People Domain

• Unit 01

  Team Leadership

  Access: Free tier
  150 questions · 10 topics
• Unit 02

  Stakeholder Engagement

  Access: Premium
  120 questions · 8 topics

A few questions from this module, with the answer and a full explanation. The complete bank is available when you start practising.

1. A PM insists on solving every problem the team encounters rather than asking the team to work through solutions themselves. Which servant leadership principle is the PM violating?

   • A
     Facilitating meetings without imposing personal outcomes
   • B
     Empowering the team to self-organise and develop their own problem-solving capability
     Correct answer
   • C
     Removing organisational impediments from the team's path
   • D
     Building community and a shared sense of purpose
   Explanation

   A core servant leadership principle is empowering team members to develop their own capability and autonomy. When a PM solves every problem themselves, they undermine the team's self-organisation, create dependency, and prevent growth. According to PMI's Agile Practice Guide, servant leaders ask questions and coach rather than providing answers — this is distinct from removing genuine organisational impediments (which IS a servant leader responsibility).

2. A team has used dot voting to prioritise backlog items but one senior developer's preferred item was not selected. The developer announces they will not work on the items the team selected. What should the project manager do next?

   • A
     Accept the developer's position and remove their items from the sprint to avoid team conflict
   • B
     Escalate to the functional manager to enforce the developer's participation in the team's prioritisation outcome
   • C
     Rerun the dot vote and give the senior developer extra votes due to their seniority and technical expertise
   • D
     Meet with the developer to understand their concerns, explain the collaborative decision process, and seek their commitment to support the team's decision even if it was not their preference
     Correct answer
   Explanation

   The appropriate response is to engage with the developer individually to understand why they are withholding commitment and to explain that collaborative decision making requires active support for team outcomes even when one's first preference was not selected. This is the definition of consensus — not agreement, but ability to support. Rerunning votes with extra weights, overriding the team decision, or accepting non-compliance all undermine the collaborative process. Escalation is premature for a disagreement that has not yet been addressed directly.

3. A PM has addressed hygiene factors and implemented recognition and meaningful work programmes (Herzberg's motivators). Most team members' performance improves significantly, but two team members remain disengaged. Applying Herzberg, both should be motivated. The PM concludes the theory has failed. What is the most accurate assessment?

   • A
     The PM should apply Theory X to the disengaged team members, as Theory Y has been exhausted
   • B
     The two team members' disengagement is a performance management issue, not a motivational theory issue; the PM should escalate to HR
   • C
     If motivators have been provided and disengagement remains, the team members have an intrinsic commitment deficit that cannot be addressed through project management techniques
   • D
     Herzberg's theory describes general patterns but motivational factors vary individually; the PM should diagnose the two team members using additional frameworks such as McClelland's needs theory or Vroom's Expectancy Theory to identify their specific motivational gaps
     Correct answer
   Explanation

   Motivational theories describe general patterns but cannot predict individual responses with certainty. Different people have different dominant needs (McClelland), different expectancy calculations (Vroom), and different intrinsic motivational drivers (Pink). For the two disengaged team members, the PM needs individual diagnosis: Is one of them not valued by the recognition format (Vroom: low valence)? Does one have a dominant affiliation need that is unmet in a solo-focused role (McClelland)? Does one lack a sense of purpose connection (Pink)? Herzberg provides the framework for addressing the team broadly; individual exceptions require the PM to draw on additional frameworks and direct conversation with the team members.