PMP Exam Test 1
In projects with evolving requirements, high risk, or significant uncertainty, the scope is often not understood at the beginning of the project or it evolves during the project." For this type of project, it makes more sense to use __________ methods because there is less focus on defining and agreeing on the scope early on the project, and more on establishing the process for its ongoing discovery and refinement.
Agile
Which life cycle should a project manager use to leverage both aspects of iterative and incremental characteristics of a project?
Agile
A project manager must analyze uncertainties in a project. Which of the following methods would be most useful for the project manager?
Alternatives analysis, assumptions and constraints analysis, probability and impact matrix, and SWOT analysis are useful when analyzing uncertainties in a project.
How should the project manager fundamentally delineate between an iterative life cycle and an incremental life cycle?
An iterative life cycle allows for feedback of unfinished work whereas an incremental life cycle provides deliverables that the customer may use immediately.
A measure of the cost performance that is achieved with the remaining resources in order to meet a specified management goal, expressed as the ratio of the cost to finish the outstanding work to the remaining budget.
To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI)
Something tangible, such as a template or software program, used in performing an activity to produce a product or result
Tool
Given certain interpersonal skills, a project manager can still be successful even without which of the following skills?
Understanding compensation plans, benefits, and career paths
Project integration management includes characteristics of unification, consolidation, articulation, and integrative actions that are crucial to the success of the project. How can the project manager effectively reinforce and accelerate the project integration process?
Use crisis periods to reinforce project integration activities.
An organizational construct that focuses on the flow of value to customers through the delivery of specific products or services.
Value Stream
As organizations continue to adopt agile practices the traditional role of the project management office (PMO) is also continuing to change and evolve. How should an agile PMO evolve?
Value-driven, invitation-oriented, and multidisciplinary
When considering project risk management, most projects focus only on risks that are uncertain future events that may or may not occur. As project management practices evolve and the focus of risk management broadens, non-event risks now need to be considered. Which of the following two are considered non-event risks?
Variability risks and ambiguity risks
A measure of a team's productivity rate at which the deliverables are produced, validated, and accepted within a predefined interval.
Velocity
Completed project deliverables that have been checked and confirmed for correctness through the Control Quality process.
Verified Deliverables
Team communications tend to be dominated by email and other electronic forms. What kind of group share the same goal, spend little time meeting face-to-face, and include people with mobility handicaps?
Virtual team
An estimating method in which subject matter experts go through multiple rounds of producing estimates individually, with a team discussion after each round, until a consensus is achieved.
Wideband Delphi
A hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
An entry in the work breakdown structure that can be at any level.
Work Breakdown Structure Component
Emotional intelligence is described as the ability to identify, assess, and manage the personal emotions of oneself and other people, as well as the collective emotions of groups of people. When can a project manager demonstrate the outbound elements of emotional intelligence?
Influencing, coaching, and inspiring
A project document where information about issues is recorded and monitored.
Issue Log
What are some examples of log and register artifacts that a project manager may produce in a project?
Issue log and risk-adjusted backlog
A project manager captured several metrics to forecast future performance. Unfortunately, there are metrics which are equally important, but they cannot be captured until after the fact. What are these metrics called?
Lagging indicators
Decisions made regarding the external purchase or internal manufacture of a product.
Make-or-Buy Decisions
A summary-level project schedule that identifies the major deliverables and work breakdown structure components and key schedule milestones.
Master Schedule
An agile software development method that leads to higher quality software, a greater responsiveness to changing customer requirements, and more frequent releases in shorter cycles.
eXtreme Programming
A significant point or event in a project, program, or portfolio.
Milestone
A visualization chart for tracking moods or reactions to identify areas for improvement.
Mood Chart
Some of the young programmers on the project asked the project manager to mentor them based on an action plan for personal development. The potential mentees defined their long-term goals, listed their current skills, identified options for attaining their desired outcomes, focused on specific improvements, and suggested regular meetings to review their progress. What coaching and mentoring model should the project manager use?
OSCAR Model
A recent reorganization resulted in reduced corporate red tapes resulting in an increased staff satisfaction. What else can the project manager do within the project to keep the team motivated?
Offer opportunities for achievement and growth
A project initially planned to execute eight two-week sprints. After three sprints, they realized that the project team can deliver about 25 story points per sprint. The current backlog totals roughly 250 story points. No additional resources are available. The schedule cannot be extended. What should the project manager do next?
Proceed as normal; lower priority user stories will not be delivered
includes the processes of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response planning, response implementation, and monitoring risk on a project.
Project Risk Management
You have been given the responsibility of documenting why a project was terminated. Which of the following documents would you use to record this information?
Project closure document
Information such as outcomes of risk reassessments, risk audits, and periodic risk reviews are examples from which of the following?
Project documents updates
Agile methods are based on the premise that it is better to deliver small batches of work frequently. This allows teams to identify any issues or inconsistencies early in the project. Where will the project manager find this particularly useful when monitoring and controlling a project?
Project quality. By releasing small batches of work in frequent increments, the team can quickly identify and resolve issues or improve processes that are driving inconsistencies in the project. Typically, when addressing quality issues earlier in the project life cycle the costs of change are also lower.
The set of project management activities including identification, analysis, planning responses, and monitoring and controlling of risks in the project is part of carrying out __________.
Project risk management
When considering an unpredictable, fast-paced, and highly competitive environment where the long-term scope if difficult to define, iterative and on-demand scheduling are the approaches adapted to provide feedback and suitability of deliverables. Which is the primary knowledge area that can provide guidance to such issues?
Project schedule management
Which two activities are unique to a project that uses an iterative life cycle?
Prototype and refine - In an iterative life cycle, prototype occurs during analysis and design, and refinement happens during build and test.
A group of busy stakeholders have limited time to review project updates. However, they sometimes need project information to make rapid decisions. What communication method should the project manager offer to best meet their needs?
Pull - A push communication method may overwhelm the busy stakeholders. By offering pull communication, they can retrieve the project information whenever they need it to make rapid decisions.
The basic principles that should govern the organizational actions as it implements its system for quality management.
Quality Policy
What should the project manager do next if certain stakeholders are not familiar with iterative and incremental project approaches?
Recognize and act on mentoring opportunities
The government recently passed regulatory requirements that will have a significant impact on a project. What should the project manager do next?
Recommend options for scope and backlog changes
In an agile or adaptive environment, __________ regularly check on the effectiveness of the quality processes.
Recurring retrospectives
A regularly occurring workshop in which participants explore their work and results in order to improve both the process and product.
Retrospective
The degree of uncertainty an organization or individual is willing to accept in anticipation of a reward.
Risk Appetite
A risk response strategy whereby the project team acts to eliminate the threat or protect the project from its impact
Risk Avoidance
What is the document that contains a list of identified risks, responses to the risks, the root cause of the risk, the risk category, and additional information about the identified risks called?
Risk register
Analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of an organization, project, or option.
SWOT Analysis
A software company started an IT project with highly volatile requirements. Which team composition type should the project manager implement for this situation?
Self-organizing team. IT projects with highly volatile requirements can use an agile approach with a self-organizing team of generalized specialists rather than a team of subject matter experts, who can adapt to the changing environment with an absence of centralized control to deliver maximize business value to the customer. Although the self-organizing team can be virtual or distributed, the best answer for this question is a self-organizing team.
Successful projects require leaders with strong interpersonal and leadership skills. Leadership is described as the ability to lead a team and inspire them to do their jobs well. Which leadership style should a project manager use in an agile project?
Servant leader
A technology company hired a project manager to mentor their employees who work on research and development projects. What is the most common leadership style that the project manager should advocate to help them appreciate the benefits of agile and adaptive project management practices?
Servant leadership style
A project needs to collectively define the requirements and business-oriented functional tests for software products. They need to capture and illustrate requirement using realistic examples instead of abstract statements. What approach should the project manager use?
Specification by example
A short time interval within a project, usually of a fixed length, allows a team to conduct research or create a prototype of a solution. In extreme programming, how should the project team refer to this interval that allows them to learn additional technical details?
Spike
Activity B has a discretionary dependency to Activity A. To finish the project earlier, what is the best solution that the project manager can implement?
Stagger the activities
Modern quality management approaches seek to minimize variation and to deliver results that meet the requirements. In agile environments, who should be engaged to maintain customer satisfaction throughout the project?
Stakeholders - When considering project quality management, customer expectations are met through understanding, evaluating, defining, and managing requirements. Stakeholder engagement with the team ensures that the customer expectations are met, and satisfaction is maintained throughout the project in agile environment.
You are assigned to manage a new project. Your line manager suggests that you should use a tool to help you plan the new project. She suggests that you use a work breakdown structure (WBS) template. Which of the following is the best description of this tool?
A WBS from a previous project- A work breakdown structure template is often a WBS from a previous similar project within your organization because projects within an organization often share many common elements and processes.
An investor thinks that a mobile app would be a great idea but concerned about a very tight budget. A friend introduced the investor to a senior product owner for an introductory meeting. How should the senior product owner best advise the investor?
Advise that the scope and schedule for the app can be adjusted to stay within cost constraints to launch an app with basic functionality.
In a predictive project, there is a risk that it can be terminated anytime. In contrast, an agile or adaptive project minimizes this risk by delivering a minimum viable product (MVP). How can the agile team deliver the MVP?
Prioritize user stories with the highest business value -
A new tester recently joined an iteration-based agile project. The servant leader wants to help the new tester get acclimated to the terminology and processes of project. What should the servant leader highlight to the new tester about timeboxed iterations?
According to the Agile Practice Guide®, "unlike most agile approaches, the Kanban Method does not prescribe the use of timeboxed iterations. Iterations can be used within the Kanban Method, but the principle of pulling single items through the process continuously and limiting work in progress to optimize flow should always remain intact."
What can a project manager expect from a team during the commitment step of team performance development?
Addresses the question of how
Integrated change control is the process of reviewing, approving, and managing all change requests. In an agile environment, what should the project manager primarily base the evaluation when assessing the changes?
Business value
You are part of a team running a complex project spanning several years and involving several subcontractors. The contracts signed for this project might or will end __________.
During any phase of the project
The measure of work performed expressed in terms of the budget authorized for that work.
Earned Value (EV)
A project manager leads a distributed project team that has a fixed budget and a tight schedule. How should the project manager plan the work to avoid any scope creep and keep the team focused on delivering a product that meets the requirements?
Ensure that any changes to scope have gone through the formal approval process - Given the fixed budget and tight deadlines, ensure that any changes to scope have gone through the formal approval process.
A formally chartered group responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, delaying, or rejecting changes to the project, and for recording and communicating such decisions.
Change Control Board (CCB)
A component of the project management plan that establishes the change control board, documents the extent of its authority, and describes how the change control system will be implemented.
Change Management Plan
What is one of the characteristics of a project with a high degree of requirements and technical uncertainties?
Chaos - fundamentally risky, Project with a high degree of requirements and technical uncertainties are fundamentally risky.
Certain stakeholders were transitioning through personal and psychological changes because of the project. How can the project manager help them reach the neutral zone?
Coach them to let go - William Bridges introduced the transition model. Ending, losing, and letting go helps people get to the neutral zone. From there, they then transition to the new beginning.
Team members share information and resources. They also assist one another when workloads are unbalanced. What else should a project manager encourage to nurture behaviors that can lead to effective teamwork?
Communicate their individual preferences
A systematic procedure, technique, or process used to transfer information among project stakeholders.
Communication Methods
Specific tools, systems, computer programs, etc., used to transfer information among project stakeholders.
Communication Technology
A section of your project plan lists methods and technologies to be used to convey memoranda, email, and press releases, and how frequently these should be used. What is the document that defines these called?
Communications management plan
A project manager is working on a new iteration-based agile project. What should the project manager do next to capture the best practices or lessons learned in the project?
Conduct sprint retrospectives
A project manager is managing a project that uses the Scrum framework. Some tensions are building up during backlog refinement meetings because team members could not agree on the scheduling priorities. What should project manager do next to minimize the tension?
Establish team ground rules and group norms
The process of estimating team resources and the type and quantities of material, equipment, and supplies necessary to perform project work.
Estimate Activity Resources
Summing the lower-level cost estimates associated with the various work packages for a given level within the project's WBS or for a given cost control account.
Cost Aggregation
All costs incurred over the life of the product by investment in preventing nonconformance to requirements, appraisal of the product or service for conformance to requirements, and failure to meet requirements.
Cost of Quality (COQ)
What is a process decision framework that integrates several agile best practices into a comprehensive model?
Disciplined Agile
The European Union issued the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If applicable, the project manager will need to plan and manage how the project will comply with the GDPR which will include performing the following activities except for __________.
Dismissing the regulations because of the cost impact
A relationship between project activities and non-project activities
External Dependency
Visual representations that help trace an undesirable effect back to its root cause.
Fishbone Diagram, Cause-and-Effect Diagram
Thomas is managing an international project that will span many years. Although the raw materials are sourced from one country, he is anticipating that inflation will impact the labor costs in at least two other countries where the project will be implemented. The price of fuel, a key component in the project, may fluctuate as well. What would be the most appropriate contract given the nature of his project?
Fixed-price with economic price adjustment (FP-EPA)
When planning for project quality, which techniques can a project manager use to represent the data?
Flow charts, matrix diagrams, and logical data model, mind mapping
The depiction in a diagram format of the inputs, process actions, and outputs of one or more processes within a system.
Flowchart
How does the buyer inform the seller that the deliverables have been accepted or rejected?
Formal written notice - Written communication may be formal or informal, so an informal written notice is not necessarily reliable evidence of accepted or rejected deliverables. Change requests do not reflect evidence of acceptance or rejection. The buyer provides formal written notice to the seller as evidence of approval or rejection.
The process of comparing the planned expenditure of project funds against any limits on the commitment of funds for the project to identify any variances between the funding limits and the planned expenditures.
Funding Limit Reconciliation
Which framework typically includes rules, policies, procedures, norms, relationships, systems, and processes?
Governance
Projects require a unique set of leadership skills compared to general business operations. To proactively address potential confusion and conflict, what should the project manager do first to demonstrate leadership?
Help prioritize the project's vision, creativity, and motivation
A project is following a change framework. They have already formulated and planned the change. What should the project manager do next?
Implement - Typical change framework follows the following steps: formulate, plan, implement, manage, and sustain.
The level of an organization's ability to deliver the desired strategic outcomes in a predictable, controllable, and reliable manner.
Organizational Project Management Maturity
A product, result, or service generated by a process. May be an input to a successor process.
Output
What is the process of project planning that involves developing options, determining actions to enhance opportunities, and reducing threats to project objectives called?
Plan risk responses
A team member has been given the task of identifying which quality standards are relevant to this project and determining how to satisfy these standards. In which of the following activities is she engaged?
Planning quality
A project manager wanted to decide based on the largest number of stakeholders even if a majority cannot be reached. What is the best collective decision-making technique for this situation?
Plurality - In a plurality collective decision-making situation, the largest block in a group decides, even if a majority cannot be achieved.
Documents created prior to or at the start of the project that address strategic, business, or high-level information about the project.
Strategy Artifacts
You are preparing a budget item for your project to support a facilitated offsite meeting designed to improve interpersonal relationships within the project team. The title for this budget line item should be __________.
Team building
How should the project team describe the "definition of done"?
Team checklist of the criteria that needs to be met for a deliverable to be considered complete.
Team collaboration through dedicated, cross-functional teams is intended to boost productivity and facilitate innovative problem solving. Which role provides the team with a platform and work environment conducive to successful team collaboration in an agile/adaptive project?
Team facilitator/servant leader. The team facilitator acts as a servant-leader to support the project team remove impediments and bottlenecks and they promote communication and collaboration among team members and stakeholders. The product owner/service request manager is responsible for ensuring the project achieves maximum business value and sets the direction for the project. The project sponsor, executives sponsor, or business owner ensures the resources and funding for the project is secured and is responsible for enabling success.
What is a key difference between predictive and agile/adaptive environments when it comes to stakeholder engagement?
Teams in agile environments engage with stakeholders directly
A partially complete document in a predefined format that provides a defined structure for collecting, organizing, and presenting information and data.
Templates
When a team transitions from traditional predictive methods to more agile methods, the measurements used to track progress will also change. Which statement accurately describes predictive measurements?
They often do not reflect the real state of the project. According to the Agile Practice Guide®, "agile favors empirical and value-based measurements instead of predictive measurements." Often projects that are green turn to red status with virtually no warning as there is no empirical data that supports predictive measurements. Using relative measures allows teams better assess, estimate, and deliver their work.
You are working on a project that applies agile principles. Towards the end of each sprint, you always invite a member of the operations team to see the product demo. Why do you need to invite them to the product demo?
To ensure proper knowledge transfer, One of the key responsibilities of the project team is to transfer the knowledge and to ensure project continuity. The operations team will support the product after the project delivers it, so they need to be familiar with how it works.
