POPM Leadership for PI Planning Practice Question
A team has identified a major dependency on an external supplier that is not committed to the PI plan. How should the Release Train Engineer (RTE) or leader address this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates frequently choose 'ask the team to work harder' or 'ignore the dependency.' They fail to realize that the RTE must escalate to management to secure formal commitment.
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
✓
Escalate the dependency to the necessary management levels to negotiate a firm commitment.
Leadership, particularly the RTE, must act as an escalation point for external dependencies that threaten the Program Increment's integrity. By engaging with supplier management or procurement, the RTE can negotiate commitments or identify alternative plans. This ensures that the team's commitment is not based on a hope that the external party will deliver, but on a realistic assessment of the dependency's status.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Ask the team to remove the dependency from the plan and work around it independently.
Why it's wrong here
If the dependency is critical, ignoring it or working around it is not a viable strategy. Attempting to build without necessary external input or components will result in integration failures and rework, further jeopardizing the team's ability to meet their objectives by the end of the PI.
- ✓
Escalate the dependency to the necessary management levels to negotiate a firm commitment.
Why this is correct
Escalation is a core leadership function when teams are blocked by external factors. By involving management, the RTE can leverage organizational relationships to secure the necessary commitment from the supplier, ensuring the team's plan is grounded in reality rather than wishful thinking regarding external resource availability.
- ✗
Instruct the team to mark the objective as 'at risk' and continue planning as if the supplier will deliver.
Why it's wrong here
Marking an objective as 'at risk' is not enough if the work is fundamental to the delivery. It shifts the burden of failure onto the team without providing a solution, which undermines the purpose of PI Planning as a mechanism for alignment and realistic commitment.
- ✗
Cancel the planned feature to maintain the team's velocity and focus on internal work.
Why it's wrong here
Arbitrarily canceling features because of external dependencies ignores the strategic value of those features to the business. Leadership should first attempt to resolve the dependency issue before deciding to deprioritize or cancel work that was identified as high value by the Business Owners.
About these practice questions
This POPM question is part of Courseiva's 336-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 and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Scaled Agile exam blueprint
This POPM practice question is part of Courseiva's free Scaled Agile 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 POPM exam.