Project Management Midterm

Which of the following is recommended for the creation of a good WBS?

A unit of work should appear at only one place in the WBS.

Which of the following is a difference between an activity list and an activity attribute?

An activity attribute provides more schedule-related information about each activity than an activity list.

_____ involves identifying and controlling the functional and physical design characteristics of products and their support documentation, and ensures that the descriptions of the project's products are correct and complete.

Configuration Management

Analogous estimates are called activity-based costing.

False

Analogous estimates are the most accurate technique to estimate costs.

False

Critical chain scheduling assumes that resources multitask and maximizes multitasking.

False

Interface management involves identifying and managing the points of interaction between various elements of a project.

False

Projects that address broad organizational needs are likely to fail.

False

The executing tasks of the WBS remain constant from project to project.

False

The format of the WBS dictionary is essentially the same for all projects.

False

When you separate business and organizational issues from project management planning, you do a better job of ensuring project success.

False

The WBS is organized solely around project phases.

False (A project team often organizes the WBS around project products, project phases, or the project management process groups.)

A work package represents one component of the product that the project aims to deliver.

False (A work package is a task at the lowest level of the WBS. It represents the level of work that the project manager monitors and controls.)

A drawback of the precedence diagramming method is that it cannot be used unless dummy activities are employed.

False (The precedence diagramming method offers a number of advantages over the AOA technique. One advantage is that using the method avoids the need to use dummy activities.)

A Tracking Gantt chart is based on the percentage of work completed for project tasks or the actual start and finish dates.

True

A drawback of the project management software is that it does not have the capacity to calculate the critical path(s) for a project.

True

Estimates should become more accurate as time progresses.

True

In a bottom-up estimate, the size of the individual work items is one of the factors that drives the accuracy of the estimates.

True

It is important for the activity list and activity attributes to be in agreement with the work breakdown structure.

True

Most colleges and universities have very strong functional organizations.

True

NPV analysis is a method for making equal comparisons between cash flows for multi-year projects.

True

Project managers in matrix organizations have staff from various functional areas working on their projects.

True

Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them.

True

Some organizations initiate projects using a contract in place of a project charter.

True

Standards and guidelines to follow when performing project management must be devised by top management.

True

The project management plan and project funding requirements are inputs of the process of controlling costs.

True

To define activities, the project team should start with reviewing the schedule management plan, scope baseline, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational processes.

True

In the _____approach for constructing a WBS, you use a similar project's WBS as a starting point.

analogy

A rough order of magnitude estimate can be referred to as a _____ estimate.

ballpark

The _____ stage of information technology planning outlines business processes that are central to achieving strategic goals and helps determine which ones could most benefit from information technology.

business area analysis

An IT company revises its process parameters in response to complaints from vendors that products were not ready on time. This would be an example of _____.

corrective action

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

Which of the following techniques involve doing activities in parallel that one would normally do in sequence?

fast tracking

_____ are those costs that are difficult to measure in monetary terms.

intangible costs

Which of the following are organizational process assets?

management systems

A(n) _____ on a project is a significant event that normally has no duration.

milestone

Project managers have the least amount of authority in a pure _____ organizational structure. functional circular project matrix

project

Profits may be defined as:

revenues minus expenditures

The _____ perspective of an organization focuses on different groups' roles and responsibilities in order to meet the goals and policies set by top management. human resources frame structural frame political frame symbolic frame

structural frame

Grey's Infotech sells customized hardware and software solutions for businesses. The salespeople for Grey's have a strict dress code when meeting clients. They are required to wear dark business suits, in order to convey the company's dedication to quality. The meaning conveyed to the clients' through the salespeople's clothing is part of the _____ frame of the organization. human resources symbolic political structural

symbolic

In organizational culture, means-end orientation refers to _____. the degree to which management focuses on outcomes rather than on techniques and processes used to achieve results the degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk seeking the degree to which rules, policies, and direct supervision are used to oversee and control employee behavior the degree to which the organization monitors and responds to changes in the external environment

the degree to which management focuses on outcomes rather than on techniques and processes used to achieve results

In organizational culture, people focus refers to _____. the degree to which the organization monitors and responds to changes in the external environment the degree to which management's decisions take into account the effect of outcomes on employees within the organization the degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk seeking the degree to which rules, policies, and direct supervision are used to oversee and control employee behavior

the degree to which management's decisions take into account the effect of outcomes on employees within the organization

The business case includes information on _____.

the project objective, high-level requirements, and time and cost goals

The _____ approach for constructing a WBS involves refining the work into greater and greater levels of detail.

top-down approach

A(n) ____ is a task at the lowest level of the WBS.

work package

Which of the following is true of the schedule performance index (SPI)?

It can be used to estimate the projected time to complete the project.

Which of the following is true of a rough order of magnitude estimate?

It provides an estimate of what a project will cost

_____ uses highly organized and intensive workshops to bring together project stakeholders—the sponsor, users, business analysts, programmers, and so on—to jointly define and design information systems.

JAD

In a _____ organizational structure, personnel often report to both a functional manager and one or more project managers. functional project matrix symbolic

Matrix

_____ 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.

NPV