Delegation and Empowerment PMP Practice Questions

Question 1 of 6

You are managing a complex program and realize you have been personally approving every minor decision, creating a bottleneck. Team leads are fully capable of making these decisions. What should you do?

1. A.Continue approving all decisions to maintain quality control — as PM you are accountable for all project outcomes and cannot delegate that accountability without losing the oversight you need.
2. B.Ask the project sponsor to absorb some approval authority — distributing decisions to senior leadership reduces bottlenecks without removing formal oversight from the project.
3. C.Define a decision authority matrix, delegate appropriate decisions to team leads, and establish checkpoints for oversight.
4. D.Remove the approval process entirely and empower the team to make decisions autonomously — agile principles favor self-organization, and approval gates are a form of waste that slows delivery.

Question 2 of 6

You are an agile project manager who has been making most sprint-related decisions. A team member suggests that the team should make more decisions themselves to improve ownership and speed. How should you respond?

1. A.Explain that the PM must approve all decisions to ensure quality and alignment
2. B.Transfer all decisions to the team now to show trust
3. C.Agree in principle, then work with the team to define which decisions they should own and which require escalation.
4. D.Thank the team member for the feedback but take no action, as changing the process mid-project is too risky

Question 3 of 6

You have delegated the management of a subcontractor relationship to a team lead. Two weeks later, you discover the team lead has not held a single check-in meeting with the subcontractor and a deliverable is now at risk. What does this situation indicate about the delegation, and what should you do?

1. A.The team lead has demonstrated they cannot handle the responsibility; immediately reassign the subcontractor relationship to a more experienced team member to protect the at-risk deliverable.
2. B.Take back the responsibility entirely and manage the subcontractor directly — with a deliverable at risk, you cannot afford to leave a struggling team lead in charge of an external relationship.
3. C.Escalate the situation to the team lead's functional manager and request formal intervention — the functional manager has direct authority to direct their employee's behavior and correct the gap.
4. D.Delegation failed because the delegation was incomplete — expected actions, oversight frequency, and success criteria were not defined. Clarify expectations now and establish a monitoring cadence.

Question 4 of 6

An agile team member volunteers to lead the next sprint review presentation but becomes anxious when they realize executives will be in the room. They ask you to take it back. How should you respond?

1. A.Offer coaching support — help them prepare thoroughly, offer to co-present if needed, and encourage them to try while making clear you will support them.
2. B.Take the presentation back to protect the team from executive scrutiny — presenting to senior leadership requires experience that a less confident team member does not yet have.
3. C.Require the team member to present regardless of their discomfort — professional growth requires pushing through anxiety, and executive communication is a skill that can only be built through direct experience.
4. D.Assign the presentation to the most senior team member who has prior executive communication experience, ensuring the quality of the message is not compromised by presentation anxiety.

Question 5 of 6

A project manager wants to empower team members more effectively. Which TWO practices BEST support meaningful empowerment rather than delegation in name only?

Select all that apply.

1. A.Provide the team member with the context, information, and resources they need to make good decisions
2. B.Hold the team member accountable only for inputs (effort), not outcomes
3. C.Assign them the task but retain all communication with stakeholders yourself
4. D.Define the boundaries of the team member's decision authority clearly and respect those boundaries by not overriding their decisions.
5. E.Require the team member to obtain your approval before every significant action

Question 6 of 6

A project manager has delegated change control decisions below a defined threshold to three senior team leads. One team lead has started making decisions above the threshold without checking with the PM. What should the PM do?

1. A.Revoke all delegation immediately since the team lead has demonstrated they cannot be trusted with independent authority — protecting the project requires recentralizing decision-making under the PM.
2. B.Have a direct conversation with the team lead to reinforce the delegation boundaries, understand why the overstep occurred.
3. C.Ignore the boundary overstep if the decisions turned out well — the quality of the outcome is what matters, and punishing good judgment because it exceeded formal boundaries discourages initiative.
4. D.Escalate to the team lead's functional manager without speaking to them directly first — functional managers are the appropriate authority to address overstepping within their team members.