Project Management Exam 2
_____ wrote Quality Is Free in 1979 and is best known for suggesting that organizations strive for zero defects.
Crosby
Projects that use Six Sigma principles for quality control normally follow a five-phase improvement process called _____.
DMAIC
A(n) _____ is any instance where the product or service fails to meet customer requirements.
Defect
Important tools used in the _____ phase of the DMAIC process include a project charter, a description of customer requirements, process maps, and Voice of the Customer (VOC) data.
Define
Which of the following processes in project time management involves identifying the specific tasks that the project team members and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables?
Defining activities
_____ is a technique that helps identify which variables have the most influence on the overall outcome of a process.
Design of experiments
When creating a software package, the software must be designed, the code must be written, and then the code must be tested. This is an example of a ________ constraint.
technical
The disruption used in a PERT representation of a task duration is
the beta distribution
As a rule of thumb, the time to design, document, and code a module equals
the time to test it
Which of the following is not one of the three categories of project constraints?
time
Which of the following lifecycle models is a predictive one?
waterfall
A _____ is a graphic display of data that illustrates the results of a process over time.
Control chart
Which of the following is not part of the Agile Alliance manifesto that declared four core values?
Creating an end user survey.
_____ are the system's special characteristics that appeal to users.
Features
Which of the following are discrete tasks which require resources and time, within the context of projects?
activities
The best time to write the user acceptance test plan is ________.
immediately after completing the requirements document
Better quality implies _______. higher price lower price lower cost none of these alternatives is correct only a. and c. are correct
only a. and c. are correct
You are preparing a cost estimate for a building based on its location, purpose, number of square feet, and other characteristics. What cost estimating technique are you using?
parametric
Iterations are short time frames ("time boxes") that typically last from ________.
1-4 weeks
The purpose of placing a PROJECT summary task at the very beginning of the list of tasks in the entry table is to ________. See total project duration and total project cost on the top line of the entry table Enable a collection of tasks to be predecessors to the PROJECT summary task Make visible the milestones of the project Create mini projects within the context of the larger PROJECT All of these alternatives are correct.
All of these alternatives are correct.
Which of the following is a typical problem associated with cost estimates? Estimates are done too quickly; estimates are off-the-cuff People lack estimating experience Human beings are biased toward underestimation Management desires accuracy All of these alternatives are problems associated with cost estimates.
All of these alternatives are problems associated with cost estimates.
________ is a deterministic diagramming technique used to predict total project duration.
CPM
A typical amount to be added to budgets and schedules for such things as holidays, sick days, snow days, company meetings, training days, etc. is ________.
10%
You cannot start editing a technical report until someone else completes the first draft. What type of dependency does this represent?
finish-to-start
________ analysis is a method of calculating the expected net monetary gain or loss from a project by discounting all expected future cash inflows and outflows to the present point in time.
net present value
At the completion of an agile iteration a ________.
new, bug-free functionality is developed/deployed to the customer
Which of the following estimates is used for strategic purposes?
top-down estimate
The total effort for a project is calculated to be 24 person-months. Eight capable persons are assigned to the project. There is no mandatory or other sequencing required in the project. What is its total duration likely to be?
3 months
Six Sigma's target for perfection is the achievement of no more than _____ defects, errors, or mistakes per million opportunities.
3.4
_____, a quality system standard is a three-part, continuous cycle of planning, controlling, and documenting quality in an organization.
ISO 9000
Which of the following are discrete tasks which require resources and time, within the context of projects? value chains activities schedules processes
Activities
Which of the following is a potential future consequence of not considering the impact on the schedule of limited resources?
All a., b. and c. are correct. costly activity delays Costly project delays Difficulty in taking quick corrective action
By default MS Project makes which of the following assumptions about time? 8-hour days no work on saturdays no work on sundays all of the alternatives are correct only a. and c. are correct
All of the alternatives are correct.
In the Scrum Development Process a specific feature is ________. analysis design build trust All of these alternatives are correct.
All of these alternatives are correct
Which of the following is false?
Always assign resources to summary tasks
An important tool used in the _____ phase of the DMAIC process is the fishbone or Ishikawa diagram.
Analyze
_____ is the cost of evaluating processes and their outputs to ensure that a project is error-free or within an acceptable error range.
Appraisal cost
_____ generates ideas for quality improvements by comparing specific project practices or product characteristics to those of other projects or products within or outside the performing organization.
Benchmarking
When should inexperienced persons be used to estimate?
Both a. and c. are correct when taken together. When no one else is available When there is no history database
A milestone in MS Project is a task with ________. a finite duration a zero duration minimal duration/minimal cost a diamond icon Both b. and d. are correct.
Both b. and d. are correct.
Which of the following estimates is typically done two years before start of execution?
Budgetary estimation
Select the most accurate statement with regards to the Critical Path Method (CPM).
It assumes that activities are independent of one another, with clearly defined start and finish dates.
Select the most accurate statement with regards to the Critical Path Method (CPM). It accounts for the interruptions that may affect an activity between the start and the finish times. It assumes that activities are independent of one another, with clearly defined start and finish dates. It uses the variance in the critical path activities to evaluate the risks associated with project completion times. It allows us to investigate the effects of uncertainty of activity times on project completion times.
It assumes that activities are independent of one another, with clearly defined start and finish dates.
_____ addresses the ease of performing maintenance on a product.
Maintainability
A _____ is a standard of measurement in quality management.
Metric
Which of the following is not one seven processes that make up the PMBOK knowledge area known as time (schedule) management? sequence activities plan schedule management control activities define activities monitor activities
Monitor Activities
Validated changes and validated deliverables are the outputs of the _____ subprocess of project quality management.
Monitoring and controlling
A ____ is a bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical regarding the average value of the population (the data being analyzed).
Normal distribution
In order to see total project duration and total project cost as well as meta-task durations and costs, it is recommended that you ________. include a project summary task as your first task under which all other tasks are subordinate insert a cost column in the Entry table replace the Entry table with the Cost table in the Gantt view All of these alternatives are correct. Only a. and b. are correct.
Only a. and b. are correct.
MS Project can do its scheduling from ________. the project start date the project stop date the project initiate date all of the alternatives are correct only a. and b. are correct
Only a. and b. are correct.
_____ helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes.
CMMI
The purpose of a far-out estimate (five or more years) is to ________. Determine economic feasibility Determine priority of the project Decide detailed absolute definitive cost and duration numbers All of these alternatives are correct. Only a. and b. are correct.
Only a. and b. are correct.
________ is a probabilistic scheduling technique while ________ is deterministic, with ________ being most widely used in commercial software
PERT | CPM | CPM
_____ help users to identify the vital few contributors that account for most quality problems in a system.
Pareto charts
_____ involves choosing part of a population of interest for inspection.
Statistical sampling
Katniss Everdeen hates assumptions, but understands they're necessary sometimes. Choose the statement that is an assumption made by the critical path method (CPM)?
The activity time estimates are accurate and stable.
Which of the following statements is false? probability distributions for PERT activity duraitons are represented by use of the Beta distribution the critical path is the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which a project can be started a forward pass through a project network diagram determines the early start and early finish dates for each activity reashing is a technique for making cost and schedule trade-offs to obtain the greatest amount of schedule compression of the least incremental cost
The critical path is the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which a project can be started
According to Larson and Gray chapter 8, cost estimates are not a budget until ________.
budgets have been time-phased
What kind of cash reserves are needed to accomodate holidays, sick days, snow days, company meetings, training days?
contingency reserves
________ is a planning process that is within the Project Scope Management knowledge area.
creating of a WBS
Estimation that is performed immediately before execution and often uses a bottom-up technique referred to as
definitive estimation
The purpose of top-down estimation is not for ________.
definitive purposes
All of the following are part of the Agile Project Management model except ________. design up front embrace change flexibility self organized project teams high uncertainty
design up front
________ costs are costs related to the amount of time and resources allocated to completion of the project, whereas ________ costs are such items as overhead, pension and healthcare plans, etc.
direct / indirect
Which of the following statements is false?
duration and effort are synonymous terms
A sky crane that Joshua needs on his project has been scheduled on another project. This is a ________ constraint.
equipment
In project time management, which of the following processes involve calculating the number of work periods that are needed to complete individual tasks?
estimating activity durations
Of the four types of quality costs, which is the most expensive by far?
external failure costs
As discussed in class, the cost to fix a defect ________ over time and becomes exorbitant once the defect ________.
increases exponentially | 'walks out the door'
In MS Project, the tool that is used to designate subordination as displayed in the WBS is ________.
indent arrow on the tool bar
All of the following are categories of resource constraints except ________.
information
Of the four types of quality costs, which has to do with scrap and reworked product?
internal failure costs
A big picture view of the cost of a project over its entire existence is ________.
life cycle costing
________ reserves allow for future situations that are unpredictable (unknown unknowns).
management
As the project manager for a software development project, you are helping to develop the project schedule. You decide that writing code for a system should not start until users sign off on the analysis work. Further, you decide that testing of a module (an object, class) will not commence until the entire module has been coded and compiled. What type of dependency is this?
mandatory
Joshua needs to order concrete needed to continue his project. The concrete is needed now. However, the supplier won't be able to deliver it until next week. This is an example of a ________ constraint.
materials
Which of the following is not one seven processes that make up the PMBOK knowledge area known as time (schedule) management?
monitor activities
If the time units are months, duration is measured in ________ whereas effort is measured in _______. dollars, month-dollars man-months, month months, man-months month-dollars, dollars None of the alternatives is correct.
months, man-months
A ________ is a bell-shaped curve that is symmetrical regarding the average value of the population (the data being analyzed) and has infinite tails.
normal distribution
By default MS Project assumes unspecified task durations are ________.
one day in duration, followed by a ?
To crash the critical path beyond the point where it is no longer critical is to allow another path to become critical to waste money permissible by the rules all of these alternatives are correct only a and b are correct
only a and b are correct
Why is it necessary to ennumerate every path when crashing a project? so as to determine the length of every path and to determine the critical path so as to determine which tasks are not critical so as to determine the effects on every path length from crashing a specific task so as to determine if the critical path has been crashed beyond the point where it is no longer critical only c and d are correct
only c and d are correct
Jennifer has been assigned to perform an environmental test but the chamber cannot hold all the equipment that she wants to test. This is an example of a _________ constraint.
physical
Almost all knowledge areas have a ________ process and a ________ process.
plan | control
The first process involved in project time management is ________.
planning schedule management
Which of the following processes involves determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning, executing, and controlling the project schedule?
planning schedule management
________ involves allocating the project cost estimate to individual material resources or work items over time.
project cost budgeting
Which of the following is not something that we ordinarily estimate?
quality
________ is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.
quality
The purpose of crashing is to
reduce project duration, given a crashing budget
A project engineer has been scheduled to run the product system test at the exact same time he is to build a marketing prototype. This is an example of a ________ constraint.
resource
Delaying certain activities that have slack so as to lower peak demand on resources is known as ________.
resource smoothing
If resources are insufficient to meet peak demands, the resulting new schedule is termed ______
resource-constrained scheduling
According to Larson and Gray chapter 8, project network times are not a schedule until ________.
resources have been assigned
Which of the following lifecycle models would you use if the requirements are unknown and/or unstable?
scrum
The implication of the cost of quality taxonomy discussed in class was to ________.
spend more money on prevention so as to incur less in the way of external costs due to bugs and software defects
Which of the following estimates is typically used for making decisions two to five years out?
strategic estimation
The purpose of top-down estimation is for
strategic purposes
Money that has been spent in the past is known as a(n) ________.
sunk cost
Cost or benefits that are easily measured in dollars are called ________.
tangible
Which of the following costs has to do with appraisal?
testing and inspection costs
Payback occurs when ________.
the net cumulative benefits equal the net cumulative costs
According to the central limit theorem,
the sum of non-normal random number tend toward the normal distribution
Estimating processes occur within two knowledge areas. They are:
time, cost
cost is a resource _______.
to balance against schedule and scope
The best time to do crashing is
toward the end of the planning phase
In your project plans which of the following will you not be required to include?
tracking gantt chart
Which is more expensive and costly to the firm?
under-estimation
Traditional approaches to project management concentrate firmly on thorough planning ________.
up front
Analogous estimating amounts to ________.
use of a past similar project
If your team's task was to develop an AI pattern recognition engine based on King Sung Fu's formulas/algorithms developed 40 years ago, which model would you likely use?
waterfall
The ________ provides a basis for creating the project schedule and rolling up costs for measuring project performance.
work breakdown structure
Which of the following estimates is used for a definitive purpose?
bottom-up estimate
________ costs are things like resource hourly rates.
direct
The standard deviaiton of a task whose optimistic time is 20 and whose most likely time is 30 and whose pessimistic time is 100 is
13.33
The average duration of a task whose optimistic time is 20 and whose most likely time is 30 and whose pessimistic time is 100 is
40
How many function points does it take to equal a person-month in terms of effort?
5
_____ means the project's processes and products meet written specifications.
Conformance to requirements
Which of the following statements regarding crashing is false?
Crashing the critical path to the point where it is no longer critical is a common practice.
Which of the following statements is false? A resource breakdown structure is a hierarchical structure that identifies the project's resources by category and type. A three-point estimate in PERT includes an optimistic, a most likely, and a pessimistic estimate. A Gantt chart is a common tool for displaying project schedule information on a timeline. Duration and effort are synonymous terms. Both b. and d. are false statements.
Duration and effort are synonymous terms.
Which of the following is one of Deming's 14 Points for Management?
Eliminate the annual rating or merit system
Which PMBOK activity is responsible for determining activity resource requirements, and for determining a resource breakdown structure?
Estimate activity resources
Performing quality assurance is a subprocess of the _____ process of project quality management.
Executing
_____ is a cost that relates to all errors not detected and not corrected before delivery to the customer.
External failure cost
In MS Project, by default any link between tasks (activities) is assumed to be ________.
Finish-to-Start
_____ means that a product can be used as it was intended.
Fitness for use
_____ is the degree to which a system performs its intended function.
Functionality
The district magistrate of Arkham City has decided to rebuild the busiest road in the city. She plans to close the street for the duration of the work, causing immense inconvenience to the people who typically use the road. The project has 3 parallel paths defined as the following: Path A-B-C-H will take 16 days. Path A-D-E-H will take 22 days. Path A-F-G-H will take 30 days. Given the information on hand, which of the following statements is true?
Path A-F-G-H is the critical path.
The district magistrate of Arkham City has decided to rebuild the busiest road in the city. She plans to close the street for the duration of the work, causing immense inconvenience to the people who typically use the road. The project has 3 parallel paths defined as the following: Path A-B-C-H will take 16 days. Path A-D-E-H will take 22 days. Path A-F-G-H will take 30 days. Given the information on hand, which of the following statements is true? The expected duration of the project is 68 days. Activities B, D, and F have an earliest starting time of 0. Path A-F-G-H is the critical path. Path A-D-E-H has the largest slack time.
Path A-F-G-H is the critical path.
_____ addresses how well a product or service performs the customer's intended use.
Performance
Suppose you wanted to start task BB five days after task AA started. How would you do this in MS Project?
Place task BB in a start/start relationship with its predecessor AA with a lag of five days.
Estimating processes occur within what process group, what lifecycle phase?
Planning
Process improvement plan, quality metrics, and quality checklists are the outputs of the _____ process of project quality management.
Planning quality management
_____ correct(s) or prevent(s) further quality problems based on quality control measurements.
Process adjustments
The _____ process is often associated with the technical tools and techniques of quality management, such as Pareto charts, quality control charts, and statistical sampling.
Quality control
_____ is the ability of a product or service to perform as expected under normal conditions.
Reliability
_____ refers to action taken to bring rejected items into compliance with product requirements or specifications or other stakeholder expectations.
Rework
The _____ is a measure of quality control equal to 1 fault in 1 million opportunities problems.
Six 9s of quality rule
Which of the following statements is false? Probability distributions for PERT activity durations are represented by use of the Beta distribution. The critical path is the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which a project can be started. A forward pass through a project network diagram determines the early start and early finish dates for each activity. Crashing is a technique for making cost and schedule trade-offs to obtain the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost. Both a. and d. are false statements.
The critical path is the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which a project can be started.
How is the slack time (ST) for an activity calculated? Answer this question using what you know of the Critical Path Method (CPM).
The latest start (LS) time minus the earliest start (ES) time
Which of the following dictates the duration of any project?
The longest path through the project network
Which of the following dictates the duration of any project? The shortest path through the project network The longest path through the project network The average durations of all the paths through the network None of these alternatives is correct.
The longest path through the project network
What is the main goal of project cost management?
To complete a project within an approved budget
A(n) _____ is done to test each individual component (often a program) to ensure that it is as defect-free as possible.
Unit test
____ is an independent test performed by end users prior to accepting the delivered system.
User acceptance testing
Which of the following is not one of the three purposes of estimation? far-out strategic planning (5 years out) budgetary (2 years out) WAG definitive (immediately before execution and used within execution?
WAG
A ________ is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project.
WBS
Which of the following is a way to improve quality on the front-end of the development lifecycle?
Walkthroughs
If you were trying to estimate the cost of a new project that was five years out from even being started, most likely you would be using ________. Top-down estimation Bottom-up estimation Analogous estimation None of these alternative is correct. a. and/or c. only
a. and/or c. only
Iterative development processes provide which important advantages ________. continuous integration, verification, and validation of the evolving product frequent demonstration of progress to increase the likelihood that the end product will satisfy customer needs Early detection of defects and problems a., b. and c. are correct. None of these alternative is correct.
a., b. and c. are correct.
When marketing promised a new software product to an external client that is called ________.
accomodation of the customer
Which of the following rules is part of the crashing heuristic? crash only non-critical activities pick the un-crashed activity with the largest crash cost per day as the next activity to crash always crash the activity to its minimum duration if there is sufficient budget to do so all of these alternatives are legitimate crashing rules only a and b are legitimate crashing rules
always crash the activity to its minimum duration if there is sufficient budget to do so
One of Juran's ten steps to quality improvement states that:
an organization should build awareness of the need and opportunity for improvement.
Which of the following estimates is based on similar past projects?
analogous estimate
Top-down estimation is often also referred to as ________.
analogous estimation
Which of the following estimates is the most expensive to obtain?
bottom-up estimate
Which of the following estimates is based on the WBS?
bottom-up estimate
The advantage that a PERT representation of a project schedule over a CPM representation is that a PERT representaiton
calculates probabilities of completeing milestones by their completion dates
Administrative activities, such as archiving project files, closing out contracts, documenting lessons learned, and receiving formal acceptance of the delivered work as part of the phase or project, are often involved in ________ processes.
closing
When marketing informs the software development team that the product was promised to the customer on March 1st, that is a ______
commitment
There are three purposes to which estimates can be put. Which of the following is not one of those purposes?
comparison purposes