
Explain to the team that as the project manager, final decisions rest with you
Why it's wrong here
Asserting unilateral decision-making authority directly opposes agile principles of self-organizing teams and servant leadership. This autocratic stance disempowers the team, stifles initiative, and discourages collaborative problem-solving, which are crucial for agile success. It creates an environment where team members may feel undervalued and hesitant to contribute ideas or take ownership, ultimately reducing engagement and innovation.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to the PMP Exam and Project Management Basics
Key term
Sprint Retrospective
A Sprint Retrospective is a time-boxed meeting at the end of a Scrum sprint where the team reflects on their process and identifies improvements for the next sprint.
Key term
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a lightweight process framework that helps teams deliver complex projects in small, iterative chunks called sprints.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This PMP practice question is part of Courseiva's free PMI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the PMP exam.