PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONAL (EXAMINATION)

To assist with the selection of a supplier for a large procurement on your project, you have hired a consultant. The consultant has prepared an independent estimate to be used as a benchmark while reviewing bids on the RFP. The independent estimate is confidential and is not shared with
any bidders. When the sealed bids are opened, you discover that only one supplier has submitted a quote lower than the independent estimate. All other quotes are 45 percent to 70 percent higher than the benchmark. While discussing this development with members of the project team, you
learn a distant relative of the consultant owns the company with the lowestbids. What is the best  course of action?

For many procurement items, the procuring organization can either prepare its own cost estimates or have an outside professional estimator prepare a cost estimate. This estimate serves as a:

Marvin has worked for a retail company as a project manager. With his positive thinking and strong managerial skills, he turned many potentially disastrous projects into successes. Because of his expertise, his employer’s senior executives offered him a group project manager position for a newly started environmental project. However, Marvin learned that, in his newly assigned project, he might have to offer bribes to obtain government licenses. What should Marvin do in such a situation?

Which of the following is not an example of soft skills?

Julia is managing a complex industrial process reengineering project. She has identified all her key project stakeholders and has conducted individual interviews with them to identify other project stakeholders, as well. However, Julia is still not satisfied with her project’s stakeholders
list; she believes there may be more key external stakeholders missing from the list. What can help Julia in this situation?

You are in the final phase of a low-cost car manufacturing project. This project has successfully delivered a low-cost car that runs on batteries. However, to close this project and avoid auditing from government authorities, it must demonstrably comply with many administrative standards. Since your organization possesses experts who know closing procedures and standards, you want to use them to close this project. This effort is an instance of:

Nancy is engaged in the construction of three office buildings. Although the construction sites are in various places, she has managed each team efficiently to complete the work on time and within budget. Which of the following statements describes the effort Nancy is doing?

There are several communication methods used to share and distribute information to stakeholders, team members, and management. Which of the following communication methods is used when you notify the public about environmental effects from your project after implementation by posting reports on the project’s website?

Lesley is managing a software development project for the World Climate Control Organization. Since her team members are dispersed across the globe, she would like to set up online conferences in the next two months to let everyone in her project know what is going on and what their roles are within the project. She wants to use these conferences as team development activities to learn and exchange information in the project. To schedule such activities, which of the following should she use to keep track of the availability of team members?

Bill is managing a healthcare software development project using state of-the-art technology. Stakeholder management is crucial for the project’s success. Stakeholder involvement and influence are significant. During which of the following project stages will stakeholder management be most challenging for Bill?

Which of the following statements about the management of risks in a project is incorrect?

A program management office (PMO) chose you to write a purchase order because of your expertise in business writing. You learned the PMO has already selected a seller for a software product and would like to award the procurement contract to the selected seller as a purchase
order, which you must prepare. In this scenario, the PMO is administering:

Which of the following is not a Project Schedule Management process?

Shawn is in the execution phase of his project. He is getting unexpected requests from his stakeholders about the project’s progress. Shawn can use all the following to respond to their requests except:

Tom is managing a software development project. The buyer of the product is an external entity. During the project’s execution, Tom finds that a new operations manager was hired in the customer organization. The new manager is now a key stakeholder. Which of the following
documents is least likely to be updated because of the addition of this new stakeholder?

Your drug manufacturing project requires the synthesis of many pharmaceutical chemicals to produce an active ingredient for a drug. You are managing a contractor to supply all these chemicals. Recent quality testing of the drugs raised concerns over the quality of the chemicals
supplied by the contractor. Which of the following must be your first action to ensure that the contractor is meeting all contractual obligations?

A project manager is spending most of the project funding in the current phase of the project. The manager is also managing various resources in the project. What is the stakeholder influence on the project now compared to earlier phases?

Lucy has to brief her key project stakeholders on the recent approved changes to the project scope. Which of the following project documents will provide essential input to Lucy for preparing her presentation?

Organizations evaluate whether to buy products or make the items themselves. Which of the following is not a factor that influences makeor-buy decisions:

Analysis of project spending against project budget and calculation of the percentage complete of tasks currently underway are examples of:

Nancy can bid on two projects. Project A has a 50 percent return on investment while Project B has a 20 percent return on investment. Project A’s scope of work is complex, and Nancy’s organization does not have the necessary skills and experience to do this project. However,
Project B’s scope of work falls within the strengths of Nancy’s organization. Which project must Nancy bid on?

Debbie, an IT project manager, is in the planning phase of a shopping website development project. A junior project manager, who has worked under her authority, started developing procedures for maintaining the integrity of cost and schedule performance baselines in the project. Where should the junior project manager store these procedures?

To reduce delivery delays and process downtime, your organization has recognized a need to replace their legacy manufacturing system with a modern software application. Your IT director anticipates a project to fulfill this business need; however, he warns that the new project’s budget cannot exceed $75,000 due to shortages in the department budget. He also indicates that no additional staff will be allocated to this project other than the existing IT staff. If you become the project manager, you would document these initial project conditions as:

Which of the following is an output of the Create WBS process?

You have just received notice that the organization you have worked for as a project manager has gone bankrupt. All employees have 72 hours’ notice of termination. What is the best course of action for the two projects you are managing?

Jen works as a project manager for the National Weather Agency. She is managing a project designed to assess the effect of climate change on northern mountains. The initial study established a two months’ delay for the testing equipment to reach mountains due to road construction. However, a recent assessment has indicated a significantly shorter delay
because of rapid progress in construction. To deal with the shorter delay, which of the following steps should Jen take next?

The method used in the Manage Quality process to identify the factors that may influence specific characteristics of a product under development is:

A team member in your project is constantly providing incomplete deliverables and not performing well. What should you do first?

Dana works for a federal agency that manages mission critical projects. As a project manager, she is responsible for all communication needs in her data center project, which has started recently. This project involves many stakeholders, customers, external vendors, and team members.
Since conflicts are inevitable in such a massive project, she has decided to provide her project team the details of the issue escalation process, including the names of the chain of command to refer issues to that cannot be resolved at a lower level. Where must Dana document the escalation process?

Bill is managing a website development project. He has recently received feedback from one of the key project stakeholders. The feedback is positive overall, but it contains some recommendations. After analyzing the recommendations, Bill accepts them, gets them approved, and incorporates them into the project management plan. The recommendations were then implemented and the new ideas were found to be successful. What needs to be done with this feedback now?

The project you are working on has received an invoice from a vendor for US$17,500. However, your team believes the correct total due is US$15,300. When you notify the vendor, the vendor still insists on US$17,500. What is the best course of action now?

Project costs are estimated for all project activities and are aggregated to establish a cost baseline. Which of the following statements about the cost baseline is not true?

The RACI chart is an example of a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). The letters R and C in “RACI” stand for:

_______________ is the authorized budget for the work scheduled to be completed on an activity or WBS component.

You are managing a project for a customer that has just gone bankrupt and is subject to liquidation proceedings. There are several outstanding invoices this customer has not paid to your company. What should you do now?

You are in a meeting with your senior manager, who is helping you to organize and manage a team of IT people from diverse backgrounds. While you are discussing the creativity and breakthrough performance your team is demonstrating now, your senior manager indicates that your team has moved from the storming to the performing stage. Which of the following describes the characteristics of the performing stage?

No matter how good you are in communicating, information distribution to stakeholders as planned is a challenging task. Many tools and techniques are used during the Manage Communications process except:

Mary is a project manager for an infrastructure upgrade project in a government agency. She realized recently that a critical scheduled task exceeded its deadline, and the stakeholders are aware of it. The resource manager has permitted Mary to use three more resources to work on and complete the delayed task. Although the three additional resources prove helpful, Mary is still concerned about the task because:

All the following are tools of the Control Schedule process except:

You are working with your customers on completing deliverables in your electronic parts manufacturing project. Since these parts will be exported to other countries, they will need more testing before your customers accept them. In this scenario, which of the following statements about the completed deliverables is correct?

You are managing a heavy equipment manufacturing project that involves many mechanical, electrical, and IT staff. Your team prepared a schedule network diagram using duration estimates with dependencies and constraints. Your team also calculated the critical path for the project
using late and early values. Today, your project office has indicated to you that some of the resources you had planned for the project will be unavailable. To deal with this, you explore the possibility of modifying the schedule to account for limited resources. What is your best possible
step in such a situation?

You are working as a project manager for a high-yield crop development project. Data from the weather agency shows an unfavorable weather pattern for the next few months. As a senior project manager, you want to assess the schedule’s feasibility under adverse conditions and provide some insights to your team. That way, your team can prepare some reserves and plan risk responses if unfavorable conditions exist during execution. Which of the following techniques should you use to simulate risks and other sources of uncertainty to calculate possible schedule
outcomes?

ll the following activities are performed in the Close Project or Phase process except:

Your project team has recently identified a risk in the software development project and decided not to change the project management plan to deal with the risk. The risk response strategy that your team used in this scenario is an example of:

Which of the following is neither an input to nor an output of the Develop Project Charter process?

Which document defines how the project is to be executed, monitored, controlled, and closed?

You just completed the first phase of a multi-phase project. You have calculated earned value measurements and found that the current CPI is 0.79 and the current SPI is 0.98. Your next phase plan should focus first on which element of the project:

A project manager has just started planning his project. If he has only limited information about the project, he should use the following technique to estimate the duration for each activity using historical data from a similar project:

You are in the Validate Scope process of your electronic goods manufacturing project. While reviewing some products, you have noticed that the tolerance for one product is 0.01 percent less than what was listed in the requirements documentation. This deviation may not be a problem for the customers, and it may not impair the product’s operation. What is your best immediate action in such a situation?

You have recently taken over a troubled automobile project, which has gone out of control. The project team missed many deadlines, and stakeholders were displeased with the project’s progress. As an experienced project manager, your first priority is to align the schedule with the project plan. You would like to use what-if scenario analysis to see how various factors affected the project schedule so you can develop a plan to reduce the impact of adverse conditions on the project schedule in the future. What would be your next course of action be, once you
determine the factors that created schedule overruns?

You are working for a large project organization with several project managers working on 15 projects. All project managers submit their status reports at month’s end. One of your fellow project managers, Jane, has
reported an error in the past two months. From discussions with one of her project’s team members who is also working on one of your projects, you realize Jane is deliberately misreporting the project’s status to inflate her
performance for the annual performance appraisal next month. The month end review meeting is in two days, and you are preparing your own presentation for it. What should you say about her status report?

You have presented a unique and verifiable product to your customers for their approval. Approval of this product may allow you to move on to your next phase. This unique and verifiable product is also known as:

You are a senior project manager working for RETAMART, a retail shopping network that sells various consumer products. As part of the expansion plan approved by the board of directors, you are assigned as a project manager for a new plant. Due to transportation problems, the project has experienced delays; the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) is at 0.6 and the Cost Performance Index (CPI) is at 0.7. However, you expect some improvements during the next few weeks, which may increase the SPI to 1.1 and the CPI to 0.9. Which of the following statements will be true if your anticipated changes materialize?

You are in the middle of a risk assessment meeting with key stakeholders, customers and project team leaders. While identifying and assessing risks, you realize that two key stakeholders are overemphasizing the impact of a
risk. What is the best step to take to avoid unfairness or bias when assessing risks?

You are in the process of collecting and disseminating performance information to the stakeholders in the project. You want to predict the future performance of the project based on the current information. This performance information includes status reports, current status of risks, and summary of changes approved in the period. Which of the following methods will help you in predicting the future performance of the project?

There is a heavy demand for new houses in your city’s expensive neighborhood. RECON, a construction company, has employed you as a project manager to assess the benefit of building new energy-efficient houses in that neighborhood, even though it takes more expensive technology to build such houses. You have started gathering data to
perform a detailed payback analysis to submit a report to your management. Since the full financial impact of building energy-efficient houses is difficult to estimate, you would like to prepare a rough cost benefit analysis and include it with the report. Which of the following describes the effort you are undertaking in this scenario?

Jared is in the execution phase of a residential housing construction project. He has been informed of major scope changes from stakeholders in the middle of the project. These changes involve regulatory requirements from local authorities that may affect not only the scope but also the cost and duration of the project. What is the first step that Jared should take in considering these changes?

You are working on an information technology project as a project manager to develop a shopping website for your customers. Some key stakeholders in the project suggested scope changes to improve the website’s look and feel. Your team has analyzed the impact of these changes and presented the analysis to the Change Control Board (CCB)
for approval. What should be your next step if the CCB accepts all proposed changes?

Jane is worried about her project because many of her tasks are moving slowly, and two critical tasks may slip. She conducts a thorough resource analysis and finds out that there are five people who will be free next week. She would like to assign those people to finish her tasks early and prevent the project completion date from slipping. This is an example of:

Andrew is managing a construction project. He is using his communication, interpersonal and management skills to keep the key project stakeholders engaged with the project. Which of the following activities is not related to the Manage Stakeholder Engagement process?

You are working on a waste management project that, upon completion, will be turned over to the local municipality for steady-state operation. Parking of trucks and other vehicles has become a serious problem because no parking area was allotted to you on the main dumping site. As a result, your trucks are parked on nearby roadsides. One of the fleet supervisors informs you that close to the main site, there is a large tract of land a local charity owns. Many locals park their cars on this tract of land. What should you do?

In a textile manufacturing project, a team divided the project work into 35 work packages and assigned a few work packages to the design department for review. After the review, the manager of the design department requested that the team further divide the work packages into more manageable work components for estimating and scheduling
resources. Which of the following techniques should the team use to satisfy the manager’s request?

You are working as a project manager for MALTEX, an IT organization having a projectized organization structure. You have recently started managing a project that involves stakeholders from within and outside your organization. The stakeholders external to your organization are highly critical since the project negatively affects their interests. You are making serious efforts to gather their expectations and influence levels early in the project to ensure their voice is heard and proper communication needs can be planned in the project’s future phases. The outcome of your effort can be documented in:

You have managed a federal highway construction project, which is intended to improve transportation between north and south regions of the country. In the execution phase, you received many complaints from stakeholders, including the highway transportation agency. At least half these complaints were regarding the quality of the micro texture of the road, and the nonconformance to the quality levels incorporated in the project quality management plan. So far, you have successfully fixed all  the reported issues, but you are concerned by this recurrent event. What
should you do to avoid future similar issues?

During a key stakeholders’ update meeting, George’s project was challenged. The project is currently in the executing phase. One of the key stakeholders claimed the project no longer makes any business sense. What must George do next?

To communicate with stakeholders on the resolved issues and the issues that are hard to resolve, you use an issue log in your project. Since you assign an owner for every issue and resolve it by working on it, your stakeholders actively support all your efforts in managing the project. This method of actively resolving issues and reducing risks to the project is known as:

You have been assigned as the project manager for a software development project. You are currently communicating with stakeholders and addressing their issues and expectations. Which of the following documents are inputs to this effort?

Changes in projects are inevitable. Therefore, project managers must develop or use a system to manage and control changes. There are four types of changes that need to be controlled in a project: Project changes, deliverable changes, process changes, and baseline changes. The impact of each of these changes must be evaluated, and approved or rejected changes must be communicated to all stakeholders, as and when required. Which of the following helps control these changes?

Two of your expert team members have been in a heated argument over the use of a new software product for your research project. Recently, you noticed that the argument, instead of increasing creativity, is causing conflict between the team members. To prevent the conflict from escalating, you want to resolve it by open dialogue and evaluating
alternatives. All the following statements about conflict are false except:

As you examine a list of job candidates for your project, you find that your cousin is one of the three shortlisted candidates. You know that she was desperately looking for a job. After reviewing the three resumes, you will send them to the electronics engineer for a technical interview. From your review of these resumes, you see that all three shortlisted candidates have similar qualifications and experiences. What should you do?

The customer requests a change to the project that would increase the project risk. Which of the following should you do first?

Some tools or techniques can be used across various project processes to plan, execute, or control the characteristics of project elements. Which of the following is used as a tool in both the Control Quality and Plan Quality Management processes?

In an underground highway construction project, the project stakeholders have suggested many changes to the project scope. You had already defined the cost baseline in your project, and you would like to revisit the baseline to see how these changes might affect the overall cost of the project. You start an impact analysis to determine the impact and inform the concerned stakeholders of all approved changes and the corresponding costs. You perform these activities in which process?

Which of the following documents the formal or informal assessments of the project team’s effectiveness?

You have recently joined a new company as a project manager. While reviewing the procurement plans for a project you will be taking over, you see that the company is considering using one of the most expensive manufacturers to provide certain equipment required for the project. At your previous employer, you had used a different supplier for the same equipment and had paid significantly less. Without telling your boss, you now call that supplier for a quote. Have you violated the rule of keeping proprietary information confidential?

Which of the following statements about the planned value, the earned value, the schedule variance, and the cost variance of a project is false?

You are working as a project manager for a wind-powered vehicle manufacturing project which is in its planning phase. You carefully gathered all your requirements from your key stakeholders and prepared a system requirements specification and project requirements specification. While presenting your specifications to the project team,
an enthusiastic project team member started talking about the duration estimates for each activity. Which of the following statements indicates your response to your team member?

Rosanne is an experienced project manager working on a pharmaceutical project. This project involves two large vendors supplying chemical products with specific compositions for preparing drugs. While reviewing documents to see how a seller is performing, she notices the seller did not meet some of the contractual terms. Since it is a first-time
violation, she would like to initiate a corrective action to bring the seller’s performance in line with the statement of work. Which of the following are not outputs of Rosanne’s effort?

The Project Charter defines the high level scope and objectives of a project. Which of the following is not a correct statement about inputs to the Project Charter?

Nancy’s project is 80 percent complete. Which of the following project documents is least likely to be updated during the Monitor Stakeholder Engagement process performed at this stage?

Close Project or Phase is the process of completing and concluding all activities across all process groups to officially close the project. Which of the following activities is not performed during this process?

Which of the following activities fall under the planning process group but not under project schedule management?

James has been managing a hotel construction project on a busy street. He is in the process of estimating activity durations for building walls, and he calculates the most likely estimate as 15 days. If prefabricated material is used, it would take no more than 12 days to finish the work. The work may be delayed and could take up to 18 days if less
experienced construction workers build the walls. What is the expected duration of building walls using the three-point estimate?

Rodney is in the process of preparing the project performance report for the team meeting. He is expecting many questions from his stakeholders on the budget and schedule. He calculates the following values: Budget at Completion (BAC) = $22,000, Earned Value (EV) = $13,000, Planned Value (PV) = $14,000, Actual cost (AC) = $15,000. What is the Estimate at Completion (EAC) for the project, if the work is performed at the budgeted rate?

You are reviewing the responses to an RFP your company issued. You realize that a key requirement was not included in the RFP. However, one of the bidders included that requirement in the response. What is the best course of action?

Many organizations favor fixed-price contracts because the buyer’s risk is minimized by such contracts. However, to minimize the seller’s risk, which of the following is crucial for a fixed price contract?

Which of the following is not an effective influencing technique?

The project manager of a long-term project to develop a new medical device waits until the later phase where the deliverables are more clearly defined before adding those details to the WBS. This is an example of:

Control charts are used to determine the stability of a process. Which of the following best describes the range of the control limits applied on a control chart?

You are just starting on a project as project manager. The project sponsor asks you for weekly status updates by email and monthly project status meetings to review the project’s progress. These requirements are documented in the:

Cindy has been working in a manufacturing project as a project manager. This project is intended to produce high-quality semiconductors to use in computers. Since semiconductors are produced from silicon wafers, she
contracted a company to provide silicon wafers to the project on an ongoing basis. For unknown reasons, the contractor provided low-quality wafers to the project, compromising the electrical performance of the
semiconductors. Overwhelmed by complaints from the computer division, Cindy is now obligated to correct the manufacturing defects to avoid future liabilities. In this scenario, the costs Cindy incurred are:

As an independent consultant, you are working with a project manager of a spacecraft parts manufacturing project to ensure that the team complies with organizational quality policies and procedures. Since parts made in
this project must be of high precision and accuracy, you are documenting shortcomings within the processes and procedures to improve the quality for customer acceptance. Which of the following best represents the project management activity you are doing?

You have been managing a research project to create genetically modified fruits using genetic engineering techniques. Since many legal issues are involved in this process, you created contingency allowances by using various quantitative analysis methods to account for cost uncertainty. You have just concluded a brainstorming session with your
team in the execution phase to monitor risks that have developed in the project over the past few weeks and to establish new risk response plans. What should you do if you want to allocate more contingency reserves to
account for new risks?

In a small office construction project, the following activities are scheduled in sequence. i) Digging and pouring footings: five days. ii) Working on the slab and pouring: three days. iii) Framing the floor: five days. iv) Wall framing: four days. v) Roof framing: six days. vi) Insulation and drywall: seven days. vii) Interior doors and trim: three
days. viii) Hardware and fixtures: two days. What is the minimum time to complete the project if all activities are on a critical path except activity viii, and activity iii is delayed by one day?

During the execution of a project, the project manager discovers the project’s stakeholder register is no longer accurate. What should the project manager do?

In a ship design project, a project manager is in the process of negotiating with a consulting company to ensure that the project receives certified and specialized consultants for creating the hull design. The project manager wants to make certain that the consultants will be able to work until their assignments are completed. He is using all his
negotiation skills and interpersonal skills to get competent staff on time. Based on the scenario described above, the project manager is engaged in:

The Stakeholder Committee has a report that shows zero schedule variance. However, the first milestone in the project was missed, which will cause a delay in the project. Which of the following was not reported correctly?

The organization’s safety and health policy, ethics policy, project policy, and quality policy can be used by a project to influence its success. All these policies are a part of:

Velvet is working for a chemical industry, and her management proposed two different projects to manufacture benzene for commercial use. After doing financial analysis, the financial advisor provided her with the following statistics about the projects: Project 1: 60 percent probability of success with a profit of $500,000 and 20 percent probability of failure with a loss of $200,000. Project 2: 30 percent probability of success with a profit of $300,000 and 30 percent probability of failure with a loss of $400,000. Based on the information above, Velvet should choose:

You are managing a highly complex drug manufacturing project, and your sponsor is highly motivated and influential. You are optimistic about the outcome of the project; however, you are unsure about the project approval requirements that measure the project’s success. You would like to document the name of the person who signs off on the project and the criteria that constitute the project’s success. Which of the following documents should you use first to incorporate project approval requirements?

During the development of the project stakeholder engagement plan, a project manager is usually dependent on the voice of the project stakeholders to obtain expert opinion. Which of the following is an important tool available to the project manager for gathering and organizing stakeholders’ information?

During which of the following project processes do key stakeholders engage with the project for the first time?

Which of the following components of a project scope statement is useful in reducing scope creep?

As you create the Activity List, which technique is recommended for subdividing the project into smaller components called activities?

During the development of the project stakeholder engagement plan, the project manager is usually dependent on the expert judgment of senior stakeholders to identify and plan effective stakeholder management strategies. Which of the following stakeholders cannot guide the project manager in developing effective strategies for internal stakeholders?

The Create WBS process identifies the deliverables at the __________ level in the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

What is the primary risk when including reserves, or contingency allowances, in your cost estimate?

Which of the following statements most accurately describes a project scenario?

Which of the following is not an organizational process asset used during the Plan Resource Management process?

During the Manage Stakeholder Engagement process, a number of project documents might get updated. Which of the following project documents get updated the most during this process?

Few project managers collect lessons-learned information throughout the project’s life. Most tackle this in the final days of the project or, worse, after the project is complete. What is the negative consequence of this approach?

After brainstorming potential project risks, what is the recommended method for prioritizing these risks and their mitigation plans?

If you are managing changes to the project’s cost baseline, which process are you using?

During the Control Procurements process, a number of documents might get updated due to various reasons. Which of the following components of the project management plan is least likely to get updated during this process?

In order to facilitate project configuration and change management on complex projects, a project manager relies on configuration and change management tools. Such tools:

Various tools and techniques determine project requirements during the Collect Requirements process. These requirements form the basis for defining the project scope. One of the responsibilities of a project manager is to identify key project deliverables during this exercise. Where are the key project deliverables documented?

The most detailed level of the WBS is the _______________ .

Which of the following is a hierarchical representation of project risks?

If an investment in a project returns 15 percent annually, how much should you invest to get $5 million by the end of the fifth year?

A business is considering more than a dozen infrastructure upgrade projects. These projects, once delivered, will add to the organization’s overall performance but will not contribute to any of the revenue streams. Prior to initiating any such project, the value of the project to the organization must be determined. Which of the following is the most
important factor to consider in such a scenario?

If a project manager believes that a particular subcontract needs to be terminated, which of the following can provide guidance on the contract termination procedure?

Which of these types of precedence relationships is least commonly used in the Precedence Diagramming Method?

A RACI chart is an example of a _________________.

If the project’s current total earned value (EV) is $100,000 and the actual amount spent (AC) is $95,000, what is the cost variance of the project?

A contractor is currently constructing a new building for your organization on a cost-plus-incentive contract. You just received the project status report from the contractor’s project manager. According to the report, the project’s CPI is 1.5. You are shocked because you believe the project costs are out of control. Upon investigation, you learn the $1
million advance payment (20 percent of the estimated project cost) given to the contractor at the start of the project was included in the project’s earned value. Further, the cost of the inventory at the project site was excluded from the total actual costs. According to the contract, your company reimburses only the costs for the completed deliverables and not for the supplies in the project’s inventory. In this scenario, the reported project’s CPI is incorrect because:

Each critical project communication requirement must be carefully analyzed. One good way is to use a communication model to design effective communications. What is the sequence of steps in a basic communication model?

Recently, a junior team member has challenged the project management approach since not all requirements identified during the Collect Requirements process were documented in the project scope statement. You are the project manager, what should you do first?

Project knowledge management is concerned with managing which type of project knowledge?

Jane is currently reviewing a list of project proposals. All the proposed projects achieve some of the organizational strategic objectives and their expected costs are known. However, Jane cannot execute all the projects due to the funding limitation. How shall Jane determine which projects she needs to execute this year?

Increasing the number of resources in order to crash a project schedule does not always cut the time by the same factor. In worst cases, too many resources assigned to an activity may actually increase the activity duration. This is because:

A project manager scheduled a review at the end of a phase, with the objective of obtaining authorization to close the current project phase and initiate the next phase. Which of the following is an incorrect way of describing this review?

Which of the following tools and techniques is useful to process work performance data to identify sources of project defects during the Control Quality process?

The Requirements Traceability Matrix helps in tracing all the following except:

Which of the following should you not use as an input into creating the WBS structure?

Which of the following processes are usually performed once or at predefined points in the project:

Which term best describes the Identify Risks process?

During the Plan Risk Management process, assigning ___________ will help you and the project team identify all important risks and work more effectively during the identification process.

Which of these processes is not a Project Schedule Management process?

The technique most commonly used by project management software packages to construct a project schedule model is:

Which of the following defines the total scope of the project and represents the work specified in the current approved project scope statement?

If you are creating a new WBS for your project, what should you do to save time during the creation process?

Which of these precedence relationships is most commonly used in the Precedence Diagramming Method?

The output of the Validate Scope process is accepted deliverables that are formally signed off by the stakeholders. The stakeholders, on some projects, can get involved with the project as early as:

An effective quality audit should be:

What is the traditional way to display a reporting structure among project team members?

Kevin is assigned to a software development project that will start in the near future and is currently tailoring the PMBOK processes to satisfy the project’s specific needs. Kevin wants to introduce a new process, “Identify Key Deliverables”, to the existing six project scope management processes. Although he understands that project
deliverables identification is already in the PMBOK scope management processes, he believes that having a dedicated process will stress the importance of determining and agreeing to key project deliverables. The best position for the new “Identify Key Deliverables” process should be between which of the following two processes?

During which stages of a project should the project manager be most active in managing project stakeholders’ needs and expectations?

Project risks should be identified by:

A control chart should always contain:

When is Rolling Wave Planning useful in a project?

A good project manager always gathers and documents lessons learned throughout the project lifecycle rather than delaying the effort until the project closure. Which of the following is not a risk associated with postponing the lessons-learned gathering effort until the very end of the project?

Laurence is the PMO manager at ANZ Company. The CEO of the company asked Laurence to review the business requirements and develop the current year’s capital management plan. The capital management plan will outline the key business deliverables (capital projects) and will go to the board for final approval. Which of the following organizational artifacts should Laurence review to analyze the business requirements for the current fiscal year?

Maintaining good supplier relationships should be important to all project managers. A good buyer-seller relationship is a partnership that results in a win-win situation that nurtures both parties. Which of the following is both a short- and long-term benefit of treating a supplier with courtesy, honesty, and fairness?

James is managing a shopping mall construction project. During the project execution, he learns the project communications management plan is not effective and requires a major update. Which of the following processes will issue a change request for the required update?

With a growing awareness of so-called unknowable-unknowns, the existence of emergent risk is becoming clear. These are risks that can only be recognized after they have occurred. Emergent risks can be tackled through developing:

Change control tool selection should be based on the needs of the project stakeholders, including organizational and environmental considerations and/or constraints. Which of the following is not a key change management consideration while selecting an appropriate change control tool for a project?

In general, Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis is:

As a project manager, you perform various project performance measurements to assess the magnitude of variation. You then attempt to determine the cause and decide whether corrective action is necessary. This is:

Two efficiency indicators that reflect the cost and schedule performance of a project are:

In projects with adaptive life cycles, many of the project management processes are repeated in each iteration of the project except:

If you want to compress a project schedule, what are two of the recommended alternatives to consider?

Large organizations typically manage a wide range of projects; from small projects to large initiatives requiring long-term commitments. Which of the following factors can be used in scaling such projects:

Which of the following is not a part of the data gathering tools used in Control Quality process?

Measuring the quality of items in a sample on a pass/fail basis is:

George is managing a telecommunication network deployment project. Most of the key project stakeholders are happy with the project so far. However, George has some potential concerns that might become issues in the near future. The next project status update meeting with the key stakeholders is the next day. What should George do?

On-demand scheduling is one of the techniques used in agile projects. This type of scheduling relies on:

Midway through a project, a project manager determined the project was running far behind schedule. If the project manager needs to shorten the project schedule without changing the project scope, which of the following schedule compression techniques could he use?

At the end of a project, what will your schedule variance be equal to?

How does time-boxing help minimize scope creep in agile projects?

A good project manager knows the value of effective stakeholder management. What is the ultimate goal of effective stakeholder management?

While analyzing a project, the project manager calculated the ratio of the Earned Value (EV) to the Actual Costs (AC) and obtained a value of 1.2. The project manager decided this was an unfavorable condition for the project and decided to take corrective action. What is your view?

Which of these is not an established Estimate Activity Durations technique?

If you are working on a project where there is no definite detailed scope, but there are similar projects in the past, what is the correct Estimate Activity Durations tool to use?

As project manager, you would like to show the relationship between two variables to help your project team understand the quality impact better. Which tool should you use?

A project manager feels the need of updating one of the project supplier contracts to meet the project’s current needs. However, before any change requests, the project manager must know the right process to incorporate a change into this specific contract. What should he do first?

The objective of a transformation project is to move an organization from one state to another state. The desired result of the change driven by the project is described as the:

The term Progressive Elaboration incorrectly represents which of the following?

Which document describes the project’s deliverables and the work required to create those deliverables?

During a presentation to management, you want to display the project schedule with only the key deliverables displayed. What is the correct tool for this purpose?

Henry is the project manager for a process improvement project. Henry is a recently hired Six Sigma expert. David is the process owner of the process Henry must optimize. During the project kick-start meeting with the project sponsor, David said he supports all continuous improvement efforts. However, David is unaware of the Six Sigma technique and feels threatened by the newly hired expert, and as a result, is blocking Henry’s ideas. What is David’s current engagement level with the project?

Which of these items are important to address when determining each person’s role in the project team?

If you want to reduce the number of quality inspections and reduce the cost of quality control for your project, which technique should you use?

Performance reports are produced during the Control Procurements process by evaluating work performance data against the agreement requirements. Which of the following is the prime objective of producing such reports?

Project managers need to be aware of Student Syndrome. What does that mean?

A project manager must stress the importance of collecting and documenting lessons learned through the project lifecycle. One good way to collect this information is during weekly status meetings. Usually, weekly status meetings, if not managed properly, end up in firefighting since most of the time, attention goes to the burning issues. How can you ensure that the lessons-learned gathering does not get missed in such a situation?

Where would you find a detailed list and description of specific project assumptions associated with the project?

A number of teams are developing an enterprise system using the agile approach for product development. Which of the following is a major risk item for such a complex project being performed in an agile environment?

Which of these is not a data analysis technique used during quantitative risk analysis?

Which of the following is a tool or technique of the Develop Team process?

A hierarchical structure of project resources organized by category and resource type, used in planning, managing and controlling project work, is:

A project post-mortem is an activity, usually performed at the project’s conclusion, to determine and analyze a project’s outcome which also includes a lessons-learned gathering exercise. Project post-mortems help to mitigate future risks and are often a key component of, and ongoing precursor to, effective risk management. Which of the following is a terrible mistake when collecting lessons learned?

What does a Cost Performance Index (CPI) of more than 1.0 indicate?

Which of the following statements is correct?

A project team member finds that the color scheme of the webpage he is designing appears too gaudy and decides to change it to a mellowed down color scheme. The customer approved the original color scheme and the color palette. The independent testing team flags this as a defect, and a heated discussion ensues between the team member and the testing team. What is your view?

Which of the following items needs to be kept in mind when relying on risk identification checklists?

As an external vendor, you are managing a complex software project on a time-and-materials (T&M) contract. One of your team members reports a breakthrough in automating some of the testing activities. This may result in cost savings to the project and completion of the project one month ahead of schedule. Which of the following actions would you take?

A company manages SBG contracting bids for government tenders and all successful bids as a separate project. The structure of the company is mainly projectized for a dedicated project team to manage each project. However, to realize economies of scale, there are some central departments that serve all projects. Which of the following role is most likely to be working in a central department instead of directly working with a project team?

The Control Procurements process receives a very important input from the Direct and Manage Project Work process. Which one is it?

Julia is currently recruiting her project team. She has carried out various interviews and has shortlisted potential candidates. Now, according to the project communication management plan, she has to submit the shortlisted profiles to the project client (customer) for approval. Only then, can she formally hire the approved candidates for the project. The submission of the profiles to the client will go through which of the following processes?

Mark is in the middle of a software development project. So far, the project has incurred a total cost of $50,000. If it is determined the project is no longer required, what would we call the cost incurred to date?