POPM Leadership for PI Planning Practice Question
An Agile Release Train is in the second day of PI Planning. During the draft plan review, the Release Train Engineer notes that two teams have planned work that depends on a shared component owned by a third team, but no agreement on delivery dates exists. The Product Manager is asked how to proceed. What should the Product Manager do first?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that making a dependency visible on the program board is the same as resolving it, when visibility without a delivery agreement still leaves the plan uncoordinated.
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 conversation among the three teams to establish a feasible delivery sequence and record the dependency as a program risk.
When teams surface an unresolved cross-team dependency during draft plan review, leadership should facilitate direct collaboration so the teams can agree on a delivery sequence and make the dependency visible as a risk. This preserves team ownership, keeps the plan realistic, and ensures the issue is carried into the management review and problem-solving session rather than being hidden or escalated prematurely.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Facilitate a conversation among the three teams to establish a feasible delivery sequence and record the dependency as a program risk.
Why this is correct
This directly addresses the unresolved cross-team dependency during draft plan review, which is precisely when dependencies should be surfaced and negotiated. Facilitating the conversation keeps ownership with the teams while ensuring the dependency is visible and sequenced. Recording it as a program risk ensures it is tracked during the management review and problem-solving session and throughout the PI.
- ✗
Document the dependency in the program board and proceed to the final plan review without further discussion.
Why it's wrong here
Documenting a dependency without a delivery agreement leaves the plan uncoordinated and creates false confidence in the final plan review. The program board makes dependencies visible but does not resolve them. Proceeding without discussion means the dependent teams may build against assumptions that the owning team never validated, increasing the likelihood of integration failures during the PI.
- ✗
Instruct the two dependent teams to remove the dependency from their plans until the third team commits to dates.
Why it's wrong here
Removing the dependency hides a real program risk and undermines the transparency PI Planning is designed to create. The Product Manager's role is to help teams surface and resolve dependencies, not to suppress them. This action would also prevent the third team from seeing demand for its component, likely causing a delivery surprise later in the PI.
- ✗
Escalate the issue to the Business Owners and ask them to assign the shared component work to one of the dependent teams.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating before the teams have attempted to resolve the dependency bypasses the self-organizing nature of the ART and weakens team ownership. Business Owners provide business context and approve objectives; they do not reassign technical work between teams. This response also skips the draft plan review's purpose, which is to resolve such issues collaboratively before final plans are committed.
Visual reference
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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.