Project Management Linkedin Learning

a collaboration tool

A collaboration tool might offer a feature to find the right people, but it isn't as effective as an enterprise project management software.

You have quite the diversified team in experience, skills, and hours they work. Which best practice should you follow to help ensure your schedule is as realistic as possible?

Add notes to your schedule to document resource changes and the reasons for the changes. To keep track of resource changes, it is best to add notes to your schedule with the reasons for the changes.

You are building your project schedule. You have the tasks in the right sequence. What is the next step you should take?

Add the time that you estimate for each task.

Tiko and Camille's boss has a project in which the solution is a bit unclear. Tiko wants to use a waterfall approach and Camille wants to use the Agile approach. Which approach is best and why?

Agile is best because it delivers partial solutions at regular intervals. This approach is best because it uses short iterations or sprints to deliver partial solutions, while customer feedback improves the overall solution.

After the plan is approved and project work begins, Tara's boss is not happy about a project delay for an upgrade. The vendor thought Tara's team would do the upgrade, and Tara thought the vendor would do it. What was missed in this situation?

An assumption was not identified. Assumptions are created during the project initiation phase when you do not know everything that will happen, and thus this one was missed.

Your client has just asked you to make changes to some features in the project. What would you do first?

Ask the client to document and submit a change request form. This is the process that needs to be followed as part of the project's change management process.

executing

At the beginning of the executing process group, you kick off the project, get resources on board, and explain the rules for the project.

The customer has identified several new features since the original backlog was built. What do you do to address them?

At the beginning of the next iteration, re-estimate, reevaluate, and re-prioritize the backlog features to decide which ones to include in the iteration. The customer can add features at any time, at which point you estimate and prioritize them in the backlog. Because things can change, at the beginning of each iteration, you re-estimate, reevaluate and reprioritize backlog features before you decide which ones to add to that iteration

Your coworker has to develop a cost estimate but is unsure which is the best one based on a bell curve of costs for past projects. What is a general practice for choosing the best estimate?

Choose a point halfway between the average and worst-case values. This approach will give the project the best probability for overall success, including contingency.

Your project meetings run longer than planned and you're determined to start and finish them on time in the future. What technique would you implement to accomplish this?

Create an agenda with topics and time estimates so you can move topics that exceed their time to the parking lot to be handled later. An agenda with the topics you need to discuss and the time you plan to spend on each one is the most important step to take to keep meetings on time. If a topic hasn't been resolved within its time frame, you can add it to the parking lot to handle outside the meeting (or schedule another meeting for that topic).

Stakeholders

Customers, project sponsor, department, team members

What do you use to specify what will be tested in project acceptance tests.

Deliverables and success criteria You use the deliverables and success criteria developed during the planning stage in order to design acceptance tests. These acceptance tests confirm the deliverables do what they're supposed to do according to the success criteria

Banton is defining his project deliverables. Which statement describes what a project deliverable is?

Deliverables are the results that the project delivers and help define the project scope. A project deliverable is defined as a result that a project delivers; it helps define the project scope.

Your boss is asking you to take on a reengineering project. The company hasn't run reengineering projects before, but has hired several project managers with reengineering experience. Which technique is best to use in this situation to estimate time and cost?

Delphi technique This technique is best, as it requires anonymous input from experts from which you can take the averages for estimates.

A project that you manage is behind schedule. You have identified an approach that would get the project back on track, but it would require you to break one of your organization's policies. What is the best course of action?

Determine if the rule is one that can be broken and come up with an alternative plan of action if your approach doesn't work. Some rules can't be broken without severe consequences. If you determine that the rule can be broken, you can deliver earlier with minor consequences. You must have a plan for what you will do if you break the rule and don't deliver earlier.

initiating

During initiating, you estimate resource requirements, but you often don't know who the resources will be.

planning

During planning, you identify the resources you need, but you don't prepare them to perform their assignments.

You are a project manager of a technical team. Which approach would you take to help the team members balance their perfectionism and creativity so they are within scope?

Explain to the team how the work they are doing fits the project's business needs. Technical people should understand the business objectives, so they can help find problems and solutions that support those objectives.

Raghbir has done all the project planning and is ready to obtain stakeholders' approval. However, the stakeholders are not co-located. What is the best possible approach for getting their approval?

Have a video conference with all stakeholders. This is the best approach for achieving group collaboration and approval in a timely fashion.

You need to resolve a serious disagreement over requirements between the project customer and another key stakeholder. What is the key communication technique to choose for this situation?

Hold a face-to-face meeting or videoconference. A face-to-face meeting or videoconference is preferred for difficult or crucial conversations because people can not only hear what the other person says, but also notice body language and facial expressions.

Rosanne's boss asks her to manage a project. Which question requires understanding of objectives, requirements, deliverables, and success criteria to answer?

How will you know when you are done? This question requires understanding of deliverables and success criteria, whereas the other questions do not require that information.

You have a project committee meeting with all stakeholders. What is the key step you need to take to make the meeting effective for the stakeholders?

Identify the purpose of the meeting and results you need from the stakeholders. Stakeholders are busy and want to help, thus it is important they understand the purpose and what you need from them

What are project managements 5 process groups?

Initiating, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Controlling, Closing Process

The project sponsor has asked Franz to hold a kickoff meeting for their project. What is the purpose of a kickoff meeting?

Introduce the team to the project, processes and to one another

Kendra has a project team of varying skills and experience. Since the WBS task names are short and may not be enough for the team members to know what to do, what should Kendra do?

Kendra should have her team leaders create work package documents. These documents describe the work that needs to be done in detail. They are created for new or less-experienced team members.

The development team has been delivering software components faster than planned, but some components include more features than originally specified. What should you do?

Make sure the development team understands the business objectives and requirements. Then explain that they should initiate a change request if they want to add scope. Although the customer might like the additional features, it is important that changes go through the change management process even if the project is ahead of schedule. It is also important that the technical team members understand the business objectives so they focus on meeting those objectives.

Ramesh is creating objectives for his project. Which SMART step will help him identify actual progress?

Measurable This SMART step refers to the objectives that make it easy to determine whether or not they have been achieved.

Projectized organization

PM has control organization is Project based

Hierarchy organization

PM has no control

Why is it challenging to develop a problem statement for a project?

People tend to provide solutions rather than describe the problem

Pam owns several risks in a project. What is Pam's first action as a risk owner?

Proactively implement risk responses before the risks become issues. Before a risk even occurs, Pam will proactively implement risk responses to avoid, mitigate, or plan contingencies for the risk.

You are project managing a team of 10 people. Lately, one of your team members is not performing up to par. What is the least likely approach you should use to handle this situation?

Quickly find another team member to take over. This is a hasty reaction, and does not display an effective working relationship, convey respect, or motivate others. In addition, other team members might not be available to take over.

Which activity is not part of the Adapt stage?

Review what has been completed and what is still on the backlog to choose the features for the next iteration. Although the Adapt stage includes a review of what was completed, you do not choose the features for the next iteration. During the adapt stage, hold a lessons learned session, review what was completed to ensure that it does what it is supposed to and compare what was planned for the iteration to what was completed

The sponsor of Project T5 assigned you as the project manager, and the project has already been approved. What is the first thing you need to do as the project manager?

Review what has been done and complete any tasks not addressed. Since the project was approved before the project manager was chosen, the project manager needs to take these steps next.

Sakait has done some extra work to appease a client. Now the client is asking her to do one more task, which is significant and not part of project scope. What should Sakait do?

Sakait should tell the client the task is not within scope and add the task using the change control process. This is the best approach for Sakait and would help to prevent any further scope creep.

The critical chain approach can help prevent delays and even deliver a project earlier than with other approaches. Which choice is not part of the critical chain approach?

Schedule from the project start date. Scheduling from the project start date is not part of the critical chain approach.

The boss has asked you to research project management tools that will help with building and planning tasks on a timeline. Which type of tool would you most likely consider?

Scheduling software Scheduling software helps assign people to tasks, but might not have tools for finding the right resources.

What is not a required part of creating a project schedule?

Set a deadline for the project. Management might set a deadline for your project, but that isn't needed to build the schedule. You build the schedule first and then adjust it, if necessary, to meet the deadline.

Izzy has finished identifying risks for her big project, but is unsure how to account for unknown risks from a time and cost perspective. What is the general practice most companies use for projects?

Set aside a percentage of the budget and project duration based on past projects. If you don't have past experience, use 15%. This is a best practice most project managers use for contingency.

The change review board can't get through all the change requests that are submitted. They want to focus on requests with significant impact. What process change would you propose to allow the review board to focus on significant changes?

Set thresholds so you or team leads can decide what to do with small change requests. Setting thresholds for time and cost will reduce the number of change requests that the review board has to handle

A closeout report is primarily used to _____.

Share a summary of the project with others

Camille receives a change request that will probably affect the project's business case. How should she manage this change?

She should have the customer approve the change request.

You send your client an email with a project and risk status. You ask for feedback on project performance. Which best practice should you adhere to when using email to communicate?

Take time to write a clear message

Ravi took on a system implementation project that he estimated would take six months to complete, but the work keeps continuing. What is the likely cause?

The project is not clearly defined. When the work on a project keeps going, it is a sign the project is not well defined.

Rudolph, the project manager, is trying to obtain customer approval of project deliverables. It is taking longer than he anticipated because the customer wants to discuss the results. What is the most likely reason for these delays?

The success criteria aren't clear and quantifiable. Success criteria that are unclear or not quantifiable can make it difficult to determine whether deliverables are acceptable.

A stakeholder project review meeting is estimated for a one-day duration. There are eight stakeholders. How many work hours do the stakeholders spend in this meeting?

The task duration is one day each for eight stakeholders, so the amount of work hours per day needs to be multiplied by each resource.

Which factor is a test you can use to determine whether you have broken down the work to the right level?

The work package is between 8 and 80 hours to complete. This is a best practice project managers strive to achieve when testing whether work is broken down to the right level.

Monitoring and Controlling

This process group checks on the status of the project and compares it to what was planned

Callahan just completed the planning phase. Now he needs to have a kickoff meeting with the team. What is not something covered in the kickoff meeting?

a detailed review of the project plan A detailed review of the project plan is NOT needed at the kickoff meeting. A high level review is more appropriate for a kickoff meeting. a kickoff meeting includes getting to know one another, team assignments and the processes used in the project

You are considering a vendor to help with a project. You are confident about how much work and time is needed, but you want the vendor to accept the risk. Which type of contract would you likely use?

a fixed-price contract This contract is used for well-defined projects and places the risk with the vendor, regardless of the time and cost it takes.

You are managing a project that is implementing a new financial system. You need to include some of the finance department's resources on the team. Which stakeholder should you approach?

a functional or line manager This stakeholder is most accountable for the resources that are needed for a project.

James is managing a project in which he has some authority to make decisions. In which type of organizational structure is James most likely managing this project?

a matrix organization This organizational structure can be weak or strong, but does allow the project manager to have some authority to make decisions.

Your boss has asked you to be the project manager of an approved software implementation project. Which project document identifies your authority and responsibilities?

a project charter This document describes the scope, objectives, stakeholders, and the project manager's authority and responsibilities for a project.

Krisha is gathering information on her stakeholders, such as department names, factors that motivate them, who they listen to, and their contributions on the project. What is this document called?

a stakeholder analysis This document includes much of the information Krisha needs to effectively communicate with each stakeholder.

There's a conflict on Mack's virtual project team. Which approach is best to address the conflict?

a video or phone conference This is the best approach for a conflict that arises among a team, and it provides everyone a chance to work through the conflict.

You have created a risk management plan for your project. Which type of response would you use if the scope was changed to remove a risky section of the project?

avoidance Changing the project scope to remove a risky section is an example of avoiding risk.

How can using an Agile approach help a company improve delivery?

by using an iterative approach to deliver value sooner The goal of using iterations or sprints is to deliver a complete, ready-to-use feature that is of value to the customer.

The project customer and other stakeholders have approved your project plan. After you save the project baseline, those documents will be under the control of the _____.

change management process The baseline documents represent anything that you want to control with change management. Any changes to the baseline are change requests.

Samantha is using buffers to protect her project plan from delays in some tasks. Which approach is she taking?

critical chain's task buffers

Project objectives help you flesh out a project by _____.

defining project scope Project objectives help identify the items you include in project scope.

Your organization runs numerous projects and wants to choose the most appropriate resources for each project team. Which of the following is the best tool for identifying project resources?

enterprise project management software Enterprise project management software offers tools to find resources with the right skills and availability.

The Agile team is building and implementing features. The team lead runs a daily meeting to review the status on completed and incomplete work. Which Agile stage is the team in?

explore adapt - This stage reviews what has been delivered and identifies any changes in order to make future iterations better. speculate - This is the Agile stage in which a team decides what to include in the iteration. envision - This stage is prior to the iteration, and describes the customer, goals, objectives, scope, and stakeholders.

Which type of dependency is most common in project schedules?

finish-to-start This type of dependency is best here because it means the finish of one task controls the finish of the other. Testing will finish about the same time that development finishes

Which technique would you most likely use to gather valid requirements and get buy-in from various departments?

focus groups This type of requirements gathering is usually face-to-face and is best for obtaining buy-in or agreements from several groups.

Your team asks a lot of questions about their assignments. Although they turn to you to make decisions, they sometimes test the boundaries of what they can do. What stage of team building are they in?

forming performing: A performing team knows what they are supposed to do and understands each other's roles. They perform work quickly and only occasionally ask for assistance. norming: A team in the norming stage works as a team, although they will still benefit from the leader's guidance and help resolving problems. storming: A team in the storming stage is building relationships, which often leads to disagreements and power struggles.

Which of the following skills is not crucial for a project manager to possess?

identifying deliverables

Your team has identified possible strategies for a project. The team is now evaluating them using a decision matrix. What is the purpose of weighting the objectives?

identifying the importance of each objective Weighting objectives allows you to determine which strategy addresses the most important objectives

The Agile project management lifecycle _____

includes activities similar to a Waterfall approach but performed in a different order and with different emphasis Agile project management includes activities similar to Waterfall. In Agile, planning, execution, control, and closing are performed in iterations. In addition, Agile project management activities emphasize things differently, such as interacting and documenting when needed.

Candace is a new project manager and has asked for your help with the project budget. Which type of cost typically represents the largest portion of a project budget?

labor Labor equates to people and is the largest part of a project's costs

What skills are crucial for a project manager to possess

leadership, business expertise, interpersonal skills (not accounting)

Which choice is not a characteristic of Agile project management?

no documentation Agile projects produce less documentation than a traditional Waterfall approach. They do not totally eliminate documentation. an agile project has more emphasis on people and interaction, appropriate when business needs change and the customer is more engaged

Now that your project is underway, all resource assignments are running late. What is the likely cause?

not taking into account the hours that resources spend on non-project work each day Non-project time affects everyone in the organization, which is why this is the most likely cause of every resource being behind schedule.

Your client has asked for a project that will fix productivity concerns with the customer service department. After asking "why" several times, you are able to determine the cause and create a _____.

problem statement This is what clearly defines the problem or opportunity that the project will address.

A description of the processes you use to ensure that results meet the specified quality standards is a _____.

quality assurance plan

Madhukant's project includes testing software functions. Which part of the quality management plan would address the processes that will be used to ensure the software is meeting the standards?

quality assurance plan This section articulates the processes Madhukant uses during the project to ensure the final results meet the quality standards.

Turkan is developing a resource management plan for his project. Which part of this plan articulates who makes decisions, who performs work, and who needs to receive status on the project?

responsibility matrix This section details the responsibilities, decision makers, participants, and approvers.

One risk to your schedule is that a hard drive with customized software fails and you lose the work that was done. Resources on the project team regularly back up their work so they can resume work quickly after a hard drive failure. What type of risk management strategy do backups represent?

risk mitigation Risk mitigation means you limit the impact or probability of the risk, which is what the team is doing by backing up their work regularly.

Jivan is preparing an agenda for the project plan approval meeting. Which item should she not include in her agenda?

schedule the project definition meeting The project definition meeting is held during the initiation phase of the project before the plan is created.

To get detailed values of project schedule and cost performance , look at _____ and _____.

schedule variance; cost variances

As part of the project definition, Bisa identifies risks for the project. What is the purpose of doing this during project initiation?

so management can decide whether the risks are serious enough to warrant denying the project If the project has numerous, serious risks, management might decide to choose a different project that offers benefits without so much uncertainty.

What are the names for the stages in an Agile iteration?

speculate, explore, adapt These are the three stages a team cycles through for each iteration.

You are hiring a new project manager to take over a project with several teams that often disagree on what they are supposed to do. Which competency would you feel is most important in a candidate for this situation?

strong leadership skills - This skill is needed to help guide and inspire the team to do the right things and work together.

Milestones can be used in many ways. What is not something that milestones do?

summarize schedule and cost performance Milestones don't have duration or assigned resources, so they can't summarize cost. However, looking at only milestones does provide one type of high-level summary of the schedule.

Dalton needs to prepare a close-out report for his project. Which part of the close-out report would describe how he would plan and manage projects in the future?

summary of project management effectiveness

George is building his work breakdown structure (WBS) to organize and distribute the project work to various departments. Which type of tasks would he use to represent a department's responsibility?

summary tasks These tasks are the higher-level tasks that organize work in some way, such as work for a department.

What is a project

temporary endeavor with a unique goal usually with a budget

When would you create a work package document that describes the work to be done in explicit detail?

the assigned resource is inexperienced A detailed work package can provide an inexperienced person with guidance on what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, how to tell that the work is complete and completed correctly.

Mei has obtained a graph showing duration data for past projects that follows a normal distribution. Which duration estimate provides the best chance for a project being selected and completed successfully?

the average of the worst-case value and the 50% probability value on the normal distribution This choice is not so high that the project won't get selected, yet it provides an 86% chance of delivering at or below your estimates.

Chloe is developing her risk management plan and wants to make sure that she can get early warning that a risk might occur. What is the key item she should document in her risk information forms?

the events that might trigger the risk If an event might trigger a risk, documenting these events will give you early warning.

A change request submitted by the project sponsor has an effect on several other projects within the organization. If the change request appears to be a positive addition to the project, who should you ask to approve the change request?

the organization's executive board Typically, you need to go to the executive board for approval when a change request affects other projects.

Which organizational factor would you use when having to make a difficult decision?

the organization's mission When a project supports the organization's mission, the project will likely get more support and resources, so the mission helps determine the best thing to do.

Linde has a tight budget for her project. She needs to potentially seek outside sources. Which plan should she consult to understand the products or services that are available?

the procurement plan This plan describes the process for deciding whether to purchase projects and services, how to do it, and which are available to purchase.

Several stakeholders for a project disagree on the priorities of many project objectives. Who would you ask first for help resolving this issue?

the project sponsor The project sponsor wants the project to succeed and has enough authority to help you resolve issues, particularly with other stakeholders.

Angela is about to start the project plan for a financial system migration project. What information should she identify first because it drives most of the plan?

the work that must be done The work that must be done determines the skills and resources you need, the effort the work will take, the cost, and more.

You are the project manager for a healthcare system implementation project. The sponsor has asked you to create a project definition. What will the sponsor use this document for?

to decide whether to approve the project

Why is it important to document the project scope?

to remind stakeholders what they agreed to and to prevent scope creep With the project scope in writing, you will be able to identify whether requests are within scope or need to be handled by change management.

The IT department says that there are several products that do what the project needs. What is the most important thing that will help you choose the right product?

understanding your project needs Understanding your project needs is the most crucial step towards making the best procurement decision. It allows you to create clear and prioritized requirements.

The development team has encountered a problem with a software feature. They need to handle this problem quickly, but they can't make a face-to-face brainstorming session because they aren't local. Which alternative solution is best?

videoconferencing Videoconferencing is similar to face-to-face interactions and a next best thing to face-to-face sessions.

What is not a required part of creating a project schedule?

what time people start working each day Duration is determined by the number of people assigned, the percentage of their regular work schedule allocated to the task, and the days that resources are or are not available to work. The start of the work day usually doesn't affect duration.

Agile project management is superior to traditional project management in which of the following situations?

when the project goal is not clearly defined and you must figure out the solution as work proceeds