PM final

Alchemax Inc. is looking to undertake a project that requires an initial fixed investment of $200,000 and is expected to return a net cash inflow of $50,000 each year. The payback period for this project will be _____ years.

4

Consider a project network that begins with activity A and is followed by activity B. Activity A takes 6 days to finish. If the earliest start time for activity B is 6 days and the latest start time for it is 10 days, activity B has a slack of _____.

4 days

Which of the following is not a category in the RACI matrix?

Interpret

Omicore Softworks, a software development firm, undertook a project that involved developing a bespoke accounting software for a firm. The project initiated with the project manager spending some time to identify the correct resources. Once this was done, the process of writing the program began. Most of the time was spent on debugging and ensuring that the software worked to the client's specification. The project in this scenario has a(n) _____.

J-shaped life cycle

Samuel, a project manager, and Martha, his subordinate, are working on a project. In the budgeting phase, Samuel is responsible for estimating the costs for Level 1 tasks and Martha is responsible for estimating the costs for Level 2 tasks. While collating the data, Samuel finds that the total estimated cost for Level 1 tasks is much lower than the total estimated cost for Level 2 tasks. Which of the following is a reason for this discrepancy?

Jobs always look easier, faster, and cheaper to the project manager than to the subordinates who have to do them.

Slack is calculated as?

LFT - EFT

David, an architect, is in charge of executing a housing project. He appoints Charles to collect, record, and report all the necessary information to David and other relevant stakeholders. In this scenario, Charles will be engaged in _____ the project.

Monitoring

The four essential skills of persuasion described Jay Conger (1998) include all of the following except:

Must give locker-room motivational speeches

Technical dependencies on a project plan are easiest to see on a:

PERT/CPM chart

Robert, a project manager, created a work breakdown structure (WBS) for his new project. He then used the data from the WBS to create a table that assigned responsibilities to each team member and helped organize the project team. In this scenario, Robert created a(n)_____.

RACI Matrix

Mark, the chief editor of a magazine, needs to create a list of all the in-house writers, designers, and freelancers who will be working on the next issue of the magazine. He also needs to list their activities, their schedules, and their cost per hour. In the context of project management, which of the following should Mark use to create this list?

Resource loading

Ouroboros Construction started the construction of a house for a client. The initial planning of the project took longer than expected. Once plans were finalized, it did not take long to erect the structure, and it was done much before schedule. However, it took a lot of time to give the finishing touches to the house, and it was a long time before the house was completed. The project in this scenario has a(n) _____.

S-shaped life cycle

A Term not used in the discussion of PERT/CPM analysis is

Sensitivity path

The PM's job typically includes all of the following except?

Supervisor

Which of the following is not a characteristic of effective project team members?

They have a strong orientation to their discipline.

A(n) __________________ shows the set of all tasks in a project arranged by task level?

Work Breakdown Structure

Starting the building phase before the design and planning phases is called...

fast-tracking

Proteus, a hotel chain, has bought some new kitchen appliances that would enable its kitchen staff to work more effectively. The senior management of the hotel assigns the task of removal of old appliances and installation of new appliances to the respective manager of the food and beverage department in each of its hotels. The manager assembles a team from within the department to perform this task. This scenario exemplifies _____.

functional project organization

The first step in setting up a monitoring system is to:

identify key factors to be controlled

In earned value analysis...

it is desirable to have negative variances for both schedule and spending.

The manager of a project causes a catastrophic failure in the project that threatens the timely delivery of the project. Frank, another project manager, is asked to take over. He initiates a backup plan created by him, and he takes critical steps to recover from the setback and salvage the project. In this scenario, Frank is most likely using a(n) _____.

logic chart

PERT was originally used for what type of project?

military

According to research, the best overall priority rule is...

minimum slack first

Maria's team starts working on a new project. Halfway through the project, the client visits the team and requests some changes in the specifications of the project. This alters both the cost and the schedule of the project. The given scenario exemplifies the concept of _____.

scope creep

The most common source of changes to a project based on the natural tendency of the client and project team members to improve the project's output is called...

scope creep

Kimberley, a project manager in a software development company, is assigned a new project. She is given a budget of $500,000 and a span of six months to complete the project. In three months, she is able to complete 50 percent of the project. In this scenario, the earned value of the work completed is _____.

$250,000

A task has a normal duration of 9 days and a crash duration of 7 days. Its normal cost is $40 and its crash cost is $100. What is the crash cost per day?

$30

Stefan, a project manager in a publishing company, has undertaken a project to translate a book in French into English and to sell a million copies. He estimates that the cost of the materials will be $6000 and the project will require 30 hours of labor at $50 per hour. If the overheads for the project are estimated at a rate of 50 percent of the labor costs, the total cost of the project will be:

$8,250.

Rachel, a project manager, has undertaken a project to build a wall around a compound. She estimates that the cost of materials will be $520 and labor costs will be $10 for 20 hours. If the overheads for this project are 50 percent of the labor and material costs, the total cost will be:

$880

Estimated (remaining cost) to completion (ET is calculated as...

(BAC - EV)/CPI

Pogmon Solutions, a computer manufacturer, is introducing a new product—a high-end gaming laptop. Its technicians take 21 hours to produce the first unit of the laptop, and the company follows a 78 percent learning curve. Given this information, the eighth unit of the laptop would approximately require _____.

10 hours

What is the expected time to complete a task with an optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic times of 3, 4, and 7 days respectively?

4.7

William, a project manager, is trying to figure out how many hours his team can work in a period of three months. After accounting for weekends, he notes that each member of the team can work for five 8-hour days per week. After consulting his calendar, he realizes that there are three public holidays in the next three months and two employees have each requested two separate weeks off. His team consists of 15 people. Given this information, William can allocate approximately _____ of work to his team.

6,680 hours

The first unit requires 10 hours to complete. If the industry uses an 80 percent learning rate, how long should the third unit take?

6.40 hours

The accountants of Junis Plex, a textile company, used to calculate the company's taxable income manually. However, the management recently adopted a software program that requires only few inputs from the accountants which automatically calculates the taxes owed by the company. The management releases a report for all its operations managers that provides specific instructions on how to use this software. Which of the following types of reports has Junis Plex used to inform its project managers of the new software program?

A special analysis report

Which of the following is an example of win-win negotiation?

Agreeing to share resources for the benefit of all involved in different projects

Nessage Mique, a niche fashion boutique, displays its production process by using a network of nodes and arrows. The nodes are used to depict the state of completion of various activities and the arrows are used to depict their order of precedence. Which of the following project networks is Nessage Mique using in the given scenario?

An activity-on-arrow network

Which of the following is an example of win-lose negotiation?

Buying a car from a second-hand car dealership at the asking price.No answer text provided.

The cost/spending variance is calculated as...

EV - AC

The plan-monitor-control cycle is best described as... an ad-hoc process

a closed-loop process

An identifiable state resulting from the completion of one or more significant activities is called?

a milestone

Which of the following terms is most closely associated with a task required by the project?

activity

Which of the following priority rules makes resources available so that activities start on their LSTs whenever possible without increasing the project's duration?

as late as possible

Susan, a project manager, uses a work breakdown structure to list the elemental tasks of a project. She then asks the team members responsible for each of these tasks to give her an estimate of the cost required to accomplish each task. Next, she adds indirect costs such as administrative costs and a reserve for contingencies to the total task cost and files her budget with the accounting department. In this scenario, Susan is using _____.

bottom-up budgeting

Renee, a project manager, is responsible for developing a project plan for her new project. To do so, she needs to consider all the tasks that would need to be done to produce the deliverable and make a list of them. In this scenario, Renee needs to prepare a(n) _____ for the project.

contingency plan

Alice, a project manager, has undertaken a project to build an irrigation canal. Based on the resources allocated to her, she makes an initial estimate that the time required to dig the canal would be 20 days. She also prepares an alternative estimate by adding an additional resource that will allow the project to be completed in 10 days. This alternative estimate that Alice prepares is referred to as the _____.

crash duration

Which of the following is not related to the three goals of a project?

data

Rebus Inc., a game development company, had gained critical success with its video game Authority Online a year ago. The game's publisher wanted Rebus to undertake a project to revitalize the game's sales by updating the graphics and releasing it for a new platform. This type of project is an example of a(n) _____.

derivative project

Which of the following is not a tool used to aid the PM in project control?

discounted cash flow analysis

Excel Fabrics, a manufacturer or disposable protective clothing, found that its newly acquired batch of raw materials did not meet the company's quality standards and was affecting the quality of its final products. In order to prevent any financial loss due to this problem, the top managers of Excel Fabrics decided to release a report to the workers asking them to stop using the newly acquired raw materials until a formal quality check is conducted. In this scenario, Excel Fabrics most likely released a(n) _____.

exception report

Paul, the marketing manager of a food company, created a diagram of nodes to represent the marketing process for a new product of the company. Each node represented an activity in the marketing process, and an arc joined each node. He used this diagram to demonstrate the objectives of the marketing process. In the context of the language of the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and the Critical Path Method (CPM), the diagram used by Paul is known as a _____.

network

The task duration with standard-practice resource usage is referred to as the...

normal task duration

The name given to the budget process that aggregates income and expenditures across projects is:

program-oriented budget

Marcus is asked by higher management to create a document that provides a high level description of a project that has not yet been approved. The document should describe the major deliverables of the project and should provide the financial and strategic justification for the project. In this scenario, Marcus needs to prepare a _____.

project charter

The ________________________ attempts to link the organization's projects directly to the goals and strategy of the organization.

project portfolio process

Roger and his team have been designing a factory that will be modular in nature. They have been working on it for the past seven years, and now it is ending its developmental cycle. Roger has observed that his team is apprehensive. He has also received proposals for a follow-up project in the same area of interest with the same team. This is an example of _____.

projectitis

Cibrastruct, a real estate developer, has undertaken a project to construct a mall. It hires a contractor to call in architects to draft plans, a procurement specialist to gather the best quality of raw materials, a lawyer to ensure the proper planning permits have been obtained, and labor union specialists to assemble a group of workers who will work on this long-term project. This is an example of _____.

pure project organization

Allocating specific, limited resources to specific activities is called...

resource allocation

The primary cause of concern in resource allocation is...

resource scarcity

Ben is part of a new project in his company. He is asked to complete a task within two days, but he is only able to finish it in three days. Since the task assigned to him is noncritical in nature, the extra day taken by Ben does not cause a delay in the project. In this scenario, the additional day taken by Ben is known as _____

slack

The amount of time a noncritical task can be delayed without delaying the project is called?

slack

The _________________ approach centers on understanding the bits and pieces in a project and how they fit together.

systems

A matrix that illustrates the magnitude of both product and process changes resulting from a project is called

the aggregate project plan

Minkset Blu, a textile company, wants to improve its sales over a span of four years. In the first year, the company installs new looming machines that improve the production cost. However, it takes two years for the company to establish a liaison with online retailers to improve the accessibility of its products. This delays the company's goal of improving sales by a year. In the context of the language of the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and the Critical Path Method (CPM), the set of activities that cause the delay are part of _____.

the critical path

Suzanne, a human resources manager in an event management company, is assigned the task of arranging a farewell dinner for the CEO of the company. She uses Microsoft Project (MSP) to create a work breakdown structure list for this task. The MSP creates a list of Level 1 tasks, Level 2 tasks, and so on. Suzanne then adds appropriate descriptions to each task. While doing so, Suzanne should ensure that:

the generality of each task is roughly at the same level

A project that must be completed by a specific time is considered...

time constrained

What is the primary purpose of creating a work breakdown structure?

to make sure important tasks are identified

The first task of a newly appointed project manager is

to review the project objectives with senior management

The budgeting approach based on the collective judgments of top and middle managers is called:

top-down budgeting