13 Practice Exam Stakeholder Mng.

Your manager has been reviewing your performance on your last project, and suggests you must take steps to improve your work and skills in managing stakeholders. When it comes to stakeholder management, all of the following are responsibilities of the project manager EXCEPT: A. Carefully select the appropriate stakeholders for the project B. Get stakeholders' sign-off that the requirements are finalized. C. Ask stakeholders to let you know about problems in project communications and relationships. D. Figure out when stakeholders will be involved in the project and how extensively.

A. Carefully select the appropriate stakeholders for the project The project manager does not have the option of selecting stakeholders. By definition, stakholders are people or organizations whose interests may be positively or negatively impacted by the project or its product, as well as anyone who can exert positiv or negative influence over the project. All stakeholders must be identified and managed to ensure project success.

You have been assigned to manage the development of an organization's new website. The site will be highly complex and interactive, and neither your project team nor the client has much experience with this type of website development. The timeline is extremely aggressive. Any delay will be costly for both your firm and the client. You have a project sponsor and have achieved agreement and sign-off on both the project charter and the project management plan. Client personnel have been kept fully informed of the project's progress through status reports and regular meetings. The project is on schedule, wihtin budget, and a final perfunctory review has been scheduled. Suddenly you hear that the entire effort may be cancelled because the product being developed is totally unacceptable. What is the MOST likely cause of this situation? A. Communications arragements were inadequate and did not provide the required information to interested parties. B. A key stakeholder was not adequately involved in the project. C. The project charter and project management plan were not thoroughly explained to or adequately reviewed by the client. D. The project sponsor failed to provide adequate support for the project.

B. A key stakeholder was not adequately involved in the project. A single high-level executive can end an entire project if he or she is not satisfied with the results, even if that person has, by choice, been only tangentially involved in the project. It is crititcal to ensure that all of the final decision makers have been identified early in a project in oder to ensure that their concerns are addressed.

The product of your project is a human resource application that will help the company with hiring and onboarding new employees. For some stakeholders, the team will work on requirements affecting their needs throughout the project. For other stakeholders, the requirements affecting their needs will only come into play during a small part of the project, toward the end. When do stakeholders have the MOST influence on a project? A. In the middle of the project B. At the beginning of the project C. Throughout the project D. At the end of the project

B. At the beginning of the project Stakeholders have an impact throughout the project, but they must be identified and involved at the beginning of the project in order to determine their requirements and expectations. This means that even stakeholders who play a samller role or whose requirements are addressed later in the project are included early. If this effort is not done early, the results may be expensive changes and/or dissatisfaction later in the project.

Which of the following is a term describing people who think their culture is the best? A. Culture-centric B. Ethnocentric C. Enlightened self interest D. Egotistical

B. Ethnocentric Culture-centric is not really a defined term. Egotistical refers to being self-centered. Enlightened self interest refers to persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serving their own self-interest. Since neither egotistical nor enlightened self interes relat to culture, neither can be the best choice. Ethnocentric means tending to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture, and is therefore the best choice.

Stakeholder communication is a critical responsibility of the project manager, and communication between all stakeholders must be carefully planned and carried out throughout the project. The stakeholder register can help with this communication planning. Which of the following is true of information in the stakeholder register? A. It should be available only to the project manager and PMO staff. B. It should be shared with others at the discretion of the project manager. C. It should be accessible only to the project manager. D. It should be available to all stakeholders and team members.

B. It should be shared with others at the discretion of the project manager. Remember that the stakeholder register includes the project manager's impression of stakeholders' capabilities and attitudes, and possibly chalenges related to working with them. Such notes may not be intended, or appropriate, for alll to see. Therefore, the stakeholder register should be shared with others at the discretion of the project manager.

You are the project manager for a large installation project when you realize that there are over 200 potential stakeholders on the project. Some of the stakeholders you have already met with do not support the project. You also know that with so many stakeholders, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to have everyone be 100 percent satisfied with the final product. Which of the following would be the BEST cours of action for you to take? A. Contact your manager, and ask which stakeholders are most important. B. Eliminate some stakeholders. C. Find an effective way to gather the needs of all stakeholders. D. Gather the needs of all most influential stakeholders.

C. Find an effective way to gather the needs of all stakeholders. You need to consider the needs of all your stakeholders as early as possible, to create a better organized project and to minimize changes later. Although it's extremely unlikely that any project you manage will satisfy 100 percent of the stakeholders, it's nevertheless critical to understand the needs of all the stakeholders so you can plan the product and project scope that will deliver the greatest business value and benefits. Keep in mind that the most influential stakeholders may not understand all of the business needs.

While discussing the project with some stakeholders, the project manager realizes she needs to add to the requirements traceability matrix and the stakeholder register. Does she need formal approval from the sponsor or others to change these? A. Yes. All documents require formal apprroval of changes by management. B. It depends on what changes are being made. C. No. Thes are project documents, not parts of the project management plan. D. Yes. The change needs to go through the change control board for approval.

C. No. Thes are project documents, not parts of the project management plan. The requirements traceability matrix and stakeholder register are project documents, not parts of the project management plan. Most project documents are created by the project manager for his or her use during the project, and do not require outside approval for changes. Project Management Plan: The document that describes how the project will be executed monitored, and controlled.

A project manager on a multinational website implementation project is at a party and talks to friends who will be heavy users of this new website when the project is complete and the site is rolled out. They describe some annoying aspects of the current website. The project manager takes this feedback to the sponsor, and encourages design and scope changes. Which of the following BEST describes what the project manager has done? A. Scope planning B. Integrated change control C. Stakeholder analysis D. Scope validation

C. Stakeholder analysis Scope validation is a control function related to gaining customer acceptance. Integrated change control relates to looking for multiple impacts of changes. Scope planning creates a scope management plan. The project manager has performed stakeholder analysis by learning stakeholder requiremetns and making recommendations to fulfill those requirements.

Which of the following statements BEST describes how stakeholders are involved on a project? A. They approve the project charter, help provide assumptions, and create management plans. B. They help to determine the resource needs and resource constraints on the project. C. They help to determine the project constraints and product deliverables. D. They help to determine the project schedule, deliverables, and requirements.

C. They help to determine the project constraints and product deliverables. The project manager determines the project schedule through schedule development. The team and other stakeholders provide the inputs. Since it is also the project manager's role to determine resource needs and create management plans, the choices including those roles cannot be best. The project sponsor approves the project charter, not the stakeholders. Stakeholders do, however, help in determining project constraints and product deliverables. Notice how tricky questions can be if you do not read tem correctly! Watch for this in other questions, and pay close attention to the differences in wording.

All of the following are true EXCEPT: A. The stakeholders' impact on the project must be assessed. B. The project manager needs to determine the skills of the stakeholders. C. The communications management plan is part of the project management plan. D. The stakeholders do not have a role in determining the project management plan unless they are part of the project team.

D. The stakeholders do not have a role in determining the project management plan unless they are part of the project team. The project manager must assess the skills of the stakeholders and analyse their impact. The communications management plan is part of the project management plan. On most successful projects, the stakeholders are actively involved in project management plan creation. The statement contradicting this fact is the exception among the choices offered.

A project manager in your company is moving abroad to take a job at another organization. You've benn assigned to take over her project to revise the warehouse management system. The project manager has only completed some initial planning on this project, and she leaves you with some advice: When youre gathering requirements, dont neglect to talk to the part-time stockers as well as the full-time staff and warehouse supervisors; the part-timers probably have some insight the others don't have because there often asked to fill in on the late shifts and when major shipments come in and go out. And make sure you give a lot of thought to predecessors and successors as you plan the schedule, as there are bound to be lot of dependencies on this project. Aslo, keep in mind that quality standards must be met before closing each phase of the project and before the project closes altogether. For this project and projects in gerneral, stakeholder management is MOST important in which of the follwing process? A. Sequence Activities B. Close Project or Phase C. Perform Quality Assurance D. Collect Requirements

D. Collect Requirements Although stakeholder management is important throughout the project, of the choices listed it is most important in the Collect Requirements process. The Collect Requirements process includes direct interaction with stakeholders, and meeting their requirements is critical to the success of the rest of the project.

You have just begun the last of four project phases in a porject being completed in a large matrix organization. In the past week, three individuals, previously unknown to you, have stepped forward with concerns or objections to your project. One person expresses concern that the product of the project will be obsolete in a matter or months. Another feels the project is wasting time and resources, and a third person expresses doubts about the competency of one of the projects constractors. This indicates a problem with your performance of which project management process? A. Manage Stakeholder Engagement B. Identify Risks C. Plan Communications Management D. Identify Stakeholders

D. Identify Stakeholders If these stakeholders had been identified earlier, and involved in the project during planning, you would habve heard their concerns and had the opportunity to deal with them. Their expertise may have influenced how you planned procurements on your project, and you also would have included their needs as you planned communications and managed stakeholder engagement.

There are over 30 stakeholders on your project. The project is being done in another country, and includes some virtual team members based in three other countries. Fortunately, your company has all of the technology needed to facilitate communications between people in all of the countries involved. Which of the following is the MOST important thing to keep in mind? A. Conflicts of intrests must be disclosed. B. The communication channels will be narrow. C. There must be one sponsor from each country. D. Many competing needs and objectives must bes satisfied.

D. Many competing needs and objectives must bes satisfied. Although it is certainly true that conflicts must be disclosed, there is no indication this is the most important thing to keep in mind. The only option that applies is the need to balance the needs and objectives of all the parties. Especially with the diversity of people involved, thes will likely differ.

The Plan Stakeholder Management process may necessitate updates to which of the following? A. Project management plan and performance measurement baseline B. Issue log and staffing management plan C. Project schedule and project budget D. Project schedule and stakeholder register

D. Project schedule and stakeholder register Outputs of the Plan Stakeholder Management process may include updates to project documents such as the stakeholder register and project schedule.

It is one of the project manager's responsibilities to communicate with and involve stakeholders. During requirements gathering, it often becomes obvious that the project deliverables can't possibly address every requirement that has been requested by stakeholders. This might upset some stakeholders and even lead to some stakeholder resistance to the project, but having a strong stakeholder management plan in place can help the proejct manager deal with this situation. Which of the follwoing is the main obejctive of stakeholder management? A. Stakeholder compliance. B. Stakeholder engagement. C. Stakeholder quantification. D. Stakeholder satisfaction

D. Stakeholder satisfaction Stakeholder satsifaction is the key objective of stakeholder management. This question is asking about the larger concept of stakeholder management. As part of stakeholder management effort, the project manager needs to analyse stakeholder engagement and plan how to keep stakeholders at, or move them, to the desired state of engagement, which will ultimately lead to stakeholder satisfaction.

You are managing a construction project for new library in town. You know the low-bidding contractor is not paying his staff competitive wages, and his team is falling behind schedule. You find some funds in your budget and recommend the project offer coffee and pastries for the workers every Tuesday morning as motivation. You plan to deliver the snacks yourself. A city councilwoman questions your decision. You explain to her that: A. While the contractor is responsible for motivating his staff, you know that, as a project manager, free food always increases good will. B. The financial impact of this gesture is minimal and, at least one day a week, will save the workers time from going out and getting snacks during their breaks. C. The councilwoman is correct. It is not your responsibility to motivate the contractor's staff. D. The construction workers are stakeholders and, since they are not being well rewarded financially, this small investment may bring some performance benefits.

D. The construction workers are stakeholders and, since they are not being well rewarded financially, this small investment may bring some performance benefits. Motivating stakeholders who do not work for you directly can be tricky. Strictly speaking, motivating the contractor's team is not your responsibility, but as a professional project manager, you understand the importance of motivation and reward systems. Providing the snacks sends a nonverbal messag signaling cooperation and sharing. A seemingly small investment may buy more value than it costs. (p. 537)