In a geographically distributed team a developer is delaying a coding activity that is on the critical path. The delay stems from the developer not understanding customer requirements shared by the off-site team. What should the project manager do?

The project manager's primary role is to facilitate project success. In this scenario, the core issue is a lack of understanding of requirements, leading to a critical path delay. Facilitating communication directly addresses this problem by ensuring the developer receives the necessary clarification to proceed. Replacing the developer is a drastic measure that doesn't address the underlying communication breakdown and could introduce further delays and costs. Performing a root cause analysis is a good practice for continuous improvement but is a reactive step that won't immediately resolve the current critical path delay. More frequent performance reviews are not directly related to resolving a technical misunderstanding and could be demotivating.