Project Management Mid-Term
The project manager is reviewing the current earned value report, which shows the following: Schedule Performance Index (SPI) = 1.2, Cost Performance Index (CPI) = 1.6, Planned Value (PV) = $200,000, Schedule, Variance (SV) = $40,000. What is the project's Cost Variance (CV)?
$90,000
Which of the following best describes the range of cost estimate accuracy that can be achieved once definitive estimates are made based on information gathered as a project progresses?
-5 to +10 percent from actual
The project manager started the project with a BAC of $5,000. The project currently has an EV of $2,000 and an AC of $1,000. What is the TCPI for the project?
0.75
If Earned Value (EV) is $500, Actual Cost (AC) is $400, and Budget to Completion (BAC) is $1,000, what is the Variance at Completion (VAC) assuming that future work will be accomplished at the planned rate?
100
The network diagram has five paths; the paths and their duration are as follows: Start > A > B > C > End, duration: 31 days Start > D > E > F > End, duration: 18 days Start > D > B > C > End, duration: 26 days Start > G > H > I > End, duration: 13 days Start > G > E > F > End, duration: 16 days Identify the float for the fourth path.
18 days
The project that you are working on has an early start of 15, an early finish of 7, and a late start of 20. What is the project's float?
5
Which of the following best describes a project's cost baseline?
A cost baseline is an approved time-phased budget that will be used to measure and monitor cost performance
Which of the following best describes net present value (NPV)
A method used to analyze the profitability of a project
Which of the following is an output of the Validate Scope process?
Accepted deliverables
At this moment, a project's costs amount to $250 for the work that has been completed. Which of the following terms does this statement best describe?
Actual Cost (AC)
Who is responsible for doing the work during the Estimate Activity Durations process?
Always the person most familiar with the activity's type of work
Which of the following is not a factor to consider when estimating activity durations?
Assumption log
One of the agile principles states: "simplicity-the art of maximizing the amount of work not done is essential". Of the following, which processes directly support this agile principle?
Backlog Preparation and Backlog Refinement
The sum of all budgets established for the work to be performed is known as which of the following?
Budget at Completion
The project manager set a budget of $5,000 to complete the total project. Which of the following terms does this statement best describe?
Budget at Completion (BAC)
What is the equation for computing a project's cost variance (CV)?
CV = EV - AC
Which of the following is not an input to the Validate Scope process?
Change requests
What process does the Validate Scope process support by ensuring that contractual agreements are completed or terminated?
Close Project or Phase
Rolling wave planning is an iterative planning technique. Which of the following is rolling wave planning not applicable to?
Cost analysis
The project budget is best described as which of the following?
Cost baseline plus the management reserves
Your project is running behind schedule and your team needs to compress the schedule to get back on track. After considering all options, the project team and sponsors decide that adding more resources at additional cost will allow the work to be completed faster. This is an example of what schedule compression technique?
Crashing
Which process within the Project Schedule Management knowledge area is responsible for the identification and documentation of the specific actions that need to be performed in order to produce the project deliverables?
Define Activities
The Control Schedule process is concerned with all except which one of the following?
Determining future changes to the project schedule
How is the current status of the project schedule determined when an agile approach is used?
Determining the total amount of work delivered and accepted against the elapsed time cycle
Which of the following is not an important aspect of a project's cost control variance analysis?
Determining whether the base budget is adequate for the project
Which of the following would be used to calculate the expected cost to finish all remaining project work?
EAC - AC
Which of the following represents the Cost Variance (CV) formula?
Earned Value - Actual Cost
Shawn is working on a large-scale agile project and portions of the project are being contracted to a third party service provider. In this case, due to the adaptive nature of his project, how does he ensure the work is progressing and the schedule is under control?
Ensure regular milestone status updates are provided by the third party contractors and suppliers
You are part of a project team that is working on a technology project internal to your company. As a team, you are aware that the philosophy within the technology department has always been "build vs. buy." Your project team is looking to be more efficient with the resources for this project, so they would like to look for outside vendors for the technology solution. This cultural challenge is an example of which of the following?
Enterprise environmental factor
The expected cost to finish all remaining project work is known as:
Estimate to Complete (ETC)
Melinda, the project manager, moved up the predicted completion date for a project by working in parallel on several of the activities that were planned to be done in sequence. Which of the following best describes this technique?
Fast tracking
A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has finished is what type of relationship or dependency in the precedence diagramming method (PDM)?
Finish-to-finish (FF)
You are part of a project team for a large project to design, build, and move a company into a new office building. You are establishing the project schedule and sequencing project activities. The design needs to be complete before you can break ground and start digging the building foundation. How would you indicate the relationship between the two activities "Design Complete" and "Break Ground on Building Foundation"?
Finish-to-start (FS)
Which of the following helps to prevent a customer from asking for additional scope to be added to a project after the project team has been released to work on other projects?
Formal acceptance
Which of the following is not a type of estimating that may be used during the Estimate Costs process?
Four-point estimating
If a project is ahead of schedule, which of the following can be true of the float?
It is positive
Company X decided to use fast tracking for schedule compression. Which of the following is true of fast tracking?
It usually increases quality risk
Linda is a tester who has joined your iteration-based agile project. You are the servant leader and are helping Linda get accustomed to the terminology and processes of iteration-based agile. Which of the following does not accurately describe timeboxing in iteration-based agile practices?
Kanban method uses timeboxing to plan for work capacity and throughput.
Which of the following is not a type of estimate used in three-point estimation?
Least likely (cL)
The critical path is the sequence of activities that represents the:
Longest path through a project which determines the shortest possible duration of the project
You are part of a facilitated workshop discussing project requirements, and there are two options for a major portion of the scope of work. The group votes, and 7 out of 10 members agree to go with option one. This is an example of what type of group decision-making technique?
Majority
What technique is used to consolidate ideas created through individual brainstorming sessions?
Mind mapping
If the project is behind, the float will be:
Negative
One of the work activities in a project has an early start (ES) of day 3, a late start (LS) of day 11, an early finish (EF) of day 7, and a late finish (LF) of day 17. Which of the following best describes this activity?
Not on the critical path
Interpersonal and team skills are used during the Collect Requirements process. Which of the following is not an example of interpersonal and team skills?
Plurality
The project management plan is an input to the Control Scope process. Which of the following is not part of the project management plan used to control scope?
Procurement management plan
When identifying key deliverables for a project, which of the following can provide details of the product scope to be delivered?
Product scope description
You are the project manager for a technology company working on a project to create a smaller, thinner cell phone design. You have a document that outlines the projected dimensions, lists the necessary parts, and includes graphics of the finished product. This is an example of what type of document?
Product scope description
Company X's project committee is in the process of picking the next project to implement. There are four projects for the committee to choose from. Project 1 has an internal rate of return of 10% Project 2 has an internal rate of return of 23% Project 3 has an internal rate of return of 2% Project 4 has an internal rate of return of 21% Which project presents the best option for Company X?
Project 2
Company X's project committee is in the process of picking the next project to start, and they have four projects to choose from. Project 1 will take six months to complete and has a net present value of $5,000. Project 2 will take two years to complete and has a net present value of $56,000. Project 3 will take one year to complete and has a net present value of $45,000. Project 4 will take four years to complete and has a net present value of $125,000. Which project presents the best investment opportunity for Company X?
Project 4
What are the four inputs of Estimate Activity Durations?
Project management plan, Project documents, Enterprise environmental factors, Organizational process assets
Which of the following is not an input to the Validate Scope process?
Quality control measurements
What do stakeholders need from a project or product
Requirements
As the project manager, which document would you refer to for information regarding how project requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed?
Requirements management plan
Which of the following is an output of scope management?
Requirements management plan
Which of the following is an output of the Collect Requirements process?
Requirements traceability matrix
Which of the following is a resource optimization tool or technique that can be used in the develop schedule process to change the critical path by balancing the demand for resources with the available supply of those resources?
Resource leveling
Which resource optimization technique adjusts the start and finish dates based on resource constraints?
Resource leveling
Which of the following is a resource optimization technique?
Resource smoothing
Which tool and technique can be used by both agile and waterfall approaches to deliver incremental value to the customer, within Project Schedule Management?
Rolling Wave Planning
A team is planning work that is happening in the next few weeks in great detail. They have left the work happening much later in the project scheduled at only a high level. They do this type of near-term planning while longer-term planning remains skeletal throughout the project. Which of the following best describes this type of technique?
Rolling wave planning
Which of the following is an iterative planning technique for work to be accomplished next week?
Rolling wave planning
During the start up phase, the project manager was creating cost estimates, but he did not know the exact details of the project at the time. Which of the following best describes the type of estimate the project manager was using?
Rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate
What type of cost estimate is being figured when a project manager uses a range of -25 to +75 percent from actual?
Rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate
Which of the following formulas is used to calculate Schedule Variance (SV)?
SV = EV - PV
The schedule management plan establishes the criteria for developing, monitoring, and controlling the schedule. The schedule management plan does not establish which of the following?
Schedule baseline
Which of the following is not an input to the Plan Schedule Management process?
Scope baseline
Which of the following statements concerning the Control Scope process is not true?
Scope creep is the controlled expansion of a product or project scope
Which of the following statements is true?
Since project scope is measured against the project management plan, the project manager reviews the scope baseline to ensure completion before considering the project closed.
Which earned value (EV) analysis technique measures the cost of completing the remaining work against the remaining budget?
TCPI
Which of the following statements concerning the Validate Scope process is true?
The Validate Scope process differs from the Control Quality process in that it is concerned with acceptance of deliverables while the Control Quality process is concerned with correctness of the deliverables
Which of the following best describes the product verification process of procurement closure?
The buyer checks to see if all contract work has been completed satisfactorily
Which of the following is not an item that is described in the project scope statement?
The buyer's and the seller's points of view
Which of the following best describes Planned Value (PV)?
The current estimated value of the work planned to be done
The project manager calculates the VAC and gets a result of -$5,523. What does this tell him?
The project is currently expected to be over budget when completed
The project manager calculates the CPI and finds that the result is .76. What does this tell him?
The project is getting back about 76 cents out of every dollar that is put into it
The project manager calculates the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and finds that the result is 0.65. What does this tell the project manager?
The project is only progressing at 65 percent of the planned rate
Internal rate of return (IRR) is best described as:
The rate of growth a project is expected to generate
A project will be considered a failure if:
The schedule baseline is not met
Which statement concerning the scope management plan is true?
The scope management plan is a component of the project or program management plan that defines how the scope will be defined, developed, monitored and controlled, and verified
Present value is best described as
The value today of future cash flows
Jim wants to use the Kanban method, but doesn't know much about it. The Kanban method can be used in a variety of settings and is considered to be less prescriptive than other agile approaches. Jim should know, unlike other agile methods, Kanban does not promote the notion of:
Timeboxing
What is the purpose of calculating the net present value (NPV) of each possible project?
To compare projects in order to select the best project to initiate
What is the purpose of the Validate Scope process?
To formalize acceptance of completed project deliverables
On any network path, the schedule flexibility is measured by the amount of time that a schedule activity can be delayed or extended from its early start date without delaying the project finish date or violating a schedule constraint. This is called:
Total float
A project with a CPI value calculated to be 1.12 tells the project manager the project is:
Under planned cost
Which of the following processes does not have a preventive action output?
Validate Scope
The project manager is calculating the costs of the wages and supplies for his project estimate. These costs are considered:
Variable costs
Which report should the project manager review when needing to compare the project's actual results to its baselines?
Variance report
Which of the following is not an input to the Control Scope process?
Verified deliverables
Which of the following is the best example of when you would use Control Costs to identify the need to recommend corrective action?
When comparing the project's performance against its performance measurement baseline
Which of the following is the best example of when you would use Validate Scope to identify the need to recommend corrective actions?
When making an appointment to meet with the customer to obtain acceptance of the project's interim deliverables
Which of the following should not be included in the project scope statement?
Work breakdown structure
Which of the following is not an output of the Validate Scope process?
Work performance data
You are working on an agile project and are trying to determine how you can showcase the progress your team has made to the project stakeholders. In an adaptive/agile project, what is the primary measure of progress?
Working software
You have been hired as the project manager for a software implementation at Company X. Company X has set a specific date that they want the software to "go live." While working on the project, you recognize that the project has a negative float that will cause the software to "go live" after the specified date. Which of the following options should be your first action?
You should analyze the options of the negative float by compressing the schedule
You are working on a project that is planned to take six months and has a total cost of $100,000. You would like to know the cost efficiency of the project. Your project's earned value is $80,000. What does the CPI indicate about your project?
Your project is over its planned budget
