Meridian's VP of Operations tells the board the crew-scheduling AI initiative will "eliminate all scheduling conflicts within 90 days," even though the PM knows Business Understanding hasn't even started. What is the PM's most important action?

Managing stakeholder expectations to prevent overpromising is a named CPMAI Task 1 enabler, and this scenario is close to a worst-case version of it: a sweeping, absolute, deadline-bound claim ('eliminate all conflicts,' '90 days') made before any scoping work has occurred. The PM's responsibility is to intervene early and directly with the VP — privately and promptly — to recalibrate the claim to something the project can actually be accountable for once Business Understanding defines a realistic scope, metrics, and timeline. Proactively resetting expectations with the VP before the commitment becomes board-level fact, tying any realistic timeline to completing scoping and data assessment first, is the right move. Letting the VP's statement stand publicly, since executives are responsible for setting strategic direction, abdicates the PM's core responsibility; letting an unfounded claim stand guarantees a credibility problem later when reality falls short. Starting to build the model immediately to try to hit the 90-day claim regardless of readiness compounds the mistake by skipping the scoping and data-understanding work entirely in a doomed effort to hit an arbitrary date, which is exactly the kind of proof-of-concept-to-production shortcut CPMAI warns against. Asking the mechanics' or pilots' union to publicly contradict the VP's statement is inappropriate and would create an unnecessary public conflict rather than addressing the expectation problem through the proper internal channel. This is squarely a stakeholder-management competency, tested throughout Domain II.