PMP Assessment

A Project can be Characterized as?

• Definite start and end

• Always on-going

• Never has a scope

• Dies not require any project manager

A manager and the head of engineering discuss a change to a major work package. After the meeting, the manager contacts you and tells you to complete the paperwork to make the change. This is an example of:

• Management attention to scope management.

• Management planning.

• A project expediter position.

• A change control system.

Answer explanation

In this situation, project manager acts as the secretary of the project and does the paper work. So this is an example of project expediter position where project manager does not have any authority and power. Project manager does only paper work.

During a team meeting, a team member asks about the measurements that will be used on the project to judge performance. The team member feels that some of the measures related to activities assigned him are not valid measurements. The project is BEST considered in what part of the project management process?

• Initiating

• Executing

• Monitoring & Controlling

• Closing

Answer explanation

Executing. Questions states that team member feels some of the measures on his activities are not valid. Therefore, he must be working during the executing phase of the project where project deliverables are produced and project members perform most of the work they should do.

Your company just won a major new project. It will begin in three months and is valued at 2m USD. You are the project manager for an existing project. What is the FIRST thing you should do once you hear of the new project?

• Ask management how the new project will use resources

• Resource level your project

• Crash your project

• Ask management how the new project will affect your project

Answer explanation

Ask management how the new project will affect your project. Since this is another project that your company is going to execute, you need to be sure whether it will impact your project.

You are a new project manager who has never managed a project before. It would be BEST in this situation to rely on _____ during planning in order to improve your chance of success.

• Your intuition and training

• Stakeholder analysis

• Historical information

• Configuration management

Answer explanation

Historical information. First thing to explore before starting a new project is the historical information about similar projects in the organizational process assets library of the organization.

During project executing, a team member comes to the project manager because he is not sure of what work he needs to accomplish on the project. Which of the following documents contain detailed descriptions of work packages?

• WBS Dictionary

• Activity List

• Project scope statement

• Scope management plan

Answer explanation

WBS Dictionary. Work packages in a Work Breakdown Structure contain only nouns or a couple of words regarding a work or deliverable. Detailed information on what needs to be done, responsible, prerequisites, successors, due date etc. are included in the Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary.

During a meeting with some of the project stakeholders, the project manager is asked to add work to the project scope. The project manager had access to correspondence about the project before the project charter was signed and remembers that the project sponsor specifically denied funding for the scope mentioned by these stakeholders. The BEST thing for the project manager to do is to:

• Let the sponsor know of the stakeholders’ request.

• Evaluate the impact of adding the scope.

• Tell the stakeholders the scope cannot be added.

• Add the work if there is time available in the project

Answer explanation

Tell the stakeholders the scope cannot be added. After the scope of a project is finalized and the scope baseline is determined, it can be changed only with the approved changed requests. If there is not an approved change request, the existing scope baseline must be valid and the project team must work on delivering that scope only. In the scenario, the scope is defined already but some stakeholders ask to add new work to the scope. This cannot be done unless there is an approved change request. Therefore, stakeholders must be informed that this new work cannot be added.

Your project management plan results in a project schedule that is too long If the project network diagram cannot change but you have extra personnel resources, what is the BEST thing to do?

• Fast track the project.

• Level the resources.

• Crash the project.

• Monte Carlo analysis.

Answer explanation

crash the project. Because, in the first sentence, it is mentioned that the schedule is too long, therefore the aim is to make a shorter schedule. And in the second sentence, it is mentioned that you have extra personnel resources. If you have resources, you can put more resources into an activity to complete it in a shorter time. And this is actually a description of crashing an activity or crashing the project. If you look at the other options, fast-tracking was performing activities in parallel instead of series, therefore it is irrelevant. Leveling the resources was for fixing the over-allocation of resources and distributing the tasks to all your resources uniformly. And Monte Carlo analysis was another estimating tool which is an irrelevant choice as well. Therefore, here the best answer is C.

An activity has an early start (ES) of day 3, a late start (LS) of day 13, an early finish (EF) of day 9, and a late finish (LF) of day 19. The activity:

• Is on the critical path.

• Has a lag.

• Is progressing well.

• Is not on the critical path.

Answer explanation

is not on the critical path. Because if you look to the early start and late start values of the activity, you can find the float or the slack of activity’s time by subtracting early start, 3 days, from the late start, 13 days. And it gives 10 days of float for this activity. You will find the same result if you go through subtracting the early finish, 9 days, from the late finish, 19 days. Since the float of the activity or the slack of the activity is greater than zero, it’s not on the critical path. Remember the critical path activities was having zero floats, therefore the answer is D.

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:

• Agree to analogous estimating, as it is a form of expert judgment

• Suggest life cycle costing

• Determine why the sponsor wants such an accurate estimate

• Try to convince the sponsor to allow expert judgment because it is typically more accurate.

Answer explanation

Agree to analogous estimating, as it is a form of expert judgment. Since analogous estimating is a type of expert judgment you can accept it. This is a tricky question.