{ "format": "novus-learn-open-practice", "version": 1, "packId": "applied-practice-management-judgement", "source": "applied-practice", "slug": "management-judgement", "title": "Management and supervisory judgment: applied practice: open practice pack", "subtitle": "20 untimed questions across 4 authored sections.", "sourceHref": "/aptitude/skills/management-judgement", "disclaimer": "This is untimed educational practice for one applied skill. It is not a clinical, diagnostic, employment, or professionally recognized assessment, it does not produce a score or credential, and for the judgement and safety families it is not a substitute for your employer's own policies, training, or legal duties.", "worksheet": { "title": "Learner worksheet", "instructions": [ "Each item puts you in a supervisory position and offers four responses that a competent manager might choose. Pick the most effective, then read the explanation. It names the principle and shows what the most tempting alternative quietly costs in capability, trust, or information. Nothing here is timed.", "Choose one answer for each item. On a judgement item, more than one option is often defensible. Pick the one you would rate most effective, then check the worked explanation for why the runner-up is weaker." ], "groups": [ { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s01", "title": "Prioritising and delegating", "instructions": "Start with where your own hours go. The recurring test is whether an option builds capacity or consumes it.", "items": [ { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q01", "prompt": "Three things land on the same morning: a board paper due tomorrow, a two-minute approval that two colleagues are waiting on before they can start, and a routine monthly report due Friday. What do you do first?", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "The board paper, because it has the most senior audience" }, { "id": "b", "label": "The monthly report, because clearing the quickest item frees your day" }, { "id": "c", "label": "The approval, because it is short and two people are idle until it exists, then the board paper" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Delegate the board paper and start on the report" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q02", "prompt": "You have just been promoted to lead the team you worked in. You can still do most of the technical work faster and better than anyone reporting to you.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Delegate the work with the outcome, the constraints, and a check-in point, accepting that it will be slower at first" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Keep the most critical pieces yourself and delegate the rest" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Delegate only the low-value tasks so quality is never at risk" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Do it yourself and explain afterwards how you approached it" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q03", "prompt": "You delegated a task. The person is taking an approach different from yours. It is not how you would do it, but it will meet the requirement.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Ask them to use your approach so the team's work stays consistent" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Take the task back and finish it yourself" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Say nothing now and rework it quietly once they hand it over" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Let their approach run, make sure you both agree what a finished result looks like, and review the outcome" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q04", "prompt": "A strong performer asks for a development opportunity that you cannot fund this financial year.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Tell them it will happen next year so they stay motivated" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Say clearly what is and is not possible now, and offer the parts you can give: scope, exposure, or mentoring" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Avoid the topic until the budget position is clearer" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Refer them to HR to discuss development options" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q05", "prompt": "A task can go to a colleague who has done it many times, or to one who needs the experience. The schedule has genuine slack this month.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Give it to the person who needs the experience, with support and a checkpoint, because the slack can absorb the learning" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Give it to the experienced colleague; it will be done properly and quickly" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Split it between them so both are involved" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Do it yourself, since both of them are busy" } ] } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s02", "title": "Coaching and performance", "instructions": "Items about improving someone's work. Watch for options that reach for a formal process before anyone has established what is actually happening.", "items": [ { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q01", "prompt": "A reliable team member's output has dropped noticeably over three weeks. Nothing about their role has changed.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Start a formal performance improvement plan" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Talk to them: describe what you have observed factually, ask what is going on, and agree next steps together" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Quietly move some of their work to other people" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Wait until the next scheduled review to raise it" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q02", "prompt": "You need to give a team member feedback they will not enjoy hearing.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Place it between two genuine compliments so it is easier to receive" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Put it in writing so the wording is precise and there is a record" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Ask a peer they trust to mention it informally" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Describe the specific behaviour, its effect, and what you want instead: in person, and soon after it happened" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q03", "prompt": "An employee misses a target because a supplier they do not control delivered late. They flagged the risk early.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Record the miss without qualification; the target was the target" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Remove the target retrospectively so the record is not distorted" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Record the outcome accurately including the dependency, and assess their performance on what they controlled, including that they raised it early" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Award the rating they would have received had the supplier delivered" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q04", "prompt": "Two team members deliver comparable results. One is highly visible in meetings and updates; the other works quietly and says little.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Assess both against the same written criteria and evidence, and separately help the quieter one make their work visible" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Rate the visible one higher; influencing others is part of the job" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Rate them identically to avoid any appearance of bias" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Ask the wider team which of them contributed more" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q05", "prompt": "Your highest producer is increasingly abrasive with colleagues. Two people have now mentioned it separately.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Tolerate it; their results are exceptional and results are what count" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Address it as a performance issue in its own right, with specific examples and a clear expectation" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Move them into a role with less contact with the rest of the team" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Ask the colleagues to make allowances for how they work" } ] } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s03", "title": "Fairness and difficult conversations", "instructions": "Harder items, where being fair and being liked pull in different directions. Look for the option that keeps the process trustworthy for the next person as well as this one.", "items": [ { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q01", "prompt": "You have to make a decision that will clearly disadvantage one member of your team relative to the others.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Announce it to the whole team at once so nobody feels singled out" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Let it emerge naturally; they will hear it from colleagues" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Delay the decision until a better option appears" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Tell the affected person first and privately, with the reasoning and what alternatives you considered" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q02", "prompt": "A grievance is raised against someone you get on well with and rate highly as a performer.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Deal with it informally to keep it proportionate" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Remove yourself from any involvement immediately" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Follow the defined process exactly, disclose your relationship with the person, and let the process decide who should handle it" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Investigate quickly yourself so it is resolved before it spreads" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q03", "prompt": "Reviewing an old decision, you realise you treated one team member unfairly compared with another.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Tell the person, put right what can be put right, and change whatever produced the inconsistency" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Correct the outcome without drawing attention to the earlier error" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Explain why the original decision was reasonable on what you knew then" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Leave it; reopening it will unsettle the whole team" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q04", "prompt": "A team member says: 'Can I tell you something in complete confidence?', before telling you anything.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Agree; being someone the team can confide in matters" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Say you will keep it private unless it is something you are obliged to act on, explain briefly what that covers, and let them decide before they speak" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Decline to hear anything that comes with conditions" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Agree, and decide afterwards whether you can honour it" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q05", "prompt": "You must announce an unpopular decision made above you, which you privately think is wrong.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Deliver it, and make clear you argued against it" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Deliver it as though it were your own decision" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Explain the decision and its reasoning accurately, own your part in implementing it, and carry the team's concerns back up the line" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Ask someone else to deliver it" } ] } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s04", "title": "Accountability and team decisions", "instructions": "Finish on the decisions that shape how the team behaves next time: what happens after a failure, and how a split team gets moving again.", "items": [ { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q01", "prompt": "Your team ships a defect that reaches customers and causes visible disruption.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Take responsibility for the outcome publicly, run a blameless review of how the process allowed it, and change the process" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Establish who made the error and address it with them directly" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Explain to stakeholders how much pressure the team was working under" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Add an additional approval step before anything ships in future" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q02", "prompt": "Your team is evenly split on a technical decision. Continuing to debate is now costing more than either option would.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Put it to a vote so the outcome is the team's own" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Set a decision deadline, ensure each case is stated once, then decide and record who decided and on what reasoning" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Escalate the decision to your own manager" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Adopt the view of the most senior person in the discussion" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q03", "prompt": "A senior stakeholder asks you to commit your team to a date you believe is roughly half the time the work needs.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Commit to the date and drive the team hard to meet it" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Refuse the date" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Commit to the date with a verbal caveat that it may slip" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Give the estimate you actually believe with the assumptions behind it, and offer the real options: reduced scope, more people, or a later date" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q04", "prompt": "A project you personally championed is clearly not delivering what you predicted. Substantial money has already been spent.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Push harder; stopping now wastes everything already invested" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Wind it down quietly over the coming months" }, { "id": "c", "label": "State plainly what has changed, present the option to stop or redirect with the evidence, and let the decision be made on today's facts" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Explain that the constraints imposed on it made success impossible" } ] }, { "id": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q05", "prompt": "You need your team to adopt a change you are confident they will dislike. The decision itself is not reversible.", "choices": [ { "id": "a", "label": "Present it as non-negotiable and move on quickly" }, { "id": "b", "label": "Ask the team to vote on whether to adopt it" }, { "id": "c", "label": "Introduce it gradually, without announcing that it is a change" }, { "id": "d", "label": "Explain what problem it solves, say what is genuinely open to input, gather that input, then confirm the decision and what changed because of it" } ] } ] } ] }, "authoredHints": { "title": "Authored hints", "policy": "This applied practice source does not publish separate authored hints: the rationale is attached to each item as a worked explanation instead. Every item is therefore listed as missing a hint, and no hint text is generated or inferred.", "items": [], "missingItemIds": [ "management-judgement-applied-s01-q01", "management-judgement-applied-s01-q02", "management-judgement-applied-s01-q03", "management-judgement-applied-s01-q04", "management-judgement-applied-s01-q05", "management-judgement-applied-s02-q01", "management-judgement-applied-s02-q02", "management-judgement-applied-s02-q03", "management-judgement-applied-s02-q04", "management-judgement-applied-s02-q05", "management-judgement-applied-s03-q01", "management-judgement-applied-s03-q02", "management-judgement-applied-s03-q03", "management-judgement-applied-s03-q04", "management-judgement-applied-s03-q05", "management-judgement-applied-s04-q01", "management-judgement-applied-s04-q02", "management-judgement-applied-s04-q03", "management-judgement-applied-s04-q04", "management-judgement-applied-s04-q05" ] }, "answerKey": { "title": "Answer key", "items": [ { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q01", "correctChoiceId": "c", "correctChoiceLabel": "The approval, because it is short and two people are idle until it exists, then the board paper" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q02", "correctChoiceId": "a", "correctChoiceLabel": "Delegate the work with the outcome, the constraints, and a check-in point, accepting that it will be slower at first" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q03", "correctChoiceId": "d", "correctChoiceLabel": "Let their approach run, make sure you both agree what a finished result looks like, and review the outcome" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q04", "correctChoiceId": "b", "correctChoiceLabel": "Say clearly what is and is not possible now, and offer the parts you can give: scope, exposure, or mentoring" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q05", "correctChoiceId": "a", "correctChoiceLabel": "Give it to the person who needs the experience, with support and a checkpoint, because the slack can absorb the learning" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q01", "correctChoiceId": "b", "correctChoiceLabel": "Talk to them: describe what you have observed factually, ask what is going on, and agree next steps together" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q02", "correctChoiceId": "d", "correctChoiceLabel": "Describe the specific behaviour, its effect, and what you want instead: in person, and soon after it happened" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q03", "correctChoiceId": "c", "correctChoiceLabel": "Record the outcome accurately including the dependency, and assess their performance on what they controlled, including that they raised it early" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q04", "correctChoiceId": "a", "correctChoiceLabel": "Assess both against the same written criteria and evidence, and separately help the quieter one make their work visible" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q05", "correctChoiceId": "b", "correctChoiceLabel": "Address it as a performance issue in its own right, with specific examples and a clear expectation" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q01", "correctChoiceId": "d", "correctChoiceLabel": "Tell the affected person first and privately, with the reasoning and what alternatives you considered" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q02", "correctChoiceId": "c", "correctChoiceLabel": "Follow the defined process exactly, disclose your relationship with the person, and let the process decide who should handle it" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q03", "correctChoiceId": "a", "correctChoiceLabel": "Tell the person, put right what can be put right, and change whatever produced the inconsistency" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q04", "correctChoiceId": "b", "correctChoiceLabel": "Say you will keep it private unless it is something you are obliged to act on, explain briefly what that covers, and let them decide before they speak" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q05", "correctChoiceId": "c", "correctChoiceLabel": "Explain the decision and its reasoning accurately, own your part in implementing it, and carry the team's concerns back up the line" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q01", "correctChoiceId": "a", "correctChoiceLabel": "Take responsibility for the outcome publicly, run a blameless review of how the process allowed it, and change the process" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q02", "correctChoiceId": "b", "correctChoiceLabel": "Set a decision deadline, ensure each case is stated once, then decide and record who decided and on what reasoning" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q03", "correctChoiceId": "d", "correctChoiceLabel": "Give the estimate you actually believe with the assumptions behind it, and offer the real options: reduced scope, more people, or a later date" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q04", "correctChoiceId": "c", "correctChoiceLabel": "State plainly what has changed, present the option to stop or redirect with the evidence, and let the decision be made on today's facts" }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q05", "correctChoiceId": "d", "correctChoiceLabel": "Explain what problem it solves, say what is genuinely open to input, gather that input, then confirm the decision and what changed because of it" } ] }, "workedExplanations": { "title": "Worked explanations", "items": [ { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q01", "explanation": "Work that unblocks other people has a multiplier the calendar does not show: two minutes of yours buys back hours of theirs, and the board paper is still comfortably deliverable afterwards. Starting with the board paper is the intuitive answer because seniority feels like priority, but it is one person's output blocking nobody, while the approval blocks two." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q02", "explanation": "Delegating with a clear outcome and a checkpoint is how a team's capacity stops being capped by one person's working hours, and the early slowness is the cost of buying that. Keeping the critical pieces is the reasonable-sounding compromise, and it is the version that never ends: the critical work is exactly the work on which people learn to be trusted." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q03", "explanation": "Delegating an outcome rather than a method is what makes the person responsible for the result instead of for following you. Requiring your approach is defensible when consistency is genuinely a requirement, but here it is not stated as one, and once you own the method you own every decision inside it, which is the opposite of delegating." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q04", "explanation": "A straight answer plus whatever is genuinely available keeps the conversation honest and gives them something real this year. Promising next year is the kindest-sounding option in the room and the most damaging: you do not control that budget, and an undelivered promise is what turns a motivated employee into a leaving one." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s01-q05", "explanation": "Slack is exactly when capability is cheap to build, and a second capable person is what protects the schedule the next time the first one is unavailable. Assigning for speed is the efficient answer for this month and the reason teams end up with a single point of failure for the task nobody else has ever done." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q01", "explanation": "A three-week change in a previously reliable person usually has a cause (a blocker, a workload change, something outside work), and a conversation is the only way to find out which. Opening with the formal plan is the option that looks most procedurally correct, but starting formal before you know the cause makes the honest explanation much less likely to be offered." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q02", "explanation": "Specific behaviour, specific effect, specific request is what someone can actually act on, and doing it promptly and in person allows them to respond. The compliment sandwich is the most widely taught alternative and the least reliable: people routinely leave the room remembering the praise and unsure that anything needed to change." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q03", "explanation": "Outcome and contribution are two different records, and keeping them separate means the business still knows what happened while the individual is judged on what was theirs to influence. Awarding the counterfactual rating is the sympathetic option, but it puts a result in the record that did not occur, and next year nobody can tell which ratings describe reality." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q04", "explanation": "Written criteria applied to evidence is what stops the assessment tracking who talks most, and visibility is then coached rather than silently priced in. Rating visibility higher is the plausible objection, and communication genuinely can be real value, but if it matters it belongs in the criteria for everyone in advance, and if it is not in the criteria then rewarding it is a bias rather than a measure." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s02-q05", "explanation": "How someone gets results is part of their performance, and two independent reports make it a pattern rather than a personality clash. Tolerating it is the tempting trade because their output is genuinely valuable, but the cost lands on other people's output and on who stays, and none of that appears in the high producer's numbers." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q01", "explanation": "The person carrying the cost should hear it first, in a setting where they can ask questions and react without an audience. Announcing it to everyone at once is the plausible alternative and has a real fairness logic behind it, but it makes the affected person receive bad news in public, and that is the part they will remember about how you manage." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q02", "explanation": "Disclosure is the act that protects everyone: it puts the potential partiality on the record and lets the process, not you, decide whether you can still be involved. Standing aside unilaterally is the scrupulous-sounding option, and a complaint left with nobody assigned can sit unowned for weeks. It is not usually the manager's call to make alone." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q03", "explanation": "Naming it, fixing it, and changing the mechanism deals with the individual harm and the next one at the same time. Silently correcting the outcome is the option that avoids an uncomfortable conversation, but the person still believes your original judgement of them stands, and that belief is most of the damage." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q04", "explanation": "Setting the limit before they speak means their decision to tell you is an informed one, and it keeps you able to act if what follows is something you cannot sit on. Agreeing outright is the answer that feels most supportive in the moment, and it is the one that ends with either a broken promise or an obligation you have disabled yourself from meeting." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s03-q05", "explanation": "The team needs to understand the reasoning, know who is accountable for delivery, and have a route for their objections to travel. Distancing yourself is the honest-feeling option, but it leaves a decision that nobody in the room owns, which converts specific concerns into general grumbling with nowhere to go." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q01", "explanation": "Owning the outcome and examining the system produces changes that survive the next staff change, and it keeps people willing to report the next problem early. Adding an approval step is the fastest-looking control and often the wrong one: introduced before the cause is understood, it adds delay to every future release without addressing the failure that actually occurred." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q02", "explanation": "A stated deadline, one clear hearing for each case, and a recorded rationale lets people disagree and still commit, because they can see the argument that carried. A vote is the fairest-looking mechanism and the weakest here: it settles a technical question by headcount and leaves the losing half with an outcome but no reasons." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q03", "explanation": "Estimate plus assumptions plus options turns a demand into a decision the stakeholder can make with open eyes, and it is the only version where the date they choose means something. Committing and pushing is the answer that reads as can-do, and it converts a scheduling problem you could solve today into a credibility problem you cannot solve later." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q04", "explanation": "Money already spent is gone whichever way the decision goes, so the only question worth asking is what the remaining spend buys. 'Stopping now wastes everything already invested' is the most natural thing to say in the room and the clearest form of the sunk-cost error: it treats past spending as a reason to continue rather than as information about the original estimate." }, { "itemId": "management-judgement-applied-s04-q05", "explanation": "Being explicit about what is fixed and what is open lets people influence the part that can move, and showing what their input changed is what makes the next consultation credible. Introducing it gradually and unannounced is the option that avoids resistance today; when the team works out what happened, and they will, every future change is met with suspicion first." } ] } }