POPM Leadership for PI Planning Practice Question
During the second day of PI Planning, a team presents a draft plan that includes a stretch objective to integrate a new payment gateway. The team's confidence vote is only two fingers (out of five). The Business Owner for that team believes the objective is critical for the upcoming release. What is the most appropriate leadership action?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is thinking that leadership should override the team's confidence vote or immediately remove the objective, rather than investigating and resolving the causes of low confidence.
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
✓
Ask the team to explain their concerns and work with them to identify and resolve the impediments before finalizing the plan.
A low confidence vote is a signal that the team has concerns that need to be addressed. The most appropriate leadership action is to facilitate a conversation to uncover the issues and work collaboratively to resolve them. This could involve clarifying scope, removing dependencies, or providing additional support. By doing so, leadership helps the team increase confidence and commitment, which is essential for a successful PI.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Accept the plan as is, because the objective is critical and the team will likely find a way to deliver it.
Why it's wrong here
Accepting a low-confidence plan without addressing the underlying issues is risky. A two-finger vote indicates significant concerns that could lead to missed commitments or quality problems. Leadership should not ignore these signals; instead, they should facilitate a discussion to uncover and resolve the impediments. Proceeding without mitigation can erode trust and undermine the team's ability to deliver reliably.
- ✓
Ask the team to explain their concerns and work with them to identify and resolve the impediments before finalizing the plan.
Why this is correct
When a team expresses low confidence, the recommended approach is to engage in a problem-solving discussion to understand the root causes and help the team address them. This might involve clarifying requirements, securing resources, or adjusting scope. By collaborating, leadership supports the team in increasing confidence and ownership of the plan. This aligns with the SAFe principle of applying systems thinking and the leadership responsibility to enable teams.
- ✗
Direct the team to remove the stretch objective to ensure they can meet their committed objectives.
Why it's wrong here
Unilaterally removing the objective may be premature. The low confidence might stem from fixable issues such as unclear requirements or dependencies. The team should be given the opportunity to address concerns first. Leadership's role is to help the team succeed, not to make planning decisions for them. Removing the objective without discussion could also demotivate the team and ignore potential solutions.
- ✗
Escalate the issue to the Release Train Engineer to reassign the objective to a more capable team.
Why it's wrong here
Reassigning the objective is a drastic step that undermines team autonomy and may not be feasible due to domain knowledge. It also does not address the underlying reasons for low confidence, which could affect other teams. Escalation should be reserved for cross-team impediments that cannot be resolved locally. The immediate action should be to understand and mitigate the concerns within the team.
Visual reference
About these practice questions
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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.