ITS 381 - PM Ch.4 & Ch.5

Which of the following estimate ranges represents a rough order of magnitude?

-25% to +75% A rough order of magnitude is an estimation of a project's level of effort and cost to complete. According to the PMBOK® Guide, the accuracy of estimates during the Initiating phase of a project have a rough order of magnitude of -25% to +75%, whereas a definitive range moves to a range of -5% to +10%.

You are the project manager in an organization and you're leading a project to create and deploy new software. In this project, you've identified 245 stakeholders. A new change request has been approved by the change control board and this will cause the number of stakeholders to increase to 287. How many more communication channels will be required because of the approved change request?

11,151

Your project has 176 stakeholders this week. In the next week, your project will require 76 more stakeholders as per the project's requirements. How many more communication channels will you have in the next week?

16,226 Communication channels are paths of communication with stakeholders in a project. Total number of communication channels = n (n - 1) / 2 where, n represents the number of stakeholders.Therefore, for 176 stakeholder the project has communication channels: Number of communication channels = 176 (176 - 1) / 2 = 176 × 175 / 2Number of communication channels = 15,400 Next week the project will have 76 more stakeholders. Therefore, Number of stakeholders = 176 + 76Number of stakeholders = 252So,Number of communication channels for next week = 252 (252 - 1) / 2 = 252 × 251 / 2Number of communication channels for next week = 31,626 The difference between them will represent the number of communication channels more you have in next week. Hence, the difference between the two: 31,626 - 15,400 = 16,226

Elaine is a project manager juggling three projects at once. She struggles to stay on top of the many moving pieces, including communicating appropriately with such a large group. Not counting herself, Elaine's largest project has a total of 65 active stakeholders. How many communication channels exist in Elaine's largest project?

2,080 To calculate the total number of communication channels, use the following formula, where N represents the total number of stakeholders: N (N - 1) ÷ 2 Plugging in the values will result in the following: 65 (65 - 1) ÷ 2 = 2,080.

Nancy is the project manager of a project with 78 stakeholders. This is a high-profile project and she has to express the importance of communication in this project to her project team and to the management. She would like to show the number of stakeholder communication channels in the project. Based on this information, how many communication channels exist within this project?

3,003 Communication channels are paths of communication with stakeholders in a project. The number of communication channels shows the complexity of a project's communication and can be derived from the formula shown below: Total number of communication channels = n (n-1) / 2 where, n is the number of stakeholders. Putting the given number of stakeholders in the formula, we can get the required communication channel for the project. Therefore, Total number of communication channels = (78 x 77) / 2 = 3,003 communication channels

The documentation of a project planning states that there are 25 stakeholders with the project. What will be the number of communication channels for the project?

300

Your project is very similar to the previous project that had a project budget of $45,000. Your current project, like the past project, will install 90 units that cost $400 each. Using a parametric estimate, what will be the cost of the current project?

36,000

You are a project manager for Move It Now trucking company. Your company specializes in moving household goods across the city or across the country. Your project involves upgrading the nationwide computer network for the company. Your lead engineer has given you the following estimates for a critical path activity: 60 days most likely, 72 days pessimistic, 48 days optimistic. What is the standard deviation?

4 You calculate the standard deviation by subtracting the optimistic time from the pessimistic time and dividing the result by 6. The calculation for this example is as follows: (72 - 48) / 6 = 4.

You have received the following estimates for a complex activity that is critical to the success of your project. The three-point estimates are as follows: The most likely estimate is $42, the optimistic estimate is $35, and the pessimistic estimate is $54. What is the expected activity cost of this activity using the beta distribution formula (rounded to the nearest dollar)?

43 The expected activity cost using the three-point beta distribution formula (also known as PERT) is calculated this way: [(4 × most likely) + optimistic + pessimistic] / 6Therefore, the answer is:[(4 × 42) + 35 + 54] / 6 = 43

You are a project manager for the GTX project. The project has ten active stakeholders. How many communication channels will be required for effective communication with the stakeholders?

45 The analysis of the communications requirements results in the sum of the information needs of the project stakeholders. The project manager should consider the number of potential communication channels or paths as an indicator of the complexity of a project's communication.The total number of communication channels in a project is calculated through the following formula: Total number of communication channels = n (n-1)/2 where, n = number of stakeholders.According to the question, there are 10 stakeholders in the project. Hence, Total number of communication channels = 10 (10-1) / 2 = 10 (9) / 2Total number of communication channels = 45

You are the project manager for the ABC organization. Your current project has 75 internal stakeholders and 245 external stakeholders. Many of the risks within your project will only affect internal stakeholders, but several of the identified risk events will affect external stakeholders. Management would like to know the total number of communication channels in the project. How many communication channels exist in this project?

51,040 The network models consist of nodes with lines connecting the nodes that indicate the number of communication channels, also known as lines of communication. To find the communication channels: Total number of communication channels = n (n-1) / 2 where, n represents the number of stakeholders. Total stakeholders (n) = number of internal stakeholder + number of external stakeholder = 75 + 245 = 320Total number of communication channels = n (n-1) / 2 = 320 (320 - 1) / 2 = (320 × 319) / 2 = 102,080 / 2Total number of communication channels = 51,040 The total number of communication channels affects the risk management planning and communication of risk events. Communication channels are paths of communication with stakeholders in a project. The number of communication channels shows the complexity of a project's communication.

You are a project manager for Move It Now trucking company. Your company specializes in moving household goods across the city or across the country. Your project involves upgrading the nationwide computer network for the company. Your lead engineer has given you the following estimates for a critical path activity: 60 days most likely, 72 days pessimistic, 48 days optimistic. What is the weighted average or expected value?

60 The calculation for PERT is the sum of optimistic time plus pessimistic time plus four times the most likely time divided by 6. The calculation for this example is as follows: [48 + 72 + (4 × 60)] / 6 = 60

You have been assigned as the Project Manager for a new project that involves the deployment of a new software application to all the organization's users. Your project team consists of nine members till date. Recently, you have started observing a slippage in your project schedule due to resource constraints. You convince the senior management to add a senior module expert to the project team. How many additional communication channels do you have now?

9

You are a project manager for Picture Shades, Inc. Your company manufactures window shades that have replicas of Renaissance-era paintings for hotel chains. Picture Shades is taking its product to the home market, and you're managing the new project. It will offer its products at retail stores as well as on its website. You're developing the project schedule for this undertaking. Looking at the following graph, which path is the critical path?

A-D-E-H The only information you have for this example is activity duration; therefore, the critical path is the path with the longest duration. Path A-D-E-H with a duration of 34 days is the critical path.

Use the following graphic to answer this question. If the duration of activity B was changed to 10 days and the duration of activity G was changed to 9 days, which path is the critical path?

A-F-G-E-H The only information you have for this example is activity duration, so you must calculate the critical path based on the durations given. The duration of A-B-C-E-H increased by 3 days, for a total of 35 days. The duration of A-F-G-H and A-F-G-E-H each increased by 3 days. A-F-G-E-H totals 36 days and becomes the new critical path.

You are working on a project that requires resources with expertise in the areas of hospitality, management, and entertainment. You are preparing your project schedule network diagram and know that you will use only finish-to-start dependencies. Which of the following diagramming methods does this describe?

ADM The arrow diagramming method uses only finish-to-start dependencies.

You are preparing your communications management plan and know that all of the following are true except for which one?

Acknowledgment means the receiver has received and agrees with the message. Acknowledgment means the receiver has received the message but does not mean they agree with the message.

Which of the following estimating techniques is less accurate and allows you to use the cost estimates from the previous similar project to help you quickly determine estimates for the current project?

Analogous The analogous estimating uses parameter values such as scope, cost, and budget, and duration or measures of scale such as size, weight, and complexity, from a previous, similar activity as a basis for estimation of a similar parameter in a future activity. It's a top-down estimating technique that's also a form of expert judgment; however, it provides a lower degree of accuracy than other estimation techniques.

Which of the following is displayed as an S-curve?

Cost baseline The cost baseline is displayed as an S-curve because of the way project spending occurs. Spending begins slowly, picks up speed until the spending peak is reached, and then tapers off as the project winds down.

Brad works as a project manager for a prominent law firm. His latest project involves an office move that will accommodate a 10 percent growth in staff over the two years. Because of the unexpected increase in infrastructure costs, he calculates that he will be $2,000 over budget. What document can Brad refer to determine whether this falls within the allowable threshold for budget overages?

Cost management plan

You have been assigned as the Project Manager for a new project that involves deployment of a new software application to all your organization's users. Your project is underway, and you have worked with the stakeholders and the project steering committee to agree on the variance thresholds based on which the project's price performance might be measured. Where would you document this information?

Cost management plan

This document is used to establish the criteria for planning, estimating, budgeting, and controlling costs.

Cost management plan, an output of the Plan Cost Management process. The cost management plan is based on the approved project charter, schedule, and risk management plan in order to manage project costs. The cost management plan, an output of the Plan Cost Management process, is used to establish the criteria for planning, estimating, budgeting, and controlling costs. It is based on the approved project charter, project schedule, the risk management plan, and other information in order to manage project costs.

Which of the following estimating methods has the greatest level of specified detail to estimate the cost of individual work packages or activities?

Bottom-up

You have been hired as a contract project manager for Tech Perfect Inc. The project has already started and several details of the project have already been structured. You are working with your team on the cost estimation for the project. Which of the following estimating techniques will you use for the highest degree of accuracy?

Bottom-up

You are the project manager of the NHQ Project in an organization and you're working with some project team members and stakeholders who are in an argument about the project work. While you've tried to help the stakeholders to resolve the differences, they are being obstinate about the work and they don't want to work with you or the project team to really resolve the difference. You've decided that you need to escalate the problem to management. Which plan defines the escalation process?

Communications Management Plan The Communications Management Plan defines the escalation process for instances described in the question. The Plan Communications Management process involves determining the communication needs of the stakeholders by defining the types of information needed, the format for communicating the information, how often it's distributed, and who prepares it.

You are the project manager in an organization and you're working on a new project. In this project, you'll need to define the subsidiary plans to help direct and manage the project work. Which of the following subsidiary plans cannot be used to direct and manage the project work?

Communications Management Plan The Communications Management Plan is a subsidiary plan, but it's not used to direct and manage the project work. The communications management plan aims to define the communication necessities for the project and how the information will be circulated. The communications management plan sets the communication structure for the project. This structure provides guidance for communication throughout the project's life and is updated as communication needs change.

John is the project manager of the NHQ project for his company. His project has 75 stakeholders, some of which are external to the organization. John needs to ensure that he converses about risks in the most appropriate method for the external stakeholders. Which project management plan will be the best guide for him to connect to the external stakeholders?

Communications Management Plan The Communications Management Plan will direct John to the information to be communicated, when to communicate, and how to communicate with external stakeholders. The Communications Management Plan aims to define the communication necessities for the project and how the information will be circulated. It sets the communication structure for the project. This structure provides guidance for communication throughout the project's life and is updated as communication needs change.

Which of the following documents is described in the statement given below?"It is a document that contains the information required by the stakeholders. It also documents when the information should be distributed and how the information will be delivered. It describes the information delivery needs, format, and level of detail. It is contained in or is a subsidiary of the project management plan."

Communications management plan

You are the project manager of the GHY Project for a functional organization. Another project manager who uses some of your project resources has asked you to allow the resources, you both share, to always be available for her project every Thursday. The only conflict you have with this request is that on Thursday mornings you have a regularly scheduled status meeting. You agree to the request and decide to move the status meeting on Tuesday mornings, going forward with your project. What project plan must you update to reflect this change?

Communications management plan The best choice is the communications management plan. This plan defines who needs what information, when it is needed, and in what modality. The regularly scheduled status meetings are part of communication and they are documented in the communications management plan.

You are a Project Manager in your organization who is managing a considerably huge budget project to develop new software. Considering the varied nature of your stakeholder group, you would like to put together a plan as to what information the stakeholders need, and how to provide that information. What is the document that you would need, and as part of which process group would you achieve this?

Communications management plan and Planning process group

Brad works as a project manager for a prominent law firm. His latest project involves an office move that will accommodate a 10 percent growth in staff over the two years. Because of an unexpected increase in infrastructure costs, a risk accepted by the team, he calculates that he will be $2,000 over budget. After consulting with the project sponsor, Brad decides to dip into additional funding set aside to account for risks that have materialized. Where will Brad obtain these funds?

Contingency reserves Contingency reserves are funds set aside to address risks that have materialized. This reserve is considered to be part of the cost baseline, whereas management reserves are not. Contingency reserves hold project funds, time, or resources in reserve to offset any unavoidable threats or opportunities that might impact the project scope, schedule, budget, or quality. Contingency reserves are a type of reserve used for known events.

You are a project manager working for iTrim Central. Your organization has developed a new dieting technique that is sure to be the next craze. One of the deliverables of your feasibility study was an analysis of the potential financial performance of this new product, and your executives are very pleased with the numbers. You will be working with several vendors to produce products, marketing campaigns, and software that will track customers' progress with the new techniques. For purposes of performing earned value measurements for project costs, you are going to place which of the following in the WBS?

Control account A control account can be placed at any level of the WBS and is used for earned value measurement calculations regarding project costs.

You are a project manager working for iTrim Central and you're preparing your cost management plan. You know that all of the following are true regarding this plan except for which one?

Control thresholds should be described in the plan as to how estimates will adhere to rounding ($100 or $1,000, and so on). Control thresholds are variance thresholds (typically stated as a percentage of deviation from the baseline) used for monitoring cost performance.

You are the project manager for Design Your Web Site, Inc. Your company is designing the website for a national grocery store chain. You have your activity list in hand and are ready to diagram the activity dependencies using the PDM technique. Which of the following statements is true?

PDM is also the AON diagramming method, and it uses, one-time estimate. The precedence diagramming method is also known as the activity on node (AON) diagramming method. GERT stands for Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique, a diagramming method that allows for conditions, branches, and loops.

You are hired as a contract project manager for Dreams Unlimited Inc. The project involves setting up ten servers and fifty client computers on the network. From past experience, you know it takes around fifteen hours to install, test, and finalize a server, while it takes only ten hours to do the same for a client computer. You consider this data for making an estimate of the schedule of the task. Which of the following estimating techniques has been used?

Parametric

You have been hired as a contract project manager for Grapevine Vineyards. Grapevine wants you to design an Internet wine club for its customers. One of the activities for this project is the installation and testing of several new servers. You know from past experience it takes about 16 hours per server to accomplish this task. Since you're installing 10 new servers, you estimate this activity to take 160 hours. Which of the estimating techniques have you used?

Parametric estimating Parametric estimating uses an algorithm or formula that multiplies a known element—such as the quantity of materials needed—by the time it takes to install or complete one unit of materials. The result is a total estimate for the activity. In this case, 10 servers multiplied by 16 hours per server gives you a 160-hour total duration estimate.

You are the project manager of a software project in an organization. You are in the process of developing approaches for involving project stakeholders based on their needs, expectations, interests, and potential impact on the project. On which of the following processes are you working?

Plan Stakeholder Engagement

Which process is concerned with determining the engagement levels of the stakeholders?

Plan Stakeholder Engagement Plan Stakeholder Engagement is concerned with determining the engagement levels of the stakeholders, understanding their needs and interests, and understanding how they might impact the project or how the project may impact them.

Which of the following processes focuses on effectively engaging stakeholders, understanding their needs and interests, understanding the good and bad things they might bring to the project, and recognizing how the project will impact them?

Plan Stakeholder Engagement The Plan Stakeholder Engagement process (a part of the Project Stakeholder Management knowledge area) focuses on effectively engaging stakeholders, understanding their needs and interests, understanding the good and bad things they might bring to the project, and recognizing how the project will impact them. It is critical to the success of the project that you, as the project manager, understand all of the key stakeholders' needs and devise a plan to engage them in the project and manage their expectations.

You have 83 project stakeholders from all across your organization. Some of the stakeholders, such as functional management, require weekly communication from you, while other stakeholders, such as the end users, only need quarterly progress updates. Where can you record this communication requirement based on your stakeholder analysis?

Project communications management plan The project communications management plan is a document to define who needs what information, when the information is needed, and the modality the information is expected. Stakeholder communication preferences are also recorded here.

All of the following are tools and techniques of the Plan Communications Management process except for which one?

Project management information system

Beth is the project manager of the GHB Project for her company. She has been working on the project for the past six months and there are still three months of work scheduled. In this project, she can create lots of project communications, reports, memos, emails, and other documentation. As part of the PMI approach to managing project communications, Beth may have three project document types that need to be updated. Which one of the following project documents will not be updated as an output of managing project communications?

Project scope changes

You are a new Project Manager that has been entrusted with a software development project. Since it is a pretty big project, you have decided to set up an intranet website where the project information including status updates, issues, risks, documents, project teams, and so on will be shared. Which of the following communication methods are you using?

Pull communication

You are the project manager of a large construction project. In this project, you've assigned a project team to create a project website that will allow stakeholders to retrieve project information, check project status, and read reports about the project. Your site will even have a camera that will stream a live video feed to the website. What type of communication is this website?

Pull communication

You are the project manager for a large construction project. You're using the company's intranet sites for reporting progress of your project. Which of the following types of communication is this?

Pull communication According to the question, you are using the company's intranet sites to report the progress of the project. You are using pull communication for providing information on project progress. Pull communication requires the recipients to access the communication content at their own discretion. Intranet sites, e-learning, and knowledge repositories are examples of pull communication.

Which of the following ensures that information is distributed but does not acknowledge or certify that it was understood by the intended receiver(s)?

Push communication Push communication ensures that information is distributed to specific recipients but does not certify that it was understood by the intended recipients.

Communication technology takes into account all of the following factors that can affect the project except for which one?

Reasons for the distribution of information Reasons for the distribution of information belong to the communications management plan.

Your project's primary constraint is quality. To make certain the project team members don't feel too pressed for time and to avoid schedule risk, you decide to use which of the following activity estimating tools?

Reserve Analysis Reserve analysis takes schedule risk into consideration and adds a percentage of time or additional work periods to the estimate to prevent schedule delays

You have received estimates for activity costs associated with one work package of the WBS. Additional contingencies have been added to the estimates to account for cost uncertainty. Which of the following tools and techniques of Estimate Costs does this describe?

Reserve analysis Reserve analysis accounts for cost uncertainty by including a contingency reserve, usually expressed as a percentage of the estimated cost.

You have recently been assigned as the Project Manager for a project that is already underway and involves deployment of a new software application to all your organization's users. You had the first meeting with the stakeholders and you received complaints that some of the stakeholders were not happy with the way they were receiving the project status updates. What is your best plan of action to fix this issue?

Revise the communications management plan.

You are about to start a project. You have made inexact estimates of both time and cost. Which of the following is the correct term to represent such estimates?

Rough order of magnitude

Which of the following options is the key component of determining cost estimates and should be completed as early in the project as possible?

Scope definition Scope definition is the key component of determining cost estimates. It should be completed early in the project because costs are more easily influenced at the beginning of the project.

You are the project manager for Changing Tides video games. You have produced a project schedule network diagram and have updated the project documents, including the activity list, activity attributes, assumption log, and milestone list. Which process have you just finished?

The Sequence Activities process, which identifies all the activity dependencies The Sequence Activities process produces project schedule network diagrams and project documents updates, which include updating the activity list, activity attributes, assumption log, and milestone list. The purpose of this process is to identify all activity dependencies.

All of the following statements describe the activity list except which one?

The activity list is an extension of and a component of the WBS. The activity list is a component of the project schedule, not the WBS. The activity list includes all the project activities, an identifier, and a description of the activity. The activity list is an output of the Define Activities process.

If you know the expected value is 500 and the standard deviation is 12, then which of the following can you say with approximately a 95 percent confidence rating?

The activity will take from 476 to 524 days. There is a 95 percent probability that the work will finish within plus or minus two standard deviations. The expected value is 500, and the standard deviation times 2 is 24, so the activity will take from 476 to 524 days.

What is one of the problems with project management software?

The project manager manages the software instead of the project. Project management software is a useful tool for the project manager, and it automates project scheduling, allowing for what-if analysis and easy changes. But if you focus too much on the tool and ignore the project, the tool becomes a hindrance.

All of the following are true regarding the stakeholder engagement plan except for which one?

The stakeholder engagement plan helps to define and manage the flow of information to the stakeholders. The communications management plan defines and manages the flow of project information, not the stakeholder engagement plan. The stakeholder engagement plan does contain information about the distribution, reasons, and timing of information.

You are the project manager in an organization and you're coaching several junior project managers about the PMP examination. One of the project managers asks why technology is part of the tools and techniques for the managing communications process. Which one of the following is the best answer for the project manager?

The technology should be appropriate for the messages communicated. Technology should be appropriate for the messages communicated. Some projects may take advantage of technology like texting and social media. Other projects, however, may avoid these approaches as they're not appropriate for sensitive information.

You have eight key stakeholders (plus yourself) to communicate with on your project. Which of the following is true?

There are 36 channels of communication, and this should be a consideration when using the communications requirements analysis tool and technique. There are 36 channels of communication, yourself plus 8 stakeholders. The formula is: 9(9-1)/2 = 36 Lines of communication are considered when using the communications requirements analysis tool and technique.

If your expected value is 110 and the standard deviation is 12, which of the following is true?

There is approximately a 68 percent chance of completing this activity in 98 to 122 days. A 68 percent probability is calculated using plus or minus one standard deviation, a 95 percent probability uses plus or minus two standard deviations, and a 99 percent probability uses plus or minus three standard deviations.

You need to communicate information in a multidirectional fashion with several stakeholders. Which of the following is true?

This describes interactive communication, which is a communication method. This describes interactive communication. It is a communication method, which is a tool and technique of Plan Communications Management.

You are the project manager for a custom home-building construction company. You are working on the model home project for the upcoming Show Homes Tour. The model home includes smart home connections, talking appliances, and wiring for home theaters. You are working on the cost baseline for this project. All of the following statements are true except which one?

This process assigns cost estimates for expected future period operating costs. Future period operating costs are considered ongoing costs and are not part of project costs.

You want to improve your cost estimates by taking into account estimation uncertainty and risk. Which of the following tools and techniques will you use?

Three-point estimating Three-point estimating can improve activity cost estimates because they factor in estimation uncertainty and risk.

You are the project manager in an organization and you've just taken over a project that has been failing on time and costs. As you begin the project work, you learn that the previous project manager had ignored a group of stakeholders. This group of stakeholders hasn't even heard of the project and they're upset about being left out of the conversation. How would you classify this group of stakeholders?

Unaware Since the stakeholders haven't heard about the project work, they are classified as unaware of the project. In the unaware level of classifications of stakeholder engagement, stakeholders are not engaged in the project.

Which of the following are examples of interactive communication? Each correct answer represents a complete solution. Choose all that apply.

Video conferencing Phone call

You are a project manager for Picture Shades, Inc. Your company manufactures window shades that have replicas of Renaissance-era paintings for hotel chains. Picture Shades is taking its product to the home market, and you're managing the new project. It will offer its products at retail stores as well as on its website. You're developing the project schedule for this undertaking and have determined the critical path. Which of the following statements is true?

You calculated the early and late start dates, the early and late finish dates, and float times for all activities. CPM calculates a single early and late start date and a single early and late finish date for each activity. Once these dates are known, float time is calculated for each activity to determine the critical path. The other answers contain elements of PERT calculations.

You are the project manager for a custom-home-building construction company. You are working on the model home project for the upcoming Show Homes Tour. The model home includes smart home connections, talking appliances, and wiring for home theaters. You are working on the Determine Budget process. All of the following statements are true except which one?

You document the funding limit reconciliation to include a contingency for unplanned risks. Funding limit reconciliation concerns reconciling the funds to be spent on the project with funding limits placed on the funding commitments for the project.

You are the project manager for Rivera Gourmet Adventure Vacations. Rivera combines the wonderful tastes of great gourmet food with outdoor adventure activities. Your project involves installing a new human resources software system. Your stakeholders understand this is a large undertaking and that you might experience some schedule slippage. Jason, the database analyst working on this project, is overallocated. He is critical to the success of the project and you don't want to burn him out by overscheduling him. Which of the following actions should you take?

You should use resource leveling to balance out resource assignments. Resource leveling is used for overallocated resources and allows for changes to the schedule completion dates. Crashing and fast tracking are schedule compression techniques that shorten the schedule. Resource smoothing techniques will not allow for changes to the critical path or project end date, and since you are concerned about not overusing this resource, lengthening the schedule is a better option.

Your project sponsor has requested a cost estimate for the project on which you're working. This project is similar in scope to a project you worked on last year. She would like to get the cost estimates as soon as possible. Accuracy is not her primary concern right now. She needs a ballpark figure by tomorrow. You decide to use _____________

analogous estimating techniques. Analogous—or top-down—estimating techniques are a form of expert judgment. Because this project is similar to another recent project, you can use the cost estimates from the previous project to help you quickly determine estimates for the current project.

Your project sponsor has requested a cost estimate for the project. She would like the cost estimate to be as accurate as possible because this might be her one and only chance to secure the budget for this project because of recent cuts in special projects. You decide to use:

bottom-up estimating techniques. Bottom-up techniques are the most time-consuming and generally the most accurate estimates you can use. With bottom-up estimating, each work item is estimated and rolled up to a project total.

You are the project manager working on a research project for a new drug treatment. Your preliminary project schedule runs past the due date for a federal grant application. The manager of the R&D department has agreed to release two resources to work on your project to meet the federal grant application date. This is an example of __________

crashing Crashing the schedule includes tasks such as adding resources to the critical path tasks or speeding up deliveries of materials and resources.

All of the following are tools and techniques of the Determine Budget process except for which one?

Data analysis (cost of quality) Cost of quality is part of the data analysis tool and technique of Estimate Costs. The tools and techniques of Determine Budget are cost aggregation, data analysis (reserve analysis), expert judgment, historical information review, funding limit reconciliation, and financing.

All of the following are true regarding Plan Communications Management except for which one?

Data gathering, communication technology, communication methods, and expert judgment are some of the tools and techniques of this process. Expert judgement, communications requirements analysis, communication technology, communication models, communication methods, interpersonal and team skills (communication styles assessment, political awareness, cultural awareness), data representation (stakeholder engagement assessment matrix), and meetings are the tools and techniques of the Plan Communications Management process.

You are the project manager for NMN project. You are required to create the cost baseline of the project. On which of the following processes are you working?

Determine Budget

During a weekly project management luncheon, a project manager confides with the group that he is struggling with the most critical stakeholders on his project. With the busy season underway, his greatest challenge has been getting engagement from the core group of leaders that he relies on to acquire resources. When asked if he had thought about it and captured strategies for engaging his stakeholders, he admits that he has not completed that task. What did the project manager fail to do?

Develop a stakeholder engagement plan The project manager failed to develop a stakeholder engagement plan. This plan is where the strategies and actions are captured for engaging stakeholders. Strategies may include how to increase their level of involvement and engaging them in the decision-making process.

A project manager meets with the team to discuss how they will measure budget performance moving forward. What activity is the team engaged in?

Developing the cost management plan The project manager is putting together the cost management plan, which is an activity carried out through the Plan Cost Management process. The cost management plan documents the rules of performance measurement, level of precision and accuracy, units of measure, organizational procedures links, control thresholds, reporting formats, process descriptions, and other budget-related details to necessary to develop, manage, and control the budget.

According to the PMBOK® Guide, which of the following names all the components of an interactive communication model?

Encode, transmit, decode, acknowledge, feedback/response

Ria is working on a project that will upgrade the phone system in their customer service center. She is considering analogous, parametric, bottom-up, and three-point estimating techniques to determine activity costs. Which process does this describe?

Estimate Costs

You're working on a project that will upgrade the phone system in your customer service center. You have considered using analogous estimating, parametric estimating, bottom-up estimating, and three-point estimating to determine activity costs. Which process does this describe?

Estimate Costs Estimate Costs is where activity costs are estimated for the resources (human and material) required for each schedule activity using some of the tools and techniques listed in the question. The remaining tools and techniques of this process are expert judgment, data analysis (alternatives analysis, reserve analysis, cost of quality), project management information system, and decision making (voting).

You have been assigned as the Project Manager for a new large-scale project, which involves the installation of new solar water heaters in your Client's community. You have finished developing an approximation of the monetary resources needed to complete the project activities. Which of the following describes accurately the activity that you just completed?

Estimate Costs The activity described in the question is the estimation of costs. The Estimate Costs process develops a cost estimate for the human resources and material resources required for each schedule activity.

You are the project manager for Changing Tides video games. You have gathered the inputs for the Estimate Activity Durations process. Which of the following tools and techniques will you employ to produce the outputs for this process?

Expert judgment, analogous estimating, parametric estimating, three-point estimating, bottom-up estimating, data analysis, decision making, and meetings

Which logical relationship does the PDM use most often?

Finish-to-start Finish-to-start (FS) is the most commonly used logical relationship in PDM and the default relationship in most project management software packages.

You have been hired as a contract project manager for Grapevine Vineyards. Grapevine wants you to design an Internet wine club for its customers. Customers must register before being allowed to order wine over the Internet so that legal age can be established. You know that the module to verify registration must be written and tested using data from Grapevine's existing database. This new module cannot be tested until the data from the existing system is loaded. This is an example of which of the following?

Hard logic This is an example of a mandatory dependency, also known as hard logic. Mandatory dependencies are inherent in the nature of the work.

Harry is working on a project that will upgrade the phone system in their customer service center. He has used the bottom-up estimating technique to assign amounts to the project activities and has determined the cost baseline. Which of the following statements is true regarding the project?

He has completed the Determine Budget process, and the cost baseline will be used to measure future project performance. The Determine Budget process aggregates the cost estimates of activities and establishes the cost baseline, which is used to measure and track the project throughout the remaining process groups. Only the costs associated with the project become part of the authorized project budget. The cost baseline is the total expected cost for a project.

You are the Project Manager for a new large-scale project, which involves the development of new software to conduct data analytics on population data. As part of the estimation of costs process, you realize that you will probably have to estimate the costs for the use of an LCD projector during your project, which is shared by all other project teams. Since the usage is difficult to quantify, you are directed by your PMO to include the cost as a fixed percentage. What is such a cost called?

Indirect Cost

Which of the following statements is true regarding the critical path?

It's the duration of all tasks with zero or negative float. You calculate the critical path by adding together the durations of all the tasks with zero or negative float. The critical path can be compressed using crashing techniques.

You are project manager for the TTY project. You are in the process to classify stakeholders' engagement to document at what levels of engagement your stakeholders are. You observe that one of the stakeholders is aware of the project and potential impacts, and is actively engaged in ensuring that the project is a success. In which of the following engagement levels will you classify her?

Leading Stakeholders are put in the leading level of classification if they are actively engaged in the project and helping to assure its success. Leading is one of the five levels of classification of stakeholder engagement.

Grant hesitantly knocks on his project sponsor's door to notify her of a budget overage that has occurred. Because of a vendor error, he shared that a critical piece of equipment would cost $30,000 more than originally estimated. Fortunately for Grant, the sponsor understood the situation and approved the use of funds set aside for unexpected events. From where will Grant pull the funds to cover the equipment?

Management reserves Management reserves are funds set aside for unexpected situations and are used at the discretion of management (hence the name). Management reserves are not considered to be a part of the cost baseline but are a part of the overall project budget.