PMP Practice: Identify and Analyze Conflict Sources

This scenario presents a fixed-price, highly regulated aerospace project with a formally approved baseline, strict certification requirements, and contractual penalty clauses. The conflict arises from engineers wanting to introduce agile iteration cycles into a context that fundamentally requires predictive approaches due to regulatory and contractual constraints. The project manager should facilitate a collaborative conflict resolution session that brings both teams to shared understanding of why the predictive approach is necessary given the project's characteristics—regulatory certification processes require stable, documented requirements and verification plans that cannot accommodate frequent design changes. The PM must then establish clear ground rules for how any design improvements must be managed through the formal change control process. This addresses the root cause of the conflict (misalignment on appropriate methodology) while creating a structured path forward that respects both engineering's desire for optimization and quality's need for certification compliance. The scenario's closing facts—the approved baseline, DO-178C certification requirements, monthly change control board, and contractual penalties—all indicate that informal iteration cycles would create unacceptable risk.

**Why not A:** Recommending a hybrid approach with iterative engineering cycles ignores the project's regulatory and contractual constraints. DO-178C certification requires a stable, documented verification plan, and introducing iterative design changes would invalidate certification documentation already submitted to regulators and violate the approved baseline.

**Why not C:** Supporting the engineering team's request to adopt agile practices would jeopardize the project's regulatory compliance and contractual standing. Frequent design changes in an aerospace project with fixed-price contracts and penalty clauses for late delivery would create unacceptable certification, schedule, and financial risks.

**Why not D:** Escalating to the sponsor for a methodology decision is premature and unnecessary. The project's constraints—DO-178C certification, fixed-price contracts, penalty clauses, and an approved baseline—clearly dictate that the predictive approach must be maintained. The PM should facilitate understanding of these constraints rather than deferring the decision.