2023S Review Questions 4

The project manager arranges a meeting to ensure that stakeholders understand that the project's expected business value aligns with the organization's strategy. What key areas should be reviewed in a project kick-off meeting?

• Cost, schedule, risks, and WBS
• Goals, objectives, benefits, and risks
• Benefits, effort, and resources
• Schedule, benefits, and WBS

Answer explanation

To understand how the project aligns with the organization's strategy, the stakeholder needs to evaluate the goals, objectives, benefits and risk to see how they compare to the organizations goals and risk tolerance. The cost, schedule, risks and WBS provides details on the project activities, but not the detail to compare to the overall strategy. Likewise, the benefits, effort and resources, or schedule, benefits, and WBS would not provide enough detail to compare to the strategy.

The project manager has documented a new risk and its impact. If not resolved immediately, the risk will jeopardize the success of the project .The resources necessary to address the risk are working on another critical project. What should the project manager do?

• Negotiate a solution with the functional manager and project sponsor
• Outsource the resources necessary to address the risk
• Modify the project schedule based on the highest three-point estimate of the impact
• Meet with the project sponsor to request more resources and a delay in the schedule

Answer explanation

The question notes the necessary resources are working on another project, indicating that it is a shared resource in either a functional or matrix type organization where the functional manager is the person who is able to reschedule, reassign or replace resources. Negotiate a solution with the functional manager and project sponsor would be the case in this type of organization structure. Outsource the resource necessary to address the risk may be a potential outcome, however not until the discussion is held with the functional manager and project sponsor. Modify the project schedule has no relevance to the question and the issue at hand. Meet with project sponsor to request additional resources and schedule delay, may be a potential outcome, however not until the discussion is held with the functional manager and project sponsor.

A project manager joins the planning phase of a global project that has a fixed budget and a tight deadline. The project manager needs to prevent any scope creep to ensure that the product is delivered on time and meets requirements. What should the project manager do?

• Define a scope baseline and route any changes through a formal approval process.
• Review the business case to understand the economic feasibility of the project scope.
• Manage any changes to the scope progressively and approve changes for each deliverable as they are developed.
• Create a communications management plan that prevents stakeholders from interacting directly with the project team.

Answer explanation

Scope creep can be avoided or minimized by defining a specific scope baseline and adhering to the agreed upon change control process.

A team is working on a project using a hybrid approach, and they are facing a lot of obstacles and blockers from some stakeholders. What should the project manager do to improve project performance?

• Add blockers to the issue log and risk management plan.
• Ask stakeholders to communicate with the project manager and not directly with the team.
• Empower the team members to remove obstacles and blockers.
• Address and remove obstacles and blockers for the team.

Answer explanation

As per the new ECO task 1.7: Address and remove impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team. This also falls into the servant leadership role a PM needs to have in Agile and hybrid environments. As a top priority, the need for the Project Manager is to remove the obstacles and blockers. The other answer choices are incorrect. Documentation is not a priority in Agile hybrid environments, hence adding blockers to the issue log and creating risk management plan can be done as a secondary step and hence is not the correct answer. The scenario described in the question does not indicate that the stakeholders are communicating with the team directly, hence this choice is not the correct answer. 

A new sponsor is assigned to a project. The project manager has discovered there is incorrect information in the project charter. What should the project manager do?

• Call a project team meeting to rectify the problem.
• Review the business case documents for the project.
• Request sponsor approval of a corrected project charter.
• Submit a change request form to change the original project charter.

Answer explanation

Sponsor approval is required for changes to the charter, since the sponsor is responsible for the overall intent of the project. A team meeting and/or review of the business case may be required to develop input, but the sponsor has final approval. Changes should be managed by the project manager, but a change request is insufficient in this case as the sponsor has final approval.

An engineering company is implementing a project to produce a product similar to a previous product. Details of the component work packages have been defined and constraints for each component have been identified. Management would like to obtain the most precise estimate possible for the duration of the project. Which estimating technique should the project manager use?

• Analogous
• Three-point
• Bottom-up
• Reserve analysis

Answer explanation

Bottom-up is correct because it is a method of estimating project duration or cost by aggregating the estimates of the lower level components of the WBS and precision level is higher. Analogous is not correct because it is a technique for estimating the duration or cost of an activity or a project using historical data from a similar activity or project. Three-point is not correct because duration estimates based on three points with an assumed distribution provide an expected duration and clarify the range of uncertainty around the expected duration. Reserve analysis is not correct because it covers Contingency and Management reserves. Contingency reserves are associated with the “known-unknowns,” which may be estimated to account for this unknown amount of rework. Management reserves are a specified amount of the project duration withheld for management control purposes and are reserved for unforeseen work that is within scope of the project.

A project team member successfully completed all the tasks for which the team member was responsible. Now the functional manager asks the project manager to assign the team member to a similar project. What should the project manager do?

• Ask the functional manager for a checklist of tasks to be performed on the new project.
• Ask the team member to train a replacement for the original project.
• Identify a different team member that the functional manager should assign to the other project.
• Direct the team member to update the lessons learned register.

Answer explanation

The project manager needs to capture any lessons learned from the resource while the information is fresh and to allow for any learned improvements to be implemented earlier. Tasks for the new project are not the current PM's concern. Training the replacement may be needed, but is not the primary issue or the best answer. Selecting a different person to fill the need is neither the PM's choice nor the most important aspect of the situation.

A new project manager is assigned to replace a project manager who has resigned. During the initial assessment of project documentation, the new project manager discovers that the risk register has not been updated for several weeks. Why should the project manager's next step be to consult the risk management plan?

• To determine how often risks have emerged in the past.
• To understand how the previous manager prioritized risks.
• To learn how often the risk register must be updated.
• To ascertain the level of uncertainty acceptable for the project.

Answer explanation

The risk management plan would outline the process, including frequency for review & updating of the risk register. The project manager must first determine what the agreed upon process is for handling risks. The other answer choices are incorrect. Determine how often risks have emerged in the past relates to the prioritization of the risk however the question relates to the agreed upon process is for handling risks. Learning how often the risk register must be updated speaks to the level of uncertainty which may be good to know but the question was about the process to update the risk register. The level of uncertainty acceptable for the project may be found in the Risk Register, not in the Risk Management Plan. The Risk Management Plan will define the process.

A deliverable for a technology project requires the customer's end users to upgrade the security on their computers. Not all the end users have completed the upgrade, which is a threat to successful project completion. What should the project manager do?

• Escalate the issue to the appropriate stakeholders for them to address the risk.
• Perform a qualitative risk analysis to assess the impact of the delay on the project.
• Meet with the all users to explain the importance of upgrade.
• Submit a change request to extend the project schedule until all end user computers are upgraded.

Answer explanation

Since the customer is a key stakeholder, the project manager should engage with them to address this risk. The other answer choices are incorrect. Perform a qualitative risk analysis to assess the impact of the delay on the project is incorrect as the impact is already outlined in question. Meet with all the users is incorrect as the impact needs not to be explained to all users. Submit a change request to extend the project schedule until all end user computers are upgraded is incorrect as it would be last resort to do so.

An organization hires a project manager experienced with hybrid to improve the organization’s efficiency in delivering projects. The organization currently follows the waterfall approach, completing a task before conducting any quality analysis. How should the project manager begin improving the organization’s processes?

• Maintain processes on active projects, implementing agile approaches in new projects.
• Task one of the team members to manage quality analysis in the current projects.
• Work with the project management office (PMO) to develop process improvements for all active and future projects.
• Work with the project team members to learn the various interdependencies and why the current processes are in place.

Answer explanation

The project manager should work with the project team members to learn the various interdependencies and rationale why the current processes are in place before proposing more efficient processes. In an hybrid approach, understanding the context and addressing problems together with the team members will help solve problems efficiently. The other answer choices are incorrect. Maintaining the current process as it is not going to improve the efficiency in delivering the projects. Requesting one team member to manage quality analysis alone will not improve the efficiency in delivering the projects. in some cases it will affect the project schedule also. Working with PMO team can bring some efficiency in the current process. First the current process should be documented along with various interdependencies and rationale and then the waste should be identified before proposing any new efficient process.