about 3.3% of the exam content - about 90 minutes - 14 practice questions
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This task is about the daily grind of project management: something is in the way, and the team cannot move
until it is cleared. The exam tests three things: can you tell an issue from a risk from an
impediment, do you find the root cause before applying a fix, and do you know
when to solve it yourself versus when escalation is genuinely correct.
Issue, risk, impediment, blocker, constraint
These words are used loosely in the field and precisely on the exam.
Term
Definition
Timing
Where it is tracked
GCHS example
Risk
An uncertain event that may happen and would affect objectives
Future, uncertain
Risk register
A storm may delay roofing in September
Issue
A condition or problem that has occurred and needs resolution
Present, certain
Issue log
The roofing crew did not show up today
Impediment
Anything slowing or obstructing the team's progress (agile term, broader than a blocker)
Present
Impediment log / backlog board
The team shares one truck and loses two hours daily
Blocker
An impediment that has stopped work completely on an item
Present, severe
Impediment log, flagged on the board
Permit not issued, so no framing may start
Constraint
A limiting factor the project must work within
Ongoing
Assumption log / plan
A fixed grant deadline of September 30
The clean test: a risk becomes an issue when it occurs. If a question describes something that
already happened, stop looking at the risk register and open the issue log. If it describes something that might
happen, it stays a risk.
The issue log
The issue log is a living document, not a filing cabinet. A useful entry has: an issue ID, description, date
raised, who raised it, category, priority or severity, a named owner, a target resolution date,
current status, actions taken, and final resolution. Two rules matter most:
Every issue has one named owner. An issue owned by "the team" is owned by nobody.
Every issue has a target date and gets reviewed. Issues that sit untouched are the ones
that become crises. Review the log at regular status points, not only when something explodes.
The issue log feeds communications, lessons learned, and often the risk register; an unresolved issue
frequently spawns new risks.
Root cause analysis before solution
PMI is emphatic: understand the cause before you apply a fix. An exam answer that jumps
straight to a remedy (add people, extend the deadline, replace the vendor) without diagnosis is nearly always
wrong.
Five Whys: ask "why" repeatedly to drive from symptom to cause. Inspection failed →
why? Wrong blocking height → why? Crew used an old detail → why? Superseded drawing on site → why? No version
control at the trailer → why? No one owns document distribution. The fix is document control, not scolding
the crew.
Fishbone (Ishikawa or cause-and-effect) diagram: groups possible causes into categories
to explore them systematically. Classic manufacturing categories are people, methods, machines, materials,
measurement, and environment; construction teams often use people, process, equipment, materials, and site
conditions.
Pareto analysis: ranks causes by frequency to find the vital few driving most of the
problems. If 70% of your punch list items come from two subcontractors, that is where the effort goes.
Flowcharts and process analysis: expose where handoffs stall.
Key points
Two answer choices will often both fix the symptom. The better answer is the one that identifies why the
symptom occurred. Root cause first, solution second, then verify the solution actually worked.
Servant leadership and clearing impediments
In agile, removing impediments is a primary duty of the scrum master or team facilitator, and
for a project manager operating as a servant leader it is one of the highest-value things they do. Servant
leadership means the leader's job is to remove obstacles so the team can do the work, not to direct the work
itself.
Impediments surface in the daily standup ("what is blocking me"), get recorded in an
impediment log or board column, and are worked with the same discipline as issues: owner,
target date, status.
The team resolves what it can. The facilitator takes on what the team cannot: organizational, vendor,
cross-department, and access issues.
Scrum of Scrums handles impediments that span teams.
Chronic impediments belong in the retrospective, where the team addresses the system that
keeps producing them rather than the individual instance.
A facilitator who resolves the same impediment every sprint without fixing the underlying cause is doing
firefighting, not servant leadership.
When escalation IS the correct answer
PMI generally rewards acting over escalating: the PM who runs to the sponsor with every problem is not
managing. But this task contains the clearest exceptions in the exam, and you must be able to tell them apart.
Situation
Correct move
A team conflict over how to sequence work
Facilitate: the PM resolves it directly
A vendor is late on a delivery
Engage the vendor and the procurement contact directly first
A functional manager reassigns your team member
Negotiate with the functional manager directly first
A safety hazard or injury risk
Stop work and escalate immediately
A confirmed legal or regulatory violation
Escalate immediately through the compliance channel
Suspected fraud, ethics breach, or harassment
Escalate immediately per policy
An impediment requiring authority the PM does not have (funding, policy change, another department's priorities)
Escalate with analysis and a recommendation
A decision exceeding the PM's approved threshold
Escalate through change control
The escalation test
Ask two questions. Do I have the authority to resolve this? If no, escalate. Is anyone in danger,
or is a law, contract, or ethics rule being broken? If yes, escalate now, regardless of authority. Otherwise,
act: engage the people involved, analyze, and resolve. And when you do escalate, bring the analysis, the options,
and a recommendation, not just the problem.
Preventing the same impediment twice
Resolving an impediment is half the job; keeping it from returning is the other half.
Look for patterns across the impediment and issue logs. Recurring categories point at a
systemic cause: chronic permit delays mean the permitting process needs a fix, not another expedite request.
Convert lessons into preventive action, updated processes, or organizational process asset
updates.
Feed unresolved systemic obstacles to the PMO or sponsor, since organizational impediments are usually
outside a single project's power to fix.
Track cycle time and blocked time in agile environments: rising blocked time is an early
warning that impediments are accumulating faster than they are being cleared.
Watch for AI and data-access impediments in modern environments: waiting on a data-privacy review, an
unapproved tool, or a model output nobody is authorized to sign off on are increasingly common blockers, and
they are resolved through governance channels rather than by working around them.
Practice Questions
1. A storm is forecast that may delay roofing next month. How should this be recorded?
As a risk in the risk register
As an issue in the issue log
As a defect repair
As an impediment in the impediment log
Answer: a. An uncertain future event that would affect objectives is a risk and belongs in the risk register. It becomes an issue only if and when the delay actually occurs.
2. The roofing crew failed to show up this morning and work has stopped. How should this be recorded?
As a risk in the risk register
As an assumption in the assumption log for later review
As a lesson learned
As an issue in the issue log with a named owner
Answer: d. A condition that has already occurred and requires resolution is an issue, tracked with an owner and target date. The risk register holds uncertainty, not events that already happened.
3. What is the relationship between a risk and an issue?
A risk is always more severe
An issue becomes a risk when it is resolved
A risk becomes an issue when it occurs
They are unrelated
Answer: c. When an identified risk materializes it stops being uncertain and becomes an issue requiring resolution. Severity is unrelated to the distinction, which is purely about whether the event has occurred.
4. An inspection failed. The PM asks why five times and traces it to the absence of drawing version control at the site trailer. Which technique is this?
Monte Carlo simulation
Fishbone diagram
Pareto analysis
Five Whys
Answer: d. Repeatedly asking why to move from symptom to underlying cause is the Five Whys technique. A fishbone would organize candidate causes into categories rather than drill down a single causal chain.
5. Which tool groups potential causes into categories such as people, process, equipment, materials, and environment?
Control chart
Fishbone diagram
Pareto chart
Histogram
Answer: b. The fishbone or Ishikawa diagram organizes possible causes by category for systematic exploration. A Pareto chart ranks causes by frequency but does not categorize them for discovery.
6. A project manager finds that 70% of punch list items come from two subcontractors. Which technique produced this insight?
Brainstorming
Delphi technique
Pareto analysis
Five Whys
Answer: c. Pareto analysis ranks causes by frequency to isolate the vital few driving most of the problem. Five Whys examines one problem's causal chain rather than distribution across sources.
7. A worker reports a live electrical wire exposed at the work site. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Log it as an issue and assign an owner for tomorrow's standup
Stop work and escalate immediately
Ask the crew to work around it carefully for the rest of the day
Note it in the risk register as a newly realized threat
Answer: b. A safety hazard is one of the clear exceptions to "act, do not escalate." Anyone in danger means stop work and escalate immediately, regardless of who has authority to resolve it. Logging it for later or working around it ignores an active danger.
8. A key subcontractor is running three days late on a delivery that is not yet a scheduled milestone slip. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Update the risk register and wait for the next status meeting
Engage the subcontractor and procurement contact directly to learn the cause
Issue a change request to remove the subcontractor and open a replacement bid
Escalate to the executive director for a decision
Answer: b. A late vendor is squarely within the project manager's authority to work through directly. Escalating a problem the PM can resolve is the classic wrong answer this task tests for.
9. A functional manager pulls a GCHS team member onto another department's urgent work without discussion. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Negotiate directly with the functional manager for the resource
Escalate immediately to the sponsor and ask for the team member back
Reassign the work to a volunteer to cover the gap
Record it as a secondary risk
Answer: a. A resourcing conflict with a functional manager is exactly the kind of everyday obstacle the PM is expected to negotiate directly using interpersonal and influencing skills. Escalating before attempting that conversation skips a step PMI expects the PM to take.
10. Two agile teams working on the same GCHS Portal release both report an impediment involving a shared vendor API. Where should this cross-team impediment be raised?
The risk register only
The sponsor's steering committee
Scrum of Scrums
The retrospective of whichever team noticed it first
Answer: c. Scrum of Scrums exists specifically to coordinate and resolve impediments that span multiple teams. A single team's retrospective cannot fix a problem that lives between teams.
11. A scrum master personally clears the same permitting impediment for the team at the start of every sprint. What is the BEST next step?
Raise the recurring pattern in the retrospective and address the systemic cause
Remove permitting tasks from the backlog
Continue clearing it each sprint since the team is unblocked
Reassign the impediment to the product owner
Answer: a. Repeatedly clearing the same impediment without fixing its cause is firefighting, not servant leadership. The retrospective is where the team and facilitator address the system that keeps producing it, such as a broken permitting process.
12. What distinguishes a blocker from the broader category of impediment?
A blocker only applies to predictive projects, where phase gates can halt work
A blocker is always caused by a vendor
A blocker is tracked in the risk register instead of the impediment log
A blocker is an impediment that has stopped work on an item
Answer: d. Impediment is the broad term for anything slowing the team; a blocker is the severe case where work on an item has actually stopped, such as framing that cannot start because a permit was not issued.
13. Two proposed responses both stop punch-list rework from recurring. One replaces the crew; the other adds a document-control step after tracing the failure to an outdated drawing on site. Which is the BETTER answer, and why?
Replacing the crew, because it removes the people most associated with the defect
Both are equally correct since either stops the symptom
Neither, because only management can approve a process change
The document-control step, because it addresses the identified root cause
Answer: d. When two options both address the symptom, PMI rewards the one that targets the diagnosed root cause. Replacing the crew punishes people for a document-control failure that was never theirs to fix.
14. A GCHS field team is blocked because an AI-assisted estimating tool's output has not been cleared by the data-privacy review for homeowner records. What is the BEST response?
Route it through the governance channel that owns the review, and wait for clearance
Remove the impediment from the log since it is outside the team's control
Use the tool's output anyway since the delay is administrative
Escalate as a safety hazard
Answer: a. AI and data-access impediments are resolved through the governance channel responsible for that review, not by working around it. Removing it from the log or proceeding without clearance ignores a real, tracked obstacle.
Glossary
Issue log
A living document recording present-tense problems that have occurred, each with a named owner, target date, and status.
Impediment
Anything slowing or obstructing a team's progress; the broad agile term, tracked in an impediment log or on the board.
Blocker
An impediment severe enough to have stopped work completely on an item.
Five Whys
A root cause technique that repeatedly asks "why" to trace a symptom back to its underlying cause.
Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram
A cause-and-effect diagram that groups candidate causes into categories for systematic exploration.
Pareto analysis
A technique ranking causes by frequency to identify the vital few driving most of the problem.
Scrum of Scrums
A coordination meeting used to surface and resolve impediments that span multiple teams.
Servant leadership
A leadership style in which the leader's primary job is removing obstacles so the team can do the work, not directing the work itself.