Test Bank 1
1-) A manager and the head of engineering discuss a change to a major work package. After the meeting, the manager contacts you and tells you to complete the paperwork to make the change. This is an example of: A-) Management attention to scope management. B-) Management planning C-) A project expediter position. D-) A change control system.
1- Answer is C. In this situation, project manager acts as the secretary of the project and does the paper work. So, this is an example of project expediter position where project manager does not have any authority and power. Project manager does only paper work.
10-) Sue is working as a Scrum Master in a Scrum Team. There are five developers in the team. Rick is one of the developers in the team and Sue noticed that Rick is applying a different approach to complete Sprint tasks faster. Which one is the best course of action to do for Sue? A-) Call the entire team immediately for a meeting and tell them that Rick has a new approach to complete tasks faster. B-) Ask Rick to stop his task, and prepare a detailed guide regarding how to apply this approach. Then, distribute to the team. C-) During the retrospective, ask Rick to share his approach with the team and ask the team if it is applicable for every developer. D-) Ask Rick in the next daily standup meeting why he did not share this approach with the team.
10- Answer: C. The Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements for the next Sprint. The goal of this activity is to inspect-and-adapt the process. First, the team goes over what they have done well. Then, they focus on what they did wrong or slow or how they could have done it better. Based on the discussions, improvement areas and actions are planned for the next Sprints.
11-) You are the program level manager with several project activities underway. In the executing process group, you begin to become concerned about the accuracy of progress reports from the projects. What would BEST support your opinion that there is a problem? A-) Quality AuditsB-) Risk Quantification Reports C-) Regression AnalysisD-) Monte Carlo Analysis
11- Answer is A. quality audits. If you read the second sentence again, it says that you are concerned about the accuracy of progress reports from the project. In order to check whether the standards of your organization have been applied in the projects that you are responsible of, you can conduct a quality audit and find out whether there is really a problem. Therefore, here the best answer is A, Quality Audits.
12-) You are a project manager for a major information systems project. Someone from the quality department comes to see you about beginning a quality audit of your project. The team, already under pressure to complete the project as soon as possible, objects to the audit. You should explain to the team that the purpose of a quality audit is: A-) Part of an ISO 9000 investigationB-) To check if the customer is following its quality process C-) To identify inefficient and ineffective policiesD-) To check the accuracy of costs submitted by the team
12- Answer is C. How would you explain it to your team if you were in this case? The best answer is C, to identify inefficient and ineffective policies. B and D are irrelevant options because quality audit is done in order to check whether you are meeting the quality standards, whether you are following the quality procedures of your company. Therefore, it's not related whether the customer is following its quality processes. Or it is not related about accuracy of costs submitted by the team.
13-) During every project team meeting, the project manager asks each team member to describe the work he or she is doing, and the project manager assigns new activities to team members. The length of these meetings has increased because there are many different activities to assign. This could be happening for all the following reasons EXCEPT: A-) Lack of a WBSB-) Lack of a responsibility assignment matrixC-) Lack of resource levelingD-) Lack of team involvement in project planning
13- Answer is C, lack of resource leveling. If you read the clauses again, here the problem is the activities or the tasks that need to be performed in the project are not clear. So, the reasons of these ambiguities, or these unclear points about the tasks that will be performed can be lack of a WBS. If you could not decompose your project activities and creation of WBS, then this might be causing the ambiguities in your project tasks. Also, if you do not have a clear and concise responsibility assignment matrix, then the resources of your project will have unclarity about who will do what in the project. Also, if the team was not involved in project planning, maybe you could not have identified the required steps, required tasks, activities that need to be performed in the project. So, options A, B, and D are the possible reasons for this case mentioned in the question. However, lack of resource leveling might be causing a scheduling problem. Resource leveling is a technique used in schedule management knowledge area, which was enabling the uniform distribution of tasks and activities in a project.
14-) Amy, your friend, works as a software developer at an E-commerce company. When you are chatting with Amy about her project, she told that their project management approach relies on three practices. 1- Visualize what you do today, 2- Limit the amount of work in progress, 3- Enhance flow. Which of the following agile methodology is used in Amy's project? A-) KanbanB-) LeanC-) ScrumD-) Extreme Programming
14- Answer: A. There are 3 basic practices of the Kanban. These are: 1- Visualize what you do today. Seeing all items in the context of each other can be very informative. Kanban board is for this purpose actually. All works that are in progress and done and waiting for the next step to be processed are visualized on the board. 2- Limit the amount of work in progress. This helps to balance the flow-based approach so teams don't start and commit too much work at once. Otherwise, too much work will overburden the team and this will cause quality to decrease respectively. 3- Enhance flow: when something is finished, the next highest thing from the backlog is pulled into play. When there is room for analyzing, developing, testing, and deploying a new item in the software development pipeline, the most important feature from the backlog is pulled into the service development pipeline until all features of the project are finished.
15-) You are working at Smart Heart Co as a Project Manager. Smart Heart is a company producing healthcare products. You are continuously monitoring the business environment if any changes are affecting your project. You are using the PESTEL analysis for environmental scanning. Which of the following does not belong to PESTEL categories? A-) You are working in the US market, and the FDA launched a new regulation for healthcare products. B-) There has been a political tension with one of the countries and they banned the use of Smart Heart's products in their country. C-) Vital Pro, a competitor of the Smart Heart, has launched a new technological product that can be a game-changer in the market. One of the project team members in your project has just resigned, and you heard rumors that he will be working at Smart Heart's competitor. D-) One of the project team members in your project has just resigned, and you heard rumors that he will be working at Smart Heart's competitor.
15- Answer D. Environmental Scan is the process of methodically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data about external opportunities and threats. PESTEL stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal. New FDA regulations are an example of a legal category.Banning products due to political tension is an example of a political category. The new product of the competitor is an example of a technological category. The fourth option is a project-related change in the project.
16-) A project manager is quantifying risk for her project. She needs expert opinion in this process and related experts are spread over to different geographical locations. How can she continue? A-) Using Monte Carlo analysis onlineB-) Applying the critical path methodC-) Determine options for recommended corrective action D-) Applying the Delphi Technique
16- Answer is D, applying the Delphi Technique. If you remember from our previous lectures, that technique was asking the experts opinion on a topic or on a problem and collecting their feedback anonymously and then sending back the results back to the experts again, and recollecting their responses again. And reiterating this process until a consensus is reached by all participants, by all experts. Therefore, since expert opinion is important for this case and experts are spread over different geographical locations, we can use Delphi Technique.
17-) During risk management activities, 236 risks have been identified which are caused by 13 root causes. You could eliminate the 234 risks by your risk management activities. For remaining 2 risks, you, together with your team, could not find a way to mitigate or insure the risks. Also, these 2 risks cannot be outsourced or removed from project scope. What is the best solution? A-) Accept the risk B-) Mitigate the risk C-) Avoid the risk D-) Transfer the risk
17- Answer is A, accepting the risk. When you read the case, the project manager tried first to eliminate the risk, then tried to mitigate or insure the risk. But all these options did not work. And the last step is the risk should be accepted by the project team and continuous reserves should be allocated in order to accommodate risks or in order to overcome the bad impacts of these risks when they occur. Therefore, the best answer here is accepting the risk and also planning contingency reserves.
18-) The project team is arguing about the prospective sellers who have submitted proposals. One team member argues for a certain seller while another team member wants the project to be awarded to a different seller. The BEST thing the project manager should remind the team to focus on in order to make a selection is the: A-) Procurement documentsB-) Procurement auditsC-) Evaluation criteriaD-) Procurement management plan
18- Answer is C, evaluation criteria. The source selection criteria, or evaluation criteria defined in plan procurement management process actually defines, in an objective way, how quantitatively, the potential sellers will be evaluated in conduct procurements process. Therefore, if you have applied specific metrics, specific categories to evaluate, or assess a potential seller in conduct procurement process, then you have to use that metrics, use that categories to evaluate each seller one by one. And the sellers, which got the highest scores should be awarded with contract. Therefore, the team members should not go in argument about the selection of the sellers. Because you have already a quantitative metric to evaluate which seller is best matching to your source selection criteria.
19-) A project manager is in the middle of creating a request for proposal (RFP). What part of the procurement process is she in? A-) Conduct procurements B-) Plan ProcurementsC-) Control ProcurementsD-) Close Procurements
19- Answer is B, she is in plan procurements process. Because procurement statement of work, procurement documents are prepared in plan procurements management process. And RFP is a procurement document as well. Therefore, it is prepared in plan procurements process. RFP was defining what the buyer is requiring from the seller.
2-) During a team meeting, a team member asks about the measurements that will be used on the project to judge performance. The team member feels that some of the measures related to activities assigned him are not valid measurements. The project is BEST considered in what part of the project management process? A-) Initiating B-) Executing C-) Monitoring & Controlling D-) Closing
2- Answer is B. Executing. Questions states that team member feels some of the measures on his activities are not valid. Therefore, he must be working during the executing phase of the project where project deliverables are produced and project members
20-) You want to group your project stakeholders based on their authority and involvement in the project. Which of the following is appropriate model for this? A-) Power/Interest Grid B-) Power/Influence Grid C-) Influence/Impact Grid D-) Salience Model
20- Answer is B. Power/Influence Grid. Authority of a stakeholder represents power of the stakeholder and involvement of a stakeholder represents the influence level of the stakeholder. Therefore, answer is B. Power/Influence Grid.
21-) Karen is working at Consult Master, which is a consulting company. One of the clients of the Consult Master asked the company to prepare a project management approach fitting to their organization. Karen has worked on this project and found that agile methods will be a good fit for the company. Which of the following does NOT fit into the values of the agile manifesto? A-) Individuals and interactionsB-) Comprehensive DocumentationC-) Customer collaborationD-) Responding to change over following a plan
21- Answer: B. The four values of the Agile Manifesto are: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools, Working software over comprehensive documentation, Customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and Responding to change over following a plan.
22-) In the context of a desirable model of communication between a sender and a receiver, all the following statements are correct EXCEPT: A-) Noise should be at minimum level. B-) Receiver must reply the message after decoding the message. C-) Receiver should acknowledge first and then agree with the message sent by the sender. D-) Receiver should send a feedback message to the sender.
22- Answer is C-) Receiver should acknowledge first and then agree with the message sent by the sender. As part of the communications process, the sender is responsible for the transmission of the message, ensuring the information being communicated is clear and complete, and confirming the communication is correctly understood. The receiver is responsible for ensuring that the information is received in its entirety, understood correctly, and acknowledged or responded to appropriately. However, receiver may not agree on received message
23-) John is a project manager of a complicated project. When he started creating a work breakdown structure for his project, he realized that it is too complex to complete work breakdown structure on a single sheet. You, as a colleague of John, recommend using a work breakdown structure numbering system to John to: A-) Determine the complexity of the projectB-) Help in automating the WBS using appropriate software C-) Provide a hierarchical structure for each WBS element D-) Present risks of the project
23- Answer is C. The WBS is finalized by assigning each work package to a control account and establishing a unique identifier for that work package from a code of accounts. These identifiers provide a structure for hierarchical summation of costs, schedule, and resource information.
24-) You are trying to establish a cost performance baseline for your project in Determine Budget Process. You can use the following tool and techniques EXCEPT: A-) Cost aggregationB-) Bottom-up estimating C-) Expert judgmentD-) Historical relationships
24- Answer is B. Tools and techniques used in Determine Budget Process are: Cost aggregation Reserve analysis Expert judgment Historical relationships Funding limit reconciliation Bottom-up estimating is used in Estimate Costs Process.
25-) Which of the following techniques includes measuring, examining and validating whether work and deliverables meet requirements and product acceptance criteria? A-) Workshops B-) Surveys C-) Expert Judgment D-) Inspection
25- Answer is D-) Inspection Inspection includes activities such as measuring, examining, and validating to determine whether work and deliverables meet requirements and product acceptance criteria.
26-) You are a project manager in a bicycle manufacturing company. Rubber for brake mechanism for your bicycles supplied by RuBrake Inc could not reach due to flood affected the transportation routes. This was a risk you thought it could happen since it happens each year on same season. So, as per your risk response plan, you started to use rubbers delivered one year ago. However, this response brought another risk -old rubbers have higher breaking risk during implementation to the brake system. This new risk can also be called: A-) Secondary risk B-) Residual risk C-) Contingency plan D-) Unmanageable risks
26- Answer is A. Secondary risks are risks that arise as a direct result of implementing a risk response
27-) Tom is working as a Project Manager at StateEx which is a nationwide logistics company. Tom is managing a project which will be optimizing the vehicles' location, pickup points, and routes for effective and efficient delivery. Victoria, one of the project team members emails you that she did not understand her tasks clearly. What should you do next? A-) Response via email that he should read the project scope document again. B-) Call Victoria's functional manager and confirm again if she is qualified to work on the project C-) Arrange a one-on-one meeting with Victoria and try to understand what is not clear to her D-) Raise this issue in the next team meeting and ask the team to clarify the tasks for Victoria
27- Answer C. Listening, empathy, and stewardship are characteristics of servant leadership. Before taking further actions, first, you need to understand what is not clear or why the team member did not understand the task.
28-) You are expected to manage stakeholders' expectations as a project manager. All of the following are interpersonal skills that you should apply EXCEPT: A-) Building trust B-) Resolving conflict C-) Risk taking D-) Active listening
28- Answer is C. The project manager applies interpersonal skills to manage stakeholder's expectations. For example: Building trust Resolving conflict Active listening Overcoming resistance to change
29-) There has been several changes in your project and this affected your cost and schedule estimates. This has invalidated the original estimating assumptions. What is the estimate at completion (EAC) for your project based on following parameters? BAC = $ 360,000 AC = $ 120,000 EV = $ 180,000 CPI = 1.2 ETC = $ 145,000 A-) $ 300.000 B-) $ 265.000 C-) $ 325.000 D-) $ 360.000
29- Answer is B. EAC = AC + ETC = $ 120.000 + $ 145.000 = $ 265.000
3-) Your company just won a major new project. It will begin in three months and is valued at 2m USD. You are the project manager for an existing project. What is the FIRST thing you should do once you hear of the new project? A-) Ask management how the new project will use resources B-) Resource level your project C-) Crash your project D-) Ask management how the new project will affect your project
3- Answer is D. Ask management how the new project will affect your project. Since this is another project that your company is going to execute, you need to be sure whether it will impact your project.
30-) Scott is working in a manufacturing company which is producing parts for automobiles. The company has adapted Lean methodology as a project management methodology. When Scott and the team were working on the project, a new requirement has been requested. David, another team member of Scott's team, tells that it is too late to accept new requirements. David's behavior is against _______ . A-) Agile Values B-) Lean Manifesto C-) Agile Manifesto D-) Requirement Driven Development
30- Answer: C. "Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage" is one of the twelve principles in Agile Manifesto.
31-) Your Company has entered into a joint venture with Service Company to develop a software program. Which of the following should be cooperatively prepared by both the buyer and the seller during teaming agreement process? A-) Contract B-) Contract, Procurement statement of work C-) Request for proposal D-) Human Resource Plan
31- Answer is B. In some cases, the seller may already be working under a contract funded by the buyer or jointly by both parties. The effort of the buyer and seller in this process is to collectively prepare a procurement statement of work that will satisfy the requirements of the project. The parties will then negotiate a final contract for award.
32-) There are three projects that are possible to be executed in your company: Project A: Payback period= 6 years & NPV =$ 3,000,000Project B: Payback period=4 years & NPV =$ 2,000,000Project C: Payback period=2 years &NPV =$ 1,000,000 Based on Net Present Value (NPV) criterion, which project should be selected? A-) Project A B-) Project B C-) Project C D-) None of them, they all have equal value
32- Answer is A. Project A has highest NPV of $ 300,000. Time value of money is already considered when calculating NPV of a project. Since Project A has the highest NPV, it should be selected.
33-) You are trying to gather ideas related to project and product requirements. Which technique is appropriate for this? A-) Brainstorming B-) Nominal Group Technique C-) Affinity Diagram D-) Multi-criteria Decision Analysis
33- Answer is A. A technique used to generate and collect multiple ideas related to project and product requirements.
34-) Your colleague Wayne, a project manager, completed a mp3 player development project. While he was telling his experiences from his project, he mentioned that they delivered "adjustable screen timeout duration" feature, without a deviation from the plan, although the customer did not require and was not in scope of the project. He added that customer was very surprised and happy when they saw this additional feature at the end of the project. Which of the following is correct about this story? A-) Gold plating was done in the project B-) Customer satisfaction increased with an additional feature which they did not expect C-) Change request has been delivered successfully D-) Unnecessary risk has been taken by adding a new feature to product.
34- Answer is A. Gold plating refers to continuing to work on a project or task well past the point where the extra effort is worth the value it adds (if any). After having met the requirements, the assignee works on further enhancing the product, thinking the customer would be delighted to see additional or more polished features, rather than what was asked for or expected.
35-) You have documented all possible risks that can affect your project with appropriate risk responses when they occur in your risk management plan. All other remaining risks are called as: 1. A-) Risk Triggers 2. B-) Unmanageable Risks 3. C-) Residual Risks 4. D-) Accepted Risks
35- Answer is C. Residual risks that are expected to remain after planned responses have been taken, as well as those that have been deliberately accepted.
36-) You are working as a project manager in a company. You have the highest degree of authority, you are working full-time for your project and you manage the budget of the project. What is the organization structure in your company? A-) Strong Matrix B-) Projectized C-) Functional D-) Balanced Matrix
36- Answer is B. In a projectized organization structure, project manager has the highest level of authority, works full-time and manages the budget of the project.
37-) You are the project manager of a software project team consisting of 2 analysts, 4 software developers and 3 test engineers. One new test engineer will join the team in two weeks. What will be the number of communication channels after new test engineer joins the team? A-) 55 B-) 50 C-) 45 D-) 36
37- Answer is A. The total number of potential communication channels is n(n-1)/2, where n represents the number of stakeholders. Your team has 10 team members already (2 analysts, 4 software developers, 3 test engineers, and you as a project manager). After new test engineer joins, there will be 11 team members. Number of communication channels = 11*(11-1)/2=11*10/2 = 55
38-) Jason is working at Meat King, a fast-food company. After several complaints about the drive-thru process, Meat King initiated a project for process improvement. Jason completed the project and the following are the tracked benefits after project completion. Which of the following is an intangible benefit? A-) Drive-Thru customers increased by 7% after the project completion. B-) Complaints about the Drive-Thru service decreased by 88%. C-) Based on a survey, brand perception of the company increased by 9% related to Drive-Thru D-) The average service cost per Drive-Thru customer has decreased by 17% after project completion.
38- Answer C. Tangible benefits are monetary or financial benefits that a project can bring to an organization. Intangible benefits are non-monetary benefits that a project can bring to an organization (e.g. brand image, customer satisfaction, etc.). An increase in brand perception is an intangible benefit.
39-) The seller`s project is undertaken on contract and you are an employee of the seller. Since you earlier worked with XYZ Factory, the buyer, you happen to be aware of the evaluation criteria used in XYZ Factory to select sellers. You understand that this could be a potential conflict of interest situation. How do you propose to act? A-) Do nothing and continue to work as before B-) Take appropriate person in XYZ Factory into confidence and discuss this issue with her C-) Disclose the evaluation criteria to your (seller) organization and help their business growth D-) Remove yourself from the project
39- Answer is B. Since the evaluation criteria are proprietary information of XYZ Factory, it is important for you to discuss the matter directly with the appropriate person in the XYZ Factory.
4-) You are a new project manager who has never managed a project before. It would be BEST in this situation to rely on _____ during planning in order to improve your chance of success. A-) Your intuition and training B-) Stakeholder analysis C-) Historical information D-) Configuration management
4- Answer is C. Historical information. First thing to explore before starting a new project is the historical information about similar projects in the organizational process assets library of the organization.
40-) During project planning phase, which of the following steps come latest compared to others? A-) Hold kick-off meeting B-) Gain formal approval of the plan C-) Develop Budget D-) Develop Schedule
40- Answer is A. Following is the order of steps in planning phase: Develop schedule Develop budget Gain formal approval of the plan Hold kick-off meeting Kick-off meeting is the last step of planning phase.
5-) During project executing, a team member comes to the project manager because he is not sure of what work he needs to accomplish on the project. Which of the following documents contain detailed descriptions of work packages? A-) WBS Dictionary B-) Activity List C-) Project scope statement D-) Scope management plan
5- Answer is A. WBS Dictionary. Work packages in a Work Breakdown Structure contain only nouns or a couple of words regarding a work or deliverable. Detailed information on what needs to be done, responsible, prerequisites, successors, due date etc. are included in the Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary.
6-) During a meeting with some of the project stakeholders, the project manager is asked to add work to the project scope. The project manager had access to correspondence about the project before the project charter was signed and remembers that the project sponsor specifically denied funding for the scope mentioned by these stakeholders. The BEST thing for the project manager to do is to: A-) Let the sponsor know of the stakeholders' request B-) Evaluate the impact of adding the scope. C-) Tell the stakeholders the scope cannot be added. D-) Add the work if there is time available in the project schedule
6- Answer is C. Tell the stakeholders the scope cannot be added. After the scope of a project is finalized and scope baseline is determined, it can be changed only with the approved changed requests. If there is not an approved change request, existing scope baseline must be valid and project team must work on to deliver that scope only. In the scenario, scope is defined already but some stakeholders ask to add new work to the scope. This cannot be done unless there is an approved change request. Therefore, stakeholders must be informed that this new work cannot be added.
7-) Your project management plan results in a project schedule that is too long If the project network diagram cannot change but you have extra personnel resources, what is the BEST thing to do? A-) Fast track the project. B-) Level the resources. C-) Crash the project. D-) Monte Carlo analysis.
7- The answer is C, crash the project. Because, in first sentence, it is mentioned that schedule is too long, therefore the aim is making a shorter schedule. And in the second sentence it is mentioned that you have extra personnel resources. If you have resources, you can put more resources in an activity to complete it in a shorter time. And this is actually a description of crashing an activity or crashing the project. If you look to the other options, fast tracking was performing activities in parallel instead of series, therefore it is irrelevant. Leveling the resources was for fixing the over-allocation of resources and distributing the tasks to all your resources uniformly. And Monte Carlo analysis was another estimating tool which is irrelevant choice as well. Therefore, here the best answer is C.
8-) An activity has an early start (ES) of day 3, a late start (LS) of day 13, an early finish (EF) of day 9, and a late finish (LF) of day 19. The activity: A-) Is on the critical path.B-) Has a lag.C-) Is progressing well.D-) Is not on the critical path.
8- Answer is D. is not on the critical path. Because if you look to the early start and late start values of the activity, you can find the float or the slack of activity's time by subtracting early start, 3 days, from the late start, 13 days. And it gives 10 days of float for this activity. You will find the same result if you go through subtracting the early finish, 9 days, from the late finish, 19 days. Since the float of activity or the slack of the activity is greater than zero, it's not on the critical path. Remember the critical path activities was having zero float, therefore the answer is D.
9-) Early in the life of your project, you are having a discussion with the sponsor about what estimating techniques should be used. You want a form of expert judgment, but the sponsor argues for analogous estimating. It would be BEST to: A-) Agree to analogous estimating, as it is a form of expert judgmentB-) Suggest life cycle costingC-) Determine why the sponsor wants such an accurate estimateD-) Try to convince the sponsor to allow expert judgment because it is typically more accurate.
9- Answer is A. Agree to analogous estimating, as it is a form of expert judgment. Since analogous estimating is a type of expert judgment you can accept it. This is a tricky question.