PMP Practice: Recommend a Development Approach

This scenario strongly favors a fully predictive approach. The combination of fixed regulatory deadline, mandatory complete requirements documentation before development, formal change control board requirement, seventeen system integrations requiring careful sequencing, and federal audit traceability needs all point to traditional waterfall execution. The sponsor has explicitly mandated upfront requirements approval and formal change control, which aligns with predictive planning and baseline management. The compliance context requires extensive documentation and audit trails that predictive approaches handle naturally through phase gates and formal approvals. While the deadline creates schedule pressure, the regulatory and integration complexity makes iterative approaches risky — incomplete requirements or frequent changes could jeopardize compliance certification.

**Why not A:** A hybrid approach starting with agile discovery sprints to refine requirements is unnecessary because requirements gathering is already complete. The business analysis team has finished, and stakeholders are ready for review and sign-off. Introducing agile discovery sprints would delay the project without adding value since requirements are fully known.

**Why not B:** A predictive approach for requirements and design followed by agile implementation introduces methodology complexity that is unjustified. The fixed regulatory deadline, mandatory change control board, and compliance traceability obligations require consistent governance throughout the project. Switching to agile mid-stream would complicate audit trails and formal documentation requirements.

**Why not D:** An adaptive approach with two-week sprints contradicts every constraint in the scenario. The sponsor has mandated complete requirements documentation before development, a formal change control board exists for traceability, the project integrates with seventeen legacy systems requiring careful sequencing, and federal audit requirements demand comprehensive documentation. Iterative delivery would undermine all of these governance needs.