You are managing a defense contract project with 35 team members across four locations. The contract includes specific earned value management (EVM) reporting requirements. At the month 9 performance review, you notice that one remote team of eight developers consistently reports 100% completion of planned tasks on time, yet integration testing repeatedly uncovers significant defects requiring rework. The team lead is well-liked and has been with the company for 15 years. Other teams have expressed frustration about the rework burden. Your SPI is 1.02 but CPI is 0.87, partly due to these rework costs. When you discuss this with the team lead privately, they explain their team is working hard and meeting their commitments as they understand them. What is the MOST effective way to address this performance issue?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is C. This question addresses performance management when well-intentioned team members are underperforming due to misaligned understanding (ECO People Task 1.4: Empower team members and stakeholders). Option C is correct because it identifies the actual problem—the team doesn't understand what constitutes acceptable completion—and addresses it through education and clarity on standards. The team lead's response ('meeting commitments as they understand them') indicates a knowledge or interpretation gap, not a motivation or integrity issue. Root cause analysis followed by targeted training respects the team's effort while correcting the performance issue at its source. Option A is a strong distractor because implementing clearer definitions and peer reviews seems process-oriented and reasonable, but it's wrong as the MOST effective approach because it treats this as a systemic process problem affecting all teams rather than a specific team's misunderstanding of requirements. Changing the performance measurement baseline affects the entire project and doesn't directly address this team's capability gap. Option C is more surgical and appropriate because the other teams are performing adequately, indicating the process definitions are sufficient but this team needs development.

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