What is Tailoring?
Tailoring is deliberately selecting which processes, methods, and artifacts fit this project — instead of running every process in the book at full ceremony. A two-week internal tool doesn't need the same rigor as a nuclear plant upgrade, and pretending it does wastes everyone's time.
PMI made tailoring a headline principle in PMBOK 7: the methodology serves the project, not the other way around. On the exam, answers that apply heavyweight process to lightweight problems (or skip governance on high-stakes ones) are both tailoring failures.
Worked example
For a three-person website refresh, the PM keeps a one-page charter, a Kanban board, and a weekly stakeholder email — no earned value, no formal CCB. For the same company's ERP migration, she runs full change control, quantitative risk analysis, and stage gates. Same PM, same toolbox, different cuts — that's tailoring.