TPM Stakeholder Management and Communication 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A TPM discovers that two senior stakeholders have conflicting priorities for the same engineering team. What is the BEST first step?
- Escalate immediately to the executive sponsor
- Facilitate a joint meeting to surface and align on shared goals (Correct answer)
- Let the engineering team decide which priority to pursue
- Document the conflict and wait for natural resolution
Correct answer: Facilitate a joint meeting to surface and align on shared goals
Facilitating a joint meeting surfaces competing priorities and allows stakeholders to negotiate alignment before the conflict escalates.
Question 2: Which stakeholder communication artifact best captures the agreed scope, risks, and success criteria at program kickoff?
- Project charter (Correct answer)
- RACI matrix
- Risk register
- Gantt chart
Correct answer: Project charter
A project charter formally documents scope, objectives, key stakeholders, and success criteria, establishing a shared understanding at program inception.
Question 3: A key stakeholder consistently misses weekly status meetings. What is the most effective response for a TPM?
- Remove them from the meeting invite to avoid wasting their time
- Send a brief async summary immediately after each meeting with a clear ask for decisions (Correct answer)
- Escalate to their manager about their lack of engagement
- Reduce meeting frequency to monthly
Correct answer: Send a brief async summary immediately after each meeting with a clear ask for decisions
Async summaries with explicit decision requests respect the stakeholder's time while ensuring they stay informed and can provide input.
Question 4: In a stakeholder power/interest grid, a stakeholder with HIGH power but LOW interest should be:
- Managed closely with detailed updates
- Kept informed with minimal effort
- Kept satisfied with targeted, high-level communication (Correct answer)
- Monitored with the least attention
Correct answer: Kept satisfied with targeted, high-level communication
High-power/low-interest stakeholders must be kept satisfied because they can influence the program significantly, but they don't want detailed information.
Question 5: A TPM is preparing a quarterly business review (QBR) for executives. Which content should be prioritized?
- Detailed sprint velocity and backlog metrics
- Technical architecture diagrams
- Business impact, milestone status, risks, and decisions needed (Correct answer)
- Individual team member performance highlights
Correct answer: Business impact, milestone status, risks, and decisions needed
Executives need business impact, key milestones, top risks, and any decisions requiring their input—not operational details.
Question 6: What does 'managing up' mean in the context of TPM stakeholder management?
- Reporting status to subordinate teams on behalf of leadership
- Proactively communicating program health, risks, and needs to senior stakeholders to enable timely decisions (Correct answer)
- Escalating every issue to avoid accountability
- Requesting additional headcount from senior leaders
Correct answer: Proactively communicating program health, risks, and needs to senior stakeholders to enable timely decisions
Managing up involves proactively keeping senior stakeholders informed so they can unblock issues and make timely, well-informed decisions.
Question 7: A TPM notices that stakeholder sentiment has turned negative due to repeated scope changes. The best immediate action is to:
- Freeze all scope changes for the remainder of the program
- Hold a stakeholder retrospective to acknowledge the impact and agree on a change control process (Correct answer)
- Increase the frequency of status emails
- Replace the scope change requester with a different point of contact
Correct answer: Hold a stakeholder retrospective to acknowledge the impact and agree on a change control process
A retrospective acknowledges the problem, rebuilds trust, and establishes a change control process to prevent recurrence.
TPM Stakeholder Management and Communication 2
A TPM discovers that two senior stakeholders have conflicting priorities for the same engineering team.
What is the BEST first step?