POPM Leadership for PI Planning Practice Question
What is the most appropriate action for a leader if a team expresses low confidence during the vote?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often suggest ignoring the vote or asking the team to 'try harder.' This ignores the psychological safety required for a genuine commitment and the reality of the team's capacity.
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
✓
Identify the specific issues causing the low confidence and work to resolve them.
Low confidence is a vital signal that the team feels the plan is unsustainable or unrealistic. A leader must immediately stop the proceedings and facilitate an open discussion to understand the root cause. By listening without judgement, the leader can help the team identify the specific bottlenecks or risks and then provide the support or scope adjustments needed to bring the plan back to a state where the team can commit.
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 them to vote again after explaining the importance of showing a united front.
Why it's wrong here
Asking for a second vote without addressing the underlying cause is coercive and dishonest. It forces a 'united front' that masks the true issues, which will eventually lead to failure during the PI. The goal is a realistic, honest plan, not a false sense of security.
- ✓
Identify the specific issues causing the low confidence and work to resolve them.
Why this is correct
Addressing the root cause is the only way to fix the lack of confidence. By identifying the issues and working with the team to resolve them, the leader demonstrates support and ensures that the final commitment is based on a plan the team truly believes is achievable.
- ✗
Accept the low confidence and proceed, as it provides a realistic view of potential failures.
Why it's wrong here
Accepting low confidence without action is a failure of leadership. If the plan is known to have a high risk of failure from the start, the team will start the PI already feeling defeated, which reduces motivation and makes it much harder to achieve even the smaller objectives.
- ✗
Delegate the resolution to the team and rejoin when they have a better plan.
Why it's wrong here
The team often lacks the authority or organizational influence to solve the issues causing low confidence, such as cross-team dependencies or resource shortages. Leaving them to solve it alone is a dereliction of duty; the leader must actively participate in resolving these systemic problems.
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.