Chapter 9

Question 1

Generalizing Specialists

Answer 1

This means the people on the team can do more than one type of work no matter what their role in the team is.

This term is sometimes used for adaptive project teams

Question 2

Corrective Actions (aka Defect Repair)

Answer 2

Allow you to direct the project team to fix an error to get the project back in alignment with the project objectives.

Question 3

Preventive Actions

Answer 3

Are steps you and the team take to prevent a possible error from ever entering the project - or learning a lesson and not repeating an error again.

Question 4

Work Authorization System

Answer 4

This system requires project team members to report activities completed with given metrics so that downstream activities can begin.

Question 5

Schedule Duration Compression

Answer 5

A fancy way of saying “hurry up”.

Question 6

Fast Tracking

Answer 6

Allows phases to overlap slightly so that all of the activities in the subsequent phase can finish sooner than what was planned if the phase didn’t start until after the previous phase had finished.

Fast tracking is considered risky

Question 7

Crashing

Answer 7

Allows you to add more effort to an activity or phase to get the work done faster. Crashing a project increases the labor to complete effort-driven activities, but this approach can also increase the cost of the project because someone is paying for the labor you’ve added.

Question 8

Cost Variance Report

Answer 8

This report explains the variance, the cause of the variance, and its impact on the projects success.

Question 9

Committed Cost

Answer 9

Is the amount of money approved and assigned to a portion or the entirety of a project.

Question 10

Expenditure

Answer 10

The actual spending of project money.

Question 11

Earned Value Management (EVM)

Answer 11

EV (Earned Value) - Representative of the work completed.

PV (Planned Value) - How much the project should cost to get to a specific point in the schedule.

AC (Actual Costs) - The actual amount of monies the project has required to date.

CV (Cost Variance) - Occurs when the actual cost of the project work is more or less than the EV.

SV (Schedule Variance) - Occurs when the EVE is more or less than the PV.

Question 12

Cost Performance Index (CPI)

Answer 12

Is a reflection of the amount of actual cumulative dollars on a projects work and how close that value is to the predicted budgeted amount.

Question 13

Scheduled Performance Index (SPI)

Answer 13

Is a formula to calculate the ratio of the actual work performed versus the work planned.

Question 14

Estimate at Completion (EAC)

Answer 14

Is a prediction of what the total cost of the project will be, given current performance factors.

EAC = BAC / CPI

Question 15

Estimate to Completion (ETC)

Answer 15

ETC = EAC - AC

Question 16

To-complete Performance Index (TCPI)

Answer 16

If you want to see if your project can meet the budget at completion use this:
TCPI = (BAC - EV) / (BAC - AC)

If you want to see if your project can meet the newly created estimate at completion use this:
TCPI = (BAC - AC) / (EAC - AC)

Question 17

Burn Rate

Answer 17

describes how quickly you’re burning through the project budget. The burn rate shows the consumption of funds by the project and the anticipated costs of the remainder of the budget.