PMP Full Mock - CS 2

Your organization has a standing ethics review committee, and you are a member of this committee. A complaint has been filed against a project manager for allegedly violating a number of company policies. If the allegations are proved, she would be terminated for cause. During the investigation, her boss has been uncooperative. He asked the committee investigators to not to contact his employee directly and has tried to slow down the process of investigation. What should you do?

• Check into the nature of relationship between the project manager and her boss
• Refer the issue to the appropriate management
• Conduct a more detailed investigation
• Call the project manager for an interview

Answer explanation

Escalate the issue to the appropriate management. PMI requires project managers to report known instances of wrong doing to the appropriate management. However, the actions that are taken by the organization investigating the complaint must be in line with that organization's own policies. Only the management of the organization can interpret or apply those rules. [PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct] (Domain: Business Environment, Task 1)

When reviewing quarterly expenses for your project with the finance department, it becomes clear there is a discrepancy between the projected, budgeted, and actual costs incurred for equipment procured from a specific vendor. This cost variance puts the project over budget by 2 percent, inclusive of reserves. After reviewing and comparing the quotes with the invoices, it is discovered that the quotes were issued in Canadian dollars while the invoices were issued in US dollars. Which of the following is the best option?

• Do not notify project stakeholders and crash the project scope and schedule
• Notify the project stakeholders of the situation immediately and take responsibility for the error
• Dispute the charges with the vendor
• Renegotiate the contract

Answer explanation

Notify project stakeholders immediately and accept responsibility for the error. PMI's code of ethics requires project managers to provide accurate and timely project information—including bad news—and to take full responsibility for all errors and omissions. Whenever there is an impact to cost, scope, or schedule, the project manager must notify the project stakeholders; once they have been notified, analysis of options to deal with the impact can be undertaken. [PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct] (Domain: Business Environment, Task 1)

Team Building Activities should take place throughout the project lifecycle but will have greater benefit when conducted:

• In the middle of the project lifecycle
• Early in the project lifecycle
• At the end of the project lifecycle
• On a need basis

Answer explanation

Team Building Activities should take place throughout the project life cycle, but have greater benefit when conducted early in the project life cycle. [PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, Page 166] (Domain: People, Task 6)

The Budget at Completion (BAC) for a project is $50,000. The Actual Costs (AC) to date are $10,000. The Earned Value (EV) is $7,000. At this stage, the project management team did a manual bottom-up summation of costs and forecast an Estimate to Complete (ETC) of $50,000. What is the Estimate at Completion (EAC) for the project?

• 60000
• 57000
• 40000
• 53000

Answer explanation

When a bottom-up manual forecasting has been done for the ETC, the calculation for EAC is EAC = AC + bottom-up ETC. Hence, EAC = 10,000 + 50,000 = $60,000. Note that the BAC is no longer viable at this stage. [PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, Page 100-105] (Domain: Process, Task 5)

You have recently taken over a project that has been struggling to keep key project stakeholders engaged since inception. The project requires developing an ERP system for your organization and the project currently is in the design phase. A number of stakeholders are complaining that the current design doesn’t match their stated requirements. Which of the following tools will help you trace the design to the requirements?

• Design traceability matrix
• Project scope statement
• Product traceability matrix
• Requirements traceability matrix

Answer explanation

The requirements traceability matrix provides a structure to trace requirements to product design. [PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, Page 189] (Domain: Process, Task 8)

Your project team has recently completed the 3rd iteration on the project. So far 45 story points have been successfully delivered to the customer. For this project, the iteration size is fixed at three weeks. The team (six team members) is dedicated to working five days per week. Looking at the backlog, you have 150 story points remaining to be delivered. What is the project’s cycle time?

• 15
• 1
• 30
• 10

Answer explanation

Cycle time = number of days per delivered story. Since the team has successfully delivered 45 stories in 3 iterations, the velocity is 15 stories per iteration. Each iteration is 3 weeks; the team delivers on average five stories per week or one story per day (team works five days per week). [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 61] (Domain: Process, Task 6)

Many environments with emerging requirements find that there is often a gap between the real business requirements and the business requirements that were originally stated. How do Agile method identify the right business requirements?

• Through user story size limits.
• Through work breakdown structure management.
• Through prototypes and feedback.
• Through Kanban boards and throughput.

Answer explanation

Agile methods purposefully build and review prototypes and release versions in order to refine business requirements. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 91] (Domain: Process, Task 8)

You are leading a robotic process automation project for a manufacturing facility. During the first product testing session, the project team finds out that a component in the product is not responding to commands as documented in the specifications causing integration testing to fail. This has caused a major embarrassment for the project team in front of the customer. What should you do to resolve this defect?

• Conduct a root cause analysis; issue a change request if any baseline needs to be changed; and fix the issue.
• Conduct a root cause analysis; identify and fix the issue.
• Update the product specifications to align with the component design.
• Accept the issue and add it to the end of the project backlog.

Answer explanation

If the product doesn’t meet the specifications, it needs to be rejected and fixed. However, if this requires any of the project baselines to change, a change request needs to be issued before making the updates to the baselines. [PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, Page 77] (Domain: Process, Task 10)

An Agile team has collaborated with the product owner to define and prioritize user stories. However, prior to starting work on the high priority stories, what would the team still need?

• Visual controls.
• Kanban board.
• Duration estimate for all stories.
• Definition of ready for all stories.

Answer explanation

The Definition of Ready (DoR) is a team’s checklist for a user-centric requirement that has all the information the team needs to be able to begin working. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 151] (Domain: Process, Task 8)

A good project manager always gathers and documents lessons learned throughout the project lifecycle rather than delaying the effort until the project closure. Which of the following is not a risk associated with postponing the lessons-learned gathering effort until the very end of the project?

• Not all lessons learned might get captured.
• The project manager has fewer resources available.
• The project’s earned value decreases.
• The effort might seem boring and non-value-adding.

Answer explanation

The risk of delaying the lessons learned gathering exercise till the very end of the project is that the gathered information might not be complete because the project manager will not have the whole team available rather than those working on the closing phase. Further, this exercise might seem boring and bureaucratic effort. [PMBOK® Guide 7th edition, Page 100-105] (Domain: Process, Task 5)