A newly formed agile team is midway through its first two sprints and members keep interrupting one another in stand-ups, with two engineers openly disagreeing about who owns integration testing. Delivery has slowed and morale is dipping. Applying servant leadership, what should the project manager do FIRST?
- AFacilitate the team in agreeing a set of ground rules covering communication, decision-making, and how work is shared. Correct
- BAssign each disputed task to a named individual and publish a fixed responsibility list so the arguments stop immediately.
- CEscalate the conflict to the sponsor and ask for a ruling on which engineer should lead integration testing.
- DWait for the team to settle by itself over the coming sprints, since storming behaviour usually passes without intervention.
Why A is correct: The friction is typical of the storming stage, and a servant leader responds by helping the team surface and agree its own ground rules, which gives shared, durable norms the team owns rather than a manager's edict.
Why B is wrong: Imposing assignments is a command-and-control reflex that removes the self-organising team's ownership; it may quiet the symptom but does not address the missing agreement on how the team will work together.
Why C is wrong: Escalating a normal team-formation dispute is premature and undermines the team's ability to self-organise; the sponsor is not close enough to the work to make a better call than the team can.
Why D is wrong: Storming does often pass, but passive waiting while delivery and morale slide neglects the servant leader's duty to remove impediments and help the team reach performing sooner.