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WorksheetsOliver Lehmann #1 - 100
Total questions: 100
Worksheet time: 2hrs 40mins
Being assigned as a project manager, you noticed during project execution that conflicts arise in the team on both technical and interpersonal levels.
What is an appropriate way of handling conflicts?
Conflicts distract the team and disrupt the work rhythm. You should always smooth them when they surface.
A conflict should be handled in a meeting so that the entire team can participate in finding a solution.
Conflicts should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach.
You should use your coercive power to quickly resolve conflicts and then focus on goal achievement.
What is the purpose of a project charter?
To formally authorize a project or a phase and document initial requirements which satisfy the stakeholder’s needs and expectations.
To document how the project will be planned, executed, monitored/controlled, and closed.
To link the project, which is going to be planned, executed, and monitored/controlled to the ongoing work of the organization.
To describe the process of performing the work defined in the project management plan in order to achieve the project’s objectives.
The concept of (the) _________ states that changes related to one requirement—scope, time, or cost—will at least influence one other element.
Three-point estimation
Triple constraint
Three wise men
Three needs theory
Your organization is considering to run a project which will entail an investment of $1,000,000. The product from the project is forecasted to create revenues of $250,000 in the first year after the end of the project and of $420,000 in each of the two following years.
What is true for the net present value of the project over the three years cycle at a discount rate of 10%?
The net present value is positive, which makes the project attractive.
The net present value is positive, which makes the project unattractive.
The net present value is negative, which makes the project attractive.
The net present value is negative, which makes the project unattractive.
What does the term best practice often refer to?
A standardized set of deliverables, like plans, reports, and checklists.
A set of tools and techniques that a project manager should master.
The concept of state of the art applied to project management.
A specific sequence of work, described in terms of soft logic.
The communications management plan is a document which includes descriptions of
Project level performance reports
Activity level status reports
Stakeholder communication requirements
Project benefit analysis results
_________ are usually not a manifestation of unique organizational cultures and styles.
Shared visions, values, norms, beliefs, and expectations
Individual traits and attitudes of co-workers
Views of authority relationships
Policies, methods, and procedures
Which of the following is generally not regarded as an element of active listening?
Making eye contact
Paraphrasing
Interpreting the information
Interrupting when appropriate
You were able to obtain measuring equipment with very high accuracy and precision. You used it to make a sequence of measurements directly at a production process output and depicted the results on the following control chart.
Which statement is the best conclusion from these results?
The process has high precision but low accuracy. It should be adjusted.
The process has high precision but low accuracy. It should be improved.
The process has high accuracy but low precision. It should be adjusted.
The process has high accuracy but low precision. It should be improved.
As the project manager, you decided to arrange a team meeting to identify and analyze lessons learned from quality control with stakeholders.
What should you do with them?
Document them and make them part of the historical database for the project and the performing organization.
Discuss them with management and make sure that they remain otherwise confidential
Publish them in the corporate newsletter.
Follow your strategic decisions, independent from lessons learned. These decisions have been made and should be implemented whatever the outcomes are.
Which of the following documents is not used as input for the validate scope process?
The project management plan, containing the scope baseline consisting of the project scope statement and its associated WBS and WBS dictionary.
The verified deliverables, completed and checked for correctness by the Control quality process.
The requirements traceability matrix, linking requirements to their origin and tracing them throughout the project lifecycle.
The RACI matrix, describing accountabilities in case of product rejection.
How should change management be planned for?
Changes are generally not predictable, therefore planning for change management cannot be reasonable.
Planning for change management should be done while the various change control processes are being applied.
Change management can be planned in a set of management plans or a specific change management plan.
Changes are a sign of bad planning. One should avoid changes during a project, thus eliminating the need to manage them.
According to Bruce Tuckman, what are the stages of team development?
Honeymoon, rejection, regression, acceptance, re-entry
Forming, storming, norming, performing
Tell, sell, consult, join
Direct, support, coach, delegate
What is not a reason for companies to organize lessons learned?
Lessons learned databases are an essential element of the organizational process assets.
Lessons learned should focus on identifying those accountable for errors and failures.
Lessons learned sessions should bring about recommendations to improve future performance on projects.
Phase-end lessons learned sessions provide a good team building exercise for project staff members.
How does a project management team stay in touch with the work and the attitudes of project team members?
By observation and communication
Using closed questions during team meetings
Through third-party assessments
Through the team members’ functional managers
Which document is developed along the risk management processes from identify risks through plan and implement risk responses to monitor risks?
List of risk triggers
Risk register
Risk mitigation
Decision tree
A customer is requiring a minor scope change and expects you to do this without delays and additional costs. You believe that you have adequate authorization to make the decision by yourself, but you are not quite sure.
What should be your next steps?
A requested change is always an opportunity to get more money paid by the customer and to secretly solve schedule and quality problems. You should make some reasonable estimates on time, costs, risks etc. and then add a nice margin on top of that to calculate the new price.
Customer satisfaction is your top priority. The customer gives you an opportunity to increase their satisfaction, which you should use to the maximum benefit. Most project managers have contingencies to cover risks; these can be used to pay the additional costs.
Before making a decision you should have a look at the customer’s parking lot. If you find there many expensive, new models, it is likely that you can use the requested change to increase the profit from the contract. Otherwise you should reject the request.
Handle the request according to the integrated change control processes described in your management plans. Then make a decision together with the appropriate change control body, whether the increased customer satisfaction will be worth the extra costs, work, risks etc.
A facilitator should…
…be in full control of the discussion and its outcomes.
…always take notes by herself.
…avoid a flip chart parking lot.
…give guidance as required without interfering.
As the project manager in a software project which is currently initiated, you want to assess high-level risks.
What should you do?
Develop the project charter and a risk management plan to start identifying risks based on those and other documents.
Identify and analyze risk events using qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Develop contingency plans and fallback plans in case the original plan proves wrong.
Discuss the risks documented in your Risk register with the project key stakeholders.
In most jurisdictions, a legally required order of formal statements establishing a contract is:
Invitation to treat, offer, PO
Inquiry, bid, order
Offer, acceptance
MoU, LoI, final agreement
What should managers consider before conducting a performance evaluation interview with a project team member?
Which management fallacies can most easily be delegated to the worker?
How can discussion of the manager’s leadership style be avoided?
Has the employee been provided with sufficient instructions and work tools?
How can dispute related to unsatisfactory performance be avoided?
Which statement describes best handling of assumptions during the initiating processes?
It is the responsibility of the sales person in charge to identify all risks related to a customer project.
Managing and organizing assumptions means avoiding risks right from the start of the project.
Organizational, environmental and external assumptions should be addressed by the project charter.
Risks are a sign of uncertainty. Avoiding all uncertainties means that a project should have no risks at all.
A WBS dictionary is a document which…
… describes technical terms used for scope management.
… describes the details for each component in the WBS.
… translates essential WBS terms for global project teams.
… helps translate functional into technical requirements.
You are in the process of contacting sellers to obtain bids and proposals. You found out that it might become a time-consuming procedure to ensure that the sellers get a clear and common understanding of the procurement process and of the needs of your project.
Which technique may help you save time?
Bidder conferences
Advertising
Qualified sellers list
Four-eyes meetings
As a project manager, when should you especially consider cultural differences?
When you break down scope to create a work breakdown structure (WBS).
When you assign a human resources to do the work in a schedule activity.
When you develop acceptance criteria for work results to be achieved by the team members.
When you decide upon recognition and awards during team development.
At the beginning of project execution, you notice different opinions between team members relating to project work and deliverables and to the level of overall complexity.
What should you do right now?
Give your team members some time to develop a common understanding of the project scope and product scope. Upcoming interface problems may be resolved later.
Use the risk management processes to identify and assess risks caused by misunderstandings and develop a plan with measures in order to respond to them.
Organize meetings to identify and resolve misunderstandings between team members in order to avoid interface problems, disintegration and costly rework early in the project.
Use interviews in private with each individual team member to inform them of your expectations and your requirements in an atmosphere of confidence.
You have just taken over as manager of a project that will create many benefits for the performing organization, but you sense a high level of resistance in various stakeholders right from the start.
What is the most appropriate action to resolve the problem?
Develop a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) which clearly shows the responsibility of each stakeholder for the various project activities and who needs to be consulted and informed.
Develop an organization diagram, which places each of the stakeholders at an appropriate position inside the project and allows for certain lines of communication while disallowing others.
Schedule a meeting with these stakeholders to present the project, discuss and establish ground rules, ensure their involvement and identify initial personal and organizational issues.
Do not talk to these stakeholders too much at this time, instead create faits accomplis, which will later force the stakeholders to support the project due to a lack of alternatives for them.
You are in the process of planning a project and found that stakeholders often have varying objectives and requirements. This makes it hard to come up with a plan with which all objectives will be met.
What is probably most helpful to ensure common understanding?
Ask the project stakeholders to build focus groups in order to discuss and remedy conflicting interests.
Create an exhaustive document describing your point of view and ask stakeholders to review it.
Let each stakeholder write a statement of work, merge the documents to a project scope statement.
Use your authorization as the project manager to clearly prioritize the different objectives.
Projects frequently do not meet customer expectations for which of the following reasons?
Poor risk management by the contractor running the project
Poor technical ability of the contractor running the project for the customer
Technical inability and poor risk management by the contractor
Unclear scope definition by the customer for whom the project is performed
What is typical for critical path project management?
Forward and backward pass analysis
Level-of-effort activities
Management of security protocols
Management of resource over-allocations
You are the project manager for the development of a new type of power plant. Your project is making fast progress, and it is getting nearer to the day of product acceptance.
Which technique will be most important for product acceptance?
Inspection
Quality audit
Impact analysis
Team review
What are the cost types in modern quality management?
Costs of good quality – costs of bad quality
Planning costs – assurance costs – control costs
Planning costs – doing costs – checking costs – acting costs
Prevention costs – appraisal costs – failure costs
During the execution of a project to build a complex defense system, your team has run into a deep crisis.
The project’s goal and objectives have been challenging right from the start, but now you have discovered that your team members have become increasingly unaware of them. Being busy solving detail problems, they often fail to understand the overall requirements. Then they develop solutions which resolve issues in their area of limited responsibility, while causing new problems at the interfaces with other system components.
Meanwhile, the team members show signs of growing frustration, and time is running away. How can you help your team in this situation?
Accompany your team members along a sequence of maturity levels from dependence through independence to interdependence.
Ignore the low-level issues and focus on achieving the overall requirements, details can be sorted out during test and handover.
If everybody simply does their jobs, then there should be no problem. Make sure that team members are fully aware of their accountability.
Problems of this dimension have their origin in fundamental personal incompatibilities between team members. You should replace them all.
For a project, the following earned value data have been assessed:
AC: $ 4,000,000
CV: $ -500,000
SPI: 1.12
BaC: $ 9,650,000
What is the earned value of the project?
$3,000,000
$3,500,000
$4,480,000
$5,650,000
During execution in a project to build a major road bridge, your team found a major flaw in the technical drawings. On an ad-hoc base, they had to find and implement a workaround to avoid delays and mitigate technical problems.
What should you do next?
Meticulously document the problem and the workaround to create a requested change to the project management plan, which will then be passed to the body responsible for the change control decision.
The workaround was performed on a technical level only. As long as it does not influence the function of the bridge or the organizational configuration of the project, a change request will not be necessary.
A retroactive formal change request side is not reasonable. Create some additional documents describing the workaround and sign them by yourself, you can present them during the next regular CCB meeting.
It is normal in projects that during project execution inconsistencies arise between planning documents and actual implementation. This is no problem as long as the functional status of the product is maintained.
You recently took over the assignment for a project. The project charter has been developed.
What is an appropriate next step for you?
Develop the risk register.
Develop the project milestone schedule.
Develop management plans.
Get approval for the project management plan.
You scheduled a kick-off meeting in order to announce the start of your project, present the plan and develop consensus on it. Another topic will be explanation of each team member’s role. In addition, you planned some time for discussions.
You published the agenda of the kick-off meeting some weeks ago to all invited attendees.
Now, short term before the event, you receive various cancellations by team members, who say that they cannot join the meeting. But they will be with you when project work will start.
The kick-off meeting is secondary, you are happy if the team members will do their jobs.
You should insist on the presence of the team members to the appointed date.
If you force team members’ presence, they would anyway be distracted by their current problems.
It is probably a good idea to reschedule the meeting to a day, when all team members can attend.
During a meeting, a discussion came up: To which degree does your project have to be compliant to the processes enumerated in the PMBOK® Guide?
What should be the guiding principle to answer this question?
The processes are meant as rough guidelines to which a team should only adhere if there is enough consensus.
The more processes the project team follows, the better the project’s performance will be.
The project manager must follow all 49 processes for project management without alterations.
The project team must select appropriate processes required to meet the project requirements.
Product acceptance criteria should be laid down in which document?
Project scope statement
Work breakdown structure
Resource assignments
Project scope management plan
The cost baseline is developed during which process?
Perform integrated change control
Estimate costs
Develop schedule
Determine budget
During project execution you found out that work is often not performed at the right time and in the right order. Deliverables are made by one team member that cannot be processed by another one. This already leads to timely rework and bad morale among team members.
Which project management tool is most appropriate to deal with problems like this?
Organization chart
RACI matrix
Communications management plan
Work authorization system
Your management is applying the 10 percent solution: It has requested that you reduce the budget for the project which you are currently initiating by 10%.
What will this probably mean for your project?
If the budget is cut by 10%, then the project will have an accompanying degradation of quality by 10%.
If the project budget is an honest one, then a reduction in budget must be accompanied by a trade-off in either time or performance.
A 10% reduction in budget will be accompanied by a loss of performance much less than the target reduction in cost.
Most projects have "padded" estimates, and the budgetary reduction will force out the padding from the project.
While applying procurement management processes in your project, you identified the need to gain a more objective understanding of sellers’ capabilities in order to rank proposals and develop a negotiating sequence.
Which technique may help avoid bias and subjective decisions best?
Bidder conference
Weighting system
Oral contract
Letter of intent
During code inspection in a major software development project, a project management team identified frequent occurrences of critical programming errors. These errors are scattered across the code and occur without a discernible pattern.
Which tool is most likely to help the team identify areas of error concentration in order to develop a prioritized response strategy?
Check sheet
Influence diagram
Decision tree
Process decision program chart
The term baseline is used in both disciplines project management and configuration management.
Which statement is not true?
Baselines in system configurations are often also referred to as deltas.
In configuration management, baselines are used to control change.
Project management baselines are used for performance measurement.
In project management, baselines help assess variance and trends.
In a project, a cost incentive contract has been awarded to a contractor with the following parameters.
What is the point of total assumption (PTA, breakpoint) of the project?
$1,000,000
$1,100,000
$1,125,000
$1,200,000
The scope baseline includes____.
The various management plans of the project
Schedule baseline and cost baseline
Product configuration ID and statement of work
WBS dictionary, WBS, scope statement
During human resource planning you identified that your team members are not sufficiently qualified for their tasks. Which may be an appropriate solution to this problem?
Reduce level of effort
Develop a training plan
Plan quality audits
Plan quality inspections
What is typical for high-context cultures?
Technical means for communications can focus on transfer of spoken and written language.
Communication is preferred which avoids passing over a great deal of additional information.
A message has little meaning without an understanding of the surrounding context.
To understand a message, no information on history or personal opinions is needed.
In general, processes of configuration management do not include…
…identification and documentation of system or item characteristics.
…controlling changes to these characteristics in an integrative fashion.
…documenting and auditing changes and the implementation status.
…assigning responsibilities for change control and documentation.
The ________ is a document which describes how the project management team will implement the performing organization’s quality policy.
Quality assurance plan
Quality management plan
Quality commitment
Quality audit
What do you expect when you are submitting an invitation for bid to sellers?
Offers which will differ significantly in solution approach and price.
Offers which are similar enough to allow a selection based on price.
Offers which are not primarily written to win against competition.
General information on a seller’s ability to provide the goods or services.
What is important for quality auditors?
They must be in-house personnel.
They must be external-party staff.
They must be mandated by the auditee.
They must be properly trained.
What is best used to calculate the profit from an internal project?
Discounted net revenues from the product over n years minus project costs for internal charges
Discounted net savings from the product over n years minus project costs for internal charges
The economic value added (EVA) to the organization taking into account taxes and capital costs
The reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) of the current product compared with its predecessor product
You are running a major project with four sub-projects. Each of the sub-project managers has developed a risk management plan, identified many risks, analyzed them and planned for risk response.
It is now two months later. What should you not do?
Ensure that they handle all risks to save you from project level risk control.
Make sure that the sub project managers monitor their project work for new and changing risks.
Make sure that the sub project managers keep track of the identified risks and those on the watch list.
Make sure that the sub-project managers monitor trigger conditions for contingency plans.
What is true for statistical sampling?
Statistical sampling can be used to verify for each individual item in a lot, whether it can be accepted or must be rejected.
Attribute sampling means collection of quantitative data showing the level of conformity for each item of a sample.
Variables sampling includes collection of quantitative data on the degree of conformity for each item of a sample.
Statistical sampling is commonly used in quality assurance to examine if items of a lot conform to quality standards.
Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimension of individualism refers to…
…the degree of dependence relationships between individuals.
…the significance of the person versus that of the group.
…the identification with the gender role of an individual.
…the tolerance for ambiguity or uncertainty in the workplace.
What is not true for change requests?
Change requests should always be handled in a controlled and integrative fashion.
Change requests surpassing the formal change control processes can lead to scope creep.
Professionally managed, change requests can help improving a project and resolving emerging problems.
Change requests are always a sign of bad planning and should therefore be avoided.
You recently assigned staff members to activities, estimated work and scheduled your project. You then created the following resource histogram for your staff.
What does this diagram tell you?
The project can probably not be finished as scheduled.
You may be able to finish the project early by reassigning work.
You should avoid network logic diagramming for scheduling.
You may run into problems with dual reporting relationships.
A project manager’s PDM network schedule gets audited by a scheduling expert. The expert tells the project manager to focus more on nodes with “path convergence”, also known as “sinks”. What is the person referring to?
Nodes in a WBS, where several branches are brought back together.
Nodes in a conditional network diagram, at which it becomes deterministic.
Nodes in a decision tree, showing various branches with the same chance.
Nodes in a network logic diagram which have multiple predecessors.
The members of your project team have been assigned to your project with general availability levels of 50%.
Yesterday, they reported to you that significant variances occurred during project execution. You have noted that the team members have been spending less than 50% of their time working on your project. Your project schedule is about to become heavily delayed, and deadlines are in jeopardy. What should you do?
Talk to your sponsor and try to get more resources assigned on similar conditions as the existing ones.
Talk with functional managers. Negotiate clear and written assignments with reliable scheduling priorities.
Ignore the difficulties, adjust your schedule and negotiate new deadlines according to the slower progress.
Focus on internal charges. Make sure that your project is not getting charged for more than the actual work.
What is the meaning of the acronym CSOW?
A statement of work that is part of a contingency plan; it is commonly linked with Contingency reserves.
A statement of work that has been formally agreed upon by both parties and is therefore part of a contract.
A statement of work that is currently valid; this contrasts with the scope baseline, a formerly valid SOW.
A statement of work on project level that cumulates statements of work on cost account level
You monitored figures on cost and planned/earned value for each individual project week until the data date at the end of the sixth week. What is the status of this project at this date?
The project is ahead of schedule and over budget.
The project is ahead of schedule and under budget.
The project is behind schedule and over budget.
The project is behind schedule and under budget.
Crashing describes a technique to speed up a project by…
…reallocating existing resources or assigning additional resources to the project.
…overlapping activities which were originally planned to be done in sequence.
…reducing the number of features of the product in order to reduce development work.
…reducing the duration estimates for activities to increase the pressure applied to the staff.
During risk identification sessions, you and your team identified more than 150 risks for your project. You are afraid that evaluating each of these risks quantitatively will cost you an enormous amount of time, while not all of them are really relevant and important enough to justify such a measure. What should you do next?
Identify risk triggers where possible. Analyze only those risks quantitatively for which no trigger could be found.
Use qualitative risk analysis in order to prioritize risks for further action, such as quantitative risk analysis.
Assess the probability of each risk qualitatively and further analyze only those risks with high probability.
Assess the potential impact of each risk qualitatively and further analyze only those risks with high impact.
During execution of a project, you observe that the performance of some of your team members is dropping, while others are doing a consistently good job. This is endangering overall project progress. What should you try first to bring the team as a whole back to performance?
Organize a team meeting and discuss openly the bad performance of the weak team members. Try to find a joint solution during the meeting.
Introduce a competitive incentive system with a bonus for the 20% of your team which is performing better than the other 80%.
Do not interfere, but give the team some time to organize and to sort the problem out themselves.
Research causes for bad performance, solicit systematic feedback and search for solutions based on that.
Your management announced that they want to put you on a stretch assignment. In this situation, you should consider that…
…a stretch assignment is going beyond your qualifications right from the start. Whatever your education, knowledge and skills are, you cannot fail personally. Congratulations.
…key stakeholders must have timely and complete information regarding your qualifications to make decisions regarding your suitability for the assignment.
…stretch assignments bear an increased risk of failure, and this is rarely outweighed by the learning and development experience expected to come with the assignment.
…you should avoid the increased hassle coming with the assignment. It will not be enough for you to simply satisfy requirements and achieve objectives. You will have to learn a lot.
Following the cultural approach of the corporation for which you are starting to manage a project, you are guiding your project team through the first life-cycle phase of conceptualization. Your next step is to call for a team meeting to let ideas emerge in an unrestricted creative process. What exactly should that look like?
You write down the ideas of team members and structure them into categories of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats during the session.
You creatively gather thoughts and ideas without any discussion or frowning. These ideas are only filtered and structured after the end of the brainstorming session.
Your team members wear hats with different colors, each of which stands for a way of thinking. Each member discusses topics from the viewpoint of their thinking.
You try to eradicate deviating ideas and concepts of team members during the meeting, so that the entire project team follows your principles.
In configuration management, which of the following is necessary to maintain the integrity of baselines?
Analyzing variances by comparing baseline information with actual project data.
Releasing only approved changes for incorporation into products or services.
Ensuring that team members adhere to a code of ethical conduct and behavior.
Ensuring transparency across all project management processes and activities.
Which statement describes best the purpose of the communications management plan?
The project management plan is a subsidiary document of the overall communications management plan.
The communications management plan describes rules of behavior and respect for communications in cross-cultural teams.
The communications management plan describes the information delivery needs including format and level of detail.
The communications management plan focuses on the use of communications technologies by the project management team
Which is not a point used for three-point estimation?
Optimistic estimate
Most likely estimate
Budget estimate
Pessimistic estimate
Which of the following are not common barriers to project team building?
Differing outlooks, priorities, and interests
Role conflicts
Excessive team member commitment
Unclear project objectives/outcomes
During project planning, you are presented with the following diagram that depicts a cumulative likelihood distribution for the duration of a project. What kind of conclusion can you draw from the information depicted in it?
The likeliness that the project will finish exactly at the date marked with “Deadline” is 80%.
The likeliness that the project team will exceed the date marked with “Deadline” is at 80%.
If the project team will meet the deadline, project costs will be 80% of the budgeted costs.
The likeliness that the project team will meet the deadline or will finish earlier is at 80%.
While executing a project, you sense a slightly negative attitude in your team. Which type of document do you now need, among others, to better understand and then be able to improve the situation?
Project charter
Team performance assessments
Cost baseline
Statement of work
The sales representative of your company recently contacted you. You made some estimates on direct costs for an offer on a firm fixed-price contract. According to company policies, indirect costs (overheads) are to be calculated as a percentage of the direct costs, the sum of both cost types caused him to calculate a far too high price. How should you not react?
You reduce your direct cost estimates by reducing the amount of work and the rates allocated to them. This allows a reduction of the overhead costs and a lower price.
Calculating overheads as a percentage of direct costs is just a model to simplify calculations. A more specific analysis of these costs may lead to a more realistic project price.
Cost estimates are quantitative assessments of the probable costs required to complete project work. These are made by the project team. It is the sales person’s job to make the price.
You make the sales person aware that a reduction of direct costs may reduce the numbers for overhead cost allocation, but will not influence the actual overheads.
A project charter is a document that…
…describes both the project scope and the product scope at detail level.
…authorizes the project and the use of organizational resources to meet project requirements.
…breaks down the project scope over several steps to describe the project on work package level.
…describes all activities which are necessary to create the project deliverables.
You identified a technical risk in your project and assigned a contingency for that. Planning contingency reserves is part of which risk response strategy?
Active risk mitigation
Passive risk avoidance
Passive risk acceptance
Active risk acceptance
Which concept of locating team members can help them best to enhance their performance as a team?
Co-location
Cross-functional dispersion
Virtual e-teams
Global team dispersion
Which statement on constructive changes is false?
Constructive changes are contract changes which are construed from actions taken by either party, not from a change document.
Changes in projects under contract are called constructive changes if they yield benefits for both parties.
Constructive changes are a frequent cause of disputes and claims of one contract party against the other.
Field changes should be meticulously documented to avoid an interpretation as constructive change.
You are assigned as a project manager for an internal project. During cost planning and budgeting you discovered that there are peak times of costs during the project and other times when costs are fairly low. What could this mean for the project?
The fiscal budget mechanism which is used by the performing organization may not allow for cost peaks in your project, and you may have to level out expenditures over time.
You can silently create budget contingencies during low-cost periods and re-use them later during those periods when you have to cover peak levels in project costs.
You may find another project manager with a project that has a different rhythm of high and low costs. Then, you may be able to move budget during one project’s low cost periods to the other project.
You are a project manager and work with a lifecycle budget for your project. Fiscal budgets are a matter of the functional organization, and you generally do not have to care about them.
You are going to take over a new project as the project manager in an enterprise unknown to you. What should you investigate during the chartering process?
Enterprise environmental factors
Project management plan
Project risk register
Team performance reports
A project was budgeted at $1,000,000. Meanwhile, the project is executed, and the following current figures have been assessed:
PV: $500,000
EV: $450,000
AC: $550,000
Assuming that the cost variance was caused by one-time cost drivers, which are no more effective, what estimate at completion (EaC) can you derive from these figures?
$900,000
$1,000,000
$1,100,000
$1,222,222
An organization is considering various contract types in order to motivate sellers and to ensure preferential treatment. What should they consider before deciding to use an award fee contract?
Payment of an award fee would be linked to the achievement of objective performance criteria.
Any unresolved dispute over the payment of an award fee would be subject to remedy in court.
Payment of an award fee would be agreed upon by both the customer and the contractor.
Payment of an award fee is decided upon by the customer based on the degree of satisfaction.
What is least important when it comes to archiving project records?
A well-designed records management system
Integration of the archive with business software
Updated records reflecting final results
Easy availability of information for future use
_______ are not necessarily used to establish the cost baseline of a project.
Schedule activity or work package cost estimates
The work breakdown structure and the WBS dictionary
The project schedule and the resource management plan
The risk breakdown structure and the risk report
You took over a customer project for your company. From the inputs available, including contract, statement of work and project charter, you have developed a project management plan.
You already presented that plan in a meeting with key stakeholders including your project sponsor and some representatives from the customer organization. During the meeting you sensed a high level of dissatisfaction by the customer executives, who signaled that the project might not produce the results that their company had expected. In your understanding, all necessary actions have been planned to meet the customer’s requirements.
What should you do next?
Request a written statement from the customer detailing the requirements which they believe are not addressed by your plan. Use this statement to update the project plan.
Arrange meetings with the customer to identify their needs, wants and expectations for the project. Then create a narrative Scope statement from this information to document the agreed upon project scope.
Request a formal meeting on top executive level to get the misunderstandings sorted out, then arrange a change request, re-plan your project where necessary and go ahead with the project work.
Do not over-react. Performed according to your plan, the project will produce a convincing product for the customer. As soon as the executives will see it, they will probably change their opinion and accept it.
A project was assessed and the following earned value data have been found:
PV: $750,000
EV: $750,000
AC: $900,000
What is the burn rate of the project?
1.20
1.10
1.00
0.83
What is not true for project deliverables?
Project deliverables should be identified, described and agreed upon as early in the project as possible.
Project deliverables may be products, capabilities for services or other kinds of results.
Once project deliverables have been identified, their description should not be changed any more.
The acceptance process for deliverables and how rejection will be addressed should be described in the contract.
Your project, performed for a customer, is coming to an end. The customer has been contractually granted a three years warranty period for the product of the project. What should you do first?
Hand all relevant documentation over to the organizational unit responsible for handling the warranty.
There is no additional work to be done. The contract should describe all processes in sufficient detail.
Changes on the product can affect warranty clauses. Ensure that these clauses are aligned with the final specifications.
According to many legislations, you cannot formally close a project before the end of the warranty period.
Being the project manager in a high-risk electronics project with a lot of new technologies, you developed a risk management plan and identified risks which you documented in a risk register. Then, the risks were analyzed and response was planned.
During risk control meetings, it gets obvious that the documents you created are not very helpful. What have you probably done wrong?
You failed to use an RBS.
You did the first processes alone.
You did not identify Triggers.
You did not calculate EMVs.
Which is generally not regarded as one of the three categories of culture that managers should master?
National culture
Organizational culture
Project culture
Functional culture
Post-mortem analysis after scheduled finish date of a project shows a CPI of 0.8 and an SPI of 1.25. What is a plausible explanation for that?
The project was terminated early. At that time, it was over budget and ahead of schedule.
The project has produced additional deliverables which were originally not required.
The project has evidently been finished under budget and behind of schedule.
The project has evidently been finished over budget and ahead of schedule.
Some colleagues told you that they are planning, executing, monitoring and controlling a project by use of milestones only with durations between 1 and 4 weeks. What do you think?
The approach is erroneous. A milestone is a significant point with zero duration to highlight achievements.
It is a good approach as long as the milestones reflect fixed or imposed dates during the project lifecycle only.
It is a good approach if the milestones are used for reviews between consecutive project phases only.
It is a good approach because it saves from progress measurement on activities and work packages.
Together with your team, you applied three-point estimation on a critical path which consists of two activities.
The following duration uncertainties are all calculated assuming a ±3sigma confidence interval.
The duration uncertainty—defined as pessimistic minus optimistic estimate—of the first activity is 18 days; the second estimate has an uncertainty of 24 days. Applying the PERT formula for paths (beta distribution), what is the duration uncertainty of the entire path?
21 days
30 days
42 days
No statement is possible from the information given.
You are just leaving a meeting during which you have been assigned as the manager of a project to build a sub-station that is part of a major electric power distribution system. The decision to run the project has been made before your assignment and without your involvement. Some basic decisions on deliverables, staffing, budgeting and on the completion date have already been made as well. What should you do first?
Obtain a project charter which links the project to the strategy and ongoing work of the organization and documents the initial decisions.
Create a project schedule for your project which shows all major milestones and deadlines linked with them. Then try to obtain approval for the schedule.
Start developing a detailed risk register which includes identified risks with their qualitative and quantitative assessments and a response plan.
Start the quality assurance process by developing test procedures for the final deliverable and defining metrics against which the tests will be performed.
What is the purpose of the following diagram?
Describing the influence of extreme weather conditions on progress and on the achievement of project objectives.
Comparing the relative importance of variables that have a high degree of uncertainty with those that are more stable.
Evaluating team performance and identifying team members with low productivity and work effectiveness.
Evaluating the degree to which project work and deliverables conform to the expectations of key stakeholders.
Which is not a goal in both project management and quality management?
Prevention over inspection
Customer satisfaction
Management responsibility
Triple constraint
You created a baseline of your system configuration and added several changes to that as amendments. Meanwhile you are afraid that the big number of Deltas may cause inconsistencies and make you unable to understand the current system configuration. What should you do?
Proclaim a design freeze.
Go on with amendments.
Revise the baseline.
Create an entirely new configuration.
A request, demand or assertion of a contract partner for consideration, compensation or payment under a legally binding contract, such as a disputed change, is often referred to as a____.
Claim
Trial
Refinement
Audit
Projects may be initiated by all of the following except____.
the project team
a sponsor
a PMO
a portfolio review board
