TPV1 Chapter 8 Review

Which of the following should be established as part of the change control system in the event the change control board (CCB) cannot meet in a timely manner?

A. Emergency change request procedures B. Procedures for analyzing the impacts of change and preestablished criteria for determining which changes can be implemented C. Process for documenting the change in the change request log D. Coordination and communication with stakeholders Answer: A. Emergency change request procedures should be documented so that changes that must be made on an emergency basis prior to the next CCB meeting can be made. All changes should be documented and reported at the next CCB meeting.

The project you are currently managing requires a new piece of equipment that has only been available in limited quantity in a beta test mode. The manufacturer has assured you that the device will be in production mode in time to meet the committed delivery on your project schedule. Delivery of this device was identified as a high-priority risk during risk planning. Because you have no authority to impact the production of the device, your team designed a contingency plan that uses a different device that will allow the project to move forward with reduced functionality. Which of the following is the best example of a trigger that indicated that you need to implement the contingency plan?

A. A major trade magazine has just printed a story quoting informed sources predicting the resignation of the manufacturer's CIO. B. Several of your project team members have come to you to express concern regarding the dependency on this one vendor. C. Rumors are circulating that testing of the device is not progressing as planned and major rework will be required. D. The vendor is scheduled to ship the first set of devices on March 1. It is February 3, and you have not received the required written confirmation from the vendor regarding the shipping date. Written confirmation was due February 1. Answer: D. The vendor has missed a key milestone date—the written confirmation of the device shipping date. The team member concerns may be valid, but the risk associated with a new device produced by only one vendor was accepted when the project was authorized. The speculation regarding the status of device testing may indicate that the device will not be available, but you need to contact the vendor and ask specific questions. The other answers may all warrant further investigation, but you would not want to implement your contingency plan based on unconfirmed rumors.

Changes to project scope require changes to these as well. Choose two.

A. Budget B. Quality C. Schedule D. Resources E. Product scope Answer: C, E. Changes to project scope require a change to both the product scope and the project schedule.

This entity is responsible for reviewing change requests, reviewing the analysis of the impact of the change, and determining whether the change is approved, denied, or delayed.

A. CAB B. CCB C. CRB D. TRB Answer: B. The change control board (CCB) is responsible for reviewing change requests; analyzing the impact the of the change; and approving, denying, or delaying the change request.

This type of change request is implemented to help reduce the probability of a negative risk event.

A. Contingency plan B. Corrective action C. Risk response plan D. Preventive action Answer: D. Preventive actions are implemented to help reduce the probability of a negative risk event. Contingency plans and risk response plans are not change requests. The purpose of a corrective action is to bring the work of the project into alignment with the project plan.

Which of the following is not a type of change request?

A. Corrective actions B. Defect repairs C. Performance corrections D. Preventive actions Answer: C. Corrective actions, defect repairs, and preventive actions are all types of change requests.

Stakeholders have come to you to tell you they want to change the scope. Before agreeing to the scope change, what things should you do? Choose two.

A. Determine which project constraint (time, budget, quality) is most important to stakeholders. B. Discuss the proposed scope change with the sponsor. C. Ask team members what they think about the scope change. D. Define alternatives and trade-offs that you can offer the stakeholders. Answer: A, D. Determining the constraint that stakeholders think is driving the project will help you determine the kinds of trade-offs or alternatives you can propose to lessen the effect of the proposed scope change.

You have just received the latest status updates from the team. Based on the progress to date, system testing is projected to take three weeks longer than planned. If this happens, user acceptance testing will have to start three weeks late, and the project will not complete on the planned finish date. The customer scheduled the user acceptance testing participants weeks in advance. What is the best course of action?

A. Explain to the test team that system test will end on the scheduled date, and they are accountable for the accuracy of the testing results. B. Meet with the test team to determine the cause of the delay. If you determine that there are not enough testers to complete all of the scenarios in the time allotted, work with the sponsor to secure additional testers to complete the system test as planned. C. Write a memo to the customer stating that you have a new date when the project will be ready for the end user testers. D. Escalate the issue of the system test delay to the sponsor, and let her decide what action to take. Answer: B. Any time you have a projected delay in a major deliverable, you want to immediately determine what is causing the delay, because you may determine steps to bring the deliverable back on track. If you determine that there are no options to prevent the delay, you should meet with the customer to develop a workable solution to providing testing resources at a later time. Setting an arbitrary finish date for a deliverable that is already behind will almost assure incomplete testing and a potentially poor-quality product. Given the magnitude of the impact to the customer, this is not a situation that should be communicated in a memo. You need to be part of the solution.

The Scope Control process is responsible for all of the following except which one?

A. Formally accepting completed deliverables B. Monitoring the status of the project scope C. Monitoring changes to project scope D. Ensuring work results match expected outcomes Answer: A. Formally accepting the completed deliverables is the primary purpose for the Scope Verification process.

You are a project manager for a new software application. You have just learned that one of your programmers is adding several new features to one of the deliverables. What is the best action to take?

A. Make any needed adjustments to the schedule and cost baseline, and tell the programmer that any future changes must be approved by you. B. Request that the programmer remove the coding for the new features, because he is outside the boundaries of the original scope statement. C. Contact the appropriate functional manager, and request a replacement for this programmer. D. Determine the source of the request for the new features, and run this change through the scope change process to determine the impact of the changes and obtain formal approval to change the scope. Answer: D. The customer or a stakeholder may have requested the new features. If these are required features that were omitted from the original scope statement, you need to analyze the impact to the project and obtain approval for the change. If you just make adjustments to the budget and schedule without any analysis, not only do you risk being late and over-budget, but there may be impacts to other areas of the plan or risks associated with this change. Removing the new features may add cost and time to the schedule as well as create a potentially hostile relationship with the customer. Unless this is a situation where the programmer has repeatedly changed scope outside of the approval process, requesting a replacement resource is not an appropriate response.

When substantial changes to the project schedule have occurred, which of the following might you perform to provide a new means of measuring performance?

A. Rebaselining B. Schedule revision C. Schedule update D. Schedule change Answer: A. Rebaselining may occur when a schedule change is substantial and impacts dates for multiple milestones or for major deliverables. Schedule updates occur as part of the ongoing work involved in managing the project, and schedule revision is an update to the approved start or end date of the schedule baseline.

What types of corrective actions might you consider when trying to shorten the project schedule? Choose two.

A. Request additional budget B. Implement contingency plan C. Fast tracking D. Crashing Answer: C, D. Fast tracking and crashing are two examples of schedule compression techniques. Schedule compression techniques are a type of corrective action. Fast-tracking starts two tasks in parallel that were originally scheduled to start sequentially. Crashing is adding resources to the critical path tasks in order to shorten duration.

This type of risk occurs as a result of implementing a risk response or of another risk event occurring, and it's the responsibility of the risk owner to monitor for this.

A. Risk trigger B. Contingency risk C. Residual risk D. Secondary risk Answer: D. A secondary risk can occur after the originally identified risk event occurs or as a direct result of an implemented risk response. The risk owner is responsible for monitoring risk events for this potential. Risk triggers are indicators that a risk is about to occur. Residual risks are leftover risks from a risk event or risk assessment.

This change is the type of change made to the project schedule that's part of the ongoing work involved with managing the project.

A. Schedule revision B.Schedule update C. Rebaselining D. Schedule change Answer: B. A schedule update is any change made to the project schedule as part of the ongoing work involved with managing the project. A revision is an update to the approved start or end date of the schedule baseline.

The scope baseline documents consists of all of the following except which one?

A. Scope statement B. WBS C. Scope management plan D. WBS dictionary Answer: C. The scope management plan is not part of the scope baseline. The scope baseline consists of the scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary.

After a change request is submitted, all of the following steps occur prior to being reviewed by the change control board except for which one?

A. The change request is recorded in the change log. B. Analysis of the impacts of the change is performed. C. Specific elements of the project, such as additional equipment needs, resource hours, quality impacts, and more, are analyzed. D. Update the appropriate project planning document to reflect the change. Answer: D. After options A-C are conducted, the change request and analysis are given to the CCB to make a decision. The appropriate project planning document is not updated until the CCB makes a decision regarding the disposition of the change request. If it's denied, there's no need to update the project plans.

You are the project manager for a new address verification system. The development phase has experienced some delays, and you are meeting with the development team to look at alternatives to get back on schedule. A suggestion is made by the development manager to skip unit testing and go right to the system test. What is the best response to this suggestion?

A. The development lead has the most information about the complexity of the individual modules. You decide to accept the suggestion, because you already have three weeks scheduled for the system test. That should be more than enough time to find any problems. B. You agree to accept the suggestion but make it clear to the development lead that she is accountable if this decision leads to rework or problems as a result of the system test. C. You need to request more information from both the development lead and the test manager regarding the complexity of the unit tests and the potential impacts to the system test if this step is omitted. D. You should explain to the development lead that no quality activities can be removed from the schedule, but you can agree to a scaled-back version of what is reviewed during testing. Answer: C. Even reducing the number of planned quality activities or the scope of an activity can be risky. Leaving out the unit test could result in defects that could have been corrected early on not being found until the system is being tested end to end. You do not have enough information at this point to assess the impact of that suggestion, and you need to involve the test manager. Regardless of what you may say to the development lead, you are accountable for the entire project and would take the blame if this approach backfires.

All of the following are true regarding dashboards except for which one?

A. They are a type of performance report. B. They are a type of status report. C. They document work expected to be completed during the next reporting period. D. They usually have indicators such as red-yellow-green for a quick, at-a-glance status check. Answer: C. Dashboards are a type of performance report and a type of status report that typically use indicators like red-yellow-green to display status for previous period results. Dashboards do not report work expected to be completed during the next reporting period.

Your $5,000,000 application development project includes the purchase of two new servers, which are currently listed in the cost baseline as $50,000 each for a total of $100,000. Between the time the estimate was made and the time the equipment was purchased, there was a 10 percent price increase. The bill for the servers will be a total of $110,000. What action should you take? Choose the best answer.

A. Use the new figure to revise your cost estimate, and communicate the change to the project team and other stakeholders as part of your ongoing performance reporting. B. Add the server costs as an agenda item for the next project team meeting, and work with the project team to develop a recommendation to take to the sponsor on scope reduction to cover the increased cost of the server. C. Review the scope statement and the schedule baseline for adjustments to make because of the impact of the server cost. D. Schedule a performance review meeting with the project team member responsible for the estimate. Answer: A. A price increase of that magnitude has a negligible impact on a project with a $5,000,000 budget. The change needs to be documented and communicated, but it does not warrant a scope reduction. The estimate was made with the best information available at the time, so the project team member who provided the estimate did nothing wrong. An equipment cost increase alone will not impact the scope or the schedule baseline.

The system test results of your address verification system have uncovered a problem with the screen flow that is presented to the end user. Fixing the problem will involve a major rewrite of a portion of the screen flow logic. The end user can still access the "missing" screens, but this involves additional user training on commands to manually request a specific screen. What is the best course of action?

A. You should send a memo to the customer and copy the stakeholder team explaining both the problem and the action required of the end user. Ask the customer to determine whether there are any schedule changes related to end user training. B. You should review the test results with the stakeholder team and provide estimates on the impact to the schedule and the budget if the rework is done. This information should be compared with the cost of additional user training and the impact of the manual override on productivity of the customer experience. C. You should escalate the problem to your sponsor for resolution. D. You should call an emergency meeting with the team that developed the screen flow logic. Let them know that the problem must be fixed without any impact to the schedule regardless of the hours they must put in. They are salaried employees and are not eligible for overtime, so there will not be any impact to the budget. Answer: B. This is a classic case of the need to evaluate trade-offs with the stakeholder. There is no perfect solution in this case. Making unreasonable demands on the project team will not resolve the situation; it may even make it worse. This is not an issue that should be decided in a vacuum by the project manager or even the sponsor; it requires input and consensus from the stakeholder team, particularly the customer, regarding the best course of action.