Quiz 2 (Chapters 6-8)

56. _____ provide(s) a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar format. --Ch. 6

Gantt charts

62. Which of the following techniques involve doing activities in parallel that one would normally do in sequence? --Ch. 6

Fast tracking

71. In project procurement management, which of the following is an output of the executing process? --Ch. 6

Resource calendars

38. In project time management, a(n) _____ is an output of controlling the schedule --Ch. 6

project management plan update

83. A hierarchical structure that identifies the project's resources by category and type is known as a(n) _____. --Ch. 6

resource breakdown structure

95. The main outputs of _____ include work performance measurements, organizational process assets updates, and project document updates. --Ch. 6

schedule control

9. After defining project activities, the next step in project time management is developing the schedule. --Ch. 6

FALSE

40. Missing Question --Ch. 6

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

68. Which of the following is a silimarity between scope control and schedule control? --Ch. 6

Both are portions of the integrated change control process under project integration management.

57. Which of the following is a network diagramming technique used primarily to predict total project duration? --Ch. 6

Critical path analysis

101. Describe critical path analysis. How is the critical path calculated? --Ch. 6

Critical path analysis is a network diagramming technique used to predict total project duration. This important tool can help combat project schedule overruns. A critical path for a project is the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which the project can be completed. It is the longest path through the network diagram and has the least amount of slack or float. To find the critical path for a project, one must first develop a good network diagram, which, in turn, requires a good activity list based on the work breakdown structure. Once a network diagram is created, one must also estimate the duration of each activity to determine the critical path. Calculating the critical path involves adding the durations for all activities on each path through the network diagram. The longest path is the critical path.

30. A drawback of the project management software is that it does not have the capacity to calculate the critical path(s) for a project. --Ch. 6

FALSE

8. Milestones are easy to achieve and are always achieved through one main activity. --Ch. 6

FALSE

32. 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? --Ch. 6

Defining activities

33. In project time management, which of the following processes generate the main outputs of an activity list, activity attributes, and a milestone list? --Ch. 6

Defining activities

36. In project time management, which of the following processes involve analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule? --Ch. 6

Developing the schedule

45. _____ dependencies are sometimes referred to as soft logic and should be used with care because they may limit later scheduling options. --Ch. 6

Discretionary

82. _____ have no duration and no resources but are occasionally needed on AOA network diagrams to show logical relationships between activities. --Ch. 6

Dummy activities

84. _____ is the number of workdays or work hours required to complete a task. --Ch. 6

Effort

35. In project time management, which of the following processes involve calculating the number of work periods that are needed to complete individual activities? --Ch. 6

Estimating activity durations

46. Which of the following dependencies involve relationships between project and non-project activities? --Ch. 6

External

12. The arrows in a network diagram represent missed milestones in a project. --Ch. 6

FALSE

13. In a network diagram, it is mandatory for every item on the WBS to be shown instead of only those activities with dependencies. --Ch. 6

FALSE

14. A merge occurs when one node precedes mutiple nodes. --Ch. 6

FALSE

15. Start-to-finish relationships are the most frequently used dependencies between activities. --Ch. 6

FALSE

16. A drawback of the precedence diagramming method is that it cannot be used unless dummy activities are employed. --Ch. 6

FALSE

17. In project time management, one should control the schedule before estimating the duration for each activity. --Ch. 6

FALSE

18. In a Gantt chart, thick black bars represent milestones achieved in a project. --Ch. 6

FALSE

2. In project time management, the primary output of defining activities is a schedule management plan. --Ch. 6

FALSE

20. A disadvantage of using Gantt charts is that they do not provide a standard format for displaying planned project schedule information. --Ch. 6

FALSE

21. In a critical path analysis, the shortest path is what drives the completion date for the project. --Ch. 6

FALSE

23. A backward pass through the network diagram determines the early start and early finish dates for each activity. --Ch. 6

FALSE

25. The main disadvantage of crashing is that it lengthens the time needed to finish a project. --Ch. 6

FALSE

27. Critical chain scheduling assumes that resources multitask and maximizes multitasking. --Ch. 6

FALSE

28. One of PERT's main disadvantages is that it does not address the risk associated with duration estimates. --Ch. 6

FALSE

29. The final process in project time management is developing the schedule. --Ch. 6

FALSE

3. In project time management, the next step after sequencing activities is to define these activities. --Ch. 6

FALSE

73. _____ involves the processes required to ensure timely completion of a project. --Ch. 6

Project time management

51. Which of the following is true of a finish-to-finish dependency? --Ch. 6

It is a dependency in which the "from" activity must be finished before the "to" activity can be finished.

69. Which of the following is an output of schedule control? --Ch. 6

Lessons-learned reports

44. Which of the following types of dependencies are inherent in the nature of work being performed on a project? --Ch. 6

Mandatory

99. What are milestones? Describe. --Ch. 6

Milestones are the most important and visible events in a project and normally have no duration. It often takes several activities and a lot of work to complete a milestone, but the milestone itself is like a marker to help in identifying necessary activities. Milestones are also useful tools or setting schedule goals and monitoring progress. Not every deliverable or output created for a project is really a milestone.

93. _____ occurs when a resource works on more than one task at a time. --Ch. 6

Multitasking

94. _____ states that if something can go wrong, it will. --Ch. 6

Murphy's Law

48. A network diagramming technique in which boxes represent activities is known as a(n) _____. --Ch. 6

PDM

67. Missing Question --Ch. 6

PERT uses different duration estimates whereas CPM uses one specific duration estimate.

66. _____ states that work expands to fill the time allowed. --Ch. 6

Parkinson's Law

39. Missing Question --Ch. 6

Project charter

53. Which of the following is one of the main outputs of estimating activity resources process? --Ch. 6

Project documents update

34. In project time management, which of the following processes primarily involve identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities? --Ch. 6

Sequencing activities

87. SMART criteria are guidelines suggesting that milestones should be --Ch. 6

Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-framed

50. Which of the following is a relationship in which the "from" activity cannot start until the "to" activity is started? --Ch. 6

Start-to-start

1. An activity is an element of work that has an expected duration, cost, and resource requirements. --Ch. 6

TRUE

10. A dependency pertains to the sequencing of project activities or tasks. --Ch. 6

TRUE

11. Network diagrams are the preferred technique for showing activity sequencing. --Ch. 6

TRUE

19. A Tracking Gantt chart is based on the percentage of work completed for project tasks or the actual start and finish dates. --Ch. 6

TRUE

22. The critical path on a project can change as the project progresses. --Ch. 6

TRUE

24. Knowing the amount of float allows project managers to know whether a project schedule is flexible. --Ch. 6

TRUE

26. The technique of fast tracking can result in lengthening the project schedule. --Ch. 6

TRUE

4. Project schedules grow out of basic documents such as the project charter. --Ch. 6

TRUE

5. A schedule management plan includes information which describes the format and frequency of schedule reports required for the project. --Ch. 6

TRUE

6. To define activities, the project team should start with reviewing the schedule management plan, scope baseline, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational processes. --Ch. 6

TRUE

7. It is important for the activity list and activity attributes to be in agreement with the work breakdown structure. --Ch. 6

TRUE

102. What is the Theory of Constraints? Describe critical chain scheduling, an application of the Theory of Constraints. --Ch. 6

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a management philosophy developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and is based on the metaphor of a chain and its weakest link: Any complex system at any point in time often has only one aspect or constraint that limits the ability to achieve more of the system's goal. For the system to attain any significant improvements, that constraint must be identified, and the whole system must be managed with it in mind. Critical chain scheduling is a method that considers limited resources when creating a project schedule and includes buffers to protect the project completion date. An important concept in critical chain scheduling is the availability of scarce resources. For instance, if a particular piece of equipment is needed full time to complete each of two tasks that were originally planned to occur simultaneously, critical chain scheduling acknowledges that one must either delay one of those tasks until the equipment is available or find another piece of equipment in order to meet the schedule. Other important concepts related to critical chain scheduling include multitasking and time buffers.

92. The _____ is based on the fact that any complex system at any point in time often has only one aspect or constraint that limits its ability to achieve more of its goal. --Ch. 6

Theory of Constraints (TOC)

52. Which of the following is true of dummy activities? --Ch. 6

They show logical relationships between activities.

60. _____ is the amount of time an activity can be delayed from its early start without delaying the planned project finish date. --Ch. 6

Total slack

88. A(n) _____ Gantt chart compares planned and actual project schedule information. --Ch. 6

Tracking

76. The _____ is a tabulation of activities to be included on a project schedule. --Ch. 6

activity list

78. In the activity defining process, the project team should review the _____ and activity attributes with project stakeholders before moving on to the next step in project time management. --Ch. 6

activity list

77. The activity list should include the _____, an activity identifier, and a brief description of the activity. --Ch. 6

activity name

64. A similarity between the crashing technique and the fast tracking technique is that: --Ch. 6

both can shorten the time needed to finish a project.

47. In an AOA network diagram, _____ occur when two or more activities follow a single node. --Ch. 6

bursts

43. In project time management, the next step after defining project activities is: --Ch. 6

determining their dependencies.

37. In project time management, the process of_____ primarily involves checking and managing changes to the project schedule. --Ch. 6

controlling the schedule

63. The technique for making cost and schedule trade-offs to obtain the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost is known as _____. --Ch. 6

crashing

90. A(n) _____ for a project is the series of activities that determine the earliest time by which the project can be completed. --Ch. 6

critical path

42. In project time management, the main goal of _____ is to ensure that the project team has complete understanding of all the work they must do as part of the project scope so they can start scheduling the work. --Ch. 6

defining activities

55. In project time management, the ultimate goal of _____ is to provide a basis for monitoring project progress for the time dimension of the project. --Ch. 6

developing a schedule

96. One of the first reality checks on scheduling that a project manager should make is to review the _____. --Ch. 6

draft schedule

54. After working with key stakeholders to define activities and calculate their resources, the next process in project time management is to: --Ch. 6

estimate the duration of activities.

74. In project time management, the process of _____ involves deciding how many people, equipment, and materials a project team should use to perform project activities. --Ch. 6

estimating activity resources

65. Critical chain scheduling protects tasks on the critical chain from being delayed by using _____, which consist of additional time added before tasks on the critical chain that are preceded by non-critical-path tasks. --Ch. 6

feeding buffers

49. AOA network diagrams use only _____ dependencies. --Ch. 6

finish-to-start

91. A(n) _____ determines the early start and early finish dates for each activity in a project. --Ch. 6

forward pass

59. The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start date of any immediately following activities is known as a _____. --Ch. 6

free slack

61. The _____ for an activity is the latest possible time an activity might begin without delaying the project finish date. --Ch. 6

late start date

58. The critical path is the _____ path through a network diagram, and it represents the _____ amount of slack or float. --Ch. 6

longest; shortest

41. A(n) _____ on a project is a significant event that normally has no duration. --Ch. 6

milestone

79. A(n) _____ is a schematic display of the logical relationships among project activities and their sequencing. --Ch. 6

network diagram

80. In a network diagram, a(n) _____ is the starting and ending point of an activity. --Ch. 6

node

31. The first process involved in project time management is _____ . --Ch. 6

planning schedule management

70. A draft schedule for a project is most likely to be found in a _____. --Ch. 6

project charter

75. After reviewing the project management plan, project charter, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational process assets, the project team uses expert judgment, analytical techniques, and meetings to develop the _____. --Ch. 6

schedule management plan

89. A white diamond on a Tracking Gantt chart represents a(n) _____. --Ch. 6

slipped milestone

81. In a(n) _____ relationship, the "from" activity must start before the "to" activity can be finished. --Ch. 6

start-to-finish

97. A drawback of using _____ or sample files is that managers and their teams might rely heavily on them and ignore unique concerns for their particular projects. --Ch. 6

templates

85. Duration estimates can be provided as a discrete number, a range, or as a(n) _____. --Ch. 6

three-point estimate

72. In a project schedule, the variable that has the least amount of flexibility is _____. --Ch. 6

time

86. The ultimate goal of developing a realistic project schedule is to provide a basis for monitoring project progress for the _____ dimension of the project. --Ch. 6

time