Quiz 2

A large project is underway when one of the team members reviews the project status report. He sees the project is currently running late. As he looks at the report further, he notices the delay will cause one of his activities to be scheduled during a time he will be out of the country and will be unable to work on the activity. This is of great concern to the team member because he is committed to the success of the project and does not want to be the cause of the project being further delayed. What is the best thing for him to do?

The process of scope definition is key to a successful project. All the following come after the Define Scope process except:

How close to actual costs should a definitive budget estimate be?

You are negotiating with a seller. Time is of the essence but you have a limited budget, and the seller knows this. What is your best negotiation strategy under these circumstances?

As project manager, you are attending an iteration planning meeting when a dispute occurs. The product owner’s top priority in the backlog is a key feature that requires a new technology. The team says they don’t understand that technology well enough yet to build that feature next. The product owner responds tartly, asking when they are planning to get around to it. What should you do?

There are over 30 stakeholders on your project. The project is being done in another country, and includes some virtual team members based in three other countries. Fortunately, your company has all of the technology needed to facilitate communications between people in all of the countries involved. Which of the following is the most important thing to keep in mind?

You are the project manager on an information technology project on which you and the sponsor have already approved the scope. While having lunch with a customer representative working with him on a software project, an information specialist on your team learns a simple alteration in the display would be a great addition to the project. The information specialist installs the change with no negative effect on the project schedule and at no additional cost. What action should be taken?

You are taken to lunch by one of your sellers on a current project who has become a friend. He offers you an opportunity to participate in a new venture in association with his company, unrelated to your current employment. You are not concerned about any conflict of interest because you trust him implicitly. You believe that your company’s business doesn’t conflict with the work this new venture represents. What should you do?

Originally, your project had five team members. The customer was so pleased with the first interim deliverables he approved, that he decided to expand the contract to include additional work planned for the next fiscal year. Now that the scope has expanded, additional team members have been added to take on the new work. There are now a total of eight people on the project team. How many communication channels have been added?

You are managing a project on which your team is physically located with client personnel at a remote location. There is a high level of interaction between your team and client personnel, and client satisfaction is considered very important. Since the client is expressing a very high level of satisfaction with the project’s progress, your management has indicated no concerns about the project. However, you are behind schedule and over budget. In addition, morale among team members is low, and several team members have talked about quitting. Team members complain regularly about priority adjustments and alteration of activities. The weekly reports you receive about activities completed are often difficult to relate to the WBS and the project management plan. What action should you take to most effectively address these problems?

To ensure the success of your new international project, it would be best to have several project team members work on site for six months. The project management team informs you that, in this country, a payment is required to obtain visas for foreign workers that stay over three months at a time. The cost of the visas is high. The economy has recently become volatile. Some stakeholders question the need for the project and the benefits it will produce. Leadership has told you that this project is aligned with the organization’s direction for the year. But cost and risk are the primary constraints. What is the least effective of the following choices if you are trying to reduce cost concerns?

Over the last few weeks, the team has made three changes to the activities on the project. Two of these instances involved adding short, but important, activities to existing work packages. The other change involved removing a piece of work that was deemed to be redundant of other planned activities. The project manager must be most careful to:

The primary customer of a project has requested an application change during user testing. As project manager, how should you address this issue?

While planning your agile project to develop a role-playing game, you are looking for a tool that will help the game designers better understand the end users and stay focused on their interests and values. What should you do?

Another project has had a major defect. A project manager has gotten his project team and the process engineers involved in analyzing how this might affect their project. Which of the following would best describe what the group is involved in?

Which of the following is the most appropriate thing to do in the initiating process group?

During several iterations of building a new software product, your team finds many defects during testing. These errors are originating in the middleware component, which was recently completed by another project. No one on your project team is knowledgeable about the middleware technology. As the project manager, what should you do?

The highest point of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is:

An old marketing application system is being replaced to eliminate its technical debt. The IT Director is the sponsor and a new IT business analyst is assigned to be the product owner. Business users have been interviewed for their requirements, but the none of them are assigned to the project. As the project manager, what would be your biggest concern?

You’ve been asked to coach a team that is just switching to agile. In introducing them to key agile concepts, you explain that agile values some things more than others.

Knowledge management is a key responsibility of the project manager. This responsibility includes managing two kinds of knowledge on a project: tacit and explicit. Which of the following definitions are correct?

A new project manager is having difficulty creating a WBS with the team. He started by making a list of the project activities, which he distributed to team members. Some of these team members have more experience than the project manager, and are not happy about trying to convert his list into a WBS. The team is spending a lot of time trying to agree on work package definitions, and some feel the project manager’s list is more of a distraction than a help. The project manager realizes that the team is becoming increasingly frustrated. To alleviate this situation, the project manager should ask for help from:

The contractor attached to your project hasn’t worked with an agile team before and doesn’t understand the development process that will be used. What should you do?

Which of the following best describes the project manager’s role during project planning?

The second iteration of your agile project is just starting, and so far the work is going slower than planned. As the project manager, you are taking a servant leadership approach. What should you do to help out?

An experienced project manager has just begun working for a large information technology integrator. Her manager provides her with a draft project charter and immediately asks her to provide an analysis of the risks on the project. Which of the following would best help in this effort?

A team member tells you that when his wife was diagnosed with a serious illness, he stole items from work and sold them, using the money for her treatment. He has since paid back the money taken, in ways that kept his theft secret. Ethically, what should you do?

You need to make a major change to the equipment used on your project. Your brother owns a company that produces a product that would meet the new needs of the project. What should you do?

A team member comes to you (the project manager) privately and informs you that an employee of your customer is making unwelcome advances. The team member has repeatedly requested that this person stop, but the advances continue. What is the best course of action?

A project involves arranging for the closing of the company office where the team works and relocating everyone to a new city. The best thing the project manager can do is:

A manufacturing project has a schedule performance index (SPI) of 0.89 and a cost performance index (CPI) of 0.91. Generally, what is the most likely explanation for why this occurred?

A project manager presented premier performance certificates to project team members who delivered above and beyond their required activities at each project milestone. This is an example of:

The team for your project is using agile for the first time. They have asked you to attend their early meetings and give them feedback. In their retrospective, they discuss the fact that they didn’t complete all their planned work in the last two-week iteration. They all favour extending their next iteration to three weeks to complete the unfinished work. Then they ask for your input. What should you say?

A project is considered closed when the:

The financial systems project has a relatively high profile in the organization and has received great support from the sponsor. There are over 230 activities on the project, and a few have remained relatively large due to the nature of the work to be accomplished. One of these larger activities has an estimate to complete (ETC) that is longer than planned. If the project manager wants to look at non-value-added activities that might be causing the delay, the manager should:

The purpose of status meetings is to:

The project manager is working on a high-profile project where completing the project within budget is critical. The project manager is new, but well-trained, and is excited to see that the project is spending less than budgeted. As a result, the project manager was planning to take a holiday when a more senior project manager warned him that he has some important work to do on the project. Why would the senior project manager give such a warning on this project?

A medical device company has been very successful despite high costs for new product development. Production costs have also been higher than estimated, and there have been many meetings where conflicting opinions have been raised. The results of inspection have shown a high defect rate on this product, and the production team has blamed the design of the product. The product design team has blamed the production team for not controlling the process. One of the ideas was to analyze production data and track the process to see if the process issues were responsible for the defective product. What technique would be the best one to use?

While observing the daily standup meeting of your agile development team, you realize that one of the developers is confused about a business rule for the solution they are building. As the project manager, how should you address this?

As an experienced project manager, you are aware of the extensive amount of information that must be acquired, analyzed, and shared on a project. This information includes management plans, schedules, budgets, team member evaluations, and progress reports. A challenge for most project managers is to oversee this process, ensuring that the correct information is directed toward the right people, in the right format, and at the appropriate time. The process that links people and information is called:

A team member is violating a health compliance requirement in the team room. How should the project manager handle this violation?

A project has several teams. Team C has repeatedly missed deadlines in the past. This has caused team D to have to crash the critical path several times. As the team leader for team D, you should meet with:

The main focuses of managing a project include identifying requirements, establishing clear and achievable objectives, and:

The director of marketing is a key stakeholder on the agile project you are managing. One morning she comes to see you and says, “I just saw the backlog, and we have a problem! We need to move story 7.3 to the top of the backlog right away—that feature is critical for marketing our device to health insurers.” How should you respond?

The project was going well until the director of marketing discovered two of her staff members were working on different versions of the sampling plan, a product of your project. Which of the following best describes what needs the attention of the project manager on this project?

The engineering resource group has a policy of no salary bonuses for project work. The project manager’s current project has an aggressive schedule and a difficult technical obstacle to overcome. A new product offering is dependent on this project’s success in the current schedule. The project manager has heard grumbling from his team members about the fact that they cannot be rewarded for their effort. What is the first thing the project manager should do?

The organization wants to expand its pet care line. Research and development has developed a new concept, and marketing advises that all efforts should be made to create and release this product as soon as possible. A business case has been created and accepted, and you have been named project manager for this effort. You are determining how you will proceed. All the following should be determined before project planning except:

During project planning, the team identified a risk that details may be missed in the specifications for a customized part critical to the functionality of the final product. Using a scale of one to ten, they rated the probability a six, and impact was rated an eight. The risk has occurred, and one of the parts shipped by the international supplier does not work, even though the part meets requirements. Work on this activity needs more time and cannot continue until the corrected part is received. The project manager determines there is enough reserve to accommodate the change. Who needs to approve the change?

Buyers and sellers have many common goals, but some goals of the buyer will not benefit the seller. Likewise, the seller will sometimes have goals that conflict with those of the buyer. These could negatively affect the project if contracts are not negotiated appropriately. The primary objective of contract negotiations is to:

During project executing, a new project manager is assigned to a project and finds the activity cost estimates for the project have rarely been accurate. Which of the following was most likely not done?

Your company in the financial services industry has decided to introduce mortgage origination as one of its services. The newly hired Mortgage Services VP has advertised this new service on radio and TV, in print and online. Together with her staff, she has selected and procured a software package to support the new service. She feels confident that she will be ready in two weeks for the launch of the service. She hires you as the project manager to ensure the implementation of the package goes smoothly. While assessing the project, you uncover several serious problems: not all relevant processes and procedures were followed and the package your client selected and procured is not in conformance with the architectural standards of the company, the existing infrastructure of the mortgage department is not robust enough to support the package, and the new VP has totally bypassed the procurement department. You estimate your team will need 10 to 12 weeks to order the appropriate hardware, implement the new infrastructure, and implement the software, in addition to navigating some politics with the procurement department. Your company cannot delay the launching of this service, as it will result in “reputation damage” to the organization. What is the best thing to do?

After much negotiation with stakeholders, you have drafted a project scope statement. Your subject matter experts have identified risks as they outlined deliverables and the needed work to complete them. Your next major deliverable is a project schedule. Because of the strict time constraints imposed on the project by the sponsor, you want to consider all relevant information when creating the schedule. All of the following are inputs to the Develop Schedule process except:

What is the most correct statement about conflict?

A project manager is having problems with how two parts fit together on the new computer and with the software uploads to the system. To plan a strategy for resolving these problems, it is best to determine if the problems are:

While completing work, a project team member tells you that a work package has been forgotten in the WBS. What is the best thing to do?

Which motivational theory is based on ideas about hygiene factors?

What does “resource leveling” mean in project management?

The project you are managing is making good progress, but you realize that the product increments delivered in each iteration are increasingly deviating from the original vision set during upfront planning. What should you do?

As project manager, you are managing multiple teams, but you make sure to attend every iteration planning session and iteration review. As a project progresses, you are speaking less often during the planning sessions. Why?

Early in the life of your project, you are having a discussion with the sponsor about what estimating techniques should be used. You want a form of expert judgment, but the sponsor argues for analogous estimating. It would be best to:

After a great deal of effort, the project team has finally determined the specifications for a major scope change to the project. In light of this, what should the project manager do first?

A software development team has released the highest priority features of a new product. As the lower priority features are being added, testers have been discovering defects in the previously completed code. The project manager is trying to determine the source of this increase in defects. What is most likely to have gone wrong?

During the identification of risks on your project, you have determined there is a very high probability of conflict among the team during project executing over one aspect of the final design of the project. Which of the following is an example of mitigating the impact of the risk to the project?

You signed an agreement with your client that the integration plan and other documents they provided would remain confidential. You needed these documents to complete the project. Another company contacts you because you’re an expert in the field. They ask you for samples of integration plans, which they want to include in a book they are writing. They promise you a “thank you” fee of 300 British pounds, but they need the information today. What should you do?

A governance expectation, a customer request, and a technological advance are examples of:

After a pandemic hits, the company must ensure that projects are conducted following new safety measures. A team has been working in a team room but now must work from home. What should the project manager replan?

You have always been asked by your management to cut your project cost estimates by 10 percent after you submitted them. The scope of your new project is unclear, and there are over 30 stakeholders. Management expects a 25 percent reduction in downtime as a result of the project. Which of the following is the best course of action in this situation?

Procurement closure is different from the Close Project or Phase process in that procurement closure:

People associated with the organization in which you are working have been complaining about the lack of information regarding upcoming changes and want to get information now. Some of them feel what they have heard about your project means they will lose their job or be forced to find a different position within the company. Luckily for you, the SPI is at 1.08 and the CPI is at .99, so you feel confident of success. What is the best way to deal with this situation?

A project has suffered many delays and the project manager has moved resources around, spent more time with risk management, and even fast tracked the project where possible. The project must be completed by its originally agreed-upon date, as resources are needed for another project at that time. The project manager is about to meet with the customer to tell them the product scope needs to be cut when you stop him. What would you advise him to do?

You are managing a project with 12 team members planned to take a total of 14 months. The sponsor has informed you that the team for your project will be cut. The sponsor wants to know how long the project will take if only nine team members each month are committed to your project. You will need to iterate some project planning to report back to the sponsor as quickly as possible. What is this activity called?

All of the following are inputs to the quality process except:

Which of the following is generally the most correct use of a project network diagram?

You have finished the Plan Risk Responses process for a highway safety project that includes incorporating an accident reduction site area into a busy local highway. You are left with residual risks. You will soon attend a project status meeting that includes several city officials. What should you do with the residual risks?

The project to develop and manufacture a new kitchen gadget has been ongoing for several months. Currently, the CPI is 0.75 and the SPI is 0.81. These numbers reflect the numerous issues the project has faced in creating a new gadget that will be useful and easy to use. The marketing department is still strongly supporting the project. However, market research indicates if costs are not contained, the end product will be considered too expensive by potential purchasers. To reduce costs, your team has opted to eliminate a digital instruction guide application that was planned as part of the project. You have decided to terminate a contract to develop the application. What is the best way to communicate this to the seller?

During the construction of a large manufacturing facility, the expected delivery of a very critical piece of manufacturing equipment purchased by the buyer, to be installed by the project’s general contractor, is delayed by six weeks. The original estimated delivery date for this equipment was provided to all the general contractors that submitted proposals as part of the bid documents. The sellers were specifically instructed to depend on this delivery date during the preparation of their proposals. How should the buyer’s project manager deal with the general contractor?

The project manager has a team scattered across four countries. The team members are experts in their fields and a few are certified project managers. To deal with the distance, the project manager creates ground rules with the team, and has virtual meetings to deal with cultural differences. Which of the following additional activities would have the greatest impact on the project?

Your team is analyzing the project and comes up with the information in the chart. Which activities are on the critical path?

The project is completed and the final deliverable has been sent to the customer, but the customer refuses to give final acceptance of the project. It is most important for the project manager to:

Your project is approximately 66 percent complete and has progressed according to plan. There are nine teams working on implementation and testing activities. You receive notification, after the fact, that a manager has pulled two teams off the project to do non project work. Part of the project is falling behind relative to the others. The most likely reason for this is:

What is present value (PV)?

Which of the following statements represents a fixed price incentive fee (FPIF) contract?

After experimenting with the agile approach, your organization has committed to it and is now assembling a full-time development team whose first assignment will be your next project. Internal and external job postings have generated a large volume of applications for positions on the team. An HR specialist is asking you what to look for in filtering the applications. What should you tell him?

A seller is working on a cost-reimbursable (CR) contract when the buyer decides he would like to expand the scope of services and change to a fixed-price (FP) contract. All of the following are the seller’s options except:

Which motivational theory espouses the idea that all workers fit into one of two groups?

A large, one-year telecommunications project is about halfway done when you take the place of the previous project manager. The project involves three different sellers and a project team of 30 people. You are concerned about how to engage the sellers. You are wondering what the specifics are for the best technology to be used to engage the sellers. Where will you find this information?

Who of the following would be least likely to be involved in the Define Activities process?

There are always more project ideas submitted to an organization than can be selected and executed, based on limited resources organizations have available to put into projects. Which factor would not be considered when an organization is choosing between two projects to undertake?

A sprint review has just been completed for your agile project. You are talking to the product owner and want to confirm that the team is delivering business value. What should you ask her?

Standard deviation is a measure of how:

You are evaluating a change to the project and trying to decide whether to lease or buy an item for the project. The daily lease cost is US $240. The cost of purchasing the item is US $6,800 investment cost and US $70 daily cost. How long will it take the lease cost to equal the purchase cost?

Which motivational theorist says that working conditions, salary, and relationships at work do not improve motivation?

A product development team has had to rework several features based on feedback from the product owner in the product demo meeting. In the most recent demo, the product owner asked for changes again. The team complains to the project manager that the product owner is being too picky since the increment passed all tests. What should the project manager do?

You notice that your agile team’s work in progress has been steadily increasing, but they don’t seem very concerned about it. In the team’s next retrospective, you want to explain why this is an issue and encourage a discussion of possible solutions. What should you tell them?

When a product or service completely meets a customer’s requirements:

During project executing of an SAP implementation project, the forecasted remaining hours exceed planned remaining hours. Consequently, the project takes on a negative variance. The project manager has been asked to explain what has occurred and what will be done to change the situation. Which calculation is the project manager likely to use as a measurement tool to validate this information?

A seller is awarded a contract to build a pipeline. The contract terms and conditions require a work plan to be issued for the buyer’s approval prior to commencing work, but the seller fails to provide one. Which of the following is the best thing for the buyer’s project manager to do?

You have been working on a nine-month project for six months. The project is ahead of schedule when one of the functional managers tells you the resources committed to the project are no longer available. After checking further, you discover the company has just started another project and is using the resources committed to your project. You believe the new project is not critical, but the project manager is the son of a board member. What is the best course of action in this situation?

The project has been going well, except for the number of changes being made. The product of the project is being installed into seven different departments within the company and will greatly improve departmental performance when operational. The team has selected the appropriate processes for use on the project. The project manager is a technical expert and has been trained in communications and managing people. Which of the following is the most likely cause of the project changes?

A project manager is staying in touch with the work of project team members, manages conflicts, and requests changes to the project management plan. What process is she involved in?

You are a new project manager and have been assigned a next-generation small submarine project. The sub will assist in oceanographic studies. Your organization has created several variations of a similar sub, so you have many organizational process assets to review. The organization has not used a work breakdown structure in the past. You know the basic guidelines for creating a WBS and hope that using one will decrease some of the problems that have occurred on similar projects. The main problems on past projects were missed deliverables and scope creep (workers completed work that was unnecessary). Your goal is to make certain that all deliverables are represented on the WBS, and that if a deliverable is not included in the WBS, it is not produced by the project. Which of the following is a basic rule or guideline for creating a work breakdown structure?

Which of the following is an advantage of centralized contracting?

If a data point falls outside the upper control limit of a control chart, the process is said to be:

On your upcoming project, a new application will be built that includes a new database. The team uses the XP (Extreme Programming) approach, including the XP core practices such as pair programming, whole teams, and collective code ownership. As the project manager, what do you need to do?

You’ve been assigned to a software development project to create new functionality for your company, a financial institution. Execution of this project will be done using a new software development methodology, new documentation techniques, and new tools. This approach is a test run for the organization, and if it’s successful, it will be implemented on other projects. You and everyone involved are inexperienced with the methodology, techniques, and tools. In light of this new approach, what’s the best thing to do?

The team has worked diligently to identify a large number of risks on a pharmaceutical development project. At this time, the risk register includes risks related to government regulations, risks involved in production and testing, and risks of introducing a new product to the already flooded market, as well as many other areas of potential risk. Before proceeding with the project, these risks must be assessed, and risk response plans must be developed for the highest-ranking risks. All the following are factors in the assessment of project risk except:

Your customer has asked for a 2,000-call capacity for the new call center project. However, one of your company’s technical experts believes a 3,000-call capacity can be reached. Another thinks that based on the technical needs of the customer, the capacity needs to be only 1,500 calls. What is the best thing to do?

The project manager is reviewing the resource management plan and activity resource estimates for the amphitheater construction project, and planning negotiation activities he will perform to acquire the needed resources. He is not concerned about where the building materials will come from because:

A project team member has just completed work on the microprocessor for the new human system performance monitor and is now finished with the project. The project manager should:

Which of the following is not a measure that determines if a business practice used by another country is an unfair business practice?

The project status report is an example of which form of communication?

Your manager has asked you for a cost baseline for the project, but it is early in the project management process and there is very little project information. In this circumstance, what is the best way to estimate this project?

You are embarking on a new technology upgrade project that is considered key to future growth of the business. Because of the critical nature of the project, you recognize the importance of performing thorough risk management, and you want to make sure you have considered all relevant project information before beginning. All the following are always inputs to the risk management process except:

Which of the following is a characteristic of project management processes?

New government reporting regulations will become effective in 7 months. The project manager’s analysis of the available data isn’t able to predict the volume of reports that the new rules might generate, and a few key stakeholders feel that the impact of the regulation will be minor. Several solution ideas have been suggested. What direction should the project manager take?

Your organization is having difficulty managing all of its projects. You have been asked to help senior management get a better understanding of the problems. What do you do first?

You are managing procurement for a project to create a scientific and medical research site, and you have arranged a bidder conference with the potential sellers. You are not yet certain that the solution as defined is 100 percent accurate, nor are you sure that it is complete. All of the following are appropriate for a bidder conference except:

The most common causes of conflict on a project are schedules, project priorities, and:

Feedback from subject matter experts on the first iteration of a new website was not entirely positive. The consensus was that the website is not visually appealing, and not all content is presented in a clear and concise manner. So, the team of seven added a graphic designer and an editor to their group. How many communication channels are there now?

The development team for your new project is relatively new; the team members haven’t worked together before. In the last iteration, they weren’t able to complete all the planned work. They are discouraged by this failure, after doing really well in the two previous iterations. During the retrospective some of them begin to blame each other for the failure. As the project manager, what should you avoid saying?

As project manager, you notice that over the last month, your Kanban team’s work in progress has been steadily increasing. What should you do?

You are in the middle of leading a major modification project for an existing manufactured product when you learn that the resources promised at the beginning of the project are not available. According to your plans, these resources will be needed soon, and their unavailability will affect your timeline and possibly other aspects of the project. What is the best thing to do?

You are going to be finalizing a time-phased spending plan for the project. You will need several things before you can start the process. All of the following are inputs to the process except:

You are managing a project that has run into performance issues in its first months of executing. You have taken corrective action, the issues are resolved, and your project’s performance is once again on track. You are now preparing to report this to the project sponsor so that she can examine project performance over time. Which type of report will you use?

The project manager of a highly visible project is new to project management. He has carefully followed the steps to create a project management plan. During a status meeting, two of the team members argue over what needs to happen next. Whose responsibility is it to correct the problem?

Your company is purchasing the services of a consultant. You are uniquely trained to evaluate the qualifications of potential consultants, and it would take a great deal of time and effort to bring another team member up to speed on key factors in the evaluation process. You own stock in one of the consulting companies interested in the work. What should you do?

The project management team has completed their make-or-buy analysis and has decided it would be best to buy the equipment needed for the new voice-activated control system. The scope could not be defined well enough for a fixed-price contract, but the team had specific quality metrics that were key to the success of the project. Because of this, the team decided to issue an RFP rather than request quotes. All the work to be done was included in the RFP, and it was sent to companies on the prequalified seller list by the procurement department. Only two of the four companies who received the RFP filed questions as part of a question-and-answer period held at the bidder conference. Based on this, what is the most important thing the project manager should make sure is in the final contract?

In two of the recent demo meetings for your project, the team’s work wasn’t accepted by the product owner. As a result, they had to stop their progress to rework those increments. What should you do about this?

As the manager of an agile project, how do you expect the people on your team to handle any problems they encounter?

You visit the team room for your project and find two of the developers in a heated argument with the scrum master about the best way to code the interface they are building. As the project manager, what should you do to help resolve this?

The members of your agile development team have different opinions about how to build the next product increment. How could you help them resolve this debate and move forward?

Management wants to be sure the project is following defined quality standards. Which of the following should they look at?

Which of the following is included in a project charter?

The project is not going well, due to poor performance of a seller. That seller has withdrawn from your project. A new seller has been selected, and their labor forces are arriving at the job site tomorrow. What is the least effective thing to do?

The ongoing definition of a project as more information becomes available to the team is called:

The project manager is expecting a deliverable to be submitted by email from a team member today. At the end of the day, the project manager contacts the team member to notify him that it has not been received. The team member apologizes and explains that he was not able to email the deliverable, and it was sent through the mail instead. The team member goes on to remind the project manager that he had informed the project manager, during a phone conversation that this would occur. “Was that the conversation we had when I told you I could not hear you well due to poor cell phone coverage?” asks the project manager. “Yes,” replies the team member. What could have been done to avoid this problem?

Although your company is not the lowest bidder for a project, the client has come to expect good performance from your company and wants to award the contract to you. To be awarded the contract, the client asks you to eliminate your project management costs. The client says your company has good project processes, and project controls unnecessarily inflate your costs. What should you do under these circumstances?

A project manager discovers a defect in a deliverable that is due to the customer under contract today. The project manager knows the customer does not have the technical understanding to notice the defect. The deliverable meets the contract requirements, but it does not meet the project manager’s quality standard. What should the project manager do in this situation?

A project manager has a project team consisting of people in four countries. The project is very important to the company, and the project manager is concerned about its success. The length of the project schedule is acceptable. What type of communication should he use?

You have been appointed manager of a project to convert multiple electronic mail systems at a major financial institution to a single platform. Your company’s approach was not the client’s first choice, and your firm was able to offer the lowest cost alternative by using funds provided to your company for a different purpose. After the project is underway, the client specifies a new approach that has never been used before. When the project is approaching the originally scheduled end date, it becomes clear that the technological approach will have to be significantly altered. Although the client has been apprised of developments throughout the project through regular status reports, and the project management plan has been followed, the client demands the project be continued without any increase in cost until all of their requirements are met. Your firm feels that it has no choice but to comply with the client’s demands, although this will result in a substantial loss on the project. What is the most important thing that should have been done to avoid this situation?

After the kickoff meeting, two team members engage in a casual conversation about the project objectives and deliverables. It is clear they heard different messages during the meeting. One team member is so adamant that the other team member gives up arguing the point. In talking to the project manager, the second team member confirms that the first team member is mistaken. At this point, what is the best course of action?

An organization is moving toward a change-driven development, consisting of teams led by an agile coach. This approach is new to the organization, and the project manager’s role with these new teams hasn’t been clearly defined. One project manager decides to attend her team’s user story writing workshops. Why does she think these sessions are a good use of her limited time?

In response to an identified risk, the project manager meets with the team and management to develop a strategy. After discussions, they decide it would be best to make sure the risk definitely happens. This is an example of which risk response strategy?

At the end of a two-year project, the key stakeholders agree that the project has met all the objectives outlined in the project charter and further defined in the project scope statement. The project was within budget and finished on time. The management of one of the functional areas is quite upset because over half of his staff quit during the project, citing long hours and lack of management support. What is the most correct statement about this project?

The project manager is in the process of staffing the project. Available resources are as follows: Juan always works overtime. Sharon works very hard. Monique meets the project requirements. Louis is very enthusiastic about the project and will work overtime if necessary. Who is the most appropriate resource for this project?

A project manager says to a team member, “If you cannot complete this activity according to the quality standards you set in place, I will remove you from the team that is going to Venezuela for the milestone party with the customer.” What form of power is the project manager using?

You are a project manager for one of many projects in a large and important program. At a high-level status meeting, you note that another project manager has reported her project on schedule. Looking back on your project over the last few weeks, you remember many deliverables from the other project that arrived late. What should you do?

You are in the process of planning a very complex project with the help of your project management team. The project is very large and, at the moment, you have identified well over 300 resources on your project. In order to review them, you ask to be provided with:

An agile project manager is assigned to a new project while still managing two other projects. The existing project teams are in the performing stage of development with stable velocities. How should the project manager spend her next few weeks?

You are the seller’s project manager. You discover you are performing work requested by the customer but not included in the contract. During previous meetings, the customer already spoke of being upset about the cost of several items she claims your company left out of the contract. No one in your company wants to discuss the change with the customer for fear of losing the contract. What is the best long-term course of action for the company?

Your company has just presented its new five-year strategic plan. You have received a new product request from a customer that is in line with the previous five-year strategic plan, but it does not meet the objectives of the new plan. The product description seems to have a valid business driver and to be a straightforward development effort. As project manager, what is the best course of action?

For which of the following actions could a project manager incur a fine and be jailed?

A company asks a project manager to lead a project to create a substantially improved version of one of the company’s best-selling products. The project manager is given total freedom of decision and resources, including whether to utilize contractor services and/or the company’s resource pool. Under these circumstances, which of the following would be the best way for the project manager to build the team?

You have just been assigned to manage a project in the middle of project executing. You have reviewed the project management documents, and everything seems to be in order. You have no reason to believe the project is in trouble in any way, but some team members have expressed their concerns. They explained that issues have occurred with stakeholders in management failing to sign off on deliverables when they reach acceptance criteria. What is the best way to deal with this situation?

Procurement closure is similar to Close Project or Phase in that they both involve:

You have a US $100,000,000 project that has 34 team members in four different countries. At the completion of project planning, you have identified six risks, 2,256 work packages, 1,300 stakeholders and seven phases to the project life cycle. What part of this project management plan needs to be revisited?

Your next project will require significant business process and procedure changes that will impact many stakeholders. Each business transaction involves large financial commitments that require several levels of approval, granted in a specific order, along with detailed information that must be passed from one office to another, like an assembly line. You are evaluating the different agile methodologies to see which one could best help you address this challenge. Which one should you choose?

Near the end of your last project, additional requirements were demanded by a group of stakeholders when they learned they would be affected by your project. This became a problem because you had not included the time or cost for these requirements in the project management plan. Some of the new requirements conflicted with those submitted by the project sponsor, and some conflicted with those of other key stakeholders. What is the best thing you can do to prevent such a problem on future projects?

Who is ultimately responsible for quality management on the project?

You are in the last phase of a project. Soon the product deliverables will be fully integrated and delivered to the customer. To date, you have had no difficulty with customer acceptance of deliverables, but now the customer is not happy with a particular project deliverable. You know that small changes may be easily accommodated, but large changes may affect your project’s timeline as well as affecting other constraints. What is your best course of action?

A team member is visiting the manufacturing plant of one of the suppliers. Which of the following is the most important thing to be done in any telephone calls the project manager might make to the team member?

You are working on a large construction project that is progressing within the baselines. Resource usage has remained steady, and your manager has just awarded you a prize for your performance. One of your team members returns from a meeting with the customer and tells you that the customer is not happy with the project’s progress. What is the first thing you should do?

A large, complex construction project in a foreign country requires the movement of heavy equipment through crowded city streets. The officials in the city know that you have a large, complicated project and that staying on schedule and within budget is important to your company. You have coordinated moving equipment in other countries for other projects without problems. To ensure the equipment is transported successfully, your contact in the country informs you that you will have to pay the local police a fee for coordinating traffic. What should you do?

The project has been extremely successful, and you attribute that success to your focus on keeping the lines of communication open and providing all relevant information to those who require it. Among other communications, you have recently issued a progress report, a variance report, and a forecast report predicting future performance results. The level of detail of performance reports is described in the:

A project manager new to project management is taking on a new project. When is the best time to encourage the people working on the project to improve their communication and professionalism as a team?

You are planning a project. The functional managers will not commit any particular people to your project because it will not begin for a few months. It will be difficult for you to estimate the duration of the work without knowing who will be assigned to the team, and what their exact skill levels are. All of the following methods could be used to handle this situation except:

Which of the following best describes a risk owner?

You are a project manager for large electrical system implementation. One of your key people has started to miss deadlines and work quality is beginning to suffer as well. This person has participated in project planning, fine-tuning the activity estimating, and developing the reward system for the project. You are confident this person is well aware of the work deadlines and required quality specifications. What action should you take?

Your company is in the consumer-packaged goods industry. This is a highly regulated industry, and the regulations can vary between countries and even geographic regions within each country. You have created a new product and sent the first shipment to a customer in a region you have never worked in before. The shipment is stopped in customs, due to the product not meeting the standards of that country. According to the company policy, samples should be taken from each shipment and stored for six months. The company looked for samples from the shipped product, and were not able to locate any. Which quality technique could have caught this issue?

You have been trying to use a servant leadership approach in managing your first agile project, but work on the first release is going slower than planned. What should you do?

A project manager has held a video conference with some of the project team about a technical problem on the project. Various solutions were proposed and discussed, and a few were saved for later analysis. As a result, the issue is better understood and its description has been updated in the issue log. The project schedule has not been changed. During a follow-up meeting to make a final decision, a team member notifies the project manager that another team member expressed concern that he was not included in the meetings. Another team member mentions that he remembers seeing a letter from one of the potential sellers during the bidder conference that may shed some light on how to solve the issue. The team tries to find the letter but no one remembers which seller sent it and they cannot find it in their own email archives. Which of the following would it be best for the project manager to do?

Management tells a project manager to subcontract part of the project to a company that management has worked with many times. Although they use tough negotiators, this company has consistently delivered on their commitments on time and within the agreed-upon cost. Under these circumstances, the project manager should be most concerned about:

During a voice conference, one team member suggests that a more experienced person be used on the project. Another proposes using a person with more training. Which of the following best describes what is being done?

The elicitation and documentation of requirements from all stakeholder groups results in business requirements, quality requirements, stakeholder requirements, and technical requirements. Technical requirements include:

Which of the following is the most appropriate thing to do in the executing process group?

When is it most important that integration is performed?

Which of the following is the most important consideration when tailoring the schedule to meet the needs of the project?

You are managing a new oil purification project in a foreign country. A person informs you that you will have to pay him a “transfer fee” for the permit to move heavy equipment through the city. What is the first thing you should do?

The code development phase of a software project is nearly complete when the first code review is conducted. During the review, it is discovered that the application is missing functionality required to complete a key business process. However, the product scope never specified this functionality. What should the project manager do?

The agile team on the project you are managing has been using XP practices for a few months now, but so far they are still struggling to get used to the new approach. Now a team member has proposed to you that the daily standup meetings should be discontinued because people are just too busy to attend a daily meeting. What do you say?