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PMP Practice: Evaluate and Prioritize Impediments

Question 1 of 5 in Remove Impediments and Manage Issues

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Aditya Ranganathan is managing a hybrid project for Hygge Analytics to develop a cloud-based sustainability tracking platform. The predictive-managed infrastructure work is nearing completion, while the agile-managed feature development team is in sprint 4 of 8. The compliance officer has flagged that new environmental reporting regulations will take effect in 6 months and insists the platform must include an advanced carbon emissions calculator before launch. The product owner wants to defer this feature to a post-launch release, arguing that the current roadmap already addresses the minimum viable compliance requirements and that rushing the calculator risks delaying revenue-generating features the sales team has pre-sold to three enterprise clients. The compliance officer warns that launching without the advanced calculator could expose the company to regulatory penalties. Both stakeholders have escalated to Aditya demanding their priority be honored. The sponsor has delegated this decision to Aditya. What should Aditya do FIRST?
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Correct answer: Facilitate a joint workshop with the compliance officer, product owner, and development lead to assess the regulatory risk, quantify the business impact of delay, and collaboratively explore options such as phased functionality or parallel workstreams

Explanation

This scenario requires the project manager to balance competing business priorities — regulatory compliance versus revenue commitments — while respecting the sponsor's delegation of decision authority. The best approach is to facilitate collaborative problem-solving before making a unilateral decision. By bringing the compliance officer, product owner, and technical lead together, Aditya can surface the actual regulatory requirements versus perceived risks, explore creative solutions like delivering calculator functionality in phases or running parallel workstreams, and build stakeholder consensus around a path forward that addresses both concerns. The closing fact that the sponsor has delegated this decision to Aditya means escalation is inappropriate, and the scenario's complexity — with legitimate competing priorities and technical options not yet explored — makes facilitated collaboration the most effective intervention to remove this impediment.

**Why not A:** The sponsor explicitly delegated the decision to Aditya, making escalation back to the sponsor inappropriate and a failure to accept authorized responsibility. Escalating when delegation has already been granted signals a lack of confidence in the project manager's judgment and wastes leadership bandwidth on a decision that Aditya has been empowered to resolve.

**Why not B:** Automatically deferring to the product owner ignores the legitimate regulatory risk raised by the compliance officer. Minimum viable compliance may still leave the company exposed if regulations require the advanced calculator by the launch date; accepting the product owner's framing without investigation could lead to material penalties and does not represent due diligence on a high-stakes issue.

**Why not C:** Unilaterally overriding the product owner and the pre-sold sales commitments without analysis is equally problematic in the opposite direction. Enterprise client commitments may carry contractual penalties of their own, and the regulatory risk may not be as binary as the compliance officer believes—phased delivery or alternative approaches may satisfy both parties. Making a unilateral call before exploring options forecloses better solutions.

Key Concept

This question covers Evaluate and Prioritize Impediments under Remove Impediments and Manage Issues (Business Environment).

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