PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
You are managing a large project with multiple vendors. One vendor has delivered a critical component two weeks late, jeopardizing the project schedule. The vendor claims that the delay was caused by unclear specifications from your team. Your team insists the specifications were clear. What should you do FIRST?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that many candidates assume the PM should immediately investigate or assign blame (Option A) or escalate to legal (Option B), but the PMP exam consistently tests that the FIRST action must be collaborative communication to resolve the issue at the lowest possible level before escalating.
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
✓
Facilitate a meeting between the vendor and your team to clarify specifications and agree on a recovery plan
As the project manager, your first responsibility is to facilitate collaboration and resolve the root cause of the conflict—unclear specifications—before escalating or assigning blame. By bringing the vendor and your team together, you can clarify the requirements, identify the actual gap, and jointly develop a recovery plan to mitigate the schedule impact. This aligns with the PMP's focus on stakeholder engagement and conflict resolution as a proactive leadership practice.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Review the contract and specifications yourself to determine who is at fault
Why it's wrong here
While reviewing contractual documents and specifications is a necessary due diligence step, a project manager making a unilateral determination of fault can be counterproductive. This approach risks alienating the vendor and escalating the issue into a formal dispute, rather than fostering a collaborative problem-solving environment. Effective project management prioritizes communication and joint resolution over immediate blame assignment, especially when specifications are unclear.
- ✗
Refer the matter to the legal department for breach of contract
Why it's wrong here
Immediately escalating a specification disagreement to the legal department for breach of contract is an extreme measure that should be reserved for intractable disputes. This action is costly, time-consuming, and almost certainly damages the vendor relationship beyond repair, hindering future collaboration and potentially impacting other project deliverables. A PMP-certified project manager seeks to resolve issues at the lowest possible level through negotiation and mutual understanding before resorting to formal legal channels.
- ✗
Ask the vendor to expedite delivery at no extra cost to make up for the delay
Why it's wrong here
Demanding expedited delivery at no additional cost from the vendor, especially when the root cause is a disagreement over specifications, is an inappropriate and potentially damaging approach. This tactic fails to address the fundamental issue of unclear requirements, unfairly burdens the vendor, and can severely strain the project relationship by creating resentment. A project manager should first seek to understand and resolve the underlying technical disagreement rather than imposing punitive measures.
- ✓
Facilitate a meeting between the vendor and your team to clarify specifications and agree on a recovery plan
Why this is correct
Facilitating a collaborative meeting between your project team and the vendor is the most effective and professional approach to resolve a specification disagreement. This strategy directly addresses the root cause by clarifying requirements, fosters open communication, and promotes joint problem-solving to develop a mutually agreeable recovery plan. It preserves the vendor relationship, ensures alignment, and minimizes project disruption by focusing on resolution rather than blame.
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Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to the PMP Exam and Project Management Basics
Key term
Organizational Change Management
Organizational Change Management (OCM) is the structured approach to preparing, supporting, and guiding people through changes in an organization to ensure lasting success.
Key term
Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is the process of addressing and resolving disagreements between team members or stakeholders to maintain a productive and collaborative project environment.
About these practice questions
This PMP question is part of Courseiva's 800-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.