Questions I Missed on PMP Practice Exam

You meet with your team to determine the life cycle for your project. After analyzing the best way to define and manage requirements, develop deliverables, handle changes, control risk and cost, and engage key stakeholders, the decision is made to select a hybrid life cycle. With the project life cycle selected, how will the product be delivered? As subsets of the overall product, As a single final product at the end of the project, As work packages of the WBS, As product increments based on customer's value?

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Charles is in charge of conducting an efficiency study concerning the development of a recruitment application. He found that the project will require an initial investment of $50,000, and it can generate $15,000 revenue in its first year. Charles expects that the operational cost and tax liability will amount to $5,000 each. How much is this project's return on the invested capital? 10%, 20%, 25%, 30%

10%. The project profit = Revenue - Operational cost - Tax liability = $15,000 - $5,000 - $5,000 = $5,000. Return on the invested capital = Project profit / Invested capital = $5,000 / $50,000 = 10%

You get assigned by the company management to lead a new project and you're immediately asked to develop the project charter so the project can get started as soon as possible. To develop the project charter, you will need all of the following documents: (Select three) A. Strategic plan B. Business case C. Agreements D. Project plan

A, B, C. To develop the Project Charter, the project manager needs the business documents such as the business case and benefits/strategic plan, and agreements. The project plan is developed once the project charter is signed.

As a project manager, you consider creating a contingency reserve to handle: passive acceptance, active acceptance, workaround, or unidentified risk?

Active acceptance. Risk acceptance acknowledges the existence of a threat, but no proactive action is taken. The most common active acceptance strategy is to establish a contingency reserve, including time, money, or resources to handle the threat if it occurs. Passive acceptance involves no proactive action apart from a periodic review of the threat to ensure that it does not change significantly (PMBOK 6th edition, page 443). A workaround is an unplanned response to deal with unidentified risks and risks that are passively accepted.

In which activity will the product owner along with the team discuss the possible approaches to implement user stories as well as provide some initial size estimations? Brainstorming, Story mapping, Backlog refinement, Iteration planning

Backlog refinement. Backlog refinement provides a chance for the product owner along with the team to discuss and address anything associated with the stories' requirements. This can involve discussing requirements, potential approaches, and even some estimations in order to eventually build a clear idea on how to approach stories.

You are managing a project for developing a network firmware for an embedded system. You set up a demonstration meeting for your team to exhibit a control panel interface feature to a technically proficient group of end-users. This is the fifth demonstration meeting that your team performs, and yet, users still asked for other changes. Thus, your team will be now implementing the requested changes in order to set up another demonstration session. Which of the following statements describes this situation? A. Better change control and requirements management practices should be implemented, B. Your team is not well acquainted with the project requirements, C. Your team is delivering value in a timely consistent manner, D. The end users are indecisive about what they want

C. Your team is delivering value in a timely consistent manner. Early delivery allows your team to obtain feedback in order to implement the necessary improvements accordingly.

You are working in a functional organization. Your project is behind schedule since the functional manager reassigned three team members to other projects. After negotiating with the functional manager, you agreed to a temporary solution that would enable you to get one team member back for now and you will have another discussion after two weeks to re-address the issue. What conflict resolution technique did you employ in this situation? Compromise, Force, Collaborate, Smooth

Compromise. The compromise approach to conflict resolution is characterized by searching for solutions that bring a certain level of satisfaction to all parties involved in order to temporarily or partially resolve the conflict. In the question, a temporary solution was suggested to ensure some degree of satisfaction for both you and the functional managers.

Marwa has recently joined a new Scrum Team in the role of a Scrum Master. She noticed that the team is dedicating too much time to refine the product backlog, which is majorly impacting their commitment to the sprint work. How should Marwa approach this problem? A. Ask the product owner to assume the responsibility of refining the product backlog so her development team can concentrate on their sprint work, B. Do nothing since refining the product backlog is quite important, C. Constrain her team to their sprint work by canceling product backlog refinement meetings, D. Coach her team to better manage their time through refining the product backlog for the next sprint while remaining committed to their current sprint

D. Coach her team to better manage their time through refining the product backlog for the next sprint while remaining committed to their current sprint. In agile projects, the scrum team opts for a gradual method of work elaboration, in which they only refine the product backlog items that they intend to implement in the next sprint or in the near future. However, it's important for the team to strike the right balance between product backlog refinement tasks and their sprint work.

Nancy is managing an e-commerce platform project using the Agile approach. When she facilitates the sprint planning, she ensures that every story has a checklist that includes the testing activities. But, after a few iterations, she noticed that most of the time, her team is not conducting any testing which causes stories to remain open for a long time. What should Nancy do? Separate the testing activities from the user stories, Have a separate QA team to perform the testing at the end of each iteration, Discuss the issue with her team during the sprint retrospective meeting, Schedule training for the team on how to perform testing activities

Discuss the issue with her team during the sprint retrospective meeting. During the sprint retrospective, you go through what went well during the sprint and what should be improved. It's best to address any problems during this meeting to identify the root causes and come up with the right action plan. Separating the testing activities from the user stories is not correct because the "definition of done" could include testing. Having a separate QA team contradicts the fact that the Agile team should be cross-functional. Finally, scheduling training could be an option if the team is lacking testing knowledge, but this should be confirmed after discussing the issue with the team during the retrospective since the problem could have other reasons, such as bad estimations for instance.

Idris is facing some challenges because of a key stakeholder. Idris collaborated with this stakeholder in previous projects where they frequently changed their requirements and continuously created trouble whenever those requirements were not met. How should Idris manage this stakeholder? Adopt agile approach, involve them right from the start, ask them to mend their ways, or inform management about it?

Idris should involve his key stakeholder at the very beginning of the project to help reduce and uncover risks and increase his "buy-in." While implementing an Agile approach can work for Idris, it does not address the issue of stakeholder management.

You are managing a project using the predictive approach within a functional organization. During the project execution, you encountered an issue that was not identified in the planning phase. To resolve this issue, additional work should be added to the project scope, which will result in an increase in the project cost. To whom should you escalate the need for additional funds to complete this work? Program manager, Product owner, Project sponsor, Functional manager?

In a functional organization, the project manager doesn't manage the budget. So, you should escalate the need for additional funds to the functional manager. If the functional manager validates your assessment, they will need to escalate your request to the project sponsor to approve allocating additional financial resources. If you work in a projectized or strong matrix organization, you won't need to raise your request for more funds to the functional manager. The product owner's role is limited to the scrum framework, i.e., adaptive approach. If you work in this type of environment, you need to report similar issues to the product owner who will escalate the matter to the project sponsor. A program manager only handles programs as the name suggests which is not the case in this scenario.

You are leading a project to design a high-efficiency solar cell. The project needs copper, silver, and silicon among other materials. You have ordered custom-built manufacturing equipment, secured permission to install a solar array on the roof for testing, and reserved a conference room for daily stand-up meetings. What is the result of your efforts? Resource histogram, resource management plan, resource assignment matrix, physical resource assignments?

It can be inferred from the question that the process of acquiring resources is being performed. One of the outputs from the Acquire Resources process is physical resource assignments. Documentation of the physical resource assignments records the material, equipment, supplies, locations, and other physical resources that will be used during the project. Based on the description provided by the question, the physical resource assignments is what has been accomplished.

When to keep the sponsor informed?

Low power, high interest sponsor

When to monitor the sponsor's actions?

Low power, low interest

One of your key team members leaves the project due to a family tragedy. You did not plan for such a situation but you managed to get a replacement with the help of a staffing agency. However, you have to pay them a higher salary. This will result in extra costs which are going to be deducted from: contingency reserve, project cost, management reserve, project budget?

Management reserve involves the dedicated budget or time reserve for handling unidentified risks or unknown-unknown. This type of reserve is not a calculated budget and does not take part in the cost baseline. Therefore, anytime an unknown risk occurs, the project manager will need permission to use this reserve.

Ravinder is a scrum master. At the beginning of the first sprint of her new project, she had an important business meeting at the same time as her daily standup meeting. What should she do? Not attend the standup meeting and attend her business meeting instead, Ask her team to postpone the standup meeting, Cancel the standup meeting, Ask her team to record the standup meeting, so she can watch it later

Not attend the standup meeting and attend her business meeting instead. As a Scrum Master, Ravinder should ensure that her team holds the standup meeting everyday as planned, but she is not required to attend it. Ravinder's team is responsible for conducting the standup meeting. Recording implies that the Scrum Master can't miss any standup meeting which suggests controlling the team rather than empowering them to take responsibility and ownership.

Management and leadership have different focuses on Agile projects. Which focuses on doing the right things? Management, Leadership, Neither, Both.

On Agile projects, management is entirely focused on doing things the right way, while leadership is concerned with doing the right things. This is Peter Drucker's leadership definition, which suggests that leaders are in charge of deciding what to do, while managers decide how to do things.

Daniel is in charge of a mobile app development project. After facing some issues quality-wise, and during a meeting to discuss the issues, Daniel agrees with his team to use a tool to prioritize quality problem areas. Which of the below tools are Daniel and his team opting for? Pareto chart, Ishikawa diagram, control chart, scatter diagram?

Pareto diagram consists of a vertical bar chart mainly used to highlight the most important sources of a problem out of the total number of effects, aiming to take appropriate measures to improve a certain issue or situation. Typically, it will be organized into categories that measure either frequencies or consequences.

Bin is managing a project with some remote team members. Recently, he got a complaint from these members claiming that they feel like they are being treated as second-class employees. What should Bin do next? Review team charter, Conduct a performance survey to evaluate the efficiency of remote work, Invest more in collaboration tools. Perform a root cause analysis

Perform a root cause analysis. Identifying the main reason for the issue by performing a root cause analysis is what Bin should do in the first place since in the question, there is no mention of why remote team members feel like they are treated as second-class employees. For instance, they could be feeling isolated due to the lack of collaborative tools or they could be feeling discriminated against due to cultural differences. After finding out the issue's root cause, the project manager can discuss the matter with the concerned members to come up with the appropriate solution.

You are in charge of a construction project. Two of your team members, John and Matilda, have a conflict. John is a construction worker who is present on-site, while Matilda is an administrative assistant who works at the company's headquarters. The reason for this conflict is most likely: Ground rules, personal work stles, salary, working conditions?

Personal work style is the most likely cause of conflict in this case. Differences in workstyle are when some people prefer to work in a group setting while others prefer to work individually for instance. According to the PMBOK, scarce resources, scheduling priorities, and personal work styles are all sources of conflict (PMBOK Guide, 6th Edition, page 348).

Facing a shortage of resources, Jennifer decides to adjust the schedule which ended up affecting the critical path and causing a delay for the project. This is referred to as: resource smoothing, crashing, resource leveling, or fast-tracking?

Resource leveling is used to optimize resources by adjusting activities' start and finish dates. This often results in changing the original critical path which happened in the scenario described in the question.

Rebecca is leading a project to install 120 air conditioners in a corporation building. Since every office will have at least one unit, the project will involve too many stakeholders. What is the best course of action for Rebecca to deal with the situation? Ask the project sponsor to represent all of the stakeholders. Set up an effective way to define each stakeholder's needs. Classify stakeholders and only work with those who have high power and interest. Inform her senior management that the project should be divided into sub-projects which will be managed as a program instead

Set up an effective way to define each stakeholder's needs. Rebecca needs to implement an efficient approach to identify all of the project stakeholders' needs in order to minimize any disturbing changes later on during the project execution. No matter how numerous a project's stakeholders are, they should all be identified and analyzed along with their needs as early as possible. This might be a complicated process due to the big number of stakeholders involved in this project. But, it does not mean that Rebecca should request breaking down the project into sub-projects or assigning a representative for all stakeholders.

During the sprint retrospective, your development team discussed the issue of testing delay which they want to improve in the next sprint. After discussing ideas, they decided to install and configure a built-in application that sends a notification as soon as a new feature is ready for testing. Where should this work be placed? Sprint Backlog, Product Backlog, Retrospective Improvement Backlog, None of the above. The team should just carry on this work in the next sprint

Sprint Backlog. In order to implement the determined improvement actions in the upcoming sprint, they should be placed in the sprint backlog. The Product owner's approval is needed for this step. The product owner should allow some work related to process improvements within the sprint. If not, they should be persuaded of the importance of continuous improvement as a crucial part of the Agile approach.

During his long experience as a project manager, Phillip always followed a servant leadership style, particularly with agile teams. All of the following imply servant leadership characteristics, except: Promoting team members professional growth, Prioritizing the team needs ahead of everything else, Succession planning by developing future servant leaders, Taking instructions from the team concerning project work

Taking instructions from the team concerning project work. A servant leader promotes their team growth, puts their needs ahead of everything, and plans for successors by developing future servant leaders. However, this leadership style does not entail that the project manager has to take instructions from their team.

In a predictive work environment, Project Managers are primarily responsible for Integration Management by controlling the detailed project planning and delivery. In an Agile setting, who is responsible for managing integration? Scrum master, Team members, Product owner, Project sponsor

Team Members. In Agile, team members determine how plans and components should be integrated in order to deliver the final work (Agile Practice Guide, page 91).

Managing an electric car manufacturing project, you're facing a complicated quality problem that you don't seem to understand its source and causes. You set a meeting with your time to discuss the matter and to initially trace the problem source back to its root cause. For that you use: Pareto diagram, chain diagram, scatter diagram, or why-why diagram?

The Why Why diagram, known also as Cause and effect diagrams, fishbone diagrams, or Ishikawa diagrams, helps to determine the primary or root cause of the problem by breaking down the causes of the problem into distinct branches. (PMBOK 6th edition, page 293).

For his new outdoor fitness park project, Umut uses an approach that yields frequent smaller deliverables throughout the span of the project. What type of project life cycle is Umut using? Predictive, incremental, iterative, agile?

The incremental life cycles focus on speed of delivery. In this type of life cycle, the products are developed by successively adding deliverable elements to the product to avoid waiting for everything to be completed before a solution exists.

Trying to build a work environment where creativity, innovation, and sharing of ideas are encouraged and supported, you set up regular meetings with your team where you brainstorm ideas concerning project risks and issues, and none of the generated ideas is eliminated. What type of leadership style are you applying? Transactional, Interactional, Transormational, Laissez-faire?

Transformational. Transformational leadership is when the project manager empowers their team by encouraging their ideas and creating an atmosphere of innovation and creativity. A transactional leader, however, is in favor of rules, processes, and procedures, so they rely on their reward and punishment powers to run the team. Interactional leadership is however a hybrid of transformational and transactional leadership.

Since its foundation, your organization has been always using the predictive life cycle for implementing its projects. Recently, executives decided to experiment with adaptive approaches. You suggested using the Kanban method since it respects the company's current work enrollment state, processes, roles, and titles. What other principles and characteristics could you communicate to your executives about the Kanban method? (Select three): Osmotic communication, Visualize the workflow, Limit work in progress, Implement feedback loops

Visualize the workflow, limit WIP, implement feedback loops. The main aspects of the Kanban method are: visualizing the workflow, limiting work in progress, managing flow, making process policies explicit, implementing feedback loops, and improving collaboratively. Close or osmotic communication is one of the crystal methodology's characteristics (Agile Practice guide, pages 104, 107).

You are part of a project team designing a new type of a vehicle. You are about to begin work on a work package for the braking system of the vehicle and want to review the acceptance criteria before starting the work. Where is this information? Project management plan, activity attributes, requirements documentation, or WBS Dictionary?

WBS Dictionary. Note, the wording of the question, "You are about to begin work on a work package...", suggests that project execution has already begun, thus implying the project management plan including all its components (such as the scope baseline that includes the WBS dictionary) has been finalized and approved.

Upon receiving vendors' proposals for the new project you're managing, and in order to minimize the effect of your personal prejudice on source selection, you use a quantifying method for qualitative data. This method is referred to as: Weighting system, screening system, selecting system, or all of the above?

Weighting System is a method for quantifying qualitative data, which is often used to minimize any personal prejudice or judgment effect on the process of source selection. This method works as follows: the project manager assigns a numerical weight to each of the evaluation criteria, then rates the potential sellers according to each criterion. Next, they multiply the weight by rating and calculating the total of the resultant products to finally get an overall score for each seller. The weighing system method guarantees the award of the contract to the best seller.

In order to develop the charter of the project you're managing, you consider using a helpful tool or technique, which is: brainstorming, business case, EEFs, or organizational process assets?

Brainstorming technique is used to identify a list of ideas in a short period of time. It takes place in a group environment and is carried out by a facilitator. Brainstorming comprises two parts: ideas generation and analysis.

You are developing the communications management plan for a construction project. You want to determine the information needs of the project stakeholders, specifically focusing on the type and the format of information that will be required to communicate with the stakeholders.What is your best course of action? Develop the stakeholder register, Review the requirements documentation, Conduct a communication requirements analysis, Consult the stakeholder engagement plan?

Conduct a communication requirements analysis. The question implies that you are performing the Plan Communications Management process with the development of the communications management plan. Communication requirements analysis is one of the tools and techniques that may be used in this process. Analysis of communication requirements determines the information needs of the project stakeholders. These requirements are defined by combining the type and format of information needed with an analysis of the value of that information. Therefore, of the available answer choices, conducting a communication requirements analysis is the best course of action in this scenario.

When to manage the sponsor closely?

High power, high interest sponsor

During project execution, a team member reaches out to the project manager to inquire about the work she needs to accomplish in this phase of the project. Which of these documents comprises thorough descriptions of work packages? WBS, WBS Dictionary, Activity List, Scope management plan?

WBS Dictionary. The planned work is included within the lowest level of the WBS components, which is known as work packages. Detailed information on work packages, such as descriptions, owners, prerequisites, successors, due dates, etc. is included in the Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary (PMBOK 6th edition, page 162).

Abigail is leading a project with team members spread over different geographical areas. During a virtual fortnightly retrospective meeting, she noticed that there is a communication gap among some of her team members. What should Abigail do to close this communication gap? Create a meeting agenda and stick to it, Get a consensus on time before scheduling any meeting, Record sessions and send the recording to all concerned team members, Bring one team member from each team to a war room.

A communication gap here means some of the members did not understand the discussion in the previous meeting or missed it. Therefore, to solve this issue you can send all team members the recorded sessions of the meetings.

In a predictive approach, which of the following statements are true about project deliverables? (Select two) A. Project deliverables should be identified throughout the project lifecycle B. Project deliverables can be products, services, or any other type of outcome C. Once project deliverables have been identified, they should not be changed anymore D. The acceptance criteria for deliverables should be described in the project agreement

B, D. Project deliverables can be products, services, or any other types of outcome. In a predictive approach, project deliverables should be determined, described, and agreed upon as early as possible in the project, to avoid any costly changes later on. Acceptance criteria should also be described and agreed upon. The change is possible and should follow the change request process.

You're following an Agile approach to lead a software development project. In order to ensure that your project satisfies customer needs effectively and efficiently, you decided to put into practice some well-known agile quality checking strategies. All of the following are strategies for agile quality checking, except: milestone review, iteration, dynamic code analyis, or daily standup?

Daily stand-up is not used as a quality strategy for agile, it is rather a daily meeting for work status control. For agile quality checking, commonly used strategies are iteration, dynamic code analysis, and milestone review.

Lia is the project manager of a 5-stars construction project. Before announcing the completion of the project, Lia is reviewing deliverables and performing a site walkthrough. What Lia is doing is called: Inspection, handing over, audit, or rolling wave plan?

During the inspection, you review deliverables and perform a site walkthrough. The term inspection refers specifically to the act in which the project manager, project management team, or any other interested or significant parties, take the effort to go review the entirety of the project in meticulous detail to determine whether or not the project meets certain predetermined requirements for completion.

When to keep the sponsor satisfied?

High power, low interest sponsor

You are managing a project using the Scrum framework. During the sprint planning, the Scrum team realized that they have selected more items than what they can realistically complete during a sprint. What should they do? Ask the scrum master to allocate more resources to the team, Discuss the issue in the next sprint retrospective, Make more effort and even consider working overtime to finish the selected tasks, Inform the product owner that some items should be removed from the sprint

Inform the product owner that some items should be removed from the sprint. Since the Sprint didn't start yet, your team still can make changes to the Sprint Backlog items. During the sprint planning, and if the team realizes that they might not be able to accomplish the selected items, they can decide to remove some of the items in consensus with the Product Owner who is the only one in charge of prioritizing the sprint backlog items.

A project team is mulling over two risk responses for inclusion in the risk register. The first risk response has two criteria that must be met and costs $5,000. The second risk response has four criteria that must be met, but only costs $2,000. What action is the project team least likely to take in selecting the best risk response? Running a Monte Carlo simulation, Performing an alternatives analysis, Conducting a cost-benefit analysis, Using multicriteria decision analysis?

Monte Carlo. In this scenario, the project team is deciding between two different risk responses for inclusion in the risk register, which suggests that the project team is currently performing the Plan Risk Responses process. Alternatives analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and multicriteria decision analysis are all techniques which are commonly used during the Plan Risk Responses process to select risk responses.

An activity has an early start (ES) of day 5, a late start (LS) of day 12, an early finish (EF) of day 10, and a late finish (LF) of day 17. Which of the following statements are correct regarding this activity? (Select two). The activity is on the critical path, The activity is not on the critical path,The activity has a float, or The activity has a lag?

Since it has a float, this activity is not on the critical path. The slack or float of this activity's duration can be calculated by subtracting the early start (5 days) from the late start (12 days) which gives a result of 7 days of float. You will get the same result if you subtract the early finish (10 days) from the late finish (17 days). Since the float of the activity is greater than zero, then it's not on the critical path. Remember that the critical path activities have zero float.

Sandra is leading an Agile project where the team executes work through a continuous flow instead of iterations. This approach proved to be less prescriptive and disruptive to her team. Which Agile framework is Sandra using? Scrum, Adaptive, Incremental, Kanban?

The Kanban method involves pulling work into the system only when the team is capable of handling it. The Kanban method prioritizes productivity and efficiency through its workflow approach. Unlike the Scrum team, a Kanban team doesn't have predefined roles.

In a weak matrix organization, employees work across multiple projects and with various departments within the company to increase employee interaction and promote teamwork spirit. In the event that additional employees are needed, who is in charge of the hiring process under this matrix? The project manager, sponsor, project team, or functional manager?

The functional manager is the one in charge of managing resources under a weak matrix. This form of matrix has a huge resemblance to a traditional workplace hierarchy. A functional manager is a project's main decision-maker as they supervise all of its aspects. Although the project manager also serves as a point of authority, they primarily report back to the functional manager.

Kim is in charge of a software development project that follows the Agile life cycle. After defining the scope and while executing the project, she receives a request from the customer to alter a requirement. Kim will respond to the change by: Blocking the change request, Welcoming the change request, Avoiding the change request, Taking the change request to the change control board?

Answer: Welcoming the change request. Flexibility is one of the most important aspects of Agile: the scope of work can change in response to new requirements. The agile life cycle aims to maintain close cooperation between people working on the product while collecting input/feedback from stakeholders on a regular basis.

A company has authorized a dedicated change control board (CCB) to review and evaluate all change requests that are submitted for any project. If the project sponsor is a member of the CCB, which of the following best describes an individual or group that can request a change on a project? Project manager, project sponsor, project team, any stakeholder?

Any stakeholder. Changes may be requested by any stakeholder involved with the project and may occur at any time throughout the project life cycle. The project manager, the project sponsor, and the project team are all project stakeholders and therefore, can request changes. All of the answer choices are technically correct, but the option of 'any stakeholder' provides a complete answer and is, therefore, the best answer to the question. Additionally, the fact that the company authorizes a change control board (CCB) and the project sponsor is its member is irrelevant to the question asked. It is essential to discern the relevant information of a question to select the best answer of the choices given.

During project planning, the project team rigorously defined the project scope. During project execution, a senior engineer calls the project manager and suggests a simpler and more efficient design which could benefit the project. What should the project manager do next? Nothing, no changes are needed since the project scope was rigorously defined, Discuss the change with the project sponsor, Evaluate the impact of the proposed change on the project constraints, Ask that the engineer submit a change request?

Ask that the engineer submit a change request. A change request is a document to record an adjustment to project scope, schedule, cost, etc. Changes may include corrective action, preventive action, or defect repair, among others. The engineer is proposing what she believes to be a valid design change which can be further evaluated by the change control board. Although changes may be initiated verbally, they should be recorded in written form and entered into the change management and/or configuration management system. Thus, of the available choices, asking the engineer to create and submit a change request is what the project manager should do next, and is, therefore, the best answer to the question asked.

You are conducting a sprint retrospective in accordance with the communications management plan. The development team members want to try pair programming as they believe it will improve productivity by reducing rework. Even though you are very skeptical, you agree to implement the practice as you want to empower the team to be a self-managing unit. What do next? During the upcoming sprint, measure velocity and, if it decreases, discontinue pair programming and reprimand the team members, Invite the project sponsor and other key stakeholders to demonstrate the increased collaboration between the project team members, Submit a change request to update the communications management plan with the new agile practice of pair programming, At the end of the upcoming sprint, revise the burndown chart, evaluate the productivity, and update the lessons learned register?

At the end of the upcoming sprint, revise the burndown chart, evaluate the productivity, and update the lessons learned register. The scenario describes a situation where the development team wants to try pair programming as a strategy to improve productivity. Even though you, as the project manager, are skeptical that the approach will be effective, you should still support the project team with their efforts to improve productivity. After all, the purpose of a sprint retrospective is for the project team to inspect and adapt their practices in order to improve performance. Additionally, the team members are the experts with the development work and are in a better position to determine how they can best work together compared to a project manager. After the practice has been implemented, it will be incumbent on the project manager to verify any performance improvements and bring that information to the project team during the next sprint retrospective so the team can further reflect and adjust. A burndown chart will capture the team's velocity and allow a before and after comparison to determine whether or not pair programming was successful in improving productivity. Any knowledge gained should then be captured in the lessons learned register.

Farah uses a predictive approach to manage projects. Despite the $75,000 increase in project costs, she was able to finish the project six weeks ahead of schedule. This situation represents: Resource leveling, duration compression, crashing, or fast-tracking?

Project crashing occurs when you reduce the time of one or more tasks in order to minimize the overall duration of a project. Crashing is done by increasing the project resources, which helps make tasks take less time than what they were planned for. However, this leads to an increase in the project costs, resulting in a change of the critical path. Such measures cannot be implemented without the approval of the sponsor or key stakeholders.

After 3 months of work execution, your sponsor faces a financial crisis due to COVID-19 so he asks you to end the project immediately. What should your next move be? Try to persuade the client to complete the project, Talk to your management about the situation, Start the close procurement process, or Start the clost project process?

When the project is closed or terminated due to any reason, you should start the close process. Procurement closure is part of the "Close project" process. The situation in the question requires the project termination, so the best answer is to execute the process that addresses the situation. Also, there is no indication in the question that the project has procurements.

Before the project starts, Harvey and his team set a meeting with the client to define and agree upon the project's goals and objectives. The components of goals and objectives in a quantifiable way are referred to as: requirements, scope, integration, deliverables.

"Deliverables" is a project management term that refers to the quantifiable products or services that must be delivered after a project is completed. Projects result in deliverables, which are essentially the project's outcomes. The project scope, on the other hand, is the overall required work to achieve the project's main objectives. It is defined as "the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions." according to the PMBOK Guide, 6th edition (page 131). While the project deliverables represent the tangible implemented tasks, they are initially derived from the project requirements. A requirement is defined as "a condition or capability that is required to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a contract or other formally imposed specification." PMBOK Guide 6th edition (page 131).

Lara is managing a project with a fluctuating performance. Upon a meeting with the sponsor, they ask for details of where the project is standing at that specific point in time, you should present the details of the: status report, work performance report, earned value report, work performance information.

A project status report is a way to communicate the project's current status and progress. A status report is an essential communication tool that Project Managers use to keep customers, team members, and stakeholders informed.

Sebastian is dealing with a resistant key stakeholder with high authority. What stakeholder management strategy should he use? Manage closely, keep satisfied, keep informed, monitor?

A resistant stakeholder denotes that they have an interest in the project. Stakeholders with high power and high interest should be managed closely.

You should create a _______________ document containing information on categories of the labor, material, and equipment required to carry on and complete your project. Resouce calendars, organization breakdown structure, resource breakdown structure, or RACI chart?

A resource breakdown structure document can be defined as a hierarchical list of team and physical resources related by category and resource type that is used for project planning, management, and control. Each descending level corresponds to a more detailed description of the resource. One of the benefits of using a resource breakdown structure is that it helps better organize resources and clearly aligns those resources with the overall goals and objectives of the organization. It also provides a quick visual reference on resource allocation and workload, as well as individual resources and assignments.

This is the first time that Julie executes a project using Agile methods. Some of her beginner team members asked when a Sprint is considered completed. What should be Julie's response? When all product backlog items are completed, When all the tasks in the sprint are completed, When the sprint defined time box ends, or When all product backlog items meet the Definition of Done (DoD)?

A sprint may be considered complete only when it reaches the end of its box time, i.e., usually 2 to 4 weeks. In some cases, the sprint ends without finishing all assigned tasks so this can't be the criteria to whether or not consider the sprint completed.

Alyssa is carrying out the initial planning activities for a pipeline project using a waterfall approach. When estimating the "run cable" activity, one team member tells her that they ran the same length of cable in 14 hours on a previous similar project. Another team member claims that they can run 100 meters of cable per hour. The team will need to run a total of 1000 meters of cable. Using the analogous estimating technique, how many hours will it take the team to run the cable? 10, 11, 12, or 14?

14. Unlike parametric estimating, the analogous estimating technique uses expert judgment by comparing an activity to a similar activity completed on a previous project in order to determine its duration or cost. This means that Alyssa would rely on expert feedback, i.e., completing a similar task in 14 hours.

Upon request, Phil presented to his superiors his order of magnitude estimations for the hostel construction project. The level of accuracy for the order of magnitude estimation is: -25% to +75%, -25% to +50%, -10% to +25%, or -5% to +10%?

A Rough Order of Magnitude Estimate (ROM estimate) is an estimation of the needed effort and cost to complete a project. A ROM estimate takes place very early in a project's life cycle; during the project selection and approval period and prior to project initiation in most cases. The order of magnitude during the initiation phase has an accuracy range of -25% to 75% (PMBOK 6th edition, page 241).

Dalida is managing an organic skincare branding project. When checking the sprint performance, Dalida is dissatisfied with the current progress. Meeting with her team to discuss the matter, they inform her that some issues were not accurately estimated due to ambiguity. Taking into consideration that Dalida's team uses story points to estimate both issues and user stories, how should she address this problem? Re-estimate all of the sprint's issues and user stories, Reduce or re-estimate the velocity of the sprint, Do nothing and raise the problem in the sprint retrospective, or Collaborate with your team to review and complete the incomplete issues remaining in the Sprint?

A team should ideally prepare all of the sprint issues and user stories before its start date. But, for a number of reasons, that is not always the case. Inaccurate story estimations can result in unsatisfying progress and unfinished tasks in your Sprint Backlog. In this case, you should collaborate with your team to review and complete the incomplete issues remaining in the Sprint. You should first identify the issues that your team didn't finish, document, and define the remaining effort. In a second step, you adjust priorities, re-estimate issues, and reflect on what happened in the sprint retrospective.

During a prospect meeting, Anna insisted that the new website she wants to develop for her e-commerce business should meet some crucial conditions: it should be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly with a score of 80% or above, and all of its pages should be perfectly responsive on all devices and screen sizes. Anna is setting the __________________. A. Definition of Done B. Quality Assurance C. Functional Requirements D. Fit for Use

A. Definition of Done. A Definition of Done is a checklist of required criteria in order to consider a product ready for delivery (Agile Practice Guide, page 151). Functional requirements describe the product requirements, e.g., website menus, functionalities, services, etc. Fit for Use is when a product is usable in its current state as it serves its purpose.

As a CEO, Li provides suitable conditions for work in his company, focusing on a healthy work environment with safe working conditions for his employees, job security, rewarding salaries, and an emphasis on work appreciation. According to Herzberg, which of the mentioned above factors are examples of hygiene factors? (Select three): Job security, Salary, Safe Working Conditions, Appreciation of work?

According to Herzberg's Motivation Theory model (aka Two Factor Theory), there are two variables that an organization should change to enhance workplace motivation. These two factors are Motivators that can entice employees to make more effort and Hygiene factors that won't encourage employees to work harder but they will cause them to become unmotivated if they are not present. Herzberg ranks the following hygiene factors in descending order of importance: company policy, supervision, employee's relationship with their boss, work conditions, salary, and relationships with peers. Appreciation at work is not a hygiene factor, it's considered a motivating factor.

The Agile life cycle can be best described as: An approach where the majority of planning occurs upfront, followed by execution, An approach that generates finished deliverables that could be used right away by the customer, An approach where work is iterative, incremental, refined, and delivered frequently, or An appr?oach that focuses on receiving feedback early to improve and modify the work

An approach where work is iterative, incremental, refined, and delivered frequently. An Agile framework combines iterative and incremental methods, focusing on optimizing performance, refining work, and delivering results on a more frequent basis.

Which of the following estimation techniques is not usually used in Agile? Planning poker, Affinity estimating, Bottom-up estimating, Expert judgment

Bottom-up estimating. Bottom-up is used in predictive life cycles to estimate a project cost or duration by aggregating the estimates of the lower-level components of the WBS. All of the other estimation techniques could be used in Agile.

Mike was notified by his Management that they're sending a team of experts to conduct a risk audit. Even though Mike had already completed a risk review process without finding any shortcomings, the management insisted on proceeding with the risk audit. Which of the following statements are true about the risk audit and risk review? (Select two): A. A risk audit is conducted to ensure the efficiency of the risk response plan B. A risk review is performed to ensure the risk response plan effectiveness C. A risk audit is carried out to examine the effectiveness of the risk management process D. A risk review is conducted to examine the effectiveness of the risk management process

B and C. In a risk audit, the risk management effectiveness and whether you are following the correct procedures are checked; risk audits look backward to what has occurred. On the other hand, in the risk review, you examine the effectiveness of the risk management plan to reevaluate the risk environment, the risk events, and their relative probability and impact (PMBOK 6th edition, pages 456, 457).

In a predictive life cycle approach, ________________ is the most commonly used method to measure your project performance. Variance analysis, trend analysis, forecasting, or earned value management?

Earned value management is a performance measurement method used to estimate where you are currently in a project versus the project's schedule and budget. EVM provides visibility into whether or not you're on track to complete the project within the established cost and timeline baselines defined in the project plan. Forecasting is not a performance measurement method. Variance analysis and trend analysis are types of performance review.

During a workshop about the Agile approach, you stated that Agile teams should be cross-functional and self-organizing, explaining that: A. Each member of the team should be cross-functional and self-organized, B. The Agile team should have all the required skills to deliver the product on their own, C. The Agile team should have complementary skill sets and be able to organize the backlog by themselves, D. The Agile team should self-organize to acquire the necessary skills to be cross-functional

B. The Agile team should have all the required skills to deliver the product on their own. A cross-functional team involves a group of individuals obtaining different substantial skill sets that are enough to accomplish their common goal proficiently. A self-organizing team is autonomous by nature in the sense that it does not rely on any outsiders to figure out how to best accomplish its work. This does not mean that each member of the team has all the necessary skills for delivering the product; they just need to be competent in their area of expertise.

You have just taken over a project in which some of the deliverables will be produced by external vendors. You want to familiarize yourself with those who are involved in the project from the sellers' side. Where would you look to obtain this information? Bid documents, stakeholder regsiter, seller proposals, or stakeholder engagement plan?

The stakeholder register is a project document that contains relevant information regarding stakeholder interests, involvement, interdependencies, influence, and potential impact on project success. Vendors are project stakeholders and as such should be included in the stakeholder register. The project manager and project team members should refer to this document when obtaining pertinent information about project stakeholders whether the stakeholders are internal or external to the performing organization.

Within predictive life cycles, which of the following terms is used for both costs and schedules to establish what you'll measure against later in the monitoring and controlling phase. Variance, expected value, baseline, or estimates?

Baseline. Cost and schedule baselines are used to assess performance in the monitoring and controlling phases.

The Expectancy Theory makes the assumption that: behavior is based on unconscious choices, risk should always be expected, expected quality is not guaranted, behavior is based on conscious choices?

Behavior is based on conscious choices. The Expectancy Theory states that employees who believe that when they make more effort, their performance will be improved, which will lead to rewards that they value, and then they will continue to be productive. This is a conscious choice. However, if they don't value the rewards, their incentive to be productive is lost.

After checking the burndown chart in your Agile project management tool, you find out that there is a lot of work left to be done that will be difficult to complete by the end of the sprint. What should you do next? A. Request an urgent meeting with the team and inform them that they will need to work overtime to meet the sprint deadline and keep the client satisfied. B. Send an email to the team informing them of the situation and encouraging them to do more effort. C. Wait for the next standup meeting to find out the reason behind the team's slow pace. D. Wait until the next retrospective meeting to reflect on what is happening

C. Wait for the next standup meeting to find out the reason behind the team's slow pace. As a servant leader, you should remove any impediments facing your team. Listening to their updates and trying to detect if there are any blockers causing the slow work pace is the best course of action amidst an ongoing sprint. As a second step, you can raise the issue during the retrospective meeting in order to improve processes; it could involve improving estimations, performance, documentation, etc. You shouldn't ask the team to work overtime or send them an email as a formal way to put pressure on them.

You are leading a project to develop a new web application. Together with your project team you reprioritize the product backlog, determine velocity for the past iterations, and adapt your work plans accordingly. Additionally, you facilitate retrospectives every two weeks.Which of the following processes describes the work you are performing? Control schedule, manage quality, monitor risks, develop schedule?

Control schedule. Adaptive life cycles, such as the agile approach, use short cycles to undertake work, review the results, and adapt as necessary. These cycles provide rapid feedback on the work approaches and suitability of deliverables, and generally involve iterative scheduling. The project described in the scenario is using an agile approach as evidenced by the use of the retrospectives, backlog, and iterations. When an agile approach is used, Control Schedule is concerned with conducting retrospectives to correct and improve processes, reprioritizing the backlog, determining the velocity in each iteration, and adjusting the plans accordingly. Therefore, of the choices provided, the work you are performing is best described by the Control Schedule process.

You are establishing the relative priorities of individual risks identified in the project. Which of the following tasks is the least likely to impact this prioritization? Reviewing the assumption log, examining the risk register, researching the stakeholder register, creating the risk report?

Creating the risk report. Establishing the relative priorities of individual project risks, an activity described in the scenario, is done as part of the Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis process. This process prioritizes the risks for further analysis or action by assessing their probability of occurrence and impact as well as other characteristics. The assumption log, risk register, and stakeholder register are all project documents which may serve as inputs into the Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis process. Note, the question is asking for the 'least' likely activity to be performed as part of this process. The risk report is a project document that provides information on sources of overall project risk as well as the summary information on individual project risks and is created as an output from the Identify Risks process, rather than being used as an input to the Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis process, making the risk report the best answer to the question asked.

Your organization decided to pause all internal projects to an undefined date due to a financial crisis. Managing one of these projects, you work with a subcontractor who provides the majority of your project resources. Knowing that you have a weekly meeting with this subcontractor, what is the best type of communication to inform them of the contract discontinuation decision? Informal written, formal written, informal verbal, formal verbal?

Formal verbal. When dealing with complex issues, such as updating a plan or dealing with legal matters, it would be best to record discussions and decisions using a formal written format. According to the PMBOK Page 499 "The buyer, usually through its authorized procurement administrator, provides the seller with formal written notice that the contract has been completed. Requirements for formal procurement closure are usually defined in the terms and conditions of the contract".

A project is six months into its nine-month projected duration. The project manager reports that the project is at least three months behind schedule because certain key stakeholders were resistant to consequential changes due to the project. What might have been done differently during project planning to avoid this situation? Better execution of the Manage Stakeholder Engagement process, Development of a stakeholder engagement assessment matrix, Creation of a comprehensive stakeholder register, Establishment of a more robust communications management plan?

Development of a stakeholder engagement assessment matrix. The scenario describes a situation where the resistance of certain key stakeholders has caused the project to run behind schedule and is asking what might have been done differently during project planning. Two of the answer choices represent activities, which are not associated with the Planning Process Group, and, as a result, those responses can be eliminated. Both of the remaining answer choices represent plausible actions that may have led to better stakeholder engagement. The actual PMP exam may present questions with more than one correct answer, and the PMP aspirant must select the 'best' answer among the potentially correct options. In this case, the development of the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix directly addresses the issue described by the question.

Jack is managing a project with a distributed team, a fixed budget, and tight deadlines. While working in a predictive approach, what should Jack do to avoid any scope creep and keep his team focused on delivering a product that meets requirements? Request the development team to skip all small and hidden requirements so that they can focus on the big and important ones, Hold frequent stand-up meetings with all of the development teams, Ensure that all alterations to the scope are authorized through a formal process, Prevent stakeholders from directly interacting with the development team.

Ensure that all alterations to the scope are authorized through a formal process. You can avoid Scope creep by adhering to the agreed-upon change management process. Change management processes have to be set up upfront and should be very straightforward. Essentially, when a change is suggested, it should be reviewed, approved, or rejected and when it gets approved, it should be incorporated into the project plan. Requirements shouldn't be skipped, small or big. Daily stand-ups and direct communication between stakeholders and your team cannot help you prevent scope creep from occurring.

Dave is managing a large project using the predictive approach. He always opts for a written authorization to begin a specific activity or work package that is part of the project plan. A Company's "work authorization system" is an example of ___________________. Enterprise environmental factor EEF, Organizational process assets, performance reports, bureaucracy?

Enterprise environmental factor. All policies, practices, procedures, and regulations that can affect the way you handle a project are considered enterprise environmental factors. Other examples of Enterprise Environmental Factors include Organizational culture, processes, and infrastructure, Product standards, Quality standards, Government standards, Market standards and conditions, Codes of conduct, Staffing guidelines, Reviews and training records, Political unrest, Organizational communication channels, Risk databases, Project management information systems (PMIS), etc.

A project manager is implementing the requirements management plan for a software upgrade project that will incorporate some agile elements. The project manager needs to quickly define cross-functional requirements and reconcile stakeholder differences to build a consensus among the relevant stakeholders. What should PM do now? Create a questionnaire and send it out to all of the stakeholders to determine the project requirements, Conduct an in-person interview with each of the relevant stakeholders to determine their needs, Facilitate a requirements workshop with all of the relevant stakeholders to develop user stories, Perform a job shadowing exercise with the intended end-users of the existing software?

Facilitate a requirements workshop with all of the relevant stakeholders to develop user stories. The question implies that the project manager is carrying out the Collect Requirements process for a hybrid project. Workshops can be used to quickly define cross-functional requirements and reconcile stakeholder differences. The interactive nature of a workshop can be effective in helping the project manager build a consensus among the stakeholders. When agile methodologies are being incorporated into a project, a requirements gathering workshop may take the form of a story-writing workshop, where required functionality is captured in the form of a user story. Of the available choices, only a requirements workshop would meet the project manager's criteria for being able to 'quickly' gather feedback, and have the interactivity necessary to reconcile stakeholder differences and help build a consensus.

Which of the following is not a Cost-reimbursable contract? Cost plus fixed fee (CPFF), Fixed price incentive fee (FPIF), Cost plus incentive fee (CPIF), or Cost plus award fee (CPAF)?

Fixed Price Incentive Fee (FPIF) is a Fixed-price contract. A price limit is determined and set under this contract form, while any other costs above the price ceiling are considered as the seller's liability. All of the other options are types of cost-reimbursable contracts. (PMBOK 6th edition, pages 471, 742).

A three-phase project to build a prototype is underway. The first phase entails design. In the second phase, the manufacturing team would produce the parts from the design specifications. In the third phase, the production team would assemble the parts to construct the prototype. The project is now at the end of the first phase. What should be done with the phase's deliverables? Verified by the testing team for quality compliance, Transferred to the production team, Transitioned to the project management office (PMO), Handed over to the manufacturing team?

Handed over to the manufacturing team. The question states that the project is at the end of the first phase, implying the Close Project or Phase process is being carried out. An output of the Close Project or Phase is the transition of the final product, service, or result to a different group or organization that will operate, maintain, or support it throughout its life cycle. Officially transferring the ownership of deliverables to the assigned stakeholders facilitates project (or phase) closure. In this case, the project manager would transfer ownership of the design to the manufacturing team since they are responsible for the second phase of the project.

The project aims to investigate the feasibility of constructing a hydroelectric dam from a technical, economic, and social point of view. The project charter created by the project manager on behalf of the project sponsor is now approved. Which of the following processes should be performed next? Develop Project Management Plan? Identify Risks? Identify Stakeholders? Develop Project Charter?

Identify Stakeholders. The Identify Stakeholders process is the process of identifying all people or organizations impacted by the project and documenting relevant information regarding their interests, involvement, and impact on project success. Both the Develop Project Charter process and the Identify Stakeholders process are part of the Initiating Process Group which should be completed before proceeding to the processes in the Planning Process Group. In this scenario, since the project charter has been developed and approved, the Identify Stakeholders process should be performed next.

Debra is a senior software engineer and she's been chosen to manage her first project using the Agile methodology. To ensure that she successfully delivers the project, she must: Identify and overcome all risks​, Define and execute all the required sprints, Identify and achieve all the success criteria, Meet all stakeholders' expectations?

Identify and achieve all the success criteria. To ensure the successful delivery of her project, Debra should first identify success criteria with the sponsor. Agreeing upon the project's success criteria will reduce the possibilities of its failure and reinforce its success odds. The project success criteria should be clearly set and outlined in order to ultimately deliver value. When setting the project success criteria, you should avoid using unclear and general terms and focus on being precise and clear: e.g., "the product should contain X features, or "the product should be completed by X days".

Oliver is a project manager in a pharmaceuticals manufacturing Project. He's meeting with key stakeholders to identify requirements and go through the project's goals. He understands that he'll have to consult with stakeholders at various points during the project and that their influence may either benefit or harm the project's progress. In a predictive life cycle approach, at which stage stakeholders have the most influence over a project's product? Initiating stages, planning stages, executing stages, closing stages?

In the initial stages of a project's life cycle, stakeholders have the most influence and impact. The possibilities of influencing project success are seen to be best during the early project stages because decisions made early reduce unnecessary changes during later development stages and even the total life-cycle costs.

Your project has been plagued with numerous change requests. What is the most likely reason? Incomplete stakeholder register, Lack of a detailed procedure to close the project, Failure to implement risk responses, Change management plan did not authorize a change control board?

Incomplete stakeholder register. Academic research and analyses of high-profile project disasters highlight the importance of a structured approach to the identification, prioritization, and engagement of all stakeholders. The ability of the project manager and team to correctly identify and engage all stakeholders in an appropriate way can mean the difference between project success and failure. The stakeholder register is a project document where information about identified stakeholders is recorded. This document includes the stakeholders' main requirements and expectations for the project. Failure to appropriately identify key stakeholders early enough in the project could result in an incomplete stakeholder register and a project with numerous change requests submitted by stakeholders as they are identified.

David is a junior project manager working for a Digital design agency specializing in branding and packaging. In his current project, he uses an approach that enables the team to share partially completed work with their clients to obtain early feedback, allowing them to modify the product accordingly. David is using a(n)____________ lifecycle. Incremental, predictive, agile, iterative?

Iterative life cycles focus on developing the product through a series of repeated cycles that successively improve or add functionality to the product by incorporating stakeholders' feedback. The Iterative life cycle model differs from the Incremental life cycle model in that change is expected. In fact, change is a necessary part of this model. (Source: Effective Project Management Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Hybrid by Robert K. Wysocki, page 49). An adaptive or agile life cycle is also change-driven as the iterative life cycle. Yet, it requires ongoing stakeholder/client engagement and the use of backlogs (including product requirements and user stories) to reflect their current needs.

Selma is a project manager of Unique Manufacturing, a company specialized in creative manufacturing. During a meeting with the sponsor to assess the project performance, she gets feedback about the latest prototype, which was produced successively to gain further insight. Selma explains to the sponsor how the use of timeboxing helped her reduce the project uncertainty. What type of life cycle is Selma using? Predictive, incremental, agile, or iterative?

Iterative life cycles use successive prototypes or Proofs of Concept (PoC). Activities are repeated in cycles to produce more information and ideas to improve the product.

You are managing a software upgrade project for your company. Your project sponsor has a great deal of authority regarding project decisions, but you recently discovered that he doesn't have much interest in your project. To complete the project successfully, you need your project sponsor's continuous support. What stakeholder management strategy should you use with your project sponsor? Keep sponsor satisfied, manage closely, monitor sponsor's actions, keep sponsor informed?

Keep sponsor satisfied. Low-power/low-interest: monitor only. Low-power/high-interest: keep informed. High-power/low-interest: keep satisfied. High-power/high-interest: manage closely.

Zad works as a project manager for a firm that manufactures restaurant and hotel equipment. Zad's superiors decided to adopt Agile practices, informing him to start preparing for this shift. What type of power is manifested in this situation? Legitimate, referant, expert, situational?

Legitimate power, aka formal power, is derived from someone's position or formal title. In this case, Zad's superiors' decision carries a heavy influence due to their position.

You work for Kitchen Plus Inc. as a project manager. Their most recent project involves the creation of an automatic dicer with industry-exclusive characteristics. The project uses a predictive life cycle, and you are analyzing the schedule performance. Based on the information provided by the scheduling team, the current schedule performance index (SPI) is at 1.10, while the cost performance index (CPI) is at 0.80. What could be a good strategy for balancing out the performance of both the schedule and budget? Crash the schedule by adding additional resources to critical activities, Fast-track the longest activities that fall on the critical path, Level out resource usage to further spread out costs over time, or Nothing, since the project is performing as planned?

Level out resource usage to further spread out costs over time. Based on the performance indexes provided, while the project is 10% ahead of schedule, it is over budget. Leveling out resource usage is a strategy used to spread out costs over time. This helps in reducing sudden spikes in spending, although it may lead to lengthening the schedule.

A project is divided into four sequential phases. The second phase of the project has just been completed, and the third phase is about to begin. What should the project manager do first? Begin the process of directing and managing the project work, Perform the process of identifying the project stakeholders, Start the process of monitoring and controlling the project work, Begin the process of developing the project management plan?

Perform the process of identifying the project stakeholders. The process of identifying project stakeholders occurs for the first time in a project either before or at the same time the project charter is developed and approved. It is repeated as necessary but should be performed at the start of each phase and when a significant change in the project or organization occurs. Each time the identification process is repeated, the project management plan components and project documents should be consulted to identify relevant project stakeholders.

As part of the Direct and Manage Project Work process, the project manager conducts an iteration planning meeting. The meeting is dominated by the most senior developer who frequently and sharply interrupts the other team members. The project manager wants to ensure that during the next iteration planning meeting all voices are heard. What should the PM do? Discuss the issue with the senior developer, and for the next meeting allocate equal amounts of time for each team member to speak, Inform the senior developer's functional manager about this unacceptable behavior and request that the manager take disciplinary action, Post a copy of the team's social contract in the meeting room and review the contents at the start of the next iteration planning meeting, or Invite the sponsor to the next iteration planning meeting to have the senior developer be more thoughtful in the presence of the sponsor?

Post a copy of the team's social contract in the meeting room and review the contents at the start of the next iteration planning meeting. The scenario describes a situation where one project team member is dominating a meeting, and not all voices are being heard. The team charter should include meeting guidelines, including such things as not interrupting and allowing all project team members to have a voice. In this case, the senior developer may not even realize the disruption that he/she is creating and the impact on the other project team members. One way of addressing the issue would be to remind the project team members about their commitments by posting a copy of the team charter and reviewing it before the meeting. The incorrect answer choices represent actions that are either an overreaction or would not likely be effective in addressing the issue.

While monitoring the performance of a construction project under your management, you notice that it is likely to drift away from the planned schedule. You implement ______________ in order to ensure that the project is fully aligned with the agreed-upon project baselines. Preventive actions, corrective actions, change request, defect repairs?

Preventive actions. When the project is likely to deviate from the planned scope, schedule, cost, or quality requirements, preventive actions must be taken. Such actions are based on a variance and trend analysis and they're proactive in nature. Corrective actions, however, are reactive and are taken in order to bring the project performance back to the baseline when the project has already deviated from the scope, schedule, cost, or quality plan. Defect repair is implemented to adjust a nonconforming product or component. A change request, on the other hand, can be a corrective action, a preventive action, or even a defect repair (PMBOK 6th edition, page 96).

You are developing the project scope statement. You have specified the deliverables for the project, included the requirements under which the deliverables will be accepted, and explicitly stated what is out of project scope. What else should you include in the project scope statement? Project exclusions, Product scope description, project approval requirements, acceptance criteria?

Product scope description. The detailed project scope statement includes the following: Product scope description, deliverables, acceptance critera, and project exlusions.

Since adopting the Agile methodology, you noticed an improved efficiency along with high-quality deliverables. You also think that agile methods brought more predictability, especially to the planning phase. Agile brings more predictability to the planning phase by: Enabling the sponsor to review the progress, Including the Product Owner in the planning phase, Promoting the team self-organization and planning, or Providing visibility of the team's progress early on the project?

Promoting the team self-organization and planning. Agile promotes and provides visibility not only for key stakeholders but also for end-users by allowing them to continuously provide their feedback, during the different cycles of acceptance testing and iteration demos. According to the Agile Manifesto, insight into the development process permits "Responding to change over following a plan", which is naturally rooted in most Agile frameworks, like Scrum, Kanban, etc.

You are leading a software development project where the developers are colocated within rented office space. Writing the code is taking longer than anticipated, and you have contacted the landlord requesting to rent the office for another week. Unfortunately, the landlord tells you that the office is already booked. You capture the problem in the project documents. What should you do next? Record the issue in the issue log, Revise the resource management plan, Update the risk register, Request additional funds?

Revise the resource management plan. The office is a physical project resource. Contacting the landlord requesting to rent the office for another week is a function of the Control Resources process. Control Resources is the process of ensuring that the physical resources assigned and allocated to the project are available as planned, as well as monitoring the planned versus actual utilization of resources and performing corrective action as necessary. In this case, the actual utilization of the office space will exceed the planned utilization. The resource management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes how project resources are acquired, allocated, monitored, and controlled. Updates to the resource management plan are an output of the Control Resources process. The plan may be updated to reflect actual experience in managing project resources. Therefore, among the available options, revising the resource management plan is what you should do next.

An organization has a policy that a change control board (CCB) must review all change requests for every project in the organization, and that the CCB follows the recommended activities outlined in the PMBOK® Guide. Project managers and the project team do not serve as members of the CCB. Based on this scenario, which of the following activities might be performed by members of the CCB? Submit change request, Implement approved change request, Initiate and close project, monitor implemenatation of approved changes?

Submitting a change request. The change control board (CCB) is a formally chartered group responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, deferring, or rejecting change requests. The CCB can include project stakeholders, and a change may be requested by any stakeholder involved with the project. Therefore, it is possible for a member of the CCB to submit a change request.

In self-organized Agile teams, the practice of continuous feedback can put individuals on the path of continuous improvement. It also fosters a healthy environment of openness and honest feedback among team members which is critical for an Agile team to learn and adapt quickly to perform at their best potential. Which of the following are considered methods of receiving feedback from Agile project team members? (Select three): team evaluation, prototyping, individual evaluation, process tailoring?

Team Evaluation, Individual Evaluation, and Process Tailoring are all methods of soliciting feedback from the team members of an Agile project. Prototyping is a "Product" feedback method, not a "Project Team" feedback method. Individual or one-on-one evaluations of team members are an excellent way to gather employee input on engagement and satisfaction. Although one-on-one meetings are essential, having daily team meetings for Team Evaluation is another way to get feedback. Team meetings can be used as a way of providing feedback to enable employees to express themselves when feeling supported by their coworkers. By encouraging the team to tailor the Process rather than conforming to a predefined notion of how they should function, the team's morale will be higher as a result of their inclusion, and it will be easier to elicit feedback from them.

You are managing a project to build five bridges. The project consists of five sequential phases with each phase delivering one bridge. After the first phase of the project is complete, which process group of the second phase should follow? Initiating, Planning, Executing, or Closing?

The Initiating Process Group is made up of two processes, Develop Project Charter and Identify Stakeholders. The Initiating Process Group is performed to define a new project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project or phase. In the scenario described, you are about to start a new project phase. Therefore, you should start with the Develop Project Charter process

The project team cannot plan for risks that are believed to be difficult to find or imagine. Therefore, a ___________ reserve should be set for threats that were not identified in advance. Management, bugger, contingency, or additional?

The Management Reserve is a financial amount used for non-identified risks during the risk analysis (the unknown unknowns). It is part of the released but withheld project or contract budget and is under "management control".

This is the first time that Ross manages a construction project. 3 months in, he notices that several invoices are higher than expected, he checks the financial health of the project by measuring the difference between the earned value and the actual cost. This operation is referred to as: Cost Performance Index CPI, Cost variance, planned value PV, or To Complete Performance Index TCPI?

The amount of budget deficit or surplus at a given point in time expressed as the difference between earned value and the actual cost is known as cost variance (CV). (PMBOK 6th edition, page 262).

You're in charge of New York's new bridge construction project. You were informed by one of the subject matter experts that during next July, all construction work of the bridge will need to stop taking into consideration past history of river flooding due to hurricane season. Thus, you agree with the expert and arrange to stop the work during that month. This decision is: Accept, Transfer, Mitigate, Avoid?

The decision of stopping work means that you are trying to avoid the risk rather than accepting it. You made the safe decision as the project manager by stopping any work during hurricane season to avoid the risk of financial loss or putting your staff members at risk. This risk response is suitable for threats with high priority, a high probability of occurrence, and a large negative impact. The decision can not be mitigation because when you mitigate, you're trying to reduce the threat's probability of occurrence and/or impact, and as the project manager, you cannot control river floods and you didn't take any action to mitigate its damage if it does occur.

In order to ensure that the project is performed in accordance with the organization's requirements, Emma, the project manager, opts for a Tailoring process. Under this context, Tailoring is: Described knowledge and practices which are applicable to most projects in most cases, The application of the necessary knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project management processes in order to increase the chances of success, The definition of the appropriate combination of processes, inputs, tools, techniques, outputs, and lifecycle phases to manage a project's enterprise environmental factors, or A technical analysis where a project model is iterated many times?

The definition of the appropriate combination of processes, inputs, tools, techniques, outputs, and lifecycle phases to manage a project's enterprise environmental factors. Tailoring involves the selection of a project process, related inputs, and outputs in order to decide on which subset of the processes to be implemented in your project management approach.

During a daily stand-up meeting, one of the programmers mentions that she had some extra time and added functionality, which was not included in the original design. She believes the customer will appreciate the added functionality. What is your best course of action? Thank the programmer for the extra effort and notify the customer of the new functionality that has been added, Update the cost baseline since the project will run over budget due to the cost of adding new functionality, Remove the added functionality and ensure that the project team builds the software as designed going forward, or Accept the added functionality, but ask the programmer to build only what has been designed going forward?

The extra code that was written to add the functionality should be removed from the build, and the project manager should ensure software is written as designed going forward. Adding unplanned functionality, sometimes referred to as gold plating, will increase the overall project risk. For example, there may have been a good reason the client did not want this added functionality. Perhaps the client's computer system cannot support more advanced functionality. Additionally, the added code may interfere with other functionality since it was not integrated with the original build plan. Of the available choices, the best course of action is to remove the added functionality and ensure that the design plan is followed in the future.

Gerard works for a company that develops mobile Apps. One of his latest projects involves the creation of an exercising app that syncs with another nutrition app to combine and analyze the data. As a result of a recent regulatory change, Gerard and his team are working on refining the backlog. The process of Backlog refinement involves: The identification of the Work items to be accomplished during the next sprint by the Agile team, A board , to keep track of the product and sprint backlogs, A prioritized list of product requirements that is maintained by the team, or The gradual development of product specifications to meet the needs of the product owner or sponsor?

The gradual development of product specifications to meet the needs of the product owner or sponsor. Backlog refinement refers to the progressive elaboration of project requirements and/or ongoing activity where the Agile team collaboratively integrates reviews and updates with the sole purpose of meeting and satisfying the customer and product owner needs, or the sponsor requests.

Which project document is used to document and monitor elements debated or disagreed upon by project stakeholders? Dispute log, problem log, change log, or issue log?

The issue log, also called an issue register, is a project document that records and tracks all issues that have a negative impact on the project. When you create an issue log, it'll be your tool to monitor and communicate all that is going on in the project. Such issues may involve resources leaving the project, conflicting teams, or even individuals with low morale.

Amber believes that current performance is the best indicator of future performance. Therefore, she uses trend data for forecast purposes at her project's early stages. One of the trend analysis techniques Amber uses is the Earned Value method. In a predictive approach, the Earned Value can be described as: The value of all equipment installed up until the present date, The value of the labor that has been employed on the project date, The method of determining how much of the budget should have been spent based on the amount of work accomplished to date, A technique of calculating the amount of money that has been spent so far?

The method of determining how much of the budget should have been spent based on the amount of work accomplished to date. Earned Value is the method of measuring how much of the budget should have been spent in view of the work realized to date. This technique allows the project manager to make a comparison between the amount of accomplished work and the expected or forecasted amount of work to be finished at a given point in time which will either show an overrun or underrun.

A project is behind schedule because department managers reassigned project team members to work on other assignments. After negotiations with the managers, you agreed to a temporary solution where a core group of project resources is dedicated to performing the project work until more resources are approved. What conflict resolution technique did you most likely employ in this situation? Compromise or reconcile, force or direct, collaborate or problem solve, smooth or accomodate?

The question states that a temporary solution was suggested that provided some degree of satisfaction for both managers. The compromise/reconcile approach to conflict resolution is characterized by searching for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to all parties to temporarily or partially resolve a conflict. Even though the compromise/reconcile approach provides a lose-lose solution because both parties have to give up something, it is the best answer based on the situation described by the question.

Bella is managing an online e-learning platform. Her team is following the scrum method and every few weeks they release a new version including more features, user interface changes, bug fixes, security patches, etc. Taking into consideration that the platform users may wonder about the changes, Bella decided to make the releases' information accessible to all platform members under a news section on the website. What type of communication is Bella using?Push communication, interactive communication, pull communication, proactive communication.

The situation in question involves an example of pull communication. PMBOK defined three types of communication: interactive, push, and pull. Proactive communication is a made-up term. Pull communication is a communication type where access to the information is provided, however, the receiver must proactively seek out and retrieve this information. When the communication is solely for informative purposes, pull communication should be used. It will have little to no impact on the project if the recipients do not read it. According to the PMBOK guide: "Pull communication is used for large complex information sets, or for large audiences, and requires the recipients to access the content at their own discretion subject to security procedures. These methods include web portals, intranet sites, e-learning, lessons learned databases, or knowledge repositories." The PMBOK Guide, 6th Edition, Page 374.

A project to construct an assembly line is nearly complete. The project manager closes procurements, shares the final project report, updates the lessons learned repository, and obtains feedback from the relevant stakeholders. What should the project manager do next? Provide final payment to the suppliers, Send a summary of how the final product achieved the business needs, Transfer the completed assembly line to operations, Send formal written notice to the vendors that the contracts have been completed?

Transfer the completed assembly line to operations. The question implies that the Close Project or Phase process is underway. Actions and activities necessary to transfer the project's products, services, or results to the next phase or production and/or operations is one aspect of project closure. Correctly answering this question is an exercise in the process of elimination. The incorrect answer choices represent activities that have already been completed by the project manager in this scenario. Among the available choices, only transferring the completed assembly line to operations represents a closing activity which has yet to be completed, making it the best response to the question asked.

A major dispute arises with a vendor on a project. The project manager claims that the vendor has failed to perform its contractual obligations, while the vendor complains that the project is behind on payments. What is the best course of action for the project manager in this situation? Refer this issue to a third party for mediation or arbitration, File a contract claim and then work directly with the vendor to resolve the issue, Terminate the contract, document lessons learned, and find another vendor, Conduct a procurement audit?

When disputes arise on a project, claims administration can be an effective tool to help buyers and sellers reach an agreement and prevent damage caused by litigation and early contract termination. Filing a contract claim and working with the vendor to reach an agreement is a more direct problem-solving approach and therefore the 'best' answer choice. Claims administration also refers to using alternative dispute resolution. However, since mediation and arbitration can be costly, risky, and time-consuming, of the choices provided, negotiation is the preferred method of settling disputes and is, therefore, the best course of action in this situation.

Advik manages a project with remote team members located all around the world for your high-tech project. The project will introduce a cutting-edge technology that was never used before. In this scenario, what is the key benefit of having a virtual team? Widens the potential resource pool, Reduces the cost of setting up a workplace, Allows more inclusion of different cultures, the work continues around the clock.

Widens the potential resource pool. While having virtual teams includes several benefits, this particular project requires a specialized skill set. The project would not have been feasible or cost-effective without the use of virtual teams, due to relocating team members or frequent travel. As a result, virtual teams expand the available resource pool.

Servant leaders apply Agile practices. All of the following are traits of servant leaders, except: Working with the team to define the "why", Working with the team to create an environment where all can succeed, Working on processes to improve deliverables, or Working on outcomes by measuring progress versus planned results?

Working on outcomes by measuring progress versus planned results. Servant leaders engage the team by adopting a selfless view aiming to serve others. They do this by approaching their work in the following order: purpose, people, and process.

Your project team members are writing software code together as a pair and reviewing each other's work to determine if the code conforms to the requirements documentation. Which of the following will be a result of these reviews? Accepted deliverable, acceptance criteria, work performance data, verified deliverable?

Writing software code together as a pair and reviewing each other's work is known as pair programming. This practice is often used on agile projects. As far as traditional project management is concerned, the scenario suggests the team is in the Control Quality process and is using the tool of inspection, such as peer reviews, to determine if the software conforms to documented standards. The goal of the Control Quality process and the inspection is to verify the correctness of deliverables thereby producing the output of verified deliverables. The verified deliverables then become an input to the Validate Scope process to determine if the deliverables meet the acceptance criteria for formal acceptance by the customer or sponsor. Formal acceptance of the verified deliverables produces an output from the Validate Scope process called accepted deliverables. Since the team is conducting a code review to determine the correctness of the software, the result of their efforts will be a verified deliverable.