Project Management Quiz - Schedule

A project manager is managing a web-based application project to automate the accounting processes of his organization. The project has an estimated budget of $120,000 and a duration of nine months. While reviewing the project, the project manager notices that activities were scheduled in sequential order, but coding work was initiated twelve days earlier than planned. What type of relationship represents the start of the coding work to the completion of the design work?

• Finish-to-start relationship with a twelve-day lag

• Finish-to-start relationship with a twelve-day lead

• Start-to-finish with a twelve-day lag

• Start-to-finish with a twelve-day lead

One of your team members is always late completing his deliverables. In order to help him out with proper planning for his activities, you'd like to explore different options with him. You asked the team member to send you information about the total float and free float for all of his activities if there is any. How does free float differ from total float?

• Total float and free float are the same thing.

• Free float affects only the early start of the successor activities.

• Total float is the accumulated amount of free float.

• Subtracting the total float from the critical path duration will give the free float.

Which one of the following takes the progressive elaboration approach and plans the work in the near term in detail and future work in a higher level?

• Scope definition

• Rolling wave planning

• Decomposition

• SWOT analysis

One of your team members working on the project informed you that a work package will most likely require ten weeks to complete. In the best-case scenario, if everything goes well and there are no surprises, it will take eight weeks. Since he is involved in more than two projects and has several pending deliverables, this specific work package may take eighteen weeks to complete. Based on this information, what would be the correct estimated time to complete the work package?

• Eleven weeks

• Ten weeks

• Nine weeks

• Eighteen weeks

Your project sponsor is extremely disappointed with the project as it is over budget by $20,000 and also behind schedule by several weeks. The sponsor has asked you to take care of the situation immediately. While exploring different options to shorten the project duration, you decide, with management’s approval, to perform several activities in parallel rather than in sequential order as originally planned. You know your option will possibly result in rework, increase risks, and require more communication, but you decide to go for it anyway. This is an example of which of the following?

• A. Critical chain method

• B. Crashing

• C. Resource leveling

• D. Fast-tracking

A project manager is in the Sequence Activities process of identifying and documenting relationships among defined activities and arranging them in the order they must be performed. While in this process, the project manager decided to utilize a software tool to create a Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) network diagram. This network diagram creates a schematic display of the sequential and logical relationships, dependencies, and the order in which activities in a project must be performed. The project manager also added the duration of each activity in the network diagram to calculate the critical path. Which one of the following is FALSE about the critical path?

• It is the longest duration path through a network diagram.

• It determines the shortest time to complete the project.

• The activities on the critical path represent the highest schedule risk in the project.

• The activities on the critical path represent critical functionality.

You just completed developing the schedule for your project and got the approval from stakeholders and the sponsor. One of the team members assigned to work on a critical component informs you that she needs additional time to complete her activities as several relevant pieces were missed during planning. Her updated estimate would have no impact on the critical path; thus, the project duration would be the same. The best approach the project manager may take in this situation will be:

• A. Find a replacement for the resource who can complete the task within the allocated time.

• B. Inform the resource that it is too late for any kind of change in the project schedule.

• C. Inform her that it is OK as you have sufficient schedule reserve to handle this kind of situation.

• D. Update the project schedule and other relevant plans to reflect the new estimate.

Your IT project has ten team members, and recently you have hired three more database developers. You are using a time-phased graphical display of activity start dates, end dates, and durations for tracking progress and reporting to the team. Which chart are you using?

• A. Milestone chart

• B. Work breakdown structure

• C. Network diagram

• D. Gantt chart

Your team just finished the design activities for a software development project. You have ordered a server and a couple of PCs to set up the development environment and are waiting for the vendor to deliver to you so that the team can start the development work. The vendor informs you that it will take twelve days for the equipment delivery, setup, and configuration. The twelve days waiting time can be defined as:

• Mandatory dependency

• Lag

• Lead

• Internal dependency

You recently took over a project from another project manager. While reviewing the network diagram, you find that there are four critical paths and three near-critical paths. What can you conclude about the project?

• A. The project will likely be completed on time and within budget.

• B. The project is at high risk.

• C. The project will require more people and additional budget.

• D. The project should be terminated.