PMP Process — Managing Technical Aspects Practice Question
You are managing a project to develop a new mobile application using an agile approach. During the third sprint, two senior developers have a disagreement about the technical architecture to use for a feature. The disagreement is slowing down progress. Which TWO actions should you take?
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
✓
Organize a meeting with the developers to discuss pros and cons of each architecture.
The best approach is to facilitate a discussion to resolve the technical disagreement and, if needed, escalate to the architecture board. Avoiding the issue or forcing a decision without consensus is not recommended.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Organize a meeting with the developers to discuss pros and cons of each architecture.
Why this is correct
Organizing a facilitated meeting is a primary responsibility of a project manager when the team faces a critical technical decision. This approach encourages open communication, allows all developers to present their technical rationale, and promotes collaborative problem-solving. By guiding the discussion, the project manager helps the team weigh the technical merits, risks, and project impacts of each architecture, fostering a shared understanding and increasing the likelihood of reaching a well-informed, consensus-based decision.
- ✗
Let the developers resolve the issue on their own without intervention.
Why it's wrong here
While empowering self-organizing teams is valuable, a project manager must intervene when a critical technical decision, like architectural choice, remains unresolved and impedes project progress. Leaving a significant conflict unaddressed can lead to prolonged indecision, missed deadlines, or the implementation of a suboptimal solution. Proactive facilitation is necessary to guide the team through the decision-making process, ensuring the conflict is resolved efficiently and effectively.
- ✗
Make the decision yourself to save time and move forward.
Why it's wrong here
As a project manager, making a critical technical architectural decision without consulting the development team is generally counterproductive. This approach undermines team autonomy, reduces buy-in, and risks selecting a suboptimal solution due to a lack of detailed technical insight, potentially leading to future resistance or quality issues. Such an action often leads to resentment, reduced team buy-in, and potential resistance during implementation, ultimately hindering project success.
- ✓
Escalate to the architecture review board if the team cannot reach consensus.
Why this is correct
If, despite the project manager's facilitation, the development team cannot reach a consensus on a critical architectural decision, escalating the issue to a designated architecture review board or relevant technical governance body is an appropriate and necessary step. This ensures that the project does not stall due to internal deadlock and that a timely, authoritative technical decision is made by experts with broader organizational perspective, allowing the project to move forward.
- ✗
Remove one developer from the team to eliminate the conflict.
Why it's wrong here
Removing a developer to resolve a technical disagreement is an extreme and highly inappropriate response that severely damages team dynamics and morale. This drastic measure fails to address the underlying technical conflict and instead creates an environment of fear and distrust, hindering future collaboration and knowledge sharing. Conflict resolution should focus on addressing the issue, not eliminating individuals, unless there are severe performance or behavioral issues unrelated to the technical debate.
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Variation 1. Your agile team has been experiencing conflicts between two senior developers over technical approaches during sprint planning. The conflicts are causing delays and affecting team morale. As the project manager, what is the BEST course of action?
medium- ✓ A.Facilitate a meeting between the developers to discuss and resolve the technical disagreement
- B.Escalate the issue to the functional managers of the developers
- C.Make the technical decision yourself to end the debate
- D.Assign the developers to different teams to avoid future conflicts
Why A: Facilitating a meeting between the developers is the best course of action because it directly addresses the root cause of the conflict—a technical disagreement—while empowering the team to self-organize and resolve the issue collaboratively. As an agile project manager, your role is to remove impediments and foster a safe environment for constructive debate, not to impose technical decisions or escalate unnecessarily. This approach aligns with the agile principle of building projects around motivated individuals and trusting them to solve technical problems, which preserves team morale and avoids delays caused by unresolved conflicts.
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.