DM 100 Waterfall PMP Questions (2022)

45. You have been asked to work on a process improvement within your team. Your manager has secured a developer to assist you with automating the process once it is streamlined, but you will need to make sure they understand the process thoroughly, including the criteria to test the automation against. What will you do next? A. Gather your team and the developer and create a flowchart together. B. Gather your team and create an affinity diagram together. C. Gather your team and the developer and perform a cost-benefit analysis for the automation. D. Gather your team and create a quality management plan together.

A A flowchart shows the process flow from start to finish, including decision points and people, departments or systems involved. It is also a Tool for Plan Quality Management. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017, p282.

86. The project charter has been approved, you have identified the stakeholders you will be working with and who will be impacted. As the project progresses, you notice multiple stakeholders who seem to be actively trying to sabotage your project and efforts. What will you do next? A. Review the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix and invite feedback from the people who are resistant. B. Remove the people who seem to be slowing your project from your project team. C. Escalate the problem stakeholders to their functional managers for disciplinary action. D. Review the Impact over Influence matrix to determine how to engage with the stakeholders.

A Assessing stakeholder engagement and gathering their feedback is the best answer. Using an Impact over Influence chart to see who holds the most influence may help you, however this question involves determining which stakeholders are at risk, and then using communication, interpersonal and team skills to engage them. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p521, "Stakeholder Engagement Matrix", p527, "Manage Stakeholder Engagement: Communication Skills"

7. You are working as a project manager for a medium-sized software project. The project sponsor believes that the team have not completed enough work in the last two weeks, and comes to talk to you about it. What will you do next? A. Review the team Burndown Chart to see the flow of work versus what was committed. B. Review the project risk register, to raise a risk on project performance. C. Ask the team to work harder, putting in overtime where possible. D. Tell the project sponsor to focus on their area and let you manage the project.

A It is best to solve problems with real data - and ensure they are real problems to begin with. The iteration burndown chart tracks the work that remains to be completed in the iteration backlog. It shows the variance against the work committed from iteration planning. (What were going to do and what did we actually get done). | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p226, "Iteration Burndown Chart".

60. You are working on a new waterfall project where the scope and cost have been planned up front. As the project progresses, you notice several tasks going off-track and falling behind. Luckily these tasks are not on the critical path, have several days of float available, and you can adjust their dates without affecting the overall project. What technique are you using to keep your project on track? A. Resource smoothing. B. Resource levelling. C. Schedule fast tracking. D. Schedule crashing.

A Resource smoothing is when we use available float to adjust a task, without affecting the overall schedule. Resource Levelling is moving tasks further out, in sequence instead of parallel. Schedule Fast tracking is performing tasks at the same time in order to reduce the overall time. Schedule crashing is adding cost and resources to try and reduce the schedule time. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p211, "Resource Optimisation'

9. During User Acceptance Testing a senior user points out a major change needed to the project scope for it to be successful. You realise you may not have enough money or resources to complete your project, but will need approval to increase either. What will you do next? A. Review the Change Management Plan for the correct change control process, including approvers on the Change Control Board. B. Review the Configuration Management Plan to find out who can configure the scope change. C. Review the Scope Management Plan to see how changes to scope should be handled. D. Review the Quality Management Plan to see rules for User Acceptance Testing and their results.

A The Change Management plan provides the process for managing change control, including the CCB. The Configuration Management Plan shows which documents will be baselined. The Scope Management Plan shows how scope will be defined, validated, and controlled. The Quality Management Plan is the testing plan, showing the test roles and process. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p 88,129, 286.

72. You are in the process of creating a project charter for your part of the organisation, to try and gain resources for an automated process improvement. The project sponsor is also the functional manager in charge of the resources for the area. She rejects your project charter, noting that you have outlined everything you want from her team, but nothing about what her area will get in return. What will you do next? A. Rework the project charter to include the benefits management plan and success measures. B. Escalate the charter to the project sponsor's manager, as this project is important. C. Ask the project sponsor to work Agile, and start delivering a minimum viable product (MVP). D. Begin work on the Requirements Management Plan, as this will show the sponsor how their requirements will be added and tracked.

A The Project Charter will ideally have the project Benefits Management Plan (including the target benefits, their strategic alignment, and timeframe for realising them). This may include success measures such as return on investment (ROI) or Payback Period (PBP) | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p343, 344, "Project Success Measures"

38. The project manager on your project recently left, and you agreed to see the project through as it is nearly complete. The deliverables have been accepted, and you just need to communicate the release to any and all affected stakeholders in the way they agreed. What will you do next? A. Review the Communication Management Plan for how communication is managed. B. Review the Stakeholder Engagement Plan for how stakeholders prefer to be engaged. C. Review the Stakeholder Register for the people you need to communicate to. D. Review the Resource Management Plan for the resources affected by your project.

A The communications management plan describes how project communications will be planned, structured, implemented, and monitored for effectiveness. The plan contains things such as Stakeholder communication requirements, Information to be communicated, Reason for the distribution ofthat information and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p377, "Communications Management Plan"

77. You are creating a high level project charter which has now been approved. The Project Sponsor expects you to get to work straight away, but you do not know who to approach or who is available to help you deliver this project. What will you do next? A. Identify stakeholders with an organisational breakdown chart, and include this in your project plan. B. Create a RACI or Resource Assignment Matrix so your team know what is expected of them. C. Review and update the resource calendar with resource working days and start dates. D. Review the high level stakeholders in the project charter and begin your project.

A The next step after creating the project charter is to Identify Stakeholders, with one way (of many) being an organisational breakdown chart. There is no point in updating resource calendars or creating a RACI when you don't know who is involved yet. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p316, "Data Representation, OBS", p25, "Process group and knowledge area mapping."

25. Five major defects have been found during quality testing, resulting in the scope changing significantly and affecting your schedule and budget. You have analysed the impacts and raised change requests for each. The Change Control Board has approved two changes, rejected two changes and deferred one. What will you do next? A. Record the outcomes in the change log and communicate the deferred and rejected changes to the change requestor. B. Review and re-prioritise the project scope to fit must-have items into delivery. C. Raise a risk in the risk register for threats to the benefit of your project. D. Raise a claim on the affected changes to give them a better chance of approval.

A The outcome of all Change Requests are recorded In the Change log, and deferred or rejected change requests are communicated to the person or group requesting the change. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl20.

94. You have been planning a project with the manager of a functional area who needs to increase their profit by 57% in the next three years. You are helping him put together a business case. He has come up with 18 different project ideas to reach the goal but will take approximately seven years. The manager pushes you to find a way to do them in three. What will you do next? A. Prioritise the ideas based on impact and cost, and note Required, Desired or Optional next to each in the business case. B. Advise the manager that good things take time to deliver. C. Add the appropriate amount of cost for extra resources to your project plan to get the work done. D. Set a meeting with the functional area experts and ask them to pick the top ideas for delivery.

A The project business case includes "Analysis of the situation," which includes decision criteria by which the various courses of action may be assessed, output in ways such as required, desired and optional. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p31, "Project Business Case".

2. You have taken over as Project Manager for a project that has had issues delivering on time. You review the Earned Value Management and find the corresponding SPI and CPI values are 0.86 and 1.12. You advise the project sponsor, who asks you to bring the project back on track within the next two months. What will you do next? A. Apply schedule crashing to bring the project back on track. B. Apply fast tracking to bring the project back on track. C. Update the Risk Register and assign the risk of project failure to an executive with the power to bring it back on track. D. Reduce the project scope to bring the project back on track.

A The project is behind on Schedule (delivered less than 1.0), but under budget and ahead on Cost (delivered more than 1.0). This means we have money to spend, and we need to reduce the schedule. Of the techniques here, Schedule Crashing throws money and resources at the project to get it done faster, and becomes the best option presented. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p215, "Schedule Compression".

84. You have been planning your project using a waterfall methodology. The project team have collected the requirements from the customer, who is eager to begin work as soon as possible. You set a meeting with the business analysts in your team to create the Scope Statement based on these requirements. What will you do next? A. Include the Scope description, deliverables, acceptance criteria and exclusions. B. Include the Scope description, Work Breakdown Structure and WBS dictionary. C. Include the Scope Management Plan, Statement of Work, and Requirements Traceability Matrix. D. Include the Project Charter, Project Management Plan, and Accepted Deliverables.

A The project scope statement includes: the Scope description, deliverables, acceptance criteria and exclusions. The scope baseline include the scope description, WBS and WBS dictionary. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl54, "Project Scope Statement".

62. You have been asked to monitor the changes to a product before completing your next project phase. You review the control chart. The data is within the upper and lower limits. You have an upward trend of four data points, and six points above the average line. What will you do next? A. Proceed with the next phase, as the process is within control. B. Delay the next phase and rework the current release, as the process is out of control. C. Ask the project sponsor to validate the released deliverable. D. Proceed with quality testing to verify the created deliverables.

A The rules for control charts indicate a process is out of control if: Seven or more points above the centre line, five or more points in one direction (trend), any point outside the control limits. This process is within those guidelines. The Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Handbook, p404, "Control Chart Interpretation" Notes: Control chart (in control or out of control): Have upward trend of 4 data points -need 5 to be out of control Have 6 points above the average line -need 7 to be out of control -sounds like they're not above the control line --------------- Upper limits (the control line) .....o ....o..o ...o....o ..o............ 6 data points (above average line) =============== Average line ............... --------------- Lower limits

59. You have started as a junior project manager on an internal process improvement project within your existing team. Your program manager asks that you be aware of and use the various forms of power available to you. What is the best type of power available to you in this situation? A. Informational power. B. Situational power. C. Positional power. D. Punitive or coercive power.

A These are the different types of power. As a junior project manager you have limited ability to discipline others, or provide rewards. As the change is in your existing team, the best action here is informational power, as you will have existing expert judgement from within your team. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p63, "Politics, Power and Getting things done"

56. You are working as a project manager in an organisation with a new Project Management Office. They advise all project managers to fulfil their numerous roles within their sphere of influence, including the Project, the Industry, and their professional discipline. What is your responsibility when it comes to the Organisation? A. Proactively interact with other project managers for demands on the same resources, funding, and alignment of project goals to the organisation. B. Communicate within your project consistently and predictably. C. Ensure an understanding of changing market niches and standards. D. Educate other professionals in the organisation regarding the value of project management.

A This is talking about the Project Manager's Sphere of Influence. Being proactive with other project managers for resources and funding is the influencing within Organisation. Communicating within your project is the Project sphere of influence. An understanding of market niches is the Industry sphere of influence. Educating other professionals is influencing "Across Disciplines." | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p52, "The Project Manager's Sphere of Influence"

14. As your project progresses, many of the business stakeholders are starting to voice their concerns, to question some of the changes, and even miss key meetings while trying to sabotage your efforts. What will you do next? A. Communicate the vision and benefits for the change clearly, along with the impact to their work. B. Create an impact over influence chart to determine who should be engaged appropriately. C. Escalate the matter with your project sponsor, and arrange for different stakeholders. D. Map the current state and the proposed future state of the change for the stakeholders.

A This question is on change management, which is a structured approach to transitioning groups to a future state. Too much change or lack of understanding can lead to resistance and change fatigue. Methods include communicating the vision, goals and benefits of the change early, along with the impact to work processes. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p59, "Enable change to achieve the envisioned future state".

41. You are delivering a brand new product line into your organisation, partly utilising a third party system. You have been working with the functional manager and her team to gather their expert judgement throughout development, when they raise a concern that the third party system is being discontinued and losing support in the next 12 months. What will you do next? A. Update the Risk Register. B. Update the Issue Log. C. Ignore the concern, you can still deliver the product without the system. D. Escalate the concern to the project sponsor.

A What we are describing here is a Risk, to the delivery of the product and its benefits. A risk can get discovered at any point of time in the project, and all identified risks can be recorded to Risk Register throughout the life cycle of the project. One of the outputs to Identifying Risks is the updated Risk Register. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p409, "Identify Risks"

64. A quality assurance manager has been hired externally to test the project and manage defects. She executed the process in the quality management plan with her testing team, where they found a high number of low impact defects. You need to see where the biggest impacts are. What will you do next? A. Use a histogram to show the most common defects. B. Use a flowchart to show the most common defects. C. Use a matrix diagram to show the most common defects. D. Use an affinity diagram to show the most common defects.

A This scenario asks for data representation of the most common item, meaning a histogram will be best. This is like a bar chart counting the number of each item, in this case, defects. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p293, "Histograms". Notes: A -Yes, Histogram, show defects in an area as bar chart. Clearly see the common defect in a bar with the highest volume. ....| ...||| ..||||| B -No, Flowchart, looking at a process and steps C -No, Matrix Diagram, like an MS Excel rows and columns D -No, Affinity Diagram, grouping things with an affinity to each other -something similar

85. You have been assigned to a project that is behind schedule. Some of your team approach you and ask what they should be working on. You check with your team and one of your senior analysts recommends you work together to create the Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary. What will you do next? A. Create a scope breakdown with unique identifier, description, and acceptance criteria. B. Work with the senior analyst to create a Resource Assignment Matrix instead, and coach them on the difference between a RAM and WBS Dictionary. C. Gather the project scope and break it down into smaller work packages. D. Create a scope breakdown with unique identifier, description and resource requirements.

B A Resource Assignment Matrix is the best approach, showing the project resources assigned to each work package. It is used to illustrate the connections between work packages, or activities, and project team members. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl62 "WBS Dictionary", p317, "Assignment Matrix"

74. You have been planning your project using a waterfall methodology, and need to estimate the resources required with your team. Your project management office recently stopped using third parties or offsite workers and mandated resources to be onsite only. You review the activity list based on your project scope and realise that some essential project resources currently work offsite. What will you do next? A. Discuss available options with the Project Sponsor. B. Perform alternatives analysis on the impact of both onsite and offsite workers for your project. C. Update the resource management plan with the onsite worker mandate. D. Update the resource calendar with the available people, locations and dates before baselining your project plan.

B All of these are good options. However, the best option is alternatives analysis as part of all these things, which assists in providing the best solution to perform the project activities, within the defined constraints. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p325, "Estimate Resources: Data Analysis".

99. Multiple unforeseen events have happened that have set your project behind schedule, and in trying to bring it back on track you have spent a considerable amount of money. Now the project sponsor has threatened to stop the project unless they can see how much the project will cost them by the time it is finished. What will you do next? A. Perform Reserve Analysis on the remaining contingency and management reserves. B. Create a project Estimate at Completion and compare it to the Budget at Completion. C. Create the To Complete Performance Index with your project team to meet your project goal. D. Review the Cost Performance Index (CPI) to see how the project cost is tracking.

B As the project progresses, the project team develops a forecast for the estimate at completion (EAC) that may differ from the budget at completion (BAC) based on the project performance. If it becomes obvious that the BAC is no longer viable, the project manager should consider the forecasted EAC. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p269, "Control Cost: Cost Forecasts", p264, "Forecasting"

51. You are in the initiating stages of a project working for a car manufacturer. Their vehicles have been losing market share due to the high price of fuel, and the organisation wants to build more fuel efficient cars. You have been asked to put together a business case outlining the various options, with a specific order to perform benchmarking. What will you do next? A. Find which competitor products have been benchmarked for future production. B. Compare the specifications of popular branded fuel efficient cars available in the market with your products. C. Create a project charter to use as a benchmark for your future project management plan. D. Benchmark your current Scope, Cost and Schedule to use as values for project performance.

B Benchmarking involves comparing actual or planned products, processes, and practices to those of comparable organizations to identify best practices, generate ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance. The organizations compared during benchmarking can be internal or external. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl43, "Benchmarking".

35. You are the project manager on a waterfall project, and you have planned the requirements, scope and schedule with your team. You now need to create the cost estimates for your project. What will you NOT include as part of your cost estimates? A. Contingency amounts to account for identified risks. B. The known cost of project changes and managing project change. C. Indirect costs at the activity level, if they are included in the project estimate. D. A management reserve for unforeseen scope changes.

B Cost estimates, which is the main output for the Estimate Costs process, include contingency and management reserves for risks and scope, and indirect costs if they are included in the project estimate. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p246, "Cost Estimates".

95. Your project charter has been approved and your stakeholder analysis reveals multiple impacted highly paid executives with the power to influence your career. As you approach some of these stakeholders, they raise their concerns about the project, how it is progressing, and what it involves. What will you do next? A. Perform an Impact over Influence analysis on all your stakeholders. B. Create your project management plan and review its detail regularly with the impacted or influential stakeholders. C. Circulate the signed project charter to anyone who needs convincing that the project is needed. D. Reduce your communication with most stakeholders - they can't resist what they don't know about.

B Developing the project management plan Involves creating a comprehensive document that defines the basis of all project work and how the work will be performed. Reviewing this with stakeholders regularly will assist with their engagement. This step also comes after the Project Charter and identifying Stakeholders in PMBOK Knowledge Mapping. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p82, "Develop Project Management Plan"

97. Part of your project work needs to be outsourced to a supplier. You are asked to ensure that cost for the outsourced portion of the project does not exceed $1.2 million, and if the work comes in under cost and ahead of schedule, you may provide additional money to the supplier. What sort of contract will you work with your procurement office to prepare? A. Create a Firm Fixed Price contract for the seller. B. Create a Fixed Price Incentive Fee contract for the seller. C. Create a Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract for the seller. D. Create a Cost Plus Award Fee contract for the seller.

B Fixed Price Incentive Fee contracts include financial incentives tied to achieving agreed-upon metrics, and a price ceiling is set where all costs above the price ceiling are the responsibility of the seller. Cost Plus Award Fee is based on a broad range of subjective factors instead. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p471, "Contract Types"

34. You are managing a project that has formed organically around an important process improvement. You have been given limited resources and a very small budget from the project sponsor. You are planning Risk Management with your team, but you do not have the resources to complete all the necessary risk tasks. Which step will you remove in such a project? A. Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis. B. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis. C. Identify Risks. D. Plan Risk Management.

B In the PMBOK Guide, quantitative risk analysis consumes additional time and cost. The use of quantitative risk analysis is most likely appropriate for large or complex projects, or strategically important projects. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017, p429

48. You are working on a project charter for the initiating stage of a new project that will deliver a new data system. You approach your enterprise data team and ask them for an estimate to deliver these changes, however your project sponsor believes a third-party vendor will provide the best solution. What will you do next? A. Create the project charter and let the steering committee decide. B. Perform make-or-buy analysis with a payback period. C. Ask the enterprise data team for their lowest quote to ensure they win. D. Take an agile approach to the project and deliver it in increments.

B Make or buy analysis is used to decide between two or more options in delivering a project, with one of those options being your own organisation. It may include a payback period (initial outlay versus ongoing costs for each), Net Present Value, Cost Benefit analysis and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p473, "Data Analysis".

6. Your team have completed the work on your project and the customer has confirmed the formal acceptance of the product that has been delivered. You set a meeting with your team to document lessons learned, release and reassign personnel as needed. What will you do next? A. Gain final sign off on the risk report with the steering committee. B. Archive all project information for future use by the organization. C. Review project documents for any open issues or risks. D. Ask the customer for a formal contract closure letter.

B Of all the options available, only "Archive all project information for future use by the organization" is part of the project closure activities. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl23 "Close Project or Phase"

11. You are working on a project where you discover a certain negative risk with a potential impact of $2,000,000. You meet with your project stakeholders who determine that this within their risk appetite, provided you meet a risk threshold of 10%. What will you do next? A. Note the acceptable risk level as a threat of $200,000 (10%). B. Note the acceptable risk level as a threat of $1,800,000 to $2,200,00 (10% variance). C. Note the impact as outside the acceptable risk level of $2,000,000. D. Note the impact as an opportunity of $200,000 (10%).

B Risk appetite describes the level of uncertainty or risk your stakeholders are willing to accept. Risk threshold is the measure of acceptable variation around an objective that reflects the risk appetite. In this scenario a 10% variation around $2m is $1.8m to $2.2m. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, "Risk"

40. Your project team have been complaining about poor stakeholder engagement in a certain part of the organisation for some time. It is now impacting the project schedule and you may need to use your contingency reserve to crash the schedule and bring it back on track. What will you do next? A. Review the cost management plan and access the appropriate contingency reserve. B. Perform root cause analysis on the problem with your team. C. Raise the engagement as a risk and escalate it immediately to the functional manager. D. Change the way of working to agile to increase stakeholder engagement.

B Root cause analysis is an analytical technique used for identifying root causes of a problem and solving them. We won't access a contingency reserve until we've properly analysed the impact to our project. Risks must also go through the process of analysis, assignment and mitigation before deciding to escalate as a response. Changing the way of work won't magically increase engagement straight away. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p292, "Root Cause Analysis".

19. You have been working on a project where the manager leads in a dictatorship style. Over time, the team have stopped making suggestions, sick days and mental health days have become more frequent, and the pace of work has slowed. The manager comes to you for help. You suggest a servant leadership style instead. What will they do next? A. Serve the team as much as they can, ensuring their every need is met. B. Focus on obstacle removal, encouragement and development opportunities. C. Ensure their team are serving other team members and helping each other succeed. D. Serve the team new ways to do the work and engage them through additional variety.

B Servant leaders allow project teams to self-organise when possible, and increase levels of autonomy by passing appropriate decision making opportunities to project team members. Servant leadership behaviours also include obstacle removal, being a diversion shield, and development opportunities. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, pl8, "Distributed management and leadership."

1. You are working on a project to build a new parkland for the community. The person in charge of parkland design approaches you as they are not sure what they are supposed to be working on. What will you do next? A. Review the Project Scope Statement to see what the team is delivering. B. Review the WBS Dictionary to see the detailed description of the scope of the work and who it is assigned to. C. Review the Requirements Traceability Matrix to see where the scope comes from. D. Review the Assumption Log, to see who we assume should do the work.

B The Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary is a detailed description of the Scope of Work, broken down to the work package level (where it can be assigned to someone to work on). It includes acceptance criteria, an assignee, cost information, schedule information and resource requirements. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl62, "WBS dictionary".

87. Your project involves nearly a dozen teams who are dispersed around the country at different sites, with thousands of impacted stakeholders. The executives in these areas are concerned with the changes the project will bring, and are starting to push back on your planning efforts. What will you do next? A. Create the project charter, and arrange for sign off by the executives. B. Create the communications management plan to ensure their communication needs are met. C. Raise a change request for the project, and arrange to co-locate all the teams. D. Create the requirements traceability matrix, so you can trace the executives' requirements back to the scope you deliver and keep them engaged.

B The project is already in progress so assume the Project Charter has been approved. The communications management plan contains stakeholder communication requirements and is the current plan for collecting, creating, and distributing information in a timely manner. It identifies the team members, stakeholders, and the work involved in the communication process. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p377, "Communications Management Plan"

39. You have been working on a project in your organisation for some time. In the latest working group meeting, the project sponsor adds a new executive member to the group. As soon as they arrive, they raise a new scope item that was not in the original plan. What will you do next? A. Raise a change request to change the scope baseline. B. Update the stakeholder register with the new stakeholder details. C. Raise an issue for the scope change in the issue log. D. Update the change log with the initial details of the scope change.

B The stakeholder register contains identification information (i.e. name and role), assessment information (i.e. requirements and potential for influencing), and stakeholder classification such as impact over influence. As the stakeholder has just joined the project, this is the very next thing you should do. The change control process can come next, but usually not before analysing the impact to your project. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p514.

22. You are managing your team through difficult project, which has been made more difficult by many team members being new and inexperienced, and not having the right capability to get the work done. You are getting pressure from your steering committee to improve the performance of your project. What will you do next? A. Use Tuckman's ladder of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing with your team. B. Use co-location, a shared knowledge portal, training and team assessments. C. Use conflict management, influencing and emotional intelligence to get your team onside. D. Use brainstorming and root cause analysis to get to the heart of the problem.

B This example is referencing the process of "Develop Team" in resource management. Tools and techniques in this process include co-location, interpersonal skills, communication technology, training, team assessments, recognition and rewards, and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p340-342 "Develop Team - Tools & Techniques".

49. You are working on a project where the functional manager is unhappy with the changes being brought about to his part of the organisation. He argues constantly, misses key meetings, demands multiple sign-offs to slow progress and more. The project sponsor asks you to go for a win/win approach to this conflict. What will you do next? A. Smooth and accommodate the manager, emphasising areas of agreement. B. Collaborate and problem solve with the manager. C. Compromise and reconcile with the manager. D. Force and direct the manager, pushing your viewpoint and the expense of others.

B This is a question on managing conflict. Smoothing and accommodating is lose/win. Compromising and reconciling may sound nice, but you both give up something and it ends in a lose/lose. Forcing your viewpoint is win/lose at the expense of others. Only problem solving and collaborating can end in a win/win. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p348, "Conflict Management".

53. As your project begins, it becomes clear the most of the business analysts, developers and testers are not familiar with system they will be modifying. The Project Sponsor asks you to address this as a potential future quality issue, and asks you to add a series of training sessions for the team, with associated cost. What will you do next? A. Add it as Appraisal Costs, and take the change request to the CCB for approval. B. Add it as Preventive Costs, and take the change request to the CCB for approval. C. Add it as Internal Failure Costs and take the change request to the CCB for approval. D. Add it as Sunk Costs and take the change request to the CCB for approval.

B This is the Cost of Quality. Appraisal cost is the cost of auditing or checking the work. Internal failure costs are defects caught before release. Sunk cost is the money already spent on something, while making future decisions. Preventative costs is the bets answer here, as through training we are preventing future quality issues. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p282 "Cost of Quality".

68. You are in the process of measuring the outcome of one of your deliverables on the business. The data shows that there seems to be an improvement but the range of results is very wide. You are able to get very clear results, however. Based on these results, what will you do next? A. The process has high precision but low accuracy. The equipment should be adjusted. B. The process has high precision but low accuracy. The deliverable process should be improved. C. The process has high accuracy but low precision. The equipment should be replaced. D. The process has high accuracy but low precision. Additional features should be added.

B This question asks the difference between accuracy and precision. Low accuracy has a large range. High accuracy has a small range of outputs. Precision is how precise the outcome is - two days is more precise than "sometime this week." | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, "2.4 Estimating"

81. Your project charter has recently been approved, and you are gathering the customer requirements that will form the basis of your project. The project customer advises they have been burned by previous project deliveries in the past, where the project did not deliver what they really needed. What will you do next? A. Create an initial list of requirements as part of a solid requirements management plan. B. Call a focus group with customer experts and brainstorm requirements with them. C. Perform benchmarking between the area process and external organisations. D. Create a requirements traceability matrix to ensure requirements are tracked properly.

B This question focuses on the tools and techniques you will use when collecting requirements. Brainstorming, Interviews, Focus groups, questionnaires and benchmarking are all noted. Given the customer has had difficulties in the past, the best option is direct collaboration: focus groups and brainstorming. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl38, "Collect Requirements, Tools & Techniques"

15. You are analysing your stakeholders through an impact over influence chart and have found more than 100 different groups of people, and over 3000 impacted stakeholders. Other parts of your project are starting to fall behind as you try to keep up with the large amount of people. What will you do next? A. Ask your project team to engage different groups of stakeholders so everyone is covered. B. Clearly prioritise the stakeholders then engage and communicate with the highly impacted and influential groups early and often. C. Monitor the stakeholders for signs of stress and respond to groups most stressed about the project. D. Create a SharePoint page for changes that any stakeholder can gather information from anytime.

B This question is about engaging stakeholders. The process includes: Identify, Understand and Analyse, Prioritise, Engage and Monitor your stakeholders. Where you have too many to engage effectively, prioritisation is the key. Impact and influence are two ways, as well as Power, Beliefs, Expectations, proximity to the project, interest and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, pll, 12, "Stakeholder Engagement: Prioritise and Engage"

17. You have taken over on a project with a vendor where scope and requirements have been missed. You notice that miscommunication and mixed messages are common. You set a meeting with your team and the vendor's team. The meeting is extremely important to get right. What will you do next? A. Speak slowly and clearly with the vendor's team, at a louder volume if necessary. B. Confirm they hear your message, determine if they agree, and identify nuanced or unintended messages they may have received. C. Only communicate with the vendor in writing, so you have a trail of proof if anything goes wrong in the future. D. Prepare a claim for the mishandled scope of your project through your procurement team.

B This question is asking about communication. With all forms of communication, quick feedback loops provide the information you need by confirming they heard the message, determining if they agree, and identifying any nuances or additions to the message they may have added or heard. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, pl3, "Stakeholder Engagement: Engage"

75. You have been working on a project where your organisation wanted only onsite workers, while you believed the project needed specific skills that were only available offsite. You worked through the various options and agreed to use the onsite workers available. As your project progresses however, it becomes clear that it is not being done to specification and you really do need the offsite workers. The project is going off track. What will you do next? A. Update the issue log, and the resource calendar with the resource requirements. B. Use problem solving with your team, and negotiation with your Project Sponsor. C. Gather work performance information from your team, and raise a change request. D. Raise a risk in the risk register, and brainstorm risk responses with your team.

B This question is referring to the tools and techniques used when "Monitoring and controlling resources." These techniques include problem solving and negotiation. A change request is for impacted baselined items impacting schedule or cost. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p356 - 357 "Problem Solving" and "Interpersonal and Team skills"

93. Team members from parts of the organisation have been assigned to your project at an agreed level of 50% availability. As the project progresses, you notice they are being pulled back into their normal roles. You also notice that your project is falling behind schedule. What will you do next? A. Talk with the project steering committee, and arrange for more resources to assist your project. B. Talk with functional managers. Negotiate clear and written assignments with reliable scheduling priorities. C. Raise a risk to project delivery and assign it to the functional managers to mitigate. D. Raise an issue in the issue log, and raise it at the next project working group.

B This question refers to interpersonal and team skills and negotiation. The best way to approach a problem is directly, clearly and collaboratively with the functional managers involved. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p332, 333, "Interpersonal and Team Skills, functional manager."

23. You have planned the scope, schedule, cost and resources with your team. You have also identified a large number of risks within your project. You are in the process of assigning the probability and impact to the risks when one of the risks occurs. Your project sponsor immediately worries about a worst case scenario. What will you do next? A. Utilise the management reserve for your project to mitigate the risk. B. Review (or create) the risk response in the risk register then use the appropriate contingency reserve to implement it. C. Perform quantitative analysis on the risk to ensure you know how much it will cost. D. Accept the risk for now, as the risk analysis is not yet complete.

B This scenario describes performing qualitative risk analysis. Once done, risks are placed in the risk register with their responses, and an appropriate contingency reserve is added to the work package for these "known-unknown" risks. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p440, "Risk Register".

33. You have been working on a large database transfer project, when the manager for data in your organisation identifies the aging systems as a threat to your project. You review this with your project team and decide to perform qualitative risk analysis on the threat. What will you do next? A. Review the quality of the data that led to the risk identification. B. Assign a probability of occurrence and an impact if it does occur. C. Perform analysis on a range of outcomes to see the possible financial impact. D. Add a risk trigger, mitigation and owner to the threat.

B This scenario is talking about qualitative risk analysis, which is described as the process of prioritizing individual project risks for further analysis or action by assessing their probability of occurrence and impact as well as other characteristics. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p419 "Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis".

65. The project you are working on has recently started and the team has come together from many different parts of the organisation, each with their own agenda. There are lots of small conflicts within the team and little work getting done. The program manager asks you to use your positional power to resolve these conflicts as the team starts to find its rhythm. What will you do? A. Withdraw from the conflicts so the team can work through them. B. Force a decision for the conflicts. C. Smooth and accommodate all sides in the conflicts. D. Problem Solve the conflicts with the team.

B Using positional power is forcing your viewpoint at the expense of others, and mostly offers win-lose solutions. This approach mostly works to resolve conflicts in a quick frame of time. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p349, "Conflict Management"

29. Your project is nearing completion. You have monitored and controlled quality through testing, and risks with mitigations throughout the project life. The project sponsor is concerned that she won't know if the product being delivered has the desired effect on her business area once it is released. What will you do next? A. Consult the Quality Management Plan, to ensure the quality is right for the sponsor. B. Consult the Benefits Management Plan, and act in accordance to that process. C. Consult the Business Case, to see the proposed benefits from the change. D. Consult the Risk Register, for any remaining risks that might reduce the effect.

B What the sponsor is talking about here is the benefit to her business (the business value). The Benefits Management Plan is a type of business document that describes how and when the benefits of the project will be delivered, and process that should be in place to measure those benefits. During closing, its reviewed to measure whether the benefits of the project were achieved as planned. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl25, "Benefits Management Plan".

47. The project you are managing has defined the scope and created the Scope Baseline with the Scope Statement, WBS and WBS dictionary. The project sponsor is unhappy with the planning progress and would like to know how much this scope will cost to deliver. What is the next best action you should take? A. Create the project budget, including contingency and management reserves. B. Define and sequence activities and estimate their durations. C. Create the Resource Management Plan D. Review the project charter for the high level project scope, schedule and costs.

B You cannot create the budget without knowing the activities to create the scope, their durations, and the resources required to perform them. The next best action is to define and sequence activities and estimate their durations. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl74, "Plan Schedule Management"

89. One of the risks on your project is significantly large, and could seriously impact your company if it ever came about. It has captured the attention of high ranking executives, who have each proposed a response and thinks theirs is the best. You decide to solve the argument with a Decision Tree. What will you do next? A. Rate the risks for their probability and impact to get a risk rating for each. B. Note each of the options on a vertical bar chart for their impact sensitivity on cost. C. Note the various response options with their cost impact, and their probability of occurrence. D. Perform a simulation of each of the responses against multiple criteria to test their impact.

C A Decision Tree shows various options with their benefit or cost, and various (often uncontrollable) outcomes with their probability of occurrence. This allows you to choose the path with the least cost and the least probability of impact. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p435, "Decision Tree Analysis"

13. Your project is starting to go off track due to a large amount of uncertainty in the requirements and resources. At a significant cost, you have managed to reign in these issues, however your project management office would like you to brainstorm ways to improve with your team so that they do not happen again. What will you do next? A. Ask your team to increase the project Contingency Reserve, to allow for these impacts. B. Ask your team to change the project methodology from Waterfall to Agile. C. Ask your team to use short feedback loops, continuous improvement, and transparent planning. D. Ask your team to check their work twice before sending it to the next part of the process.

C A project team needs to embrace adaptability and resiliency with methods such as using short feedback loops, continuous learning and improvement, regular inspection and adaptation of project work, diverse project teams, transparent planning, using prototypes and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p56, "Embrace adaptability and resiliency."

18. Your stakeholders seem to be engaged, however there are frequent changes to scope and requirements, causing delays. Issues are often raised and result in multiple rounds of feedback. You are not sure who or what could be the cause. What will you do next? A. Perform root cause analysis with your project team on the problem to brainstorm ideas. B. Raise a risk in the risk register for the project delay, and review responses with your team. C. Review the issue log, risk register and change log for the most frequent requestors, then update your stakeholder engagement approach for those people. D. Ensure your project budget has enough contingency reserves to meet the multiple reviews and delays.

C A significant number of changes or modifications to the project requirements or scope may indicate stakeholders are not engaged or aligned with the project objectives. A review of the project issue register or risk register can identify challenges associated with individual stakeholders. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, pl5, "Checking outcomes - Stakeholder Performance"

54. You have finished project planning. All baseline documents are approved and the project team is ready to begin project execution or delivery. Your team have planned and estimated the activity resources required. What will you do next? A. Define with the team how to estimate, acquire, manage, and use team and physical resources. B. Estimate team resources and the type and quantities of materials, equipment, and supplies necessary to perform project work. C. Obtain team members, facilities, equipment, materials, supplies, and other resources necessary to complete project work. D. Monitor the planned versus actual utilization of resources and taking corrective action as necessary.

C After planning and estimating resources comes acquiring resources during project execution. Acquiring resources is described as: Obtaining team members, facilities, equipment, materials, supplies, and other resources necessary to complete project work. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p25 "Process Group Mapping", p328 "Acquire Resources". A -No, part of planning, we just finished planning B -No, part of planning C -Yes, obtaining resources, comes after planning D -No, comes after delivering

57. You have just joined an organisation, and are about to be allocated to an existing project, delivering a new Human Resources system. You have heard that the project is behind its delivery milestones, and it is over budget by $40,000 so far. There are multiple stakeholders with differing needs. What will you do first? A. Create a project management plan, outlining the processes for each phase of the project. B. Perform a stakeholder engagement assessment, to see who is sabotaging the project. C. Start by understanding how the organisation works, including its politics and power. D. Meet with the project sponsor to understand why the project is off track.

C Being new to the organisation and to the project, the best thing you can do first is to understand the internal Enterprise Environmental Factors of politics, power, and how to get things done. You are not yet on the project, so Stakeholders are not your first concern. An existing project will have a Project plan that you can review. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p62, "Politics, Power and Getting things done"

26. You are working through the scope of a newly kicked-off project, and the senior user is unsure on how the requirements and scope come together to create a deliverable that will work for him and the functional manager. Your program manager suggests you use "decomposition" in this circumstance. What will you do next? A. Estimate activity resources for who is required to deliver the item. B. Define the project scope for the functional manager. C. Create a WBS and Define Activities in your schedule. D. Create the Project Charter and Project Management Plan for a clear view of the project.

C Decomposition is "breaking things down" into smaller and more manageable parts. It is a tool and technique for both the Create WBS and the Define Activities processes. So, among all option C is the right answer. | (PMBOK Guide)-Sixth Edition, 2017, pl56, pl85.

67. One of your stakeholders with a very high influence within the company has raised an urgent change that they want to be implemented within the next two weeks. You check the change management plan and see that changes can be approved by the project manager. You raise a change request and review the impact to the project schedule and cost. What will you do next? A. Review the configuration management plan to see which documents are baselined. B. Review the schedule earned value reports for your project. C. Decide on the changes, approve the changes, and track the changes. D. Review the Requirement Traceability matrix for requirement acceptance and sign off.

C Earned value reports on cost or schedule variance are an input to the change control process. You have already asked for these. As the project manager can approve change requests on this project, the steps are to decide, approve and track the changes once the impact has been determined. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pll9, "Change Control Tools".

82. Your deliverables have recently been quality checked by a specialist testing team, and passed with flying colours. You take them to the Project Sponsor for approval so you can move to project closure. The project sponsor accepts all the deliverables except two. One she notes as a defect, and one as a missed requirement. What will you do next? A. Make the changes as soon as possible to avoid further delays. B. Raise an issue in the issue log, as this will delay your project. C. Raise a change request for the items, along with the reasons for non-acceptance of those deliverables. D. Proceed as normal to project closure - you have delivered them as per the project needs.

C For the completed deliverables that have not been formally accepted, change requests are raised along with the reasons for non-acceptance of those deliverables. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl66, "Validate Scope: Outputs, Change Requests"

30. You are the project manager on a high profile software project that involves automation technology not used before in your company. Because of this, your team have no resources to complete that part of the project. The steering committee approves outsourcing this work to a suitable vendor. What will you do next? A. Perform a make-or-buy analysis to ensure a correct decision. B. Approach your procurement department for suitable contracts to proceed with, such as Cost plus Incentive Fee. C. Create the procurement statement of work and source selection criteria. D. Review current agreements and change requests impacting third-party work.

C In this scenario we are in the beginning stages of procuring a vendor. The right process is Plan Procurement Management, where the outputs are to create the procurement statement of work and the source selection criteria. Other items are the bid documents (i.e. request for proposal), and the Procurement Strategy. The time for make-or-buy analysis has passed, with the third party approach already being approved. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p460, p477, p478

31. You are a project manager working in the initial phases of a project, and trying to put together a document for your stakeholders to have your project approved. You remember the Five Cs of communication from your studies, and decide to use them here. What will you do next? A. Connect each part of the communication. B. Create a bond between the message sender and receiver. C. Ensure clear purpose and expression directed to the needs of the reader. D. Care about the subject and the person.

C In this scenario we are talking about the five Cs of communication: Correct grammar and spelling, Concise expression and elimination of excess words (keeping it short and concised) Clear purpose and expression directed to the needs of the reader, Coherent logical flow of ideas, Controlling flow of words and ideas. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p363, "Key concepts for project communications".

21. You are nearing the end of a difficult project where the vendor providing the system to your company has taken longer than anticipated. The deliverables have been quality tested, validated and verified. Your project sponsor is keen to finish the project and close it off. What will you do next? A. Review the risk register and issues register for outstanding risks and issues. B. Review the project management plan and approved change requests. C. Review the procurement agreement and accepted deliverables. D. Review the requirements management plan and requirements traceability matrix.

C In this scenario where a procurement is involved with the closing phase of a project, the procurement agreements and the accepted deliverables are inputs to close the project. When project deliverables have been verified, they are accepted by the project sponsor and you can close the project or phase. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl24, "Close project or phase".

66. During your project, your company was taken over by another, larger company, and the project management office and its policies were changed. The project customer has already formally accepted the deliverables, the project has completed delivery and is ready to be closed. What will you do next? A. Refer to the Project Charter for the closing procedures. B. Refer to the scope management plan for deliverables' acceptance. C. Gather details on the accepted deliverables, any agreements and procurement documentation. D. The project cannot be closed as the project outcomes need to be measured and accepted.

C Inputs into "Close Project or Phase" include the accepted deliverables, agreements on project closure, and procurement documentation. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017, pl26.

52. When reviewing the project performance with your team, you notice the following: 1. Activity A, on the critical path, is delayed by 5 days. 2. Activity B, not on the critical path, is delayed by 10 days. 3. Activity C, on the critical path is delayed by 3 days 4. Activity D, not on the critical path, is delayed by 7 days. Where will you ask the team to focus their efforts on first, and then in which order, to bring the project back on track? A. Activity A, Activity B, Activity D, Activity C. B. Activity B, Activity D, Activity A, Activity C. C. Activity A, Activity C, Activity B, Activity D. D. Activity B, Activity A, Activity D, Activity C.

C Tasks on critical path should be addressed first, as they are critical to the project schedule. After that, items that are delayed by the most should be addressed as soon as possible. This makes C is the most reasonable choice. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p210, "Critical Path method".

27. You have been assigned to take over a project in your organisation that has gone off track, with scope creep causing the schedule and cost to increase. You can't quite understand the current cadence and way of working within the team, so you decide to find out their development approach, including any modifications. What will you do next? A. Review the Project Charter, as this was the original agreed document. B. Review the schedule management plan, as this will have team cadence schedules. C. Review the Project Management Plan, as this will house the cadence approach. D. Review the Stakeholder Register, for stakeholder cadence needs.

C The Development approach, including any modifications, is included in the Project Management Plan. This defines whether predictive, Iterative, agile, or a hybrid development approach will be used on the project. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p88.

37. You are new to a project and are approached by the functional manager. No one has been able to tell them exactly what the project is about, and what they need to be aware of, including high level scope, schedule, risks, and who approved it in the first place. What will you do next? A. Check the project activity list and schedule. B. Hold a sprint review to see what the team have developed so far. C. Review the project charter and identify the stakeholder impacted by the change. D. Visit the project management office (PMO) to gather organizational process assets.

C The Project Charter holds the high level information you need to get up to speed, including the project purpose, high-level requirements and deliverables, summary milestone schedule list, project risk, stakeholders and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl55, "Project Charter".

4. You are working directly with the project sponsor, in the initial phase of a brand new project. The project sponsor asks for your help in creating a document that formally authorises the project, including details such as the cost-benefit analysis, feasibility study, and high level risks. What will you do next? A. Prepare a project milestone chart, and review with the project team B. Prepare a Business Case, and review with the functional manager and receiving team C. Prepare a Project Charter, and review with the portfolio governing body for approval D. Prepare a Project Management Plan, and host a project kick off meeting to begin

C The Project Charter is the document that formally authorises the project. The Business Case, cost benefit analysis and feasibility studies are inputs into this document and process, to help provide a link between the project and the strategic objectives of the organization. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p75 "Develop Project Charter"

55. You have been working on a large waterfall project for some time, and one of the business analysts working with you has shown interest in taking on higher duties and moving into a project management role. What advice will you give them? A. To work on their soft skills for communication, conflict management and negotiation. B. To ensure they can create a Project Charter and Project Management Plan. C. To work on their knowledge and skills in Project Management, Leadership, and Strategic and Business Management. D. To work on their contract and procurement skills for hiring and vendors.

C The Project Manager Talent Triangle includes Technical Project Management skills, Leadership and Strategic and business management. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p56, "Project Manager Competencies"

98. You take the completed scope to your project sponsor for them to accept. The Project Sponsor advises she cannot accept the deliverables as she doesn't know the outcomes of testing, and whether the scope met her requirements or needs further changes. What will you do next? A. Set a meeting with the Project Sponsor directly to address their concerns. B. Review the Requirements Traceability Matrix and show the Sponsor how each requirement is met by project scope. C. Review the Quality Report together with your testing leader, and note which items may need change requests. D. Review the Change Requests for the project, to show the Sponsor whether any corrective actions needed to be made.

C The Quality Report includes corrective actions recommendations (including rework, defect/bugs repair, 100% inspection, and more); and the summary of findings from the Control Quality process - perfect to review to show the sponsor the state of deliverables before they accept them. This report may also be the basis for change requests. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p296, "Quality Reports"

100. Your project plan includes an estimate of how long the project will take (via a project schedule), how much it will cost and the resources that will be required. The Project Sponsor believes that the project can be done with around 34% fewer resources, which will save them some money and keep their area within budget. What will you do next? A. Dismiss the Sponsor's comments as uneducated, and proceed with your plan as it is. B. Reduce the resources in your project plan so the project can meet your Sponsor's expectations. C. Create a basis of estimates with your project team and review this with your Sponsor to agree on a way forward. D. Raise a risk to your project delivery in the Risk Register, if the plan goes ahead with fewer resources.

C The basis of estimates should provide a clear and complete understanding of how the estimates are made, including assumptions, constraints, and ranges. This will help the Project Sponsor understand the reasoning behind it and agree on the best way forward.

36. You have just taken over as project manager on a difficult waterfall project. Multiple project stakeholders have approached you and asked to make changes to different parts of the scope, cost and the delivery (schedule) of the project. You are trying to figure out which items need change approval, and which can just be done. What will you do next? A. Review the Change Management Plan for the change approval process. B. Refer the Scope Management Plan for scope items that need approval. C. Review the Configuration Management Plan for baselined items. D. Examine Requirement Traceability Matrix for the requirement requestor.

C The change management plan explains the change process, however it is the configuration management plan that shows which items in your project are baselined and need to go through the change management process. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl69, "Configuration Management Plan"

90. You have recently become a project manager for a large organisation and you are not sure what to expect. Your colleague tells you that the organisation is large enough to have a substantial project management office, and it is a directing PMO. What will you do next? A. Collaborate with the other project managers in the PMO to find a project that suits your skillset. B. Get started on a business case in your work area to initiate a project. C. Await to be assigned to a project by the PMO. D. Review the project management frameworks, templates and tools mandated for use by the PMO.

C There are three types of Project Management Offices. Supportive, with templates and guidelines, Controlling, with adherence to frameworks and templates, and Directive, with a high degree of control where they directly managing the projects and assign project managers who report to the PMO. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p48, "Project Management Office"

69. In the last few months, your project team have had a large amount of conflict, finding their role and place within the team. They are starting to work together and adjust their work habits and behaviours to support the team. As a leader, what will you do next? A. The team are in the performing stage, work with them to maintain as they move towards adjourning. B. The team are in the forming stage, work with them to find their roles and work through the coming conflict. C. The team are in the norming stage, work with them to become performing. D. The team are in the storming stage, work with them to normalise their role in the team.

C These are the Tuckman stages of team development. A team that has moved through conflict (storming) and is starting to work together is in the "Norming" stage of team development. Help them use this and move into "Performing" so they can truly deliver great outcomes. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p338, "The Tuckman Ladder"

76. You are working on a very high risk infrastructure project that is critical to your organisation. The team are experienced in this area after working on this project for the past 12 months. During a working group meeting, they mention they are stuck and cannot implement part of the project. You raise an issue in the issue log and decide to problem solve with your team. What will you do next? A. Escalate the problem outside your team, as they clearly cannot move forward. B. Review the lessons learned register for lessons to past similar problems. C. Define the problem with data, identifying the root cause, and generating possible solutions. D. Raise a risk to project delivery and note the impact and likelihood of the risk.

C This question asks for an approach to solving quality problems. We know the team are experienced in this area - going outside the team may complicate matters with people less familiar. Various problem solving methods generally include defining the problem with data, finding the root cause, and generating solutions to choose from and test. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p295, "Problem Solving", 356, "Problem Solving".

8. You are working on a project that involves the renovation and removal of an old industrial plant. When investigating the area with your team to capture the project scope, you notice there are old chemicals left behind, which hurt your lungs when you breath them in. What will you do next? A. Accept the risk and remove the industrial plant anyway. B. Escalate the risk and ask your manager to approve. C. Transfer the risk by hiring an external company to remove the chemicals. D. Avoid the risk by only working on areas which don't have chemicals.

C This question asks that we have knowledge of risk responses. Of all the options where genuine danger or high risk is involved, Transferring the risk to a third party or through insurance is the best approach. Mitigating the risk (through proper controls) would also be a good approach, but this option was not presented here. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p443 "Strategies for Threats".

91. The project customer approaches you as they are worried that the project is not delivering fast enough. You review the project schedule and cost so you can see how the project is tracking. The Actual Cost is $648,000. The Earned Value is $601,000. The Planned Value is $629,000. What will you tell them? A. The project is ahead of schedule and over budget. B. The project is ahead of schedule and under budget. C. The project is behind schedule and over budget. D. The project is behind schedule and under budget.

C This question is about earned value analysis. Schedule Variance = EV - PV = -$38,000 (behind schedule) Cost Variance = EV - AC = -$28,000 (over budget) | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p261, "Earned Value Analysis"

42. You have joined a car manufacturing company as a new project manager. Senior Management have asked you to take the necessary steps that will enable you to kick-start a project in a corresponding area for designing a new electronic dashboard. What will you do next? A. Review the marketplace conditions and current industry standards. B. Create a cost benefit analysis and feasibility study for a business case. C. Gather the high level requirements, scope, milestones and risks for a project charter. D. Start the project through a kick-off meeting immediately, and begin gathering resources.

C This question is describing the Initiating phase of a project. Develop Project Charter is the first step in the Initiating phase. It is a document that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities, and includes a summary milestone schedule; high-level project description and key deliverables, overall project risk and more. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p25, 81, "Project Charter".

79. You have just started work in a project that has been in development for the past six months. You notice it has been through a large amount of project steps that you are unfamiliar with, such as concept development, feasibility study, commissioning, milestone review and more. These don't match the normal phases of design, build and test. What will you do next? A. Advise the project to reduce and update its phases, for less admin and faster delivery. B. Advise the project to adhere to the normal project phases of Design, Build and Test as per the PMBOK Guide. C. Adhere to the project's phases, and familiarise yourself with the organisation's process. D. Remove phases altogether and work through the waterfall delivery in one big release.

C We are referring to Project Phases, but also Enterprise Environmental Factors. Each organisation can be different, with different politics, ways of working, governance and approvals. The best immediate course of action is to adhere to these EEFs and familiarise yourself with the organisation best practice. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p20, "Project Phase"

20. You have been allocated to a new project team with members from different parts of the functional business area. It soon becomes clear that very few of them have worked on a project before. There is also a lot of miscommunication and re-work occurring amongst the team, which starting to cause delays. What will you do next? A. Set a daily stand-up with your team to ensure they update what they completed. B. Review the Resource Assignment Matrix with your team and ensure they are doing their job. C. Help the team set their vision and objectives, roles and responsibilities, and team operations. D. Send your team members on training in their roles to increase their capability.

C When project teams form across different organisations, more work may be required up front to establish a "one-team" mindset, ensuring everyone understands how they contribute. Team development such as establishing a vision, clear roles & responsibilities, and a way of working are key. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, pl8, "Common aspects of Team Development"

71. You have planned, executed and monitored a project to completion. The customer has just received the finished product and you would like to close the project. The customer advises you that they are not happy with the received product, that your team didn't listen when they raised quality concerns, and they are raising a claim against your company. What will you do next? A. Raise a change request for their proposed changes and update your project plan. B. Call their bluff: take the claim to a dispute, then an appeal if necessary. C. Review the claims process in the contract and negotiate with them to settle the claim. D. Review the earned value report for any impact to the schedule and cost of your project.

C The claims handling process is outlined in the procurement contract, and the preferred way to handle claims is to settle the claim through negotiation. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p498, "Claims administration"

70. You have used a project charter and statement of work to create a project management plan. You present the plan to key stakeholders, including the project sponsor and you sense a high level of dissatisfaction by the customer executives. They do not believe the project will produce the results they had expected. What should you do next? A. Request a written statement from the customer, detailing their concerns. B. Proceed as normal. Your project plan will produce a convincing product for the customer. C. Arrange a change request, re-plan your project where necessary and go ahead with the project work. D. Work together with your customer to create a narrative Scope statement outlining the deliverables.

D A collaborative and direct approach, combined with the proper outputs of Defining Scope such as the scope statement including description, deliverables and acceptance criteria. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl54, "Project Scope Statement" B -No, Not everyone is on board. C -No, Need to find out what the changes out or dissatisfaction is actually about -need a conversation

46. You are working on a new project where the design and project work, including all the scope and cost have been planned up front. However, part of the project relies on a vendor creating a new add-on for your project, which will be subject to multiple changes as the core product is created. What project development lifecycle approach will you recommend to the team? A. A Predictive or Waterfall approach, as the work is planned up-front. B. An Iterative approach, as changes will need to be made before the final delivery. C. An Incremental approach, so you can deliver parts continuously and align them. D. A Hybrid approach combining pre-planned activities, iterations and ceremonies that promote collaboration and feedback.

D A hybrid life cycle is a combination of a predictive and an adaptive life cycle. Those elements of the project that are well known or have fixed requirements follow a predictive development life cycle, and those elements that are still evolving follow an adaptive development life cycle. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl9, "Project and Development Lifecycles"

61. About a third of your project team have worked on a similar project in the past. They have gathered requirements and created a high level scope. It is time to estimate the size and effort involved, however the customer believes things are taking too long and would like to see some progress as soon as possible. What will you do? A. Ask the customer to wait so you can plan the project properly. B. Estimate the scope using parametric estimating. C. Break the high level scope into smaller parts using a WBS. D. Estimate the scope using analogous estimating.

D Analogous estimating uses information regarding resources from a previous similar project as the basis for estimating a future project. It is used as quick estimating method and can be used when the project manager can only identify a few top levels of the WBS. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p324, "Analogous Estimating".

3. You are working on a change that includes stakeholders at all levels from front-line workers to senior executives. After performing stakeholder analysis you and your team group the stakeholders according to their level of influence and the impact the change will have on them. The project sponsor asks what engagement strategy you will use for the front-line workers. What will you do next? A. Manage them Closely B. Monitor them only C. Keep them Satisfied D. Keep them Informed

D Analysing stakeholders using an Impact/Influence grid, you will have four quadrants: A -Manage closely, High Influence and High Impact -communicate with them a lot B -Monitor only, Low Influence and Low Impact C -Keep satisfied, High influence and low impact -executives D -Keep informed, Low influence and high impact. Front-line workers (doing the work) in this case have a low influence but receive a high impact from the project. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p512, "Impact/Influence Grid". | D | A impact --------- B | C | influence

88. A number of risks have been raised on your project. You perform qualitative analysis to get a subjective risk rating, but your project customer is not satisfied. They would like you to perform additional qualitative risk analysis, beyond impact and likelihood. What will you analyse next? A. Simulation, Sensitivity analysis, Decision tree analysis. B. Cost of Failure, Cost of Appraisal, Cost of Prevention. C. Executive needs, Political needs, Promotion needs. D. Urgency, Proximity and Strategic impact.

D As part of qualitative risk analysis, other risk parameters you might measure risk by include: Urgency, Proximity, Dormancy, Manageability, Controllability, Detectability, Strategic Impact and Propinquity. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p423, 424, "Qualitative Risk Analysis: Assessment of Other Risk Parameters"

78. You have been assigned to address the fast-moving competition that is rapidly taking market share from your company. Your executive manager advises you the company only has around 12 months before jobs will be lost, but there are currently no projects to address these concerns. As a project manager, what will you do next? A. Ask the executive manager to come up with project ideas to address the situation. B. Perform benchmarking against various companies for process improvement opportunities. C. Create a project charter with high level scope, milestones and cost for approval. D. Create a project business case, including business need, situation analysis and solution options.

D Before a project charter can be created and a project begins, it needs a Business Case to determine how the project will address the business goals, including the need, analysis of the situation, and various options to address them. Benchmarking is also a good answer, but not as complete as the business case. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p30, 31, "Project Business Case"

73. You are working on a complex, high-value project to replace the telecommunications system across your organisation. You have created a Request For Quote for vendors to respond to, including source selection criteria and a statement of work, and you have selected a seller based on multiple vendor responses. What will you do next? A. Record the new vendor in your Stakeholder Register, and begin engaging them to deliver the project. B. Draft an appropriate contract such as Fixed Price Incentive Fee, and proceed with the implementation. C. Place the approved RFQ in your procurement management plan, and proceed with delivery of the project. D. Approach organisational senior management for approval to award the contract.

D Final approval of complex, high-value, high-risk procurements will generally require organizational senior management approval prior to award. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p488, "Conduct procurement outputs: Selected Sellers".

32. You have been working with the stakeholders on your project for some time, and the communication has been getting more and more tense with each interaction. You perform a stakeholder engagement assessment and discover the majority of your stakeholders are either resistant or neutral. What will you NOT do next? A. Ensure you are listening actively with each interaction, speaking less and listening more. B. Increase your awareness of cultural and personal differences. C. Identify, set and managing stakeholder expectations. D. Escalate the stakeholder issue to their functional manager to bring them back in line.

D In this scenario we are talking about Communication. There are four things that support the Five Cs of communication, and they are: Listening actively; Awareness of cultural and personal differences; Identifying, setting, and managing stakeholder expectations; Enhancement of skills (in negotiation coaching, and conflict resolution). | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p363

5. You are working as a Project Manager and your team is about to deliver the completed system to the customer. During the final round of testing, the customer points out that a major piece of functionality is missing, which should have been in scope but was not previously thought of. What will you do next? A. Deliver the system to the customer as it is with the promise to add the functionality later. B. Ask the sponsor to accept the risk and move on. C. Utilise your project budget's Contingency Reserves to add the functionality before release. D. Utilise your project's Management Reserves as part of the budget to add the required functionality before release.

D Management reserves are a specified amount of the project budget withheld for management control purposes and are reserved for unforeseen work that is within scope of the project. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p202, "Reserve Analysis".

80. The project management office is looking to you for help in hiring and coaching new project managers, and they ask you to interview the next candidate for roles in upcoming projects. In speaking with the candidate, they do not have any industry experience. What will you do next? A. Ask them whether they prefer waterfall or agile, to see if they work the same way as your organisation. B. Ask them whether they would like a different job within the company, with less focus on industry experience. C. Ask them if they can dictate and command a team to get fast results. D. Ask them what their focus on a project would be: the schedule, selected financial reports, or the issue log.

D Part of the skills of a qualified project manager are: Technical Project Management Skills, Strategic and Business Management Skills, and leadership skills. The top focuses for leading project managers were the schedule, financial reports and the issue log. While a dictatorship can get fast results, it is often at the expense of team psychological safety and performance over the long term. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p58, "Technical Project Management Skills"

16. You are managing a project which communicates to the customer using mostly pull communication so far. When monitoring the engagement of your stakeholders, you notice a trend that they are not clear on the impacts or benefits of the project. You decide to add push communication to your communication plan. What will you do next? A. Create a webpage using SharePoint with all the project information, that your stakeholders can see. B. Push for more funding on your project, and communicate this to your project sponsor. C. Push your stakeholders to engage in more two-way communication. D. Send a weekly email to stakeholders with a project update, including the impacts and benefits.

D Push communication is sent to stakeholders, using memos, emails, status reports, voice mail and more. Pull communication is something a customer can pull at any time - from a bulletin, a web page, a white board, etc. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, pl3, "Types of Communication"

50. You are working on a large multi-year project. You realise that the estimates from a year ago are extremely inaccurate, and the project is off track. You would like to try a different approach that gives a high level view of future work, and a detailed view of near-term work. What will you do next? A. Recommend a Decomposition approach. B. Recommend the process in the Schedule Management Plan. C. Recommend an Iterative approach to development. D. Recommend a Rolling Wave Planning approach.

D Rolling Wave Planning is when you plan near-term work in detail, and future work at a high level. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl85, "Rolling Wave Planning".

92. The people and resources involved in your project are currently costing a large amount of money, and your project sponsor comments about it frequently. You check how the project is tracking. Planned Value is $840,000. Earned Value is $795,000. Actual Cost is $755,000. What will you do next? A. Utilise the project contingency reserves to bring the project schedule back on track. B. Raise a change request to reduce the project scope and bring the cost back on track. C. Reduce the project resources to bring the project cost back on track. D. Add more resources to bring the project schedule back on track.

D Schedule Variance = EV - PV = -$45,000 (behind schedule) Cost Variance = EV - AC = $40,000 (a surplus, therefore under budget) Despite the Sponsor's comments, the project is behind schedule but under budget, so we can add more resources and cost to the project to bring the schedule back on track. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p262, "Variance Analysis"

96. You have just created your project management plan and are reviewing it with your stakeholders. It includes the subsidiary plans of scope management, schedule, cost, resources and quality. Some of your stakeholders raise concerns that they cannot see what needs to be baselined, or how to measure the project performance and changes. What will you do next? A. Advise your stakeholders the information they need is in the subsidiary plans. B. Meet as often as needed with your project stakeholders to increase their engagement and acceptance of your project. C. Show them the project budget timeline with costs projected on a schedule. D. Create the configuration management plan, change management plan and performance measurement baseline with your team, and include them in your project plan.

D The Configuration Management Plan (what needs to be baselined), Change Management Plan (how to process changes) and the Performance Measurement Baseline (an integrated scope- schedule-cost plan to measure against) are all additional parts of your Project Management Plan. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p88, "Project Management Plan: Additional components"

24. A significant change has been made to the project scope after finding a serious system flaw. This scope change will impact the scope, cost and schedule of the project. You analyse the impacts to each, raise an issue in the issue log and are about to raise a change request. What will you do next? A. Review the configuration management plan for the baselined project items. B. Add the detail as a project delivery risk in your project risk register. C. Update the change log and implement the changes required. D. Check the Change Management plan for the Change Control Board members and process.

D The Perform Integrated Change Control process includes a change control board (CCB), which is a formally chartered group responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, deferring, or rejecting changes to the project and for recording and communicating such decisions. The change management plan provides the direction for managing the change control process and documents the roles and responsibilities of the change control board (CCB). | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pll6 "Change Management Plan".

83. You have gathered the customer requirements with your team, and are finishing the creation of the scope statement. You need to baseline the project scope to ensure future changes are tracked as necessary. What will you do next? A. Take the Scope Statement to the project sponsor and steering committee for approval. B. Ask the project sponsor to approve the Project Charter and project management plan with the included high level scope. C. Update the configuration management plan with the scope statement as a baselined document. D. Create a Work Breakdown Structure and WBS Dictionary with your team.

D The Scope Baseline includes the: Scope Statement, WBS, WBS dictionary and Work packages. As we have already created the Scope Statement, the next best step is to create these things as inputs into the Scope Baseline. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl61 -162, "Scope Baseline".

44. You have just taken over a project that is approximately half-way through, and has used around 75% of its budget. A change to one of the features has been requested after extensive user acceptance testing, and your project team cannot agree on what to do next or whether changes should be made. What will you do next? A. Check the Change Management Plan for details on how to make changes. B. Check the Requirements Traceability Matrix for how the requirements should be traced. C. Blame the previous project manager loudly for not having a process to deal with this situation. D. Check the Scope Management Plan for details on how to manage the scope.

D The change management plan defines the process for managing change on the project. The scope management plan documents how the project and product scope will be defined, validated, monitored, controlled and validated. The requirements traceability matrix Is a grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl69.

43. Your project team have just finished defining the scope of the project. They have matched the scope to the original requirements on a Requirements Traceability Matrix. The team cannot agree on what to do next. What will you ask them to do? A. Ask your quality team to verify the scope so your project can proceed. B. Approach the project sponsor for acceptance of the project scope. C. Break down the scope into activities and place them on a project schedule. D. Review the Scope Management Plan for direction on creating the Work Breakdown Structure.

D The order of Scope Management processes in project planning are: Collect Requirements, Define the Scope, Create the WBS. The process for creating the WBS should be outlined in the Scope Management Plan, which outlines the process for creating the scope statement, WBS, Scope Baseline, and how scope is accepted. Validating scope is done by the accepting customer (or sponsor) after quality testing verifies them. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl30, pl37

10. A new executive has started in the functional area you are delivering to. They are concerned the project is not delivering what they need, and they put pressure on you to deliver more than was originally agreed. You agree to meet and talk through the Scope Baseline so you are on the same page. What will you do next? A. Gather the Requirements Traceability Matrix and Feature Gantt Chart. B. Gather the Feature list and current Sprint backlog. C. Gather the approved Scope Management Plan. D. Gather the Project Scope Statement, WBS and WBS dictionary.

D The project scope statement, WBS and WBS dictionary are all part of the Scope Baseline. Work packages and planning packages are also included. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, pl61, "Scope Baseline".

58. You are working in an organisation where a large change is happening to multiple departments. You have been asked to manage this change as a project, and allocate people within your project team with sufficient leadership skills. What will you NOT look for in potential candidates? A. People who build trust, balance opposing goals and apply persuasion and conflict resolution. B. People who give feedback constructively and accept feedback constructively. C. People who can describe the products, goals and objectives of the project. D. People who ensure the work is done their way, to ensure the fastest approach.

D The qualities and skills of a leader include: integrity, being a visionary, being collaborative and using influence appropriately. They do not include dictatorships or doing things their own way without feedback from the team. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p61 Qualities and Skills of a Leader

63. You are in the process of planning the resources required for your project. Work on your project has not started, as your team are not sure what they should be doing. You decide to create the resource management plan with your team. What output do you specifically need from this plan? A. Stakeholder Register, to identify and classify people involved in the project. B. Project Charter, with the high level roles & responsibilities for the project. C. Requirement traceability matrix, with who requested and signs off on each requirement. D. Roles & responsibilities, with Role, Responsibilities, Authority and Competence.

D The specific output as part of Planning Resource Management is Roles & Responsibilities, with their role details, Authority and Competence. Stakeholder register captures people involved with the project but not necessarily project team members and their roles. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p318, "Resource Management Plan, Outputs".

12. A risk has been raised in your project around insufficient building materials. One risk response assigned to the functional manager suggests to use a brand new material, which has not been fully tested in a building project. Half of your stakeholder group are happy with this risk response, but the other half are not, and refuse to sign off on it. What will you do next? A. Suggest a quantitative risk approach to give a more accurate financial impact. B. Suggest they proceed with the proposed risk response, and ensure it is followed through. C. Suggest a different risk owner, as an executive may have more power to respond to the risk. D. Suggest a different risk response, as they should be timely, cost effective, realistic, and agreed to by relevant stakeholders.

D This question refers to risk responses. Risk responses should be appropriate and timely to the significance of the risk, cost effective, realistic within the project context, agreed to by relevant stakeholders, and owned by a responsible person. D is the best answer. | (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, "Risk"

28. You are working on a complex engineering project, where a significant amount of risk has been found with your team and the customer. The functional manager approaches to ask if she can work with your team to plan any risk responses. You agree to help her update the Risk Register, with: A. Risk triggers, agreed response strategies, and residual risks after mitigation. B. Risk contingency reserves, quantitative analysis and financial impact responses. C. The list of risks, their probability and impact, and their overall risk rating. D. Risk owners, risk assumptions, and risk mitigations.

This situation is describing the "Plan Risk Responses" process. The risk register is updated with information like agreed-upon response strategies, triggers, warning signs of risk occurrence, residual risks that are expected to remain because they are deliberately accepted, and the register is an output of this process. | (PMBOK Guide) - Sixth Edition, 2017, p448.