Council members publicly contradict the ART's PI Objectives for the open-data team, and the team starts blaming one another. What should the Scrum Master / Team Coach name as the source?

When council members publicly contradict the ART's PI Objectives for the open-data team and the team starts blaming one another, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should name an external stakeholder and alignment conflict to surface—not team drama to absorb. External goal conflict from elected officials needs visibility with Product Management and train leadership so open-data priorities can be realigned without turning teammates into scapegoats.

Treating the situation as proof the team wrote bad PI Objectives and must be scored down fails by concept: it punishes the team for an external alignment shock. Calling it a methods fight about which JavaScript framework to use fails by concept by inventing a technical dispute that is not the source. Labeling it an interpersonal clash between two developers that council merely noticed fails by concept: it absorbs political contradiction as personality conflict inside the team.

Exam caveat: SASM conflict sources include external stakeholders and goal alignment; coaches must surface those sources rather than metabolize them as team pathology. Teams still inspect their own communication—but council contradiction of PI Objectives is not fixed by blaming developers for open-data delivery.

Operational check: name the external alignment conflict explicitly, escalate to Product Management and the RTE with evidence of the contradiction, protect the team from internal blame spirals, seek clarified objectives, and verify the next council-facing change routes through proper backlog and ART alignment channels.