e4d2 Flashcards
Which of the following is not true of emotional intelligence and its benefits on projects?
A. Emotional intelligence is useful for resolving conflict.
B. Emotional intelligence is useful for directing others on how to do their jobs.
C. Emotional intelligence is useful for anticipating your team member’s actions.
D. Emotional intelligence is useful for reducing staff turnover.
B. Emotional intelligence is useful for directing others on how to do their jobs.
Emotional intelligence benefits conflict resolution, anticipating the actions of others, and reducing staff turnover. Directing others on how to do their jobs is a leadership style but is not a benefit of emotional intelligence.
As a project manager you are hired by a projectized organization. You have been working on a 1-year project for nine months since you became the employee of the company. The project is ahead of schedule when one of the functional managers tells you the resources committed to the project are no longer available.
After further investigation, you discover the company has another project that just started and is using the resources committed to your project. You believe the new project is not critical, but the project manager is the son of the company CEO. What is the BEST course of action in this situation?
A. Ask upper management to formally prioritize the projects
B. Determine when resources will become available
C. Negotiate a new schedule with the other project manager
D. Use the reserve to hire contractors to complete the work
C. Negotiate a new schedule with the other project manager
According to the PMBOK® Guide, you should always first try to resolve conflicts internally, and you should use negotiating skills to try to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. So the best course of action is the negotiate a new schedule with the other project manager. The other options might be used as well, but only after attempting negotiation. Trying these other options first would indicate a passive management style.
Which of the following statements is true for improving the quality of the project’s processes?
A. Preventive actions prevent defects from reaching the customer.
B. Inspection ensures avoidance of rework.
C. Preventive actions reduce the likelihood that errors will occur in the process.
D. Inspection reduces random variation in the output of the process.
C. Preventive actions reduce the likelihood that errors will occur in the process.
Prevention improves quality by eliminating defects from the process rather than relying on inspection after. Therefore, prevention can reduce the likelihood that errors will occur in the process. The other items refer to inspection.
You are managing a project and you know that the first phase of the project is completed. What will you make sure that is done before starting the second phase of the project?
A. Make sure that the resources of the next phase are available
B. Recommend corrective actions to close the gap between the planned and actual progress of the project
C. Confirm that the first phase has reached its objectives and its deliverables are formally accepted
D. Check the project status against the plan
C. Confirm that the first phase has reached its objectives and its deliverables are formally accepted
A phase or project must be formally closed and accepted. Of course the other choices are also required to be done, but only after the closure of the first phase.
You are weighing the different alternatives which you have in order to make a career shift. One of your alternatives is a company with a projectized organizational form. In your assessments, which one of the following would be considered as a drawback of such an organizational form?
A. The project team members have to report to many bosses
B. The functional manager has more power than the project manager
C. The team members have low loyalty to the project
D. Often the project management team has no home
D. Often the project management team has no home
The main drawback of the projectized organization is that at the end of the project, the team is dispersed but they do not have a functional department (‘home’) to which to return.
During the execution of the project, as the project manager you realize that a new quality standard has been adopted by your company. Your project team will meet with the company quality department to determine how the new standard will apply to your project. This is part of which quality process?
A. Plan Quality Management
B. Manage Quality
C. Control Quality
D. Quality Update
A. Plan Quality Management
Even though it is occurring during the execution of the project, determining what standards to use is part of quality planning. Sometimes during the project execution or other phases we need to refer back to planning because planning is an iterative process. In planning, we determine what quality standards are applicable to the project and how to implement and control them. ‘Quality Update’ is a made up term and does not represent any of the quality management processes.
You are in the process of conducting procurement management, and you are about to award a contract to a subcontractor for a portion of the project scope. The mentioned portion, which is described at a high level, will cost $4 million with a standard deviation of $500,000. What type of contract do you recommend in this situation?
A. Fixed Cost
B. Fixed price plus incentive fee
C. Cost-plus fixed fee
D. Cost-plus percentage of costs
C. Cost-plus fixed fee
The cost of this project will vary, at one standard deviation, from $3.5M to $4.5M. Since this is not insignificant, there would appear to be some ambiguity with the project definition. As there is uncertainty in the scope since it is not described in detail, we would not pick either of the fixed price options (fixed cost or fixed price plus incentive fee).
Of the two cost-plus options, you need to select the better of the two. Cost-plus percentage of costs is probably the worst type of contract to use, as there is no incentive for the seller to control costs. The only choice left is a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract.
You just finished acquiring the members of your project team for your new project. You now need to ensure that each person is associated with a project activity and their roles and responsibilities are documented. What is the term for what this project artifact is called?
___________________________________
Project Team Assignments
According to page 334 of the PMBOK Guide, project team assignments are a recording of the team members and their roles and responsibilities for the project. This may be documented in a project team directory, project organization chart, and/or a schedule.
You are leading a change-driven project, and the first iteration of the project is completed. Which TWO activities need to be complete before beginning the next iteration?
A. Planning has occurred for the next iteration.
B. The actual percent completed is compared against the baseline to understand progress performance.
C. All of the items in the iteration backlog are complete.
D. Confirm that the first iteration has reached its objectives and its deliverables are formally accepted.
A. Planning has occurred for the next iteration.
D. Confirm that the first iteration has reached its objectives and its deliverables are formally accepted.
In change-driven projects, the definition of “done” is agreed to in advance and the team and stakeholders meet to ensure that these objectives have been met and are acceptable. Planning on the next iteration and what to include occurs next. In change-driven projects, baselines are not established since detailed planning only occurs for the current iteration. Percent complete is not a meaningful metric in change-driven projects. In Agile, backlog items that are not complete at the end of the iteration are moved to a future iteration.
As the manager of a construction project, you are reviewing an earned value analysis report which includes only the variance information. Schedule variance is $320,000 and cost variance is $100,000. Your guess is that the planned value of the project at this point should be $2,000,000.
It is after normal office hours, and you don’t have access to the analyst who prepared the report, though you see that the report shows an SPI of 1.16 and a CPI of 1.05. What does this information tell you about the project?
A. Your project is ahead of schedule and under budget.
B. Your project is behind schedule and under budget.
C. Your project is ahead of schedule and over budget.
D. Your project is behind schedule and over budget.
A. Your project is ahead of schedule and under budget.
An SPI > 1.0 means the project is ahead of schedule. An SPI = 1.0 means it is on schedule, and an SPI < 1.0 means it is behind schedule. Since the SPI is > 1 here, then it is ahead of schedule. Similarly, here for CPI, which is 1.05 and > 1.0. This means it is under budget. This can be verified by noting that there is a positive schedule and cost variance, which also indicates being ahead of schedule and under budget.
