PMP · Question #154
A development team is struggling to find design documentation for the upcoming sprint. Prior to leaving for vacation, the product owner communicated that the documentation had been uploaded to the pro
The correct answer is B. Audit the effectiveness of the management of project artifacts.. The development team cannot find critical design documentation for the sprint, despite the product owner's claim of uploading it.
Question
Options
- AAssign a team member to manage project artifacts.
- BAudit the effectiveness of the management of project artifacts.
- CImprove email communication protocols to manage project artifacts.
- DInvestigate new software tools used to manage project artifacts.
How the community answered
(30 responses)- A3% (1)
- B80% (24)
- C7% (2)
- D10% (3)
Why each option
The development team cannot find critical design documentation for the sprint, despite the product owner's claim of uploading it.
Assigning a team member without understanding the root cause might simply shift the problem to a new person; the underlying process or system issue needs to be identified first.
The immediate problem is a failure in the current system for managing project artifacts, as a key document is missing or not locatable. Auditing the effectiveness of the current management process will help identify why the document is not accessible, whether it's a procedural, training, or system issue, allowing for targeted corrective actions.
Improving email communication protocols focuses on how artifacts are communicated, but the issue is where they are stored and how they are managed/accessed, which a general audit would cover more comprehensively.
Investigating new software tools is a premature solution; the current system's failure mode needs to be understood before concluding that new tools are required, as the problem might be procedural or user-related.
Concept tested: Project artifact management audit
Topics
Community Discussion
7
Wei W.Mar 29, 2026B is correct. When artifacts are getting lost, the empirical move is to inspect how artifact management is actually working, not to jump to a tool or a role fix. Auditing the process surfaces the real gap so the team can self-organize around a solution.
Orla P.Mar 20, 2026Leaned toward C at first, but B is right since the artifact process itself failed.
Dervla O.Apr 7, 2026B is the move here, though the word audit feels heavy for an agile context where you would normally just ask the team what broke down. A is the tempting trap because assigning an owner sounds proactive and actionable, but it puts a band-aid on a process problem without actually examining why the documentation was not discoverable in the first place. The product owner did their part by uploading the files, so C and D both misread the stem by chasing the communication method or the tool instead of the artifact management process itself. Read the stem twice, flag the recurring phrase manage project artifacts across every option,
Zlatan X.Apr 15, 2026Agreed on B. The PMI mindset here is governance over band-aids: you audit the artifact management process to find the root failure, not patch one broken handoff. That is how you keep every downstream component from hitting the same wall.
Wei W.Apr 18, 2026Co-sign on B, but I would frame it less as governance and more as empiricism: you inspect the process because transparency around artifacts is what lets the team self-organize around the real bottleneck instead of firefighting symptoms.
Ingrid P.Apr 13, 2026B. The audit is the direct response to a process failure, not a tool or role issue.
Zlatan X.Apr 14, 2026Agreed on B, and at the program level that audit output should feed directly into the benefits realization register so the same process gap does not recur across sibling components.