PMP Exam Prep 2024 - Practice Test 2 - Project Team (PDF Chapt3)

A project experienced a significant team conflict during the final sprint. Nonetheless, the agile team succeeded in delivering a product that was accepted bythe customer.

What should the project manager do at the end of the sprint?

• Conduct a retrospective meeting with the team to discuss what happened

• Meet individually with the involved team members to express concernsregarding their behavior

• Disregard the conflict since the project is coming to an end

• Disregard the conflict since the team succeeded to achieve the project goals

Answer explanation

Even though the project is going to be closed soon, the project manager should hold a retrospective meeting to openly discuss what happened during the last sprint.

This allows the agile team to understand what went well and what actions to take in the future to improve work processes and collaboration.

Lessons learned is an important process not only for the ongoing project but also for the organization.

Thus, the project manager should openly discuss the conflict, rather than disregard it

During a retrospective meeting, some agile team members stated that it sometimes gets confusing to check who is working on each work item and at what stage they are.

What can the project manager do to solve this problem?

• Coach the team on how to be more attentive during the daily standup meeting

• Guide the team on how to use the kanban board and update it regularly

• Send a daily status report to all team members to remove the impediment

• The project manager shouldn’t do anything since agile teams are self-organizing

Answer explanation

In the case of unclear work assignments or work progress, the project manager should help their team by using a Kanban board to display the flow of work (Agile Practice Guide, page 58). A kanban board could be already used, but team members might not be updating it properly; they’re not self-assigning tasks or they’re not moving work items to the right column.

The project manager should ensure that all team members know how to properly handle the kanban board.

Even though the problem raised by the team is considered an impediment, it’s not practical for the project manager to solve it by sending a daily status report to everyone.

It’s also not sufficient to coach the team to pay more attention during standups, as it’s difficult to keep in mind the status of all items

throughout the day, thus an up-to-date information radiator is needed.

Self-organizing teams work autonomously by assuming responsibility for achieving the

product increment.

However, they still need the project manager's help to adjust work processes and support them so that they can focus on achieving deliverables without interruptions or hindrance.

The project team is suffering from low morale since the departure of a key project stakeholder, who was a big support and motivation source for them.

What actions should the project manager take to boost morale?

• Understand the team’s needs and what motivates them

• Perform team building activities to strengthen team bonds

• Try to prevent the departure of the key stakeholder

• Set objectives and encourage the team to attain them

Answer explanation

The key to maintaining your team’s morale and motivation is the accurate identification of their incentives.

Knowing what each of your team members needs will help you provide them with the necessary conditions to reach their potential, create a productive work environment, and keep them encouraged in the long run.

In most cases, the project manager cannot prevent the departure of a stakeholder if they decide to. Instead, the project manager should set a long-term motivation policy to avoid having their team’s morale depend on the presence of certain members or factors.

Setting objectives or performing team-building activities won’t probably solve this team’s issue since they might be missing other motivational factors that the key stakeholder was providing, such as recognition for instance.

In order to ensure that their agile team is cross-functional, a project manager hires a new team member who is more inclined towards testing tasks. After a few days, the new member informs the project manager that they are unable to do their work properly because they don't have the necessary permission to access a portion of the code.

What should the project manager do next?

• Ask the team member to raise the issue during the retrospective meeting

• Tell the team member to adjust the acceptance criteria of their pending tasks and then inform the product owner

• Explain to the team member that they cannot access the whole code due to security restrictions

• Reach out to the appropriate stakeholder to either confirm or update the team member’s privilege

Answer explanation

Being a servant leader, the project manager should reach out to the appropriate stakeholder in order to verify why the new member doesn’t have access to that portion of code.

It could be for security reasons, or because the concerned stakeholder is unaware of the nature of the new member’s duties.

In an Agile work environment, a project manager should listen to the impediments faced

by their team members and act to solve them.

If the new member’s permission can’t be changed, the project manager should explain this to them and to the product owner in order to update the tasks’ acceptance criteria. Retrospective meetings are set up to improve processes rather than remove impediments.

Mid-sprint, an agile team encountered too many impediments to the point it became impossible to produce any working increments by the end of the sprint.

What should the project manager do next?

• Cancel the sprint

• Proceed with resource leveling or smoothing

• Ask the development team to work on the less difficult work items first

• Continue supporting the development team even though the sprint goal will not be achieved

Answer explanation

In agile, the project manager should be a servant leader.

Therefore, the right course of action in the described scenario is to support the development team by helping them remove existing and new impediments, regardless of being able to achieve the sprint goal or not.

However, the project manager should not dictate what the agile team should work on during the sprint.

The project manager cannot cancel the sprint either, since it’s up to the product owner to take such a decision.

Resource leveling or smoothing are two schedule compression techniques used in a predictive work environment

After introducing a new foreign developer to the team, the project manager noticed that a certain senior team member seems to be avoiding any interaction with them.

What should the project manager do about this issue?

• Talk to the senior team member privately to try and find out the reason behind their behavior while making it clear that discrimination is neither tolerated nor accepted

• Notify the functional manager of the senior team member’s behavior and ask them to take the appropriate disciplinary action

• Look past the senior team member’s behavior since no conflict between the two has occurred and work seems to be going just fine

• Address the issue in the next team meeting by scolding the senior team member and lecturing everyone about the importance of an inclusive work environment

Answer explanation

The project manager should talk to the senior project manager privately to get to know the reason behind their behavior.

Besides, the project manager should be clear about not tolerating any kind of discriminating behavior towards the new team member and the potential consequences and disciplinary procedures the senior team member will face in case their behavior persists.

The project manager should talk directly to the concerned party with no need for escalating the issue to the functional manager at this stage.

Such behavior should not be ignored, even when it seems to have no tangible impact on work progress.

On the other hand, it’s not appropriate nor professional to scold a team member in a meeting and in the presence of their colleagues, regardless of their behavior.

An organization recently transitioned to the agile approach. However, project team members always wait for the project manager to assign them work.

How can the project manager help their team be self-organized?

• Take a few weeks off to force the team to act on their own

• Mentor the team on how to make their own decisions

• Ensure that the team includes different functional expertise

• Support the team by removing encountered impediments

Answer explanation

The project manager can help their team get self-organized by mentoring them on how to make their own decisions.

This will empower them to pick their own tasks without waiting for assignments or asking for permission or direction from the project manager every time.

Taking a vacation is a passive approach to dealing with the problem and it won’t solve it since the team will get back to relying on the project manager as soon as they come back.

Ensuring that the team includes different functional expertise will help the team be cross-

functional rather than self-organizing.

Supporting the team by removing encountered impediments is part of the agile project manager’s duties an.d won’t help make the team self-organizing

A project manager is leading a multi-year software project. After a few months, a senior team member started losing motivation and complaining that their assigned work can be easily done by a junior team member.

What should the project manager do in this case?

• Incentivize the senior team member by increasing their salary or rate

• Increase the engagement of the senior team member by holding team-building activities

• Be proactive and start looking for a replacement for the senior team member

• Find more challenging tasks for the senior team member to tackle

Answer explanation

The reason behind the team member’s demotivation is intrinsic.

The senior team member is looking for challenging work and will respond well to stretch goals and problem solving (PMBOK 7th edition, page 25).

Increasing their salary or holding team-building activities will not help address the original problem.

Looking for a replacement should be the last resort if all other options fail to motivate the concerned team member.

A project manager is contractually engaged to present a monthly report on what was done the previous month and what preventive measures will be taken the following month. The project manager used to deliver the status update presentation themselves, but now that they are on vacation, a team member has volunteered to replace them. Later, the project manager received feedback from key stakeholders saying that the latest presentation was not good.

What should the project manager do to address the situation with their team member?

• Reproach the team member to let them know how disappointed they are

• Send an email to the team member to use their reply as a justification for any ulterior decisions

• Ask the team member what happened with the presentation that resulted in the stakeholders’ dissatisfaction

• Ignore the issue since it only occurred once and it won’t happen again now that they’ll be back to delivering the upcoming status presentations

Answer explanation

The best way to address this issue is to have an informal discussion with the team member to understand what happened and provide them with the appropriate guidance.

Since the issue is neither severe nor recurrent, it does not necessitate formal communication. It’s not appropriate for the project manager to reproach the team member and express their disappointment.

They also shouldn't ignore the situation because it’s their responsibility as the project manager to develop, coach, and mentor their team.

During the last three daily standup meetings with the team, the project manager notices that a new team member is struggling with one of their assigned tasks as they seem to be making no progress towards completing it.

What should the project manager do?

• Ask an experienced team member to take over the task

• Check whether other team members can help their new colleague with their task after the standup meeting

• Express their disappointment to the new team member and encourage them to make more effort

• Ask the new team member to check the team ground rules

Answer explanation

Asking another team member to help mentor the new member and guide them through getting their task completed and overcoming the challenging aspects of their assignment is the right course of action.

Since the member is new and they might lack certain skills or experience dealing with certain types of tasks, they will get the chance to learn and overcome any impediments by collaborating with more experienced team members.

Assigning someone else to get the task done will only have a bad impact on their self-esteem and motivation and make them miss out on a learning opportunity.

Similarly, expressing their disappointment at the new member’s performance will do more harm than actually resolving the issue.

Checking the team ground rules is irrelevant to this situation.