You are leading a project to replace an aging bridge spanning a river in a heavily populated area. The new bridge would include a pedestrian pathway, that is not a feature of the existing bridge. The bridge is well under construction when residents learn the pathway would allow strangers to enter their neighborhood at all times. The residents demand the elimination of the pathway.

What would have been the best course of action to avoid this situation?

You are managing a project team that has recently been expanded by new team members working remotely from another country. their roles have been outlined to from a preliminary team charter. Nevertheless, you have noticed a considerable lack of acceptance of cultural differences in the team, resulting in frequent conflicts.

Which of the following techniques could help you in this situation? (Choose three answers)

Customer requirements for the new application to be developed by an agile team limit the technology choices to only two approaches. The team members are not familiar with any of them and ask the scrum master for advice.

Which of the following should the scrum master recommend to select the best approach?

You are leading a project with a critical time constraint and cannot afford any project delays. An argument between two project team members over a report format to document their testing result turns into a shouting match. The team members draw you into their argument. You realize that resolving the conflict would delay the project timeline.

What is your best course of action?

You have been assigned to lead an initiative for which the business case has not been sufficiently made to get approval to initiate a hybrid project. In some of the past project, teams realized too late into project execution that no one in the company had the skills needed to build some of the features, so it was developed by a contractor, resulting in cost overruns.

What would yo do differently in your assignment to avoid cost overruns?

You are leading a software development project for a client. Due to unstable requirements, you have elected to use a

change-driven life cycle. You are currently facilitating an iteration planning meeting with the product owner and the development team.

What should you do as part of the meeting?

You have been assigned to manage an agile project to develop various analytical tools for your company's executive

team. Everyone involved in the project is new to agile methodologies. After the first few tools are released, the executives

are frustrated that the tools they needed the most are still in the pipeline for future development.

What might you have done differently to avoid this issue?

A project manager is assigned to an agile software development project for a large banking corporation. With the project

just getting underway, the project manager has learned about new hacking tactics that present a potential threat to

regulatory compliance for the project.

What should the project manager do next?

An organization has established a controlling project management office (PMO). The first task of the PMO is to update

the guidelines for project compliance in the organization.

Which of the following could the PMO enforce? (Choose three.)

As a project manager, you recently completed a project team performance appraisal, and a previously unknown

competency gap in technical skills was uncovered, which needs to be addressed.

What should you do next?

Due to an uncertain market environment and complexity of upcoming projects, your company is considering a transition

from a traditional to hybrid project management approach. The company tasks you with researching various options for

incorporating new project management practices that would help the company move closer to its goal.

Which of the following would you least likely recommend?

While monitoring project work, the project manager notices an increase in actual costs that have not been accounted for

in the original budget. To understand whether a change request to update the cost baseline should be submitted, the

project manager gathers raw observations and measurements of all of the costs that have been authorized, incurred,

invoiced, and paid.

What has the project manager gathered?

A project manager is estimating the length of time the project will take. The project manager worked on a comparable

project two years ago that installed 10 miles of guardrails at a rate of one mile a day in similar weather conditions, using

the same size crew on the same type of highway.

What estimating technique would be the appropriate option for the project manager to use for his duration estimate?

A project team that is experienced in the waterfall project management approach has been assigned to their first agile

project. To make the transition easier, it has been decided to keep some elements of the waterfall approach in place.

During the iteration review, it was realized that a misunderstanding among the development team has led to a duplication

of efforts.

How might the project manager address this issue?

The plan for the first iteration was to complete 80 story points. However, the team was only able to complete 60. Each

story point earns $1,000 for the project. The actual cost of the iteration was $70,000. As the iteration retrospective

approaches, the scrum master requests that the team prepares all the data required to calculate the various earned value

metrics.

At the retrospective, the team determines that the schedule performance index (SPI) of the iteration was ________.

(On the real PMP exam you may be asked to provide your answer by filling in the blank with the letter representing the

correct answer. But here in the simulator, we are asking you to select the answer below.)

You are new to the organization and have been given a few weeks to get yourself settled before starting your project in a

role of a project manager. During this period, you realize that you have no authority over resources, the stafare grouped by specialty, the budget is under the full control of those group's managers, and you as a project manager

are only required to dedicate part of your time to perform the project work.

What type of an organization are you working in?

You are leading a project to be developed incrementally in small releases. Requirements have been established for the

initial release. Feedback from a focus group will determine the scope of each subsequent release. The client has

established a strict budget for the entire project.

In this adaptive environment, which is the best way to proceed?

In their first iteration, an agile team completed only half of the planned work. It turns out that before the current project

began, the team members were requested to provide ongoing support for the prior release. Angry project stakeholders

meet with the scrum master and complain that supporting prior releases should have never been included in the project

plans.

How should the scrum master respond?

You are preparing for an upcoming software development project. The project will be initiated and planned using a

predictive approach, while the development team will use Kanban. A budget has been established for training, and you

need to determine how to allocate those funds.

What is your best course of action?

A project manager invited several vendors to a pre-bid conference. After a private conversation with one of the vendors

who had an inquiry about a new mandatory government requirement, the project manager sent an email to the vendor to

address the question. The project manager realizes that the requirement should have been included in the project scope

baseline and the statement of work (SOW).

What should the project manager do in this situation?

As project execution begins, the project manager acquires the project team and, based on project needs, decides that the

team will use Scrum to develop the product of the project. After conducting an assessment of the project team's Scrum

skillset, the project manager realizes that according to the Shu-Ha-Ri model, the team is at the Shu level.

What should the project manager recommend to the team?

A project manager is explaining the roles and responsibilities for the quality assurance process with the project team.

Who will play a role in this process?

In order to take advantage of the best talent available, a project manager recruits developers internationally rather than

just locally. She is delighted to have acquired such highly skilled individuals but now needs to develop them into a

cohesive team. Ideally, the project manager would like to bring everyone together at the home ofbudget does not allow for travel expenses.

What is the best tool or technique for the project manager to use in this situation?

You are acquiring the necessary resources for your project. The organization where you are employed is an international

company with locations in several countries. With personnel located around the globe, you will be forming your project

team as a virtual team, and the team members will be allowed to work from their home offices.

What special considerations do you need to take into account while working with your team?

You have just been assigned to an upcoming agile project. As part of pre-project work, you review all of the organization's

policies and procedures regarding compliance. You realize that only some of them may be applicable to your project.

What should you do first?

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?

An agile software development project consists of four releases, with features incrementally added with each release.

Due to an excessive number of defects found by users after the first release, the risk response plan was implemented,

which involved more rigorous testing by the project team. After the second release, the client has reported two bugs.

What must first be done to determine the effectiveness of the implemented risk response?

You are leading a project to develop a product that will be sold through an existing nationwide dealer network. The

product will be built incrementally by a virtual team, while the dealer training and product rollout processes will be welldefined upfront.

You want the dealers to provide the team with regular feedback throughout product

development.

What is the best strategy to achieve your goal?

wo project team members are having a disagreement over how to approach a minor technical detail. The project

manager has little experience working with them, and her technical knowledge is limited.

What is the best action for the project manager to take?

After reviewing proposals for a large-scale product development project, vendors X and Y are equally qualified to deliver

both the hardware and software. The project manager believes the hardware should be developed with a traditional

project management approach, but the software might be better suited to an agile framework.

What is the best course of action?

You review the WBS of your project and realize that due to the lack of in-house expertise, some of the deliverables will

need to be outsourced to a vendor. However, the requirements for these deliverables are not well-understood at the

moment. Therefore, you decide that the outsourced portion of work will need to be managed using an agile framework.

What is your best approach in negotiating an agreement with the vendor?

A project manager is in the process of creating the stakeholder register. He has just completed the stakeholder

classifications and needs to update the project roles.

According to the partial stakeholder register below, which individual is most likely to be the project sponsor?

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?

Your project team functions as a well-organized unit. The team members are interdependent and work through issues

smoothly and effectively.

What is your best course of action?

For the third consecutive time, at the end of each iteration, a software application developed by the team fails during the

Control Quality process conducted by the quality assurance (QA) department. This situation causes rework for the

product and a delay in the project schedule. The project manager wants to reduce the feedback loop to the shortest

possible interval.

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

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 new smartphone will be developed by two teams: a hardware team that will use a predictive project management

approach and a software team that will use an agile framework. Each team is colocated but resides in two different parts

of the country. The teams will need to coordinate their activities very closely, but bringing them together in one location is

not an option.

What should the project manager do to create the most collaborative environment?

A client completed a walkthrough of the deliverables and formally accepted the work. The next day, the project manager

returns to the project site to pick up company equipment and make arrangements for final payment.

What should the project manager do when meeting the client as part of project closure?

After an agile team completes three iterations, the project manager determines that the average velocity of the team for

these three iterations was 30 story points. There are 292 more story points to complete the remaining portion of the

project.

How many additional iterations will it take for the team to complete the project?

You are leading a software development project, which requires knowledge of several programming languages. During

project execution, one of the developers has been pulled out of the project by her functional manager. The manager

provided you with another developer instead.

What should you do first?

A project has to procure goods and services from a seller. Some aspects of the procurement are well-defined up-front

while others will be known only after initial deliverables are validated and accepted.

What contracting technique would work best for this procurement?

You are the project manager for a project that is in its early stages. During a meeting, your boss informs you that senior

management would like you to include a particular staff member on your project team because of their necessary

expertise. You have not recruited any other team members, and the project has not even been formally authorized yet.

How should you handle senior management's request?

You are drafting a stakeholder engagement plan for a software development project. The product will be built using a

scrum framework. You want to ensure that the stakeholders' level of influence on product development is analyzed and

categorized.

What is your best course of action?

A project manager is determining the budget for a software development project where the product will be built

incrementally. Since the project is subject to a strict budget, the project manager has to ensure that scope and schedule

baselines stay within cost constraints. The project manager includes budgetary requirements in the release plan.

How can the information in the release plan help the project manager with determining the project budget?

Development team members argue with the product owner who rejected a deliverable the team developed during the

recent iteration. The project manager schedules a meeting with the team, product owner, and other relevant stakeholders

to break down the situation and identify the root cause of a misunderstanding.

Which of the following will be considered an antipattern if used during the meeting?

A member of an agile project team gathered data about the project and discovered an opportunity for improvement. The

team member thinks that a change to the process used by the team to develop the product of the project would improve

team performance. The team member approaches the scrum master for advice on the best way to implement the change.

What advice can the scrum master give to the team member?

Gold plating had been an issue with your current software development project. However, you found that ever since

instituting daily stand-up meetings, no more features or functionalities that the customer did not request have been

introduced into the project.

What is your best course of action to prevent gold plating for the remainder of the current project and on future projects?

At the daily scrum meeting, a team member brings up a problem accessing a database that impedes his progress.

Another team member offers a possible solution, which triggers a conversation between the two. After a few minutes, the

scrum master cuts off their conversation, reminding them that the daily scrum is not the appropriate venue for their

discussion.

What should the scrum master do next?

A project team is using the Stacey Complexity Model to evaluate the degree of uncertainty in the project and select the

appropriate project life cycle. The team maps the technical degree of uncertainty on the horizontal axis and requirements'

uncertainty on the vertical axis. The resulting mapping suggests that a predictive life cycle would work best for this

project.

Where on the Stacey Complexity Model did the team most likely map the project?

(On the real PMP exam you may be asked to provide your answer by clicking the correct area in the image. But here in

the simulator, we are asking you to select the answer below.)

As you execute the quality management plan for a project to develop a new autopilot feature for a vehicle, you have

created the diagram below, which compares the vehicle speed with uncommanded lane departures.

What can be said about this diagram?

Near the end of an iteration, the project team is ready to lead a product review with the product manager.

What is the objective of the review?

You are leading an agile project to develop a computer game, which will be broken down into four releases. After the first

release, the initial online reviews are poor, and the early adopters have provided detailed feedback about what they don't

like about the game. You are concerned about the impact of the poor reviews on future releases.

What is the best course of action?

You are attempting to coordinate activities between your project, another related project, and operations, all of which are

being managed as a group. A conflict has arisen over control of a key resource that is vital to both projects as well as

operations. The conflict has reached an impasse and needs to be resolved by a higher authority.

What is your best course of action?

You are leading a software development project, which is utilizing an agile framework. While monitoring the progress of

the project, it is apparent that velocity is trending down, and you are aware of some setbacks that have been encountered

by the development team. You want to capture and analyze lessons learned so far during the project to improve the

process going forward.

What is the best way to achieve this goal?

You are in the initiation stage of a project that aims to deploy and then maintain the robotics for an automated production

line for a returning client. In the project charter, you need to include the agreed mean time to recover (MTTR) in the event

of a breakdown.

What should you do to find this information?

A project manager has compiled a list of key deliverables, which include the working software, employee training

materials, user manuals, etc.

When is the first time that these key deliverables would have been identified?

Midway into an iteration, an agile team faces a minor technical issue. One of the team members recalls that the agile

coach is an expert in the field from her past experience as a senior developer. The team requests that the coach help

resolve the issue.

What should the agile coach do first?

To engage the newly identified stakeholders in the project at the earliest opportunity, the scrum master suggests inviting

them to the upcoming sprint review meeting to demonstrate to the stakeholders that the team is moving in the right

direction and get feedback from the stakeholders about what the team has accomplished.

Which of the following is another reason for inviting the stakeholders to this meeting?

To better use existing knowledge and to create new knowledge for a project, the project manager is looking for ways to

identify any knowledge gaps.

Which of the following would help the project manager the most to complete this process?

A project manager is considering to change the Control Costs process currently used on her project. Instead of submitting

budget change requests to the CCB, she wants to invite stakeholders to the parking lot portion of the daily standups and

discuss requested changes there. The project manager meets with the stakeholders to propose the process change.

Which of the following arguments would least likely to convince the stakeholders of the benefits of the new process?

You have joined a project in which requirements are elaborated at several intervals during delivery, and the delivery is

divided into subsets of the overall product. Change is incorporated at periodic intervals, and risk and cost are controlled

by progressively elaborating the plans with new information. Key stakeholders are regularly involved.

What development approach is used on your project?

A scrum master is conducting a daily standup. Each member of the development team states that their work has been

stalled due to various blockers. As a result, the entire development team has been idled, and the schedule baseline is in

jeopardy.

What should the scrum master do first?

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 been assigned to lead an agile project. You want to ensure that project information is shared within and across

the organization, so that any misalignments, dependencies, or other issues related to the frequently changing

requirements are surfaced as quickly as possible.

How could this goal be best achieved?

A project manager has been asked to create a document that formally authorizes a project to use ground-penetrating

radar to map geological conditions along a proposed crude oil pipeline route. The performing organization has a written

formal agreement in place to share the data with a local university. The project manager has reviewed the business

documents and considered any relevant external environmental factors to create the requested document.

What might the project manager do next?

While performing monitoring and controlling activities, the project manager discovers inconsistencies between the project

management plan and the project's actual performance. She now needs to determine corrective actions to minimize the

impact of the inconsistencies on the project.

In what project document would she have documented the inconsistencies and would look at to review them?

Your company has been contracted by a client for a software development project. The project will use agile methods to

deliver product increments. For the client, however, this project will be their first experience with agile. You want to make

sure that the client gains the full benefit of early and continuous delivery of software.

What is your best course of action?

You are managing a project that is nearing its end. You have been reviewing the project management plan to ensure that

all the project work is completed and that the project has met its objectives. The next thing you need to do before moving

on to the next project is to complete the administrative closure of the project.

Which of the following activities will not be performed as part of this process?

A scrum master is leading an agile project in which the development team has failed to achieve the sprint goal for the

past three iterations. During the sprint retrospective, the team decides to implement several changes to improve velocity.

How might the scrum master verify any performance improvement?

A project manager creates a procurement statement of work (SOW) from the project scope baseline. The scope of the

SOW, however, is not yet well defined, therefore the project manager decides to contract with a vendor to provide an

agile team of programmers. The contract is structured with fixed-price increments based on user stories.

How might the project manager verify that the vendor has met the contractual obligations?

A project manager is reviewing a document where information about problems impacting project performance is recorded

and monitored. According to the document, a new problem that was logged yesterday by a project team member

indicates that delays have just exceeded the established schedule variance threshold and corrective action is required.

No additional details about the new problem are provided in the document.

What should the project manager do immediately?

You are leading a software development project using agile methodologies. If the project is successful, it will open up vast

opportunities for future revenue and growth. The project has a high risk of failure, but the potential benefits outweigh the

risks. These risks and rewards must be considered when selecting the content of each iteration.

Which features should be prioritized and developed first in this scenario?

You are leading a meeting with the project sponsor and key stakeholders to review the recently completed project

management plan. The goal of the meeting is to establish a common understanding of the plan, answer any questions or

concerns, and gain formal approval of the project management plan.

Which of the following interpersonal and team skills is the least beneficial to the project manager to use to achieve the

meeting’s goal?

An organization is transitioning from predictive project management to agile. As a project manager, your upcoming project

will require compliance reporting that will need to be submitted to internal auditors due to regulatory oversight.

How might you address the need for compliance reporting in this hybrid environment?

The project you are leading is supposed to upgrade the application developed by your company on desktop computers

and mobile devices. Last week, a major supplier of electronics unexpectedly released a new mobile device. You realize

that your application, with a little bit of modification, can run much faster and more securely on the new device.

What should you do next in regards to this opportunity?

The project manager is 6 months into a multi-million-dollar project. The latest analysis shows a CPI of 1.5 and an SPI of

0.6.

What should she do?

Up until now, your project team has allowed the use of flextime where project team members may take time off during

regular business hours and make up the time during the evening hours or weekends. Recently, excessive use of flextime

has become a roadblock as some team members are not available when needed. The team feels they should set a

standard that flextime is only to be used for personal emergencies.

How should you handle this situation?

An agile coach has been nurturing and growing team members through and beyond their current roles. This helped

several team members to develop their personal and professional skills to the level where they felt that they outgrew their

roles. Eventually, some of them left the team to pursue new opportunities within the organization and outside of it.

Was the agile coach right in her approach?

You are a project manager conducting a meeting with your project team. The goal of the meeting is to improve the overall

team environment to enhance project performance. The meeting becomes contentious with team members interrupting

each other and being disrespectful to each other's suggestions. You attempt to return civility to the meeting by

establishing ground rules for acceptable behavior, but working relationships may already be damaged.

What might you have missed that could have prevented this situation?

A project manager is developing a quality management plan for a project to design a medical device. Given the nature of

the product, quality will play a vital role. Additionally, the acceptance criteria for the project deliverables will have a direct

impact on quality standards. The project manager wants to gain an understanding of the acceptance criteria.

What document should the project manager review for this purpose?

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?

An agile coach joined a team that has been working on a project for the last few months. The coach noticed that the team

members were struggling to remove impediments, did not have a discipline around time-boxed events, and were not

using information radiators to display the project status.

What is the best course of action for the agile coach to take?

You are leading a project with two dispersed development teams. One team is using traditional waterfall methods, and the

other is using XP for product development. Budgetary constraints prevent any of the team members from being

colocated.

What should you prioritize for team collaboration?

Following is an illustration of a project network activity node that includes some information about activity B.

Assuming that work starts on day one (not day zero) and given the information provided, what is the late start of activity

B?

A project manager is currently in the process of determining, documenting, and managing stakeholder needs and

requirements. Due to the sensitive nature of the project, there is a concern that some stakeholders will not provide candid

feedback unless confidentiality is maintained.

What is the project manager's best course of action?

A project manager is analyzing the communication needs of stakeholders in order to develop the communications

management plan for a project that will use a hybrid project management framework. The project manager understands

that the plan should accommodate the needs of both predictive and agile aspects of the project.

How should the plan accommodate the agile aspects of this project?

A new developer joins the project. However, her productivity is limited since she lacks the competency in one of the

programming languages. This language is not only used on this project but will also be required on future projects.

Training costs were not included in the project budget, and the project CPI is 0.75.

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

An agile project to develop a new application has just finished its first iteration. To better assess marketing and support

needs, the company's management has requested that the scrum master provide a date for when the application can be

launched.

What is the best course of action for the scrum master?

A senior executive suggests initiating a project to replace a significant portion of the company's labor force with an

automated production line. Other company executives are skeptical that this approach is the best way to increase profit

margins and wonder if they are ready to sponsor such an effort.

What is the first thing that should be done in this scenario?

You meet with your team and key stakeholders to decide on what approach, waterfall or agile, should be used for your

project. You explain to the meeting participants that continuous improvement is of utmost priority for the project. Someone

asks you how waterfall methodologies compare with agile as it relates to continuous improvement.

How should you respond to this question?

You are leading an off-grid housing construction project. Each of the ten homes in the development will have solar

shingles to generate energy and a novel energy storage system. The performing organization is highly experienced with

traditional construction methods, but this is their first project to incorporate energy generation and storage.

How might you best support continuous improvement efforts throughout the project?

As the project manager, you are in the process of developing a draft of a document that authorizes a new software

development project. You have reviewed the agreements and both business documents.

What else should be done as part of this process?

As a scrum master, you are facilitating a retrospective for a sprint that failed to meet all of its objectives. Members of the

development team and the product owner are arguing over who is responsible for the failure. After performing a root

cause analysis, you uncover the source of the conflict.

Of the following, what did you most likely discover?

ou are planning a kick-off meeting for your new project. The meeting will communicate the start of the project, key

milestones, and other relevant information.

Which of the following best describes the objective of this meeting?

An agile team is tasked with the development of a robot. The project manager wants to ensure that before the actual

robot is built, the team receives early feedback on requirements and adapts the design accordingly.

Which of the following should the project manager use to achieve that goal?

You are managing a project with stakeholders from many different departments including marketing, engineering, and

information technology. As you are monitoring stakeholder engagement, it becomes clear to you that stakeholders from

the marketing department who used to be supportive appear to be neutral. After researching the reasons for the gap, you

discover the marketing department views the project communications to be too technical, leading them to lose interest in

the project.

What might be your next step?

A project manager is leading an agile research and development project. The project team is using a diagram, which

breaks down the causes of an identified problem into discrete branches to determine the main cause of the problem.

Which diagram might the project team be using in this situation?

The quality management has been perfect for the project up to this point. Suddenly, the quality assurance (QA) lead who

developed and performed most of the quality activities for the project has been temporarily reassigned to help another

project.

What should the project manager do?

After the project team has completed their first iteration, you are requested to provide the project's status report to the

sponsor. You collect the following data:

• - The cost baseline for the entire project is $528,000

• - The schedule baseline provides for six two-week iterations

• - The actual costs associated with the first iteration were $80,000

• - The team completed 45 of 50 story points planned for the first iteration

What should you report to the sponsor?

A project manager is implementing the quality management plan for a project to construct a natural gas pipeline. During

this process, an internal audit discovers that while the project meets all applicable government regulations, there is a

discrepancy with ISO 9000 criteria.

Which tailoring consideration did the project manager most likely neglect earlier in the project?

The agile project team members are all working in an open office space arrangement. There are many conversations

happening concurrently throughout the day.

Which of the following is the best option for the project manager?

Unlike traditional managers, agile leaders:

A scrum master is working with stakeholders to develop the project vision for inclusion in the project charter and wants to

ensure that regulatory compliance measures are incorporated into the project requirements.

How might the scrum master analyze the consequences of non-compliance?

The project team reports that they have finished creating the requirements management plan, the requirements

documentation, and the requirements traceability matrix. The team informs that they are going to start working on the

project work breakdown structure (WBS) next.

What has the project team forgotten to do?

You are leading two independent teams working on the same project. The nature of the deliverables requires that one

team takes a predictive approach, while the other uses Scrum. Due to dependencies between the teams and the variable

nature of the outputs from the Scrum team, the predictive team needs to confirm their understanding of the Scrum team's

activities with the shortest feedback loop possible.

What is your best course of action?

Your project is running behind schedule. To bring the timeline back into alignment with the project management plan, you

need some of your project team members to work extra hours. In order to motivate your team, you offer each team

member two tickets to a popular sporting event if they work a weekend shift.

What type of power are you using in this situation?

As a project manager, you are leading a colocated project team that will create deliverables in an agile fashion, followed

by a rollout phase that will use a predictive approach. You are concerned that the transition from agile to waterfall may

cause friction within the project team.

With the development phase complete, how might the team's working agreements need to change in this situation?

A project manager has just received a signed formalized document as an output from one of the initiation processes in

her project. This document was prepared by someone external to the project and will be utilized as a catalyst for the

project to move forward.

Which of the following describes this document?

You and the project management team have been vigilant about observing different aspects of the project to ensure the

project is progressing as planned. Currently, you are using performance data generated during project execution to

determine if the status of overall project risk has changed, if the project assumptions are still valid, if contingency reserves

for cost or schedule require modification, and if project strategy remains valid.

What process are you performing?

A project manager has been communicating with 10 stakeholders regularly. Last week 2 more stakeholders were

identified and added to the communications management plan.

What is the number of potential communication channels?

During a meeting, the product owner restated the product vision, described the target user groups, the business goals,

and main features to be delivered by the agile project in its upcoming releases. Then, to visually depict these features,

the product owner created the product roadmap.

Which of the following best describes the purpose of the meeting?

First, a project manager assisted with the development of the project charter which has been approved. Second, he

completed the development of the stakeholder register.

What should the project manager do next?

During project execution, the new state-of-the-art technology that is used on the project to produce the deliverables is

unstable, which puts the whole project at risk of failure. Your sponsor is on vacation and cannot be reached. To get

immediate attention to the issue, you want to know what is the escalation procedure.

What should you do next?

You are managing a virtual project team across multiple time zones. As the project progresses, the team members learn

to trust one another and adjust their work routines to accommodate the different time zones, work habits, and culture.

What stage of team development is being demonstrated in this situation?

The project management plan and the performance measurement baseline have been approved. As you monitor the

project's progress, you realize the approved budget is limiting the project and will affect the targeted completion date.

This constraint could affect the company's success in the new venture.

What is your best course of action?

The project manager and a stakeholder get into a heated debate about the stakeholder's idea requiring a scope change

to the project. The project manager says the change will not be implemented and that the stakeholder must drop the idea.

The project manager emphasizes that she is the project manager and the decision is final.

Should the project manager have responded differently to resolve the conflict?

You are a senior project manager who is mentoring a newly promoted project manager. Your mentee states that she has

recurring arguments with her project team and is having difficulty controlling her own temper. This situation has created a

toxic environment for the project team and threatens the successful completion of the project.

What is the best advice for your mentee?

You are leading a software development project for a client. The change control board (CCB) has been inundated with

change requests from the client throughout the project as the product has evolved. This situation drives the team crazy

and makes controlling the project scope extremely challenging and time-consuming.

Which of the following tailoring considerations might you have missed earlier in the project?

The latest software released to the customer in the first project phase is full of defects. The customer is angry and

demands that the development of the new release, which is planned to be delivered in the second phase, is much more

transparent. The customer wants to see the team’s results more regularly and without very long development intervals inbetween.

Which of the following could the project team introduce in the second phase to better comply with the customer's

demand? (Choose four.)

The deliverables of a two-year-long project have just been accepted. It is four months late, but the customer is pleased to

have it. The project manager is glad to be done with the deliverables but is concerned about the cost and schedule

overruns. He decides to re-run the initial cost-benefit analysis using the actual project costs.

Where should the project manager obtain the initial cost-benefit analysis?

You are the project manager for the initial design phase of a new ergonomic pen. You have conducted multiple interviews

with pen users and have tested various design concepts. Your most recent design has been verified and accepted by key

stakeholders. The pen design is ready to transition to the team managing the next phase.

Which of the following should you consult to find out who will take ownership of the pen design?

You are leading an agile software development project. During a sprint review, the customer rejects the deliverables

stating that the grade is acceptable but not the quality.

Of the following, which might be the best course of action?

A project team will work in a noisy environment requiring hearing protection. To communicate in this type of environment,

your employer has a mandatory proprietary instant messaging mobile phone application that will be installed on the

phone of every project team member for the duration of the project.

The requirement to install this messaging application is an example of which of the following?

Late in a project, a key team member leaves the company. The project manager realizes that he does not have enough

team members to meet the hard deadline. At a weekly status meeting, the project manager discusses several options

with his project team, including authorizing additional overtime, hiring subcontractors, or bringing in additional resources

from another project team within the company.

Which resource management technique does the project manager use?

Two project team members have had frequent clashes, which have at times resulted in shouting matches during team

meetings. The project manager has intervened, asked them to resolve their differences, and even facilitated a meeting

between them, but things have gotten worse. The project manager is concerned that the situation is negatively affecting

team cohesion and is placing the successful completion of the project at risk.

What should the project manager do next?

You have been requested to fill in for a project manager who has called in sick. As you get yourself familiar with the

project team, you notice that the team members do not collaborate well, and there are a lot of disagreements and

conflicts going on. You feel that the overall environment is counterproductive.

Based on your observations, where is the team on the Tuckman ladder?

(On the real PMP exam you may be asked to provide your answer by clicking the correct area in the image. But here in

the simulator, we are asking you to select the answer below.)

You are leading a complex project with a schedule baseline that cannot be modified due to external constraints. The

scope, however, is flexible. The project deliverables are produced by three development teams that work independently

from one another. The teams manage their workflow using Kanban.

Which of the following is the most effective tool for you to use to measure the project's progress?

A project manager has taken over a project that has been in execution for a few months. He ran into problems right away.

He has had difficulty getting sign off on decisions; he doesn't have the authority to acquire the equipment necessary for

the project; the stakeholders and the project team have differing opinions about the objectives and the outcome of the

project.

What is the most likely source of these problems?

An agile team is trying to determine the ideal iteration length. The team members are having a long and intense argument

about it, but no one is willing to compromise. The scrum master is called in to help resolve the conflict.

What is the best course of action for a scrum master?

You are managing a project, and members of your project team are at odds about the tasks they are assigned.

Disagreements between the team members have escalated and have created a reduction in performance across the

project.

What tool or technique will you use to address the team's issues and get the project back on track?

During a sprint retrospective, the team members complain that the business analyst has been unresponsive to clarify the

work package to be developed in the sprint. As a result, the work package has not been accepted by the customer. The

scrum master reaches out to the business analyst and requests them to collaborate with the team during the upcoming

sprints.

What else should the scrum master do?

The PMBOK Guide defines project charter as a document that "formally authorizes the existence of a project and

provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities."

Developing project charters on agile projects:

A project manager has developed the following earned value analysis chart for a software development project. Based on

the current trend, what action should the project manager take immediately?

A project manager is drafting a charter for a software development project. In support of this process, the project

manager has scheduled a brainstorming meeting to gather relevant information.

Which of the following activities is the project manager least likely to conduct?

You are leading a project that was supposed to be managed using agile methods. Every week, however, the product

owner holds a five-hour backlog refinement meeting with the project team where she presents the project scope broken

down to the work package level. After three iterations, the project team's velocity is slower than expected.

What is your best course of action?

It has been decided that the project will be managed using waterfall. However, due to ambiguous requirements, the

software will be developed in short iterations using Scrum. After acquiring a team from within the organization, the project

manager realizes that the organization lacks technical expertise in several key areas and will require external resources

from a vendor. The organization, however, wants to preserve its strategic discretion on the work performed.

What is the best contracting technique for the project manager to use to maximize collaboration with the vendor?

A conflict between the project manager and the team has been going for a while. The conflict negatively impacts the

team's morale and jeopardizes the project's goals. To address the conflict, the project manager maps the desire to satisfy

the parties' concerns on the chart below. Based on the map, the project manager decides to find a collaborative solution.

Where did the project manager most likely map the desire to satisfy the team members' concerns vs. the desire to satisfy

his/her own concerns?

(On the real PMP exam you may be asked to provide your answer by clicking the correct area in the image. But here in

the simulator, we are asking you to select the answer below.)

During the current sprint, the product owner's availability has been limited due to other commitments. At the daily

standup, the team members complain that they cannot get answers from the product owner, and, as a result, the

development of the product increment is delayed.

What is the best course of action for the scrum master?

Two days before the end of the last iteration of the project, an agile coach has noticed that the performance of one of the

developers significantly degraded, risking the iteration goal. The coach and the developer have a one-on-one coaching

meeting scheduled a day after the iteration’s end date.

What is the best course of action for the agile coach to take in this situation?

A PMO steeped in traditional waterfall project management has hired you, as an agile practitioner, to guide the

organization's transformation to agile. After completing an initial assessment of the organizational culture, you have

realized that many of the stakeholders are resistant to the change.

What is your best course of action?

The project team has just completed its fourth sprint. As part of the Control Costs process, you determine that the team's

average velocity is 25 points per sprint, and the team has earned 1/3 of the total number of story points required to

complete the entire project. The average cost per story point is $575.

What is the estimate to complete the remaining work?

You have been assigned to lead an agile project. The project team is comprised of experienced agile practitioners who

have been working together for a long time.

In this agile environment, what is the best approach for you to take to manage project integration?

Monthly audits were performed to determine if project activities comply with corporate policies, procedures, and best

practices. Throughout the project, the results of the monthly audits indicated that the team was in compliance. However,

at the end of the project, it was determined that some of the project activities did not comply with organizational policies.

What most likely caused these compliance gaps to be missed during the audits?

A scheduling error occurred on a construction project that you are managing. The painting contractors arrived as

scheduled, but the drywall was not yet finished. As the project manager, you want to know who was responsible for

scheduling the contractors and who should be held accountable.

What tool or technique is most helpful in this situation?

You are leading a hybrid project with an agile team developing the web application and a traditional engineering team to

design the servers that will host the application. You want to determine what does your company say about the use of

social media tools to communicate and work with the stakeholders to meet their needs and expectations.

What is your best course of action?

Midway into project execution, a key stakeholder leaves the company. A new stakeholder fills in the vacant role. The

project manager understands that the stakeholder engagement plan should be updated to reflect the strategies and

actions required to involve the new stakeholder in the project. The project manager meets with the new stakeholder for an

interview.

Which of the following questions would be the most helpful for the project manager in updating the plan? (Choose three.)

You and your project team have just completed the development of the project management plan for your agile project.

You have requested one of the team members to schedule a meeting to present the finalized project management plan.

The team member has asked who should be invited to the meeting.

How should you respond?

Planning is underway for a project to develop a new online collaboration tool. The team will use eXtreme Programming

(XP) method to develop the tool, while the deployment to the customers will be managed using a waterfall approach. The

agile coach would like to gather early customer feedback to ensure the new tool is aligned with the product vision.

What is the best course of action?

As your project progresses, a team member suggests a minor modification to one of the project deliverables, saying that

the modification will improve the overall performance of the final product. You believe that the modification constitutes a

minor change to the project scope, schedule, and budget, and should be approved without going to the change control

board.

What should you do next?

The project requires ongoing stakeholder engagement and needs to respond to high levels of change. The project

manager has chosen an adaptive life cycle for the project. The backlog contains an ordered list of requirements and work.

At the beginning of each iteration, the team determines how many backlog items can be delivered within the next

iteration.

Which process(es) will the project team need to repeat with each iteration?

While the first phase of a construction project was a success, one of the two lead architects suddenly had to resign from

her position due to a conflict of interest within the company.

What should the project manager do immediately to manage the team composition?

A company is experiencing exponential growth and will soon run out of space in their current production facility. A needs

assessment has been completed to evaluate alternatives. One of the options to support future growth is to build an

expansion on to their existing production facility.

What should the company do next?

You have been provided a list of concerns some stakeholders have with your project. You meet with them to address the

concerns in hopes of gaining their support and cooperation. You pay close attention by actively and effectively listening.

You focus on each person's input to ensure you are aware of and are taking all perspectives into consideration. You then

clearly articulate your point and your position and ask for their support.

Which tool or technique best describes the skills you are using?

A project manager is developing the communications management plan. She has determined which stakeholders need

what information and how often she will distribute the various reports.

What else should the project manager do as part of this process?

A vendor has been contracted by a buyer to develop a new device. The vendor insisted that the contract thoroughly

capture the device specifications. The buyer does not have clear requirements upfront and, therefore, requested that the

vendor develop the device using agile. The vendor delivers as per the contract, but the buyer is not satisfied with the

outcome.

Which Agile Manifesto's value was most likely not appropriately applied?

You meet with your team to determine the life cycle for your project. After analyzing the best way to define and manage

requirements, develop deliverables, handle changes, control risk and cost, and engage key stakeholders, the decision is

made to select a hybrid life cycle.

With the project life cycle selected, how will the requirements be managed on your project?

As part of the Develop Schedule process, the project manager creates the project schedule using a Gantt chart. Three

Scrum teams will develop the project deliverables. Due to dependencies, the teams will be required to coordinate their

work twice a week using extended standup meetings.

What should the project manager do next?

You and your team are currently developing the stakeholder engagement plan. A project team member has already

created the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix below.

Which answer choice represents the most important element to be included in the stakeholder engagement plan?

You have been assigned to lead a drug development project for a small pharmaceutical company. The drug development

aspect of the project is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty, complexity, and risk. The governmental approval

process, on the other hand, is highly structured and well defined.

What project management approach would you recommend for this project?

A project manager has just calculated the project performance measurements, and the project's current cost performance

index (CPI) is 0.9 while the schedule performance index (SPI) is 1.1.

Which of the following is correct regarding the project's performance status?

An agile coach is leading an iteration planning meeting, which is being dominated by a highly respected senior developer.

The agile coach is concerned that the senior developer might be exerting too much influence and overcommitting the

team.

What is the best course of action for the agile coach?

Four vendors have responded to a bid request on your project.

Which of the following vendors should you select based on the expected monetary value (EMV)?

A project has short iterative planning and executing cycles where the requirements are progressively elaborated. The key

stakeholders are continuously involved and provide frequent feedback allowing the team to respond to changes more

quickly.

What is the best way for the project manager to manage quality in this type of project environment?

You are leading a construction project that involves a vendor. A team member tells you that based on the rough

assessment of the vendor's current work in progress, she suspects that the vendor will be unable to complete their work

on time. You share your concerns with the vendor, but they claim that they are progressing as planned.

What is your best course of action to ensure a mutual understanding of the work in progress?

You are halfway through a project, which has experienced several setbacks due to unanticipated problems. Based on

recent feedback, you are concerned that critical support for the project among key stakeholders is eroding. You want to

bring the stakeholders together for a meeting to address any concerns and rebuild support for the project.

Which of the following meetings would be the most beneficial for the key stakeholders to attend?

An agile team member encounters a technical issue while developing one of the user stories she selected for the current

sprint. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue, the team member approaches the scrum master for

advice.

What is the best course of action for the scrum master?

The first phase of a software development project that was conducted using a predictive project management approach is

over. The project enters its second phase which will require the project team to utilize an eXtreme Programming (XP)

method to develop the rest of the product.

How might the team ground rules need to be updated?

A project manager is leading a product development project, which will use an agile framework. The project team and

other stakeholders are co-located at the company's corporate office.

What is the best way for the project manager to communicate the project status and promote transparency?

A change request has been approved and is currently being implemented by the project team.

According to the project life cycle shown on the chart below, which of the following is true about project costs and risks

associated with the process group described in this scenario?

You are managing a project to build 100 site towers, and you have just completed building the 50th tower. To mark the

successful completion of this first significant milestone, you hold a celebration where you share the developments,

challenges, and lessons learned so far on the project.

In what process will you use this information and knowledge gained so far to improve the future performance of the

project?

During project execution of a high priority project, a previously identified risk is realized. The project manager sends an

email to the risk owner and receives an automated response indicating that this individual will be out of the country on

vacation for the next two weeks. The risk owner did not disclose a backup contact to use during the interim.

What should the project manager do first?

To ensure that lessons learned are captured and documented throughout the project life cycle, the project manager

creates the lessons learned register.

What project management process is being performed?

You are a scrum master leading an agile project team that has been consistently meeting the goals set for each iteration.

The product owner is pleased with the team's progress, and the performance measurement baseline shows no

deviations. However, you feel that one team member is less productive than the others.

What is the most appropriate feedback approach for you to take in this situation?

You are creating the schedule to deploy a new ERP software in your company. The company is currently undergoing an

agile transformation, so it was decided to develop the new ERP iteratively. The first release of the ERP should be rolled

out in four months, and you know that another project, a company-wide operating system upgrade, is scheduled in three

months.

With the upgrade project affecting your schedule, an impact on which of the following should you assess to determine the

number of iterations until rollout?

You are leading a project in a small startup company with decentralized purchasing. A supplier informs you that they have

excess inventory that can be purchased at a reduced price. You review the project's inventory needs and find that most of

the excess inventory offered by the supplier can be used for the project.

What is your best course of action?