Your organization is executing a predictive project to consolidate three regional data centers into one centralized facility. During project planning, you established strict interdependencies with the operations team for phased migration schedules. Two months before the first planned migration, the Chief Information Officer announces a corporate merger that will add two more data centers to consolidate. The CIO wants to expand your project scope to include all five data centers to 'realize economies of scale.' Your analysis shows this would require re-baselining with 40% additional budget and 8 additional months, but the CIO expects delivery within the original timeline by 'optimizing the approach.' What is the most appropriate response?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct answer is A. Option A is correct because business environment changes of this magnitude require presenting leadership with options and their consequences, not simply accepting or rejecting the request (ECO Business Environment Task 2.2). The project manager must provide objective analysis showing what's possible with different approaches—including whether a phased approach or separate project might better serve business objectives. Option C is the main distractor because while exploring optimization is reasonable, the scenario indicates preliminary analysis already shows significant impacts, and the PM's role is to provide realistic options to leadership, not to find ways to achieve unrealistic expectations. Option B is confrontational without providing solutions, and Option D assumes acceptance without exploring alternatives that might better balance business needs with project constraints.

PMP Practice Question: Business Environment — Predictive, Hard

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