You are leading a complex financial system upgrade project. The project is very critical for the business and must go live by a certain date in order to meet a government regulation. Any implementation delay might trigger significant penalties imposed on the organization. Your lead developer is delivering late and at low quality. You have noticed that he has often disregarded communications such as emails and skipped meetings in the past. So far this was all under control, but now it is affecting other team members. You are concerned that this could delay the project. What should you do? Talk to the lead developer in private and try to understand the reasons causing this behavior. Talk to lead developer's functional manager and request her to free up the resources for your project. Remove the lead developer from the team and promote the next most senior developer in your team to the lead developer position. Escalate the matter to the HR department so that appropriate disciplinary action could be taken