PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
You are the project manager for a software development project using a hybrid approach. Two senior developers, Maria and John, have a disagreement about the technical approach for implementing a critical feature. Their conflict is causing delays and affecting team morale. What should you do first?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates may mistakenly choose escalation (A) or reassignment (D) as quick fixes, overlooking the PMP's emphasis on collaborative conflict resolution and servant leadership, or they may opt for voting (B) as a seemingly democratic solution, not realizing it can compromise technical quality and team dynamics.
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
✓
Meet privately with Maria and John to understand each perspective and facilitate a resolution
As the project manager using a hybrid approach, your first responsibility is to address the conflict directly by understanding each developer's perspective and facilitating a collaborative resolution. This aligns with the PMP's focus on servant leadership and conflict management, ensuring that technical decisions are made based on merit and team consensus rather than authority or voting, which could undermine team cohesion and the hybrid model's flexibility.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Escalate the issue to the functional manager to resolve the technical disagreement
Why it's wrong here
Escalating the issue to a functional manager prematurely bypasses the project manager's primary responsibility to facilitate conflict resolution within the project team. This approach disempowers the team members from collaboratively finding a solution and undermines the project manager's authority in managing team dynamics. Effective project management requires attempting direct resolution before involving higher management, especially for technical disagreements.
- ✗
Tell the team to vote on the technical approach and proceed with the majority decision
Why it's wrong here
Instructing the team to vote on a technical approach is generally ineffective for resolving complex technical disagreements and can be detrimental to team cohesion. Technical solutions should ideally be based on objective criteria, data, and expert consensus, not simply majority rule, which may lead to suboptimal outcomes. This method risks creating "winners" and "losers," fostering resentment rather than genuine problem-solving and commitment to the chosen path.
- ✓
Meet privately with Maria and John to understand each perspective and facilitate a resolution
Why this is correct
Meeting privately with the involved parties, Maria and John, is the most appropriate first step for a project manager to address a technical disagreement constructively. This approach allows the project manager to actively listen to each perspective, understand the underlying reasons for the conflict, and identify common ground or alternative solutions. By facilitating a direct conversation, the PM can guide them towards a mutually acceptable resolution, strengthening team collaboration and ownership.
- ✗
Reassign one of the developers to a different task to reduce friction
Why it's wrong here
Reassigning a developer to a different task is an avoidance strategy that fails to address the root cause of the technical disagreement. While it might temporarily reduce immediate friction, this action does not resolve the underlying conflict and leaves the potential for similar issues to resurface with other team members or tasks. Furthermore, such reassignments can negatively impact project schedules, resource allocation, and team morale by signaling that conflicts are to be avoided rather than resolved.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to the PMP Exam and Project Management Basics
Key term
Training and Development
Training and Development is the process of enhancing team members' skills, knowledge, and competencies to improve project performance and achieve career growth.
Key term
Project Management Plan
A formal, approved document that defines how a project is executed, monitored, controlled, and closed, serving as the single source of truth for the project team.
About these practice questions
One of 800 original PMP practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. 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.