PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
You are the project manager for a large infrastructure project to upgrade a legacy network system across 50 remote sites. The project is in its second month, and the team consists of 12 members: 6 network engineers, 3 site coordinators, 2 QA testers, and 1 procurement specialist. The team is co-located at the headquarters except for the site coordinators who are at various locations. Recently, you have noticed that the weekly status meetings are dominated by the network engineers, and the QA testers rarely speak. The site coordinators have missed the last two meetings due to 'scheduling conflicts.' Deliverables from QA are consistently late, and there have been three incidents where network configurations were deployed without QA approval, causing outages at two sites. When you asked the lead network engineer about it, he said, 'QA is too slow; we had to move fast.' The QA lead is frustrated and feels marginalized. The sponsor has expressed concern about the increasing number of outages. The organizational culture is hierarchical, but the project charter gives you authority to manage the team. What should you do first to address this situation?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates choose Option A (one-on-one meetings) thinking it is a collaborative approach, but it is actually a form of 'consult and decide' that does not rebuild team trust or address the systemic process failure, whereas facilitating a team meeting to co-create rules is the correct first step in a conflict situation.
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 team meeting to revisit the team charter, establish ground rules for decision-making and communication, and reinforce the importance of QA approvals.
The core issue is a breakdown in team processes and collaboration, not a technical problem. As the project manager with authority, your first step should be to facilitate a team meeting to revisit the team charter, establish clear ground rules for decision-making and communication, and reinforce the mandatory QA approval gate. This directly addresses the root cause—the network engineers bypassing QA—by realigning the team on agreed-upon processes and roles, which is a fundamental leadership action in the 'Manage Team' process.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Hold one-on-one meetings with each team member to understand their perspectives and then make decisions unilaterally.
Why it's wrong here
This approach is autocratic and fails to leverage the collective intelligence and problem-solving capabilities of the team. While understanding individual perspectives is valuable, making unilateral decisions without involving the team in the solution development process undermines psychological safety, reduces ownership, and does not foster a collaborative environment necessary for sustainable resolution of team conflicts or process adherence issues. It will likely lead to resentment and continued non-compliance.
- ✗
Escalate the issue to the sponsor and request authority to replace the lead network engineer.
Why it's wrong here
Immediately escalating to the sponsor and requesting personnel replacement is an extreme and premature action. This bypasses the project manager's responsibility to first attempt conflict resolution and process correction within the team. Such an action demonstrates a lack of leadership in addressing team dynamics, can severely damage team morale, erode trust, and may not even resolve the underlying systemic issues if the problem is rooted in process or communication rather than individual incompetence.
- ✓
Facilitate a team meeting to revisit the team charter, establish ground rules for decision-making and communication, and reinforce the importance of QA approvals.
Why this is correct
This is the most appropriate action as it directly addresses the root causes of potential conflict and non-compliance by reinforcing established team norms and processes. Re-engaging with the team charter helps re-align members on shared values and expectations, while establishing clear ground rules for decision-making and communication provides a structured framework for future interactions. Reinforcing QA approval importance ensures process adherence, promoting quality and reducing rework. This collaborative approach fosters buy-in and shared responsibility.
- ✗
Implement a new project schedule with tighter deadlines for QA to encourage faster turnaround.
Why it's wrong here
Implementing tighter deadlines for QA without addressing the underlying collaboration and communication issues is counterproductive and likely to exacerbate the problem. This approach places additional pressure on one specific team (QA) without resolving the root cause of the delays, which appears to stem from a lack of adherence to existing processes and team norms. It could lead to rushed work, reduced quality, increased stress, and further strain inter-team relationships, ultimately jeopardizing project success.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to the PMP Exam and Project Management Basics
Key term
Project Charter
A project charter is a formal document that authorizes the existence of a project and gives the project manager the authority to use organizational resources to complete the project.
Key term
Project Team Management
Project Team Management is the process of leading, coordinating, and supporting a group of people to complete project tasks and achieve project objectives.
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.