1. Effective project integration usually requires an emphasis on:
A. The personal careers of the team members.
B. Timely updates to the project management plan.
C. Effective communication at key interface points.
D. Product control.
2. The need for ______ is one of the major driving forces for communication in a project.
A. Optimization
B. Integrity
C. Integration
D. Differentiation
3. Which of the following describes the BEST use of historical records from previous projects?
A. Estimating, life cycle costing, and project planning
B. Risk management, estimating, and creating lessons learned
C. Project planning, estimating, and creating a status report
D. Estimating, risk management, and project planning
4. When it comes to changes, the project managers attention is BEST focused on:
A. Making changes.
B. Tracking and recording changes.
C. Informing the sponsor of changes.
D. Preventing unnecessary changes.
5. A project manager has managed four projects for the company and is being considered to join the project management office team. The following is discovered during the evaluation of his performance. The project managers first project had an ending cost variance of-500, used two critical resources, needed to rework the project charter during project executing, and was ranked 14th in priority within the company. The second project finished with a schedule variance of+100, was completed with a vastly compressed schedule, and received a letter of recommendation from the sponsor, but the product of the project was not used. The third project had 23 percent more changes than expected, had an SPI of 0.90, and 25 open items in the issue log when the project was completed.
Each of these projects had a cost budget of $10,000 and 20 to 28 percent more changes than others of its size. The project management office decided not to add this project manager to the team. Which of the following BEST describes why this might have happened?
A. The project manager has only managed low-priority projects, and he had to compress the schedule, showing that he does not have the skill to work in the project management office.
B. Issue logs should not be used on projects of this size, showing that the project manager does not have the knowledge to work in the project management office.
C. The project manager did not effectively involve the stakeholders, showing that he does not have the knowledge to work in the project management office.
D. The project manager had two critical resources on his team and still needed to rework the project charter, showing that he does not have the discipline to work in the project management office.
6. All of the following are parts of an effective change management plan EXCEPT:
A. Procedures.
B. Standards for reports.
C. Meetings.
D. Lessons learned.
7. A work authorization system can be used to:
A. Manage who does each activity.
B. Manage when and in what sequence work is done.
C. Manage when each activity is done.
D. Manage who does each activity and when it is done.
8. A project is plagued by changes to the project charter. Who has the primary responsibility to decide if these changes are necessary?
A. The project manager
B. The project team
C. The sponsor
D. The stakeholders
9. Integration is done by the:
A. Project manager.
B. Team.
C. Sponsor.
D. Stakeholders.
10. Which of the following BEST describes the project manager’s role as an integrator?
A. Help team members become familiar with the project.
B. Put all the pieces of a project into a cohesive whole.
C. Put all the pieces of a project into a program.
D. Get all team members together into a cohesive whole.
11. Approved corrective actions are an input to which of the following processes?
A. Verify Scope
B. Direct and Manage Project Execution
C. Develop Project Charter
D. Develop Schedule
12. Double declining balance is a form of:
A. Decelerated depreciation.
B. Straight line depreciation.
C. Accelerated depreciation.
D. Life cycle costing.
13. You are a new project manager who has never managed a project before. You have been asked to plan a new project. It would be BEST in this situation to rely on during planning in order to improve your chance of success.
A. Your intuition and training
B. Stakeholder analysis
C. Historical information
D. Configuration management
14. Which of the following BEST describes a project management plan?
A. A printout from project management software
B. A bar chart
C. Risk, staffing, process improvement, and other management plans
D. The project scope
15. Which of the following is TRUE about the development of a project charter?
A. The sponsor creates the project charter, and the project manager approves it.
B. The project team creates the project charter, and the PMO approves it.
C. The executive manager creates the project charter, and the functional manager approves it.
D. The project manager creates the project charter, and the sponsor approves it.
16. A project management plan should be realistic in order to be used to manage the project. Which of the following is the BEST method to achieve a realistic project management plan?
A. The sponsor creates the project management plan based on input from the project manager.
B. The functional manager creates the project management plan based on input from the project manager.
C. The project manager creates the project management plan based on input from senior management.
D. The project manager creates the project management plan based on input from the team.
17. You are taking over a project during project planning and discover that six individuals have signed the project charter. Which of the following should MOST concern you?
A. Who will be a member of the change control board
B. Spending more time on configuration management
C. Getting a single project sponsor
D. Determining the reporting structure
18. The project charter for a project was approved for planning and you have just been assigned as project manager. Realizing that project planning is an ongoing effort throughout the project, which processes are you MOST likely to combine?
A. Create WBS and Define Activities
B. Estimate Activity Durations and Develop Schedule
C. Develop Human Resource Plan and Estimate Costs
D. Estimate Costs and Determine Budget
19. All of the following are parts of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process EXCEPT:
A. Identifying changes.
B. Using a work breakdown structure.
C. Implementing corrective actions.
D. Setting up a project control system.
20. A project manager is appointed to head a highly technical project in an area with which this person has limited familiarity. The project manager delegates the processes of Develop Schedule, Estimate Costs, Define Activities, and Estimate Activity Resources to various project team members, and basically serves as an occasional referee and coordinator of activities. The results of this approach are likely to be:
A. A team functioning throughout the project at a very high level, demonstrating creativity and commitment.
B. A team that initially experiences some amounts of confusion, but that after a period of time becomes a cohesive and effective unit.
C. A team that is not highly productive, but that stays together because of the work environment created by the project manager.
D. A team that is characterized by poor performance, low morale, high levels of conflict, and high turnover.
21. You are in the middle of executing a major modification to an existing product when you learn that the resources promised at the beginning of the project are not available. The BEST thing to do is to:
A. Show how the resources were originally promised to your project.
B. Replan the project without the resources.
C. Explain the impact if the promised resources are not made available.
D. Crash the project.
22. You have been assigned to manage the development of an organizations first Web site. The site will be highly complex and interactive, and neither your project team nor the client has much experience with Web site development.
The timeline is extremely aggressive. Any delay will be costly for both your firm and the client. You have a project sponsor and have achieved agreement and sign-off on both the project charter and the project management plan. Client personnel have been kept fully informed of the project’s progress through status reports and regular meetings. The project is on schedule and within budget, and a final perfunctory review has been scheduled.
Suddenly you hear that the entire effort may be cancelled because the product developed is totally unacceptable. What is the MOST likely cause of this situation?
A. A key stakeholder was not adequately involved in the project.
B. The project charter and project management plan were not thoroughly explained or adequately reviewed by the client.
C. Communications arrangements were inadequate and did not provide the required information to interested parties.
D. The project sponsor failed to provide adequate support for the project.
23. The project manager has just received a change from the customer that does not affect the project schedule and is easy to complete. What should the project manager do FIRST?
A. Make the change happen as soon as possible.
B. Contact the project sponsor for permission.
C. Go to the change control board.
D. Evaluate the impacts on other project constraints.
24. Your company just won a major new project. It will begin in three months and is valued at US $2,000,000. You are the project manager for an existing project. What is the FIRST thing you should do once you hear of the new project?
A. Ask management how the new project will use resources.
B. Resource level your project.
C. Crash your project.
D. Ask management how the new project will affect your project.
25. You are a project manager who was just assigned to take over a project from another project manager who is leaving the company. The previous project manager tells you that the project is on schedule, but only because he has constantly pushed the team to perform. What is the FIRST thing you should do as the new project manager?
A. Check risk status.
B. Check cost performance.
C. Determine a management strategy.
D. Tell the team your objectives.
26. You are assigned as the project manager in the middle of the project. The project is within the baselines, but the customer is not happy with the performance of the project. What is the FIRST thing you should do?
A. Discuss it with the project team.
B. Recalculate baselines.
C. Renegotiate the contract.
D. Meet with the customer.
27. It is the middle of the project when the project manager is informed by her scheduler that the project control limits are secure. That same morning she receives a note from a team member about a problem he is having. The note says, “This activity is driving me crazy, and the manager of the accounting department won’t help me until the activity’s float is in jeopardy.” In addition, the project manager has e-mails from a minor stakeholder and 14 e-mails from team members. While she is reading the e-mails, a team member walks into the project manager’s office to tell her a corrective action was implemented by a team member from the project management office, but was not documented. What should the project manager do NEXT?
A. Report the documentation violation to the project management office, evaluate the security of the control limits, and review the e-mailing rules in the communications management plan.
B. Clarify the reasoning behind documentation being a problem, get the accounting department to assist the team member, and respond to the minor stakeholder.
C. Add the implemented corrective action to the historical records, discuss the value of documentation at the next team meeting, and smooth the team member with the accounting department problem.
D. Find out who caused the problem with the accounting department, respond to the minor stakeholder before responding to the other e-mails, and review the process listed in the communications management plan for reporting concerns with the team member having the documentation problem.
28. The client demands changes to the product specification that will add only two weeks to the critical path. Which of the following is the BEST thing for the project manager to do?
A. Compress the schedule to recover the two weeks.
B. Cut scope to recover the two weeks.
C. Consult with the sponsor about options.
D. Advise the client of the impact of the change.
29. During project executing, the project manager determines that a change is needed to material purchased for the project. The project manager calls a meeting of the team to plan how to make the change. This is an example of:
A. Management by objectives.
B. Lack of a change management plan.
C. Good team relations.
D. Lack of a clear work breakdown structure.
30. The project was going well when all of a sudden there were changes to the project coming from multiple stakeholders. After all the changes were determined, the project manager spent time with all the stakeholders to find out why there were changes and to discover any more.
The project work has quieted down when a team member casually mentions to the project manager that he added functionality to a product of the project. “Do not worry,” he says, “I did not impact time, cost, or quality!” What should the project manager do FIRST?
A. Ask the team member how the need for the functionality was determined.
B. Hold a meeting to review the team member’s completed work.
C. Look for other added functionality.
D. Ask the team member how he knows there is no time, cost, or quality impact.
31. You are asked to prepare a budget for completing a project that was started last year and then shelved for six months. All the following would be included in the project budget EXCEPT:
A. Fixed costs.
B. Sunk costs.
C. Direct costs.
D. Variable costs.
32. Which of the following sequences represents straight line depreciation?
A. $100, $100, $100
B. $100, $120, $140
C. $100, $120, $160
D. $160, $140, $120
33. This project is chartered to determine new ways to extend the product life of one of the company’s medium-producing products. The project manager comes from the engineering department, and the team comes from the product management and marketing departments.
The project scope statement and project planning are completed when a stakeholder notifies the team that there is a better way to complete one of the work packages. The stakeholder supplies a technical review letter from his department proving that the new way to complete the work package will actually be faster than the old way.
The project manager has had similar experiences with this department on other projects, and was expecting this to happen on this project. What is the FIRST thing the project manager should do?
A. Contact the department and complain again about their missing the deadline for submission of scope.
B. Look for how this change will impact the cost to complete the work package and the quality of the product of the work package.
C. See if there is a way to change from a matrix organization to a functional organization so as to eliminate all the interference from other departments.
D. Ask the department if they have any other changes.
34. Project A has an internal rate of return (IRR) of 21 percent. Project B has an IRR of 7 percent. Project C has an IRR of 31 percent. Project D has an IRR of 19 percent. Which of these would be the BEST project?
A. Project A
B. Project B
C. Project C
D. Project D
35. An output of the Close Project or Phase process is the creation of:
A. Project archives.
B. A project charter.
C. A project management plan.
D. A risk management plan.
36. All of the following occur during the Close Project or Phase process EXCEPT:
A. Creating lessons learned.
B. Formal acceptance.
C. Performance reporting.
D. Performing cost benefit analysis.
37. Which of the following is included in a project charter?
A. A risk management strategy
B. Work package estimates
C. Detailed resource estimates
D. The business case for the project
38. A project manager is trying to convince management to use more formal project management procedures and has decided to start improving the company’s project management by obtaining a project charter for each of his projects. Which of the following BEST describes why a project charter would help the project manager?
A. It describes the details of what needs to be done.
B. It lists the names of all team members.
C. It gives the project manager authority.
D. It describes the project’s history.
39. Linear programming is an example of what type of project selection criteria?
A. Constrained optimization
B. Comparative approach
C. Benefit measurement
D. Impact analysis
40. You have created the project charter, but could not get it approved. Your manager and his boss have asked that the project begin immediately. Which of the following is the BEST thing to do?
A. Set up an integrated change control process.
B. Show your manager the impact of proceeding without approval.
C. Focus on completing projects that have signed project charters.
D. Start work on only the critical path activities.
41. The engineering department has uncovered a problem with the cost accounting system and has asked the systems department to analyze what is wrong and fix the problem. You are a project manager working with the cost accounting programs on another project. Management has issued a change request to the change control board to add the new work to your project.
Your existing project has a cost performance index (CPI) of 1.2 and a schedule performance index (SPI) of 1.3, so you have some room to add work without delaying your existing project or going over budget. However, you cannot see how the new work fits within the project charter for your existing project. After some analysis, you determine that the new work and existing work do not overlap and can be done concurrently. They also require different skill sets. Which of the following is the BEST thing to do?
A. Develop a project charter.
B. Reestimate the project schedule with input from the engineering department.
C. Verify the scope of the new work with the help of the stakeholders.
D. Identify specific changes to the existing work.
42. All technical work is completed on the project. Which of the following remains to be done?
A. Verify Scope
B. Plan Risk Responses
C. Create a staffing management plan
D. Complete lessons learned
43. Your company can accept one of three possible projects. Project A has a net present value (NPV) of US $30,000 and will take six years to complete. Project B has an NPV of US $60,000 and will take three years to complete. Project C has an NPV of US $90,000 and will take four years to complete. Based on this information, which project should the company choose?
A. They all have the same value.
B. Project A
C. Project B
D. Project C
1. Answer C
ExplanationThis question is asking for the most important of the choices. Think about what is involved in integration: project management plan development, project management plan execution, and integrated change control. Updates and product control are parts of project monitoring and controlling, while integration includes more than control. Advancing the careers of team members falls under project executing (the Develop Project Team process). In order to integrate the project components into a cohesive whole, communication is key whenever one activity will interface with another or one team member will interface with another, and when any other form of interfacing will occur.
2. Answer C
ExplanationThe project manager is an integrator. This is a question about your role as an integrator and communicator.
3. Answer D
ExplanationHistorical records are not generally used for life cycle costing, lessons learned, or creating status reports. They are useful in estimating, risk management, and overall project planning.
4. Answer D
ExplanationProject managers should be proactive. The only proactive answer here is preventing unnecessary changes.
5. Answer C
ExplanationThis is a very confusing question. Did you notice all the distracters that may or may not be relevant? Most project schedules are compressed by the project manager during project planning, so that is not a logical reason and cannot be the best choice. Issue logs can be used on smaller projects, which means the project managers use of issue logs is not the best choice. The number of critical (or hard-to-get) resources noted has no bearing on the need to rework the project charter. Therefore, that cannot be the best choice. Take another look at the second and third projects. In the second project, the product of the project was not used. This implies many things, including the possibilities that either the project manager did not identify the requirements of all the stakeholders or that the business need for the project changed dramatically and the project manager did not notice. This indicates a major flaw in the project managers abilities. In the third project, there were 25 concerns of the stakeholders that were not addressed before the project was completed. Again, this shows a major lack of project management knowledge. The needs of the stakeholders and not just the sponsor must be taken into account on all projects. This makes the project managers failure to effectively involve the stakeholders the best choice.
6. Answer D
ExplanationA change management plan includes the processes and procedures that allow smooth evaluation and tracking of changes. Lessons learned are reviews of the processes and procedures after the fact, to improve them on future projects.
7. Answer B
ExplanationWho does each activity is managed with the responsibility assignment matrix. When each activity is done is managed with the project schedule. A work authorization system is used to coordinate when and in what order the work is performed so that work and people may properly interface with other work and other people.
8. Answer C
ExplanationThe sponsor issues the project charter and so he or she should help the project manager control changes to the charter. The primary responsibility lies with the sponsor.
9. Answer A
ExplanationIntegration is a key responsibility of the project manager.
10. Answer B
ExplanationIntegration refers to combining activities, not team members.
11. Answer B
ExplanationDirect and Manage Project Execution is the only correct response.
12. Answer C
ExplanationDouble declining balance is a form of depreciation. That eliminates the choice of life cycle costing. The choices of decelerated depreciation and straight line depreciation are also incorrect because double declining balance is a form of accelerated depreciation.
13. Answer C
ExplanationBecause you have no experience, you will have to look at the experience of others. This information is captured in the historical records from previous projects.
14. Answer C
ExplanationThe project management plan contains more than just a bar chart and the project manager’s plan for completing the work. It includes all the management plans for the project.
15. Answer D
ExplanationThe project manager creates the project charter, but it is approved and authorized by the project sponsor, giving the project manager authority to proceed with the project.
16. AnswerD
ExplanationIf we were to rephrase the question, it is asking, “Who creates the project management plan?” The best answer is that the project management plan is created by the project manager but requires input from the team.
17. AnswerB
ExplanationDetermining who will be on the change control board and determining the reporting structure may have already been done. In any case, these choices are not directly impacted by the number of sponsors who have signed the charter. Having a single project sponsor is not necessary. This situation implies that there are six areas concerned with this project. In addition to added communications requirements, you should be concerned with competing needs and requirements impacting your efforts on configuration management.
18. AnswerA
ExplanationThe Create WBS process consists of subdividing major project deliverables (scope) into smaller, more manageable work packages. The Define Activities process defines the activities that must take place to produce those deliverables. Therefore, it would be the most practical choice to combine those processes.
19. AnswerD
ExplanationA WBS is created in project planning, but can be used to help manage the project during project executing. The wording here was not “creating a WBS,” but “using a WBS.” A project control system is set up during project planning, not during project executing, and therefore is the exception.
20. AnswerD
ExplanationA project manager must manage a project. If all activities are delegated, chaos ensues and team members will spend more time jockeying for position than completing activities.
21. AnswerC
ExplanationCrashing and replanning are essentially delaying the situation. Instead, the project manager should try to prevent the situation by showing the consequences if the resources are not available. This is a more effective strategy than saying, “But you gave them to me.”
22. AnswerA
ExplanationA single high-level executive can end an entire project if he or she is not satisfied with the results, even if that person has, by choice, been only tangentially involved in the project.
It is critical to ensure that all of the final decision makers have been identified early in a project in order to ensure that their concerns are addressed.
23. AnswerD
ExplanationThe other impacts to the project should be evaluated first. Such impacts include scope, cost, quality, risk, resources, and customer satisfaction. Once these are evaluated, the change control board, if one exists, can approve or deny the change.
24. AnswerD
ExplanationYou do not have enough information to consider resource leveling or crashing this project. As you work on any project, you need to constantly reevaluate the project objectives and how the project relates to other concurrent projects. Is your project still in line with corporate objectives? If the other project will impact yours, you need to be proactive and work on options now.
25. AnswerC
ExplanationBefore you can do anything else, you have to know what YOU are going to do. Developing the management strategy will provide the framework for all the rest of the choices presented and the other activities that need to be done.
26. AnswerD
ExplanationFirst, you need to find out why the customer is not happy. Then meet with the team and determine options.
27. AnswerC
ExplanationNotice how many situations are thrown at you in this question. It is important to practice reading through questions to discover what is important and what is just background information. In this question, the only thing relevant was the corrective action taken. Once you discover what the primary issue is, look at the choices to find out which is best for addressing that issue. What is the primary issue here? Did you realize the team member s note is about a noncritical path activity? (“Until the project float is in jeopardy” means there is float and, thus, it is not on the critical path.) So is the issue the noncritical path activity or the documentation? You might disagree with the logic, but in this case the answer is the documentation. In the real world, problems often repeat. Without a record of what was done, there is no opportunity to consider the same solution for future problems. Documentation is critical to projects. Because documentation becomes part of the historical records database, it is best to first record the corrective action taken, then discuss the value of documentation at the next team meeting, and smooth the team member with the accounting department problem.
28. AnswerC
ExplanationDo you remember what to do when there is a change? Evaluate first. You wouldn’t take action before getting approval, so compressing the schedule or cutting scope would happen after consulting the sponsor and/or advising the client of the impact of the change. You would not go to the customer before going to your internal management, so advising the client is not the correct thing to do next. The next step is to discuss options with the sponsor.
29. AnswerB
ExplanationThe project manager is asking how to make a change. Such a question cannot be resolved using management by objectives, team relations, or a work breakdown structure. The procedures, forms, sign-offs, and other similar requirements for handling changes should have already been determined in the change management plan. Because they were not, the project manager will waste valuable work time trying to figure it out after the fact.
30. AnswerD
ExplanationNotice that the first paragraph is extraneous. Also notice that the question states that the change has already been made. The project manager’s actions would be different if the change had not been made. It is the project manager’s job to investigate impacts, as the project manager is the only one who can tell how a change impacts the project as a whole. Asking the team member how he knows there is no impact on time, cost, or quality is the best answer. This begins the project manager’s analysis of the impacts to the project as a whole by finding out what analysis has already been done. He can then determine how he must finalize the analysis as it applies to the entire project.
31. AnswerB
ExplanationSunk costs are expended costs. The rule is that they should not be considered when deciding whether to continue with a troubled project.
32. AnswerA
ExplanationStraight line depreciation uses the same amount each time period.
33. AnswerB
ExplanationComplaining about the missed deadline could be done, but it is not proactive. It would be helpful to get to the root cause of why this department always comes up with such ideas or changes after the project begins. However, this is not the immediate problem; the change is the immediate problem, and therefore complaining is not best. The type of project organization described is a matrix organization. There is not anything inherently wrong with such an organization, nor is there anything in this particular situation that would require it to be changed, so changing way the company is organized cannot be best. The department’s history indicates that asking if the department has other changes is something that should definitely be done, but the proposed change needs more immediate attention. Looking at impacts of the change begins integrated change control.
34. AnswerC
ExplanationRemember, the internal rate of return is similar to the interest rate you get from the bank. The higher the rate, the better the return.
35. AnswerA
ExplanationThe project charter is created in initiating. The project management plan and risk management plans are outputs of project planning. Project records are archived in the Close Project or Phase process.
36. AnswerD
ExplanationCost benefit analysis is done earlier in the project to help select between alternatives. All the other choices are done during the Close Project or Phase process. Therefore, performing cost benefit analysis must be the best answer.
37. AnswerD
ExplanationA risk management strategy and work package estimates are not created until project planning, but the project charter is created in initiating. A project charter may include the names of some resources (the project manager, for example), but not detailed resource estimates. Of the choices given, only the business case for the project is included in the project charter.
38. AnswerC
ExplanationThe exam will ask questions like this to make sure you know the benefits you should be getting out of the processes and tools of project management. The details of what needs to be done are found in the WBS dictionary. The names of team members are included in the responsibility assignment matrix and other documents. Project history is found in the lessons learned and other historical records. A major benefit of a project charter is that it documents the authority given to the project manager.
39. AnswerA
ExplanationConstrained optimization uses mathematical models. Linear programming is a mathematical model.
40. AnswerB
ExplanationThe best thing to do would be to show the impact. This is the only choice that prevents future problems—always the best choice. The other choices just pretend the problem does not exist.
41. AnswerA
ExplanationHow long did it take you to read this question? Expect long-winded questions on the exam. Take another look at the choices before you continue reading. Did you notice that each of the choices occurs during a different part of the project management process?
This question is essentially asking if the new work should be added to the existing project. There may be many business reasons to try to do this, but from a project management perspective, major additions to the project are generally discouraged. In this case, the new work is a self- contained unit of work, has no overlap with the existing work, does not fit within the project charter, and needs a different skill set. Therefore, it is best to make it a new project.
The first step to answering this question is to realize that the work should be a separate project. The second step is to look at the choices and see which relates to initiating a new project. Reestimating the project sounds like the best choice only if you did not realize that the new work should be a separate project. Verifying scope is done during project monitoring and controlling, and does not relate to the decision of whether to add work to the project. Identifying scope changes also implies that the new work has been accepted as an addition to the existing project. Developing a project charter is among the first steps of initiating a new project, and the best choice in this situation.
42. AnswerD
ExplanationDid you pick Verify Scope? Then you may have forgotten that the Verify Scope process is done during project monitoring and controlling, not project closing. Planning the risk responses and creating the staffing management plan are done earlier in the project. The lessons learned can only be completed after the work is completed. Explanation
43. AnswerD
ExplanationRemember, project length is incorporated when computing NPV, so the references to how long the projects will take is extraneous information. You would choose the project that provides the most value, in this case the project with the highest NPV.
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