You are leading a software development project for an important client. For this project, you have elected to use a change-driven life cycle. Currently, you are about to lead an iteration planning meeting with the product owner and the development team.

What should you first accomplish at the start of the iteration?

You have replaced a project manager midway through project execution. You discover that although financial project reports that include CPI and SPI are prepared weekly, the financial database repository has never been updated.

Which tailoring consideration did your predecessor most likely miss earlier in the project?

During project execution, scheduling challenges have been experienced due to inclement weather that has resulted in multiple schedule variances. The project manager has noticed that a particular vendor is very flexible in scheduling their work. The project manager has found that the flexibility to adjust leads and lags is a particularly effective method for controlling the project schedule.

What should be done with this information?

During product testing, a project team has discovered that some components did not meet government regulations established for the industry. Following the approved change request to repair the defects, the components have been fixed, and the team is ready to test the product again.

What documents should the team refer to while re-testing the product?

A project manager is having difficulty getting project team members to meet their weekly performance targets. The project manager has provided team training and team-building activities, but so far these and other efforts have been unsuccessful. The project manager would like to use a reward system to incentivize team members to meet their performance goals.

Which of the following strategies would be best?

You are leading a project to design a car with new self-driving technology. During project planning, existing government regulations regarding the new technology were virtually non-existent. You identified this ambiguity risk during project planning and developed a risk response. Now, with the car ready for production, new regulations have been enacted. The new regulations are so complicated that you have trouble understanding them and their implications for the project.

What should you do next?

A project manager is holding a meeting with relevant stakeholders to perform a benefits analysis for a project that has been selected by the company. The project is codenamed Project Tiger and has a net present value of $3,000,000. One of the meeting participants asks about Project Panther, which was estimated to have a net present value of $2,500,000. The project manager explains that Project Panther was rejected because the company did not have the resources to support both projects.

What else might the project manager state in this scenario?

A project manager is holding a meeting with relevant stakeholders to perform a benefits analysis for a project that has been selected by the company. The project is codenamed Project Tiger and has a net present value of $3,000,000. One of the meeting participants asks about Project Panther, which was estimated to have a net present value of $2,500,000. The project manager explains that Project Panther was rejected because the company did not have the resources to support both projects.

What else might the project manager state in this scenario?

A project is divided into phases. Each phase consists of tasks involving design, development, testing, and integration. You have developed a project charter, and the project sponsor has just signed and approved the charter.

The purpose of this document includes all of the following, except:

Which of the following best describes the key benefit of the Plan Stakeholder Engagement process?

The project team is reviewing the project charter and project management plan to develop a detailed description of the project and the product.

What is another document the team should review to complete their work?

As part of product testing, a team member wants to verify compliance of the product with pre-defined specifications.

What should the team member use to compare her test results?

A project to build a new high-end subdivision has been plagued with quality problems. Customers are arguing about what was actually specified to be built. The last house has been built, and the fixes to five more houses have been completed. The project manager desperately wants to close the project and move on.

What does the project manager need to review to ensure proper closure of the project?

A change control board (CCB) has been established for the project you are leading. During project execution, the client contacts you to request a change to a project deliverable which can be accommodated with existing project resources and will not increase cost.

What should you do next?

A project manager and team are in the process of finalizing all project activities. They have obtained final acceptance and transferred ownership of deliverables, obtained administrative closure, collated lessons learned, archived all project documents, and obtained feedback from relevant stakeholders. Finally, the project manager and team have been released and reassigned to other assignments.

Based on the information provided, what might have been forgotten?

You have just taken over a project, which is in the process of project closure. The project has experienced numerous setbacks, which have caused cost and schedule overruns. You want to ensure that any mistakes that were made in the project are not repeated to ensure improved performance for future projects.

What is the best course of action in this situation?

The change control board (CCB) is evaluating a recently submitted change request. The project sponsor wants to deny the request. Another stakeholder is in favor of deferring the request until a later date. The project manager and other stakeholders feel it is best to approve the request. The project manager is unsure how to proceed since there is disagreement among the stakeholders.

What should the project manager do?

A project has been broken down into four phases. The first phase is design, the second is coding, the third is testing, and the final phase is the deployment. The first two phases have already been completed. The project team has just completed all testing activities of the third phase and reports to the project manager that the deliverables have been verified. The project manager is pleased and wants to begin deployment as soon as possible.

What should the project manager do next?

You are leading a project to build a storage facility next to an estate managed by a homeowner association (HOA), who has been classified as an influential stakeholder. During project planning, the HOA has expressed their objection that the facility is an eyesore, so it has been agreed that large trees will be planted to obscure the view to the facility. The construction has begun, but some of the HOA members are still unhappy with the project.

What should you do now?

You have just taken over a project in execution from another manager. In your first week, you are unpleasantly surprised to receive emails from several stakeholders asking questions about the project objectives as well as their roles and responsibilities on the project. You are also concerned about what appears to be a lack of commitment to the project by the team.

What did the initial project manager most likely miss?

Due to a large number of team members working remotely and the time differences between them, you are having difficulty coordinating meetings with team members. This situation negatively impacts team cohesion.

Which of the following tools would be the most beneficial for you to use?

A project manager reviews surveys from participants of a recent project meeting. Based on the feedback provided, it is evident that attendees in the back of the meeting room had difficulty hearing the speakers and seeing the slide presentation. Some have suggested having the presenters use microphones as well as distributing hard copies of the presentation before the meeting, so all of the attendees can better follow along.

What should the project manager do next?

Senior management is considering a project to replace the company's inventory tracking system, and the pre-project work is underway. At this point, the project needs assessment has just been completed.

What should be done next?

A system delivered by a vendor on your project does not perform as specified. Your boss has instructed the procurement department to withhold the payment. The vendor has filed a claim for non-payment.

What should you do first?

You are working at a firm where your responsibilities include selecting the right programs or projects, prioritizing the work, and providing the needed resources. Your primary objective is to manage all of the various programs, projects, and operations together as a group to meet the firm's strategic business objectives.

Which of the following best describes the work you are performing?

You have just finalized the project management plan. It must now be reviewed and approved by the relevant stakeholders.

What is the best way to present the project management plan to have it reviewed and approved?

You are leading a large and complex project, which requires various vendors and suppliers to provide project deliverables. One of your vendors contacts you and states that they have just completed their contracted work and would like to know when they will receive final payment.

How might you respond to the vendor's question?

On a project you are managing, you have been unable to obtain landlord approvals to install cable at various retail locations. You just learned about a project undertaken by your organization in the past that faced similar issues. If you had been aware of them during project planning, you could have taken proactive steps to avoid or mitigate the problems on your project.

What might have been done differently to incorporate the knowledge gained from the previous project into your project?

During project execution, you discovered that some of the key stakeholders are not keeping up with project developments. The stakeholders indicate that most of the information on the weekly reports are irrelevant and they do not have time to read all of the content. As a result, these stakeholders have missed several key action items, thereby, putting the project behind schedule.

What is most likely the cause of this issue?

A project manager is leading a project, which has experienced greater than anticipated weather-related delays. To keep the project on schedule, the project manager will need to access the contingency reserves allocated for this risk.

What should the project manager do next?

On a project, work performance data is being regularly collected and shared with the project team.

Which of the following processes will use this data?

A project manager is near the end of a large and complex project, which required the services of several different vendors. Currently, the project manager is about to start the process of finalizing all activities for project closure.

What should the project manager do first?

You are leading a project to develop a software application. The application is being built incrementally using a scrum framework. Due to low stakeholder engagement, you submit a change request to update the stakeholder engagement plan with an invitation for key project stakeholders to participate in sprint planning and retrospectives.

What tool or technique are you planning to use?

You are about to hold a kick-off meeting to begin planning for a small project you have been assigned to manage. A stakeholder who has been out of the office for most of the project's initiation phase, asks you for more information about how the project will impact his department.

Which one of the following would be the most appropriate to provide the stakeholder?

Midway through your project, you are informed by a member of the project staff of a growing problem with two primary team members. After learning of verbal encounters and the negative effect on the team, you decide immediate action is needed. You meet privately with the two team members involved and collaboratively agree on steps to eliminate the conflict. Follow-up meetings are scheduled to discuss the ongoing progress.

Based on the information provided, which of the listed actions should you take next?

In order to procure required materials for a project, your team prepares documents that will be used to solicit information, quotations, and proposals from prospective sellers. The documents are structured to facilitate an accurate and complete response from each prospective seller and to facilitate the evaluation of the responses.

What type of documents is your team creating?

A project manager discovers that due to schedule conflicts, some key stakeholders have not been attending a weekly conference call where important decisions are made. To address the issue, the project manager proposes to establish alternative communication methods.

Which of the following will likely be updated as a result of this proposal?

Preorders for the new product you are developing have significantly exceeded expectations, and current production will not meet demand. This situation presents the company with a significant threat and opportunity. You need to take action to mitigate the negative impact of the risk and enhance the opportunity. You know this risk was captured during the Identify Risks process but are unsure of the risk owner and the agreed-upon risk response.

What should you do next?

A project manager is leading a research and development project and is currently performing the Close Project or Phase process. As part of this process, the project manager is preparing the final project report.

Which of the following is least likely to be included in the final report?

A project manager is uncertain what resources are needed to complete the project. To help with the planning process, the project manager breaks down the resources using a data representation tool that displays the physical and human resources related by category and resource type.

Which answer choice best describes the tool that the project manager is using?

A project has been initiated and is being planned. The project sponsor is anxious for the project to move into execution and suggests that the project manager not spend any more time on the development of the communications management plan.

How should the project manager respond to the sponsor to support the completion of the communications management plan?

You recently started working part-time at a small roofing company. The owner hired you to manage the roofing team's activities while he attends to other endeavors. There is no other administrative staff, and you must consult the owner regarding any important project decision, including budget allocation.

Which of the following best describes your role?

A project manager has just completed the development of the project management plan and wants to determine who is responsible for approving it.

What is the best course of action for the project manager?

As part of project closure, the project manager archives all of the project documents and materials in accordance with the company's policies and procedures.

Which of the following is the least likely reason for this activity?

One risk that had been identified and accounted for during the planning process of your construction project was delays caused by poor weather. However, the abysmal weather has exhausted the schedule reserves, and the project schedule is unattainable despite your best efforts. As a result, the project sponsor asks you to update the schedule baseline.

What should you do next?

Your project is behind schedule. To get the project back on track, you implemented the previously planned risk response of crashing the schedule. With the project back on schedule, you and your team perform a variance analysis to compare the planned risk response to the actual impact on the schedule and cost.

What have you and your team produced as the result of this analysis?

You are leading a project to manufacture a new type of electric vehicle. The lessons learned repository indicates that past projects have had issues with paint scratches after the installation of the exterior trim. The engineering department has recommended the application of a vinyl film to the painted surfaces of the cars after leaving the paint booth.

The application of the vinyl film is an example of what?

You are leading a corporate restructuring project. During a meeting intended to build support for the project among key stakeholders, a gap is uncovered with regard to conducting monthly audits for regulatory compliance. Specifically, the project management plan does not address who will be responsible for conducting this activity in the new organizational structure. Apparently, this project requirement was missed during project planning.

What should be done next to resolve this issue?

You are creating a quality management plan. Some of the requirements were derived from the standards outlined in various government regulations.

What should you do to find an overview of the tests required to verify that those requirements have been met?

You are managing a medical research project, which requires the collection and freezing of blood samples. The stability of the blood samples depends on the freezer maintaining a constant temperature. You have decided to split the samples and place them in two separate freezers in case one of the freezers fails. You have also plugged both freezers into power outlets that will be supported by an emergency generator in case of a power outage.

Which risk response strategy have you applied?

Your project has been plagued with numerous change requests.

What is the most likely reason?

For your project, you are unsure if a part can be manufactured using the new material according to the ultra-precise thickness required.

What would be the best tool to determine if the production line is consistently producing parts with the required quality standards?

A project manager wants to take advantage of the corporate project management information system (PMIS) to ensure that stakeholders can easily retrieve the non-sensitive and non-confidential information. Following the communications management plan, the project manager needs to provide the stakeholders with the opportunity to form online communities.

What is the best course of action for the project manager to achieve this goal?

You and your project team hold a meet-and-greet with the key stakeholders from a distant country to help build rapport. Feedback after the meeting indicates that your project team felt the stakeholders were distant and aloof as they kept stepping back when engaged in conversation. Whereas, some of the stakeholders thought you and the project team were too pushy and did not respect their personal space.

What could have helped you to avoid these perceptions?

Project team members develop a document that describes values that are important to the team's success such as sharing best practices, listening to each other with an open mind, and communicating respectfully during meetings.

What would be the result of the team's effort?

You are reviewing a document that describes the project vision, mission, purpose, objectives, and success criteria; high-level requirements, risks, and assumptions; the list of key stakeholders, and the name of the assigned project manager.

What else should be specified in this document?

The latest iteration in the project went far better than the first iteration. Some claim it was the increased communication. Others credit the change in the social media strategy. While others feel it was due to the inclusion of a training course.

What should the project manager do to make the next iteration even more successful?

Which of the following best describes the Manage Quality process?

As part of project initiation, the project manager reviews the business documents, creates the stakeholder register, and helps the sponsor with the development of the project charter.

What else should the project manager do before moving on to project planning?

As part of the routine activities to monitor and control the performance of your project, you determine that the project SPI is 0.8. In order to get the schedule back into alignment with the plan, you authorize the overtime pay for the project team.

Which of the following best describes the tool or technique you used to align the schedule?

A project team member has been tasked to develop the change management plan. The team member is looking for the approved template of the change management plan.

What is the best course of action for the team member?

A project manager is in the process of identifying quality requirements and reviews the lessons learned from a similar past project. The other project ran significantly over budget due to the high cost of nonconformance resulting from inadequate spending on the cost of conformance. The project manager does not want his project to suffer the same fate as the failed project.

Which data analysis technique should the project manager use in this situation?

You are planning risk management activities for a small project you are leading. The project team is having trouble assigning cost and schedule impacts to identified risks due to a lack of high-quality numeric data.

What is your best course of action?

During project planning, a risk was identified that the vendor contracted to supply materials for the project may not be able to meet the contractual requirements. The response to this risk was to contract with a secondary vendor at a higher cost, and contingency reserves were set aside for this risk. Eventually, during project execution, the risk was realized, and the secondary vendor has been contracted to provide the remainder of the needed material.

What should the project manager do first?

To hire independent contractors for the project team, the project manager follows the resource management plan and advertises the opportunity on social media. The response is overwhelming. After narrowing down the list of applicants to those qualified for the project work, the project manager has a much larger than anticipated candidate pool.

What should the project manager do next?

To create a schedule model for project execution and monitoring and controlling, you analyze activity sequences, durations, resource requirements, and schedule constraints.

What would be the most likely outcome of the process you are performing?

You have started gathering documents you need to implement a planned response to a realized risk. You need a document that will provide summary information on identified risks, as well as an assessment of the current project risk exposure.

What is the input document you need?

During an initial project planning meeting, the project team decides to save a portion of cost estimates in the work package to offset the potential risk of advances in technology, which would make their current equipment obsolete.

What is the best course of action for the project manager?

The stakeholder engagement plan has just been approved.

Which of the following is least likely to trigger an update to this plan?

While creating the project charter, you review the business case and learn that, unlike previous projects, this project will source non-sustainable wood for the product, which substantially reduces project cost. Your company has had some financial difficulties lately, but you know it has high environmental standards and always marketed and prided itself on producing goods that are 'green'.

What is your best course of action?

A project to renovate a city park affects the residents of the neighboring condominium complex. A website is being used to keep the residents informed of the progress of the renovation.

Which communication method is being used in this scenario to share information with the residents?

A project manager is executing the quality management plan of a project to develop a prototype medical device. Given the nature of the project, the quality standards are very stringent. With no known cause, it becomes apparent that the product quality does not meet project requirements.

What is the best course of action for the project manager to take in this situation?

A project is underway to construct a wind farm in an area with no communication infrastructure. The plan is to monitor progress and coordinate the scheduling of the project activities using project management software and provide daily status updates to the project sponsor at the home office. Two project teams will work and reside onsite in rotating seven-day tours.

Which of the following is the most likely challenge the teams will face while controlling the schedule?

After the project charter has been completed and approved, the project manager immediately begins the process of developing the project management plan.

What might the project manager have forgotten to create?

A project manager is leading a project to restore numerous historical artifacts, which were damaged in a fire at a museum. Due to the value of some of the art, security will be paramount for this project. The project manager needs to increase the engagement level of key stakeholders and plans to bring the stakeholders onsite to review the progress.

Before bringing the stakeholders onsite, what should the project manager do first?

You are the project manager who is in the process of preparing the project planning documents. As you gather data, you want to be as thorough as possible given the vast scope of the project. Therefore, you want to use a standardized list of items to be considered during this process.

What should you do to find this information?

You are taking over a wastewater treatment project from an experienced colleague who is retiring. During the handoff, the retiring project manager suggests that ten large valves required for the project be ordered immediately since they are long lead items from the vendor. This information is recorded in the project assumption log. A delay in the valves delivery could delay the project. The valves are very costly, and you are not sure about spending so much money this so early in the project which is still in planning.

What is the best course of action?

During the development of the stakeholder engagement plan, the project manager realizes that a key stakeholder is resistant to the project. Without the support of this stakeholder, the project may fail.

What is the best course of action for the project manager to identify the reason for the stakeholder being resistant?

Early in project planning, your team identified increases in the cost of raw materials as a project risk. Due to a recent natural disaster, raw material costs are expected to quadruple. You had originally set aside a contingency reserve to account for some cost variance. However, after analyzing current prices, you are uncertain if that contingency reserve will be sufficient.

What technique should you use to evaluate this uncertainty?

You have been hired by a start-up company that is about to undertake its first software development project. You are in the process to determine what resources will be required to carry out the project work.

What tools or techniques would be most useful for you to complete this process?

You are leading a project to develop a more energy efficient commercial refrigeration system. During testing of the prototype, a defective component is discovered within the compressor.

With the approval obtained to repair the defective part, what should be done next?

A project to construct a new cruise ship is in the execution stage when a small crack is discovered in the mount of the engine. The decision is made to apply stop-drilling and then weld the crack. After the welding is complete, the part is inspected, painted, and returned to service.

Which of the following best describes the action taken in this scenario?

A buyer has subcontracted a critical component of their product and wants to ensure strict oversight over its development and manufacturing. To address this need, it has been suggested to carry out periodic performance reviews.

During which project management process will the buyer conduct these reviews?

The project you are managing has launched its product, and you have begun working through the administrative closure of the project. Many risks were identified throughout the project, and you want to ensure that now, as you are closing the project, there are no open risks and that the overall project risk is within the defined level.

What is the best document to review for this information?

The following Gantt chart displays the current schedule status for a construction project. At this point in the project, the first two activities, Select Site and Negotiate Lease, should have been completed along with 50% of the work associated with the third activity, Perform Civil Works. However, only the first two activities have been completed, and no work has been done on the third activity. The method used to determine the earned value is based on percent complete.

What is the project's current SPI and what does this mean for the project?

You are leading a project to design a new and innovative system based on newly developed technology. In past projects, using a traditional waterfall project management approach, you have encountered issues with scope creep. However, given the nature of the current project, you have decided to use an agile approach.

As it relates to project scope, how will this project differ from your past projects?

As a project manager, you are in the initiation stage of a new project. You are currently preparing for a meeting to conduct a benefit analysis with relevant stakeholders to validate project alignment with organizational goals and expected business value.

What should the project manager do to prepare for the meeting?

To comply with the customer's contract, the project must use a certified agile practitioner to lead and coach the project team. However, the only certified agile practitioner employed by the company was just assigned to another project. The project manager must now hire an independent contractor to serve as the agile coach, which delays the start of project execution.

Which of the following may have helped to avoid the delay in executing the project?

A project manager is performing quality assurance for a project whose quality standards are very stringent. In order to meet and exceed the quality requirements, the project manager uses a set of technical guidelines, which were applied during the design phase of the project to optimize quality.

What tool or technique is the project manager using in this scenario?

During a status update meeting, you inform stakeholders that the project is running behind schedule but under budget. With all meeting participants in agreement, the decision is made to crash the schedule. Two weeks later, the finance director calls you stating that she just learned about the schedule issue and that she never agreed to the expense of adding project resources. When asked why she did not speak up during the meeting, the finance director replies, "What meeting?"

Which of the following most likely caused this situation?

The resource management plan calls for six developers to serve on the project team who are all internal employees. In the process of putting together the project team, the project manager discovers that only three developers with the necessary skillset are available for the project due to attrition and higher priority projects.

What should the project manager do next?

You are working with your team to develop the scope management plan.

Which of the following will you need to complete this process?

You are a project manager leading an online conference call with stakeholders regarding project status. In the call, a few stakeholders indicate they are not sufficiently updated on project status and request a bi-weekly email be sent to them with cost and schedule status reports. You realize this request is a change in the communication requirements, which would also change the form of communication outlined in the communications management plan.

Where should you initially capture this request?

You are planning a research and development project, and you need to determine how the project costs will be estimated, budgeted, managed, monitored, and controlled. To complete this process, you need to know if there are any preapproved financial resources from which the detailed project costs can be developed.

What should you do next?

A vendor notifies you that they will be unable to fulfill the terms of the contract after their manufacturing plant was severely damaged by a tornado. After reviewing the contract, you inform the vendor that they will have to fulfill the agreement or face litigation.

What clause was most likely missing from the contract?

A project to bring a new model of a product to market is in execution when a competitor files a lawsuit claiming that the product violates several of their patents. The courts have sided with the competitor and issued a cease and desist order.

What should the project manager do first?

You have just finalized the project management plan for your project. The plan is ready to be approved.

What should you do to obtain approval?

You are in the process of monitoring the overall progress of project work. Throughout your project, you have experienced recurring issues, and you want your current and future projects to run more smoothly.

Which of the following is least likely to proactively promote continuous improvement?

A project manager is executing the quality management plan of a project to manufacture a new reusable rocket to launch commercial satellites. Due to the extremely high cost of failure, the tolerances for the parts are held to a very exacting standard. The project manager has established a threshold of no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).

What is the best approach to accomplish this goal?