You are leading a construction project that is 60% complete. During a routine team performance assessment, you discover that your site supervisor has been consistently inflating progress reports to make their team appear more productive. Upon investigation, you learn the supervisor was responding to intense pressure from the construction manager to meet aggressive milestones, and feared their team would be viewed negatively. The actual progress indicates the project is approximately 3 weeks behind schedule. The construction manager is unaware of the misreported data and is making decisions based on the inflated reports. What should you do?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is A. Option A is correct because it addresses all aspects of the situation with appropriate transparency and urgency. Accurate reporting is fundamental to project management integrity (PMBOK 7 Principle of Stewardship), and stakeholders making decisions on false data creates significant project risk. The ethical issue must be addressed through proper channels. Option B is the main distractor but is ethically problematic—it continues the deception and allows decisions to be made on false information for weeks longer, compounding the trust violation. It also makes the PM complicit in the misreporting. Option C delays critical schedule information that stakeholders need now, and Option D is reactive rather than addressing the root cause (pressure from construction manager) and doesn't fulfill transparency obligations immediately.

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