PMP People — Leading Projects Practice Question
Your agile team has been working remotely for the past three months. You notice that sprint velocity has dropped significantly over the last two sprints. Team members seem disengaged during daily stand-ups and collaboration has decreased. What should you do FIRST?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse a symptom (low velocity) with a process or resource problem, leading them to choose tooling or escalation options, when the correct first step is to investigate the human and team dynamics as a servant leader.
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
✓
Schedule virtual team-building activities and one-on-one check-ins to understand concerns
The first step in addressing a drop in velocity and team disengagement is to understand the root cause through direct communication. As a servant leader, you should schedule virtual team-building activities and one-on-one check-ins to uncover concerns such as burnout, isolation, or unclear expectations, which aligns with the PMI People domain of leading projects. This approach fosters psychological safety and collaboration, which are essential for remote agile teams.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Implement a new project management tool to track tasks more closely
Why it's wrong here
Implementing a new project management tool primarily focuses on task tracking and process enforcement, which may not address the underlying human-centric issues causing a velocity drop in a remote agile team. A new tool could introduce additional overhead, require training, and potentially exacerbate existing problems related to team engagement, communication, or morale, rather than resolving them. Agile principles emphasize people and interactions over processes and tools, making a human-centric approach more appropriate first.
- ✗
Ask the team to work longer hours to make up for lost velocity
Why it's wrong here
Demanding longer working hours to compensate for a velocity drop is a counterproductive and unsustainable approach in agile environments. This tactic often leads to increased stress, reduced morale, and severe team burnout, which further diminishes productivity, quality, and long-term team health. Agile values sustainable pace and team well-being, recognizing that an overworked team is less innovative, collaborative, and ultimately less effective.
- ✗
Report the velocity drop to the sponsor and ask for more resources
Why it's wrong here
Reporting a velocity drop to the sponsor and immediately requesting more resources without first understanding the root cause is a reactive and premature escalation. As an agile team, the initial responsibility is to investigate internal factors, conduct a root cause analysis, and attempt to self-organize solutions to identified impediments. Escalating without data or a clear understanding of the problem demonstrates a lack of proactive problem-solving and can erode stakeholder trust in the team's ability to manage its own challenges.
- ✓
Schedule virtual team-building activities and one-on-one check-ins to understand concerns
Why this is correct
Scheduling virtual team-building activities and one-on-one check-ins is the most appropriate initial action because it directly addresses potential human-centric issues common in remote agile teams. This approach allows for inspection of team dynamics, identifies individual concerns or blockers, and fosters psychological safety, which are critical for improving communication, collaboration, and overall team cohesion. Understanding the root causes of the velocity drop through direct team engagement is essential for effective problem-solving and adaptation, aligning with agile principles of inspect and adapt.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Managing Conflicts and Communication
Key term
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a lightweight process framework that helps teams deliver complex projects in small, iterative chunks called sprints.
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.
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