Passing the PMP: Whole Book Flashcards
The ________ is the official text for the PMI examination
PMBOK
The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements is:
Project Management
PMI was founded in:
1969
A project is a ___________ endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.
Temporary
In 2000, _______ certified the PMBOK as the standard for project management literature.
American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
Planning and Closing are two parts of a _________ approach to project management.
Phase
Each knowledge area is divided into ________ areas.
Process
Each process is divided into:
Inputs, Tools and Techniques, and Outputs
Which is the best model for studying for the PMI examination?
Both . The Phase Model and The Knowledge Area model
The single phase that has the most questions about it on the examination is the ________ phase.
Planning
What is the best time to sit for the examination?
Immediately after taking the course
The person in the organization who authorizes the commencement of a project is the:
Sponsor
The document that authorizes the release of organizational resources to the project is the:
Charter
The project manager is assigned in the:
Charter
Without a ________ the project cannot go forward.
Charter
A project manager is assigned to a project in the ________ phase of the project.
Initiation
______ scope determines the features and functions of the output of the project.
Product
The work that needs to be done to produce a product/service is included in the:
Project Scope
The tangible measurement or outcome that must be produced to complete a part of a project or the project itself is called a:
Deliverable
A description of the final deliverable is one of the best ways to make sure that you are in control of the project in the ________ phase.
Closing
The Work Breakdown Structure is done by:
The Project team
The WBS is done during Scope Definition; Scope Definition comes between:
Scope Planning and Scope Verification
Most projects need ________ meeting(s) to do a good WBS.
Multiple
A good WBS:
Helps pull the team together, Is a roadmap for the project, Defines the scope
Getting the WBS done is the responsibility of:
The Project Manager
The project team is created in the ________ phase.
Planning
The document that shows the tasks needed to complete the project in detail is the:
WBS
The single most important position for completing a project successfully is the:
Project Manager
Which phase of a project has the least risk?
Planning, Because you have not committed the major part of your resources
The document that describes the objectives, work content, deliverables, and end product of a project is the:
Scope Statement, it controls pretty much everything that goes on in execution
Which one of these comes first in the project plan?
Scope Statement, You have to have a Scope Statement before doing any other parts of the plan
Which of these plans is not done during the writing of a project plan?
Executive Communication,
Who is responsible for the formation of the final project plan?
Project Manager
What is another name for functional structure?
Line
Which of these types of matrix structure gives the project manager the most control?
Strong; Next to a projectized form of organization, a strong matrix gives the most authority to the project manager.
Three types of organizational structure discussed in PMBOK are:
Matrix, functional, projectized
The type of organization where the project manager has the least authority is:
Functional
You can use project management skills in which of the following structural organizations?
Functional, Matrix, Projectized
The title of a manager who is responsible for more than one project is:
Program Manager: A program manager manages multiple projects and project managers.
Communication in a matrix environment is usually classified as:
Complex; This is because the project team members may have reporting lines to more than one person, which causes very complex communication and authority issues.
A project team member working in a functional organization reports to:
The Functional Manager
Definition of a Project Manager
The person who has the responsibility for the outcome of the project.
Definition of a Team Members
The project team that does the actual work on the project.
Definition of a Sponsor
The person or group that allocates resources to the project.
Definition of a Customer
The individual or organization that will use the output of the project. Other names for this stakeholder may be “client” or “user.”
Which one of these types is generally not a stakeholder?
A. Project Manager
B. Sponsor
C. Project Observer
D. Project Team Member
Project Observer
Stakeholders are important because:
Their interests may be positively or negatively affected by the project
If there are 2 people in the communication system, how many channels will there be?
1
Formula: N(N–1)/2, where N=the number of people
2(2–1)/2 = 1 or 2(1)/2 = 1
If there are 4 people in the communication system, how many channels will there be?
6
Formula: N(N–1)/2, where N=the number of people
4(4–1)/2 = 6 or 4(3)/2 = 6
What is the difference in communication channels between 6 and 9 people?
21
Formula: N(N–1)/2, where N=the number of people
6(6–1)/2 = 15 or 6(5)/2 = 15
9(9–1)/2 = 36 or 9(8)/2 = 36.
36-15 = 21
What are you measured against during the Execution phase of the project?
Project Baseline
Who should go to status meetings?
The people in the communication plan
Status meetings should be held at least:
Once a week
The most important document for running a status meeting professionally is:
An agenda
The person writing down meeting notes for a project status meeting is called a:
Scribe
What are the actions called that are done in response to unexpected problems?
Workarounds
Which is more important, Planning or Execution?
Both
One of the functional managers wants to make a major scope change during the execution of the project. The project manager’s action should be to:
Detail the impact of the change for the functional manager.
In Scope Change Control, the project manager must make sure that:
The changes are beneficial
As changes are brought forward, the project manager should always:
Consider the impact of the change
The one function that must be on the CCB is the:
Project manager
After a change request has been denied, you should:
Record it and save it
Change requests are made against the:
All change requests are made against a project plan that has the project baseline. If a change is desired in the baseline, a change request should be submitted.
Change requests should be:
Timely
If change requests are not done formally, this often leads to:
Scope creep
The Change Control Board should:
Be flexible, Have appropriate authority, Include the project manager
The CEO comes into your office (cubby). He or she asks for changes to be made in the scope of the project but doesn’t have enough time to go through a formal procedure, and because everyone on the project actually reports to him or her, it is expected that you get these things done. You should:
Determine what will happen if the change is made and then report that to the president.
The tools and techniques used to gather, integrate, and disseminate the outputs of project management processes are called a:
PMIS
The baseline version number of a document is:
1.0
Version control numbers should change when:
Any change occurs
Version control helps make meetings easier because:
It keeps everyone on the same page
A formal procedure for sanctioning project work is a:
Work authorization
Verbal authorization of project work is most often seen in ________ projects.
Smaller
Procurement items are detailed in the:
SOW; This is the document that will give bidders the detail they need to determine whether they should be bidding on a certain item or task.
The acronym for the value of the work already completed on the project is:
EV. Learn this definition for Earned Value.
EV, or Earned Value, is the same as:
BCWP; This stands for Budgeted Cost of Work Performed
PV is the same as:
BCWP; Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled.
If your AC = $25,000 and your EV = $20,000, how are you doing?
Over Budget $5,000;
EV-AC.
$20,000 –$25,000 = –$5,000
If your AC = $3,000 and your EV = $3,400, how are you doing?
+$400;
EV-AC.
$3,400 – $3,000 = $400.
Your Earned Value is $10,000 and your Actual Cost is $8,000. That means that your CPI is:
1.25:
EV/AC.
10000/8000
Your Earned Value is $10,000 and your Actual Cost is $12,000. What is your CPI?
.83:
EV/AC. –
10000/12000
Your EV = $8,000 and your PV = $6,000. What is your SPI?
1.33:
SPI=EV/PV.
EV = 8,000, PV = 6,000. 8,000/6,000 = 1.33.
Your EV = $500 and your PV = $600. What is your SPI?
.83
EV=500, PV=600. 500/600=.83.
You define the end of the project by defining the:
Final deliverable
The phase in which you define the final deliverable is:
Planning
The person who has the responsibility for keeping the final deliverable clear to all stakeholders is the:
Project manager
Administrative Closure should occur:
At the end of each phase
Information needs to go to:
Everyone in the communication plan
As you make approved changes to the original scope, you should:
Save the old versions
If your project comes in 20% ahead of schedule and 25% under budget, you should:
Find out why there was such a variance from the original plan
A complete set of indexed project records is called:
Project archives
Acceptance of the product of the project should be:
Formal
Formal acceptance includes:
Written acceptance
The ________ is the person/organization that gives project acceptance.
Customer
The project manager must comply with the requirements of both the customer and:
His own organization
A ________ must be written in order to require Contract Closeout.
Formal contract
A(n) ________ performs the procurement audit.
Outside individual/organization
What information goes into lessons learned?
Information that will help future project managers
When do you discuss lessons learned?
At regular status meetings
Lessons learned should be:
Written down
Lessons learned are valuable to:
Project managers. Project teams, Stakeholders
Who is responsible for keeping a lessons learned log?
The project manager
The contract file consists of ________ records.
Indexed
Before the main vendor is paid, be sure that ________ are paid.
Sub-contractors
You are a PMP-certified project manager who works for a company that is trying to get all its project managers certified. You are asked by some of your non-certified colleagues for guidance on how to take the exam. You should:
Give them guidance about the various resources available.
You have been with the organization for a short time, and you find what you think are clear violations of the PMP Code that occur with frequency. As a PMP, you should:
Write down the infractions, discuss them discreetly with other PMPs, and decide how to handle the situation.
In this same organization, you constantly hear rumors about a certain PMP failing to live up to the PMP Code. You should:
Gather as much information as you can before proceeding.
You should ________ the information you have so that you can present it to others if that becomes necessary.
Write down
You believe you have found someone who is not disclosing all of the costs involved with an upcoming project. Rather, this PMP is constructing a WBS that does not include all the tasks necessary to get the project done. You should:
Talk to the PMP about the WBS to see if you can rework it to reflect actual costs of the project.
You are looking for classes that will help you professionally. There are a series of one-day seminars that you can take that will help you. This series is presented as a set with the tuition for the set of five inclusive of all of them. You are unable to attend one of the days of the set. The topic covered that day is important to you, and you have already taken the other four days. What should you do?
Put only the classes you have actually attended in your resume.
You have been assigned to a major project in another country. Before you go, you check with your providing organization to make sure you understand all of the constraints of working in the other country. When you get there, you settle into a routine and do excellent work, completing the project within 5% of the planned budget and schedule. To show their appreciation, the sponsors of the project, who are wealthy men in their own country, send you an expensive gift to, as they put it, “Say thank you for your hard work.” It turns out that this is a fairly common practice in that country but is against both ethics and regulations in your own country. What should you do?
Talk to your management about the problem and get them involved.
You are writing an article about risk. In the middle of the article, you use a statistic from a well-known report that is the standard for explaining risk. Everyone writing in the area of risk knows the report. Because the report is so well known, you:
Cite the report.
Offering an estimate that you know will be changed shortly after the contract is signed is:
Bad practice, Unprofessional practice, Bad for both the buyer and seller
Estimates are:
Just that….. Estimates
Estimates should:
Be the closest to correct as you can get
You have just been assigned to a project that has been ongoing for more than three months. In looking over the project plan, you see deliverables that seem to be impossible to deliver to the client in the specified time frame. You should:
Talk to the sponsor and explain your concerns for the accuracy of the schedule
The final arbiter of any service scope change is the
Customer
When the project was begun, both the customer and the project manager understood that it was likely that some service scope changes would occur. A few weeks into the project, some services need to be added. Because you, as the project manager, and the customer already have talked over the possibility of this happening, you should follow standard scope change procedure that includes:
A written request for service scope change
The objectives of the project are agreed to in the ________ phase of the project.
Planning
If the objectives of the project are changed, these changes are accepted only with the consent of the
Customer
You are a project manager sitting in a meeting with executives of the company for which you work as a contract manager. These executives include the president of the company, who begins the meeting by specifically stating, “What is said in this room at this meeting stays in this room. There are no exceptions to this.” This is a clear statement from the president, so you do not report on some issues discussed in the meeting when you file your weekly report to your manager. The manager calls you, asking why you have not filed a complete report, and you reply that the president specifically said that no one outside of the people in the room should hear the information. Your manager replies that both parties have signed a confidentiality agreement, so it is OK for you to report. What do you do to keep both parties satisfied?
Get written permission from the president to give out the information.
You are a contracted PM and are working within an organization. The sponsor of the project comes to you and asks you for some extra work not within the agreed project plan. She makes it clear that she expects it to be done without a change in cost and that this is something that happens often in projects that she sponsors, even suggesting that your company will be removed from the project if you do not comply. Now what?
Check with your engagement manager before doing anything else.
The president of a major international firm had just arrived in our city. During our first meetings to go over project expectations, the conversation turned to his favorite sports, and the one that he followed was soccer (European football). It just so happened that the U.S. national team was playing a World Cup qualifying game in our city that evening. I bought tickets and drove him to the game, which he enjoyed immensely. He said it was good to see his home country’s sport and was gracious in his thanks. Was I right or wrong to do this?
Because nothing was gained except an enjoyable experience, it was acceptable.
The processes required to ensure that the various elements of the project are coordinated are called:
Project Integration Management
The document that begins the process of integrating the project with organizational goals is called the:
Charter
The first planning that occurs when doing the organizational process of choosing projects is:
Strategic planning
Assumptions are factors that, for planning purposes, are considered to be:
True, real, or certain
Assumptions in the project plan should be:
Written down
The final choices about how to execute the project are found in the:
Project Plan
The project plan helps to facilitate:
Communication
The project plan determines what you will communicate, when you will communicate, how much you will communicate, and:
With whom you will communicate
The ________ is a part of the project plan.
Baseline, Project Scope, Schedule
The methodology that is used to measure variance in projects is:
Earned Value Management (EVM)
EVM is generally not seen in:
General management
EVM is a methodology that deals with ________ management.
Variance
Past project plans should not be followed exactly because each project is:
Unique
Which of the following is useful in your current planning?
Contact with former project managers, Reviewing WBSs from other projects, Utilizing databases from past projects
Which of these is an example of an organizational policy?
Hiring and firing guidelines
A ________ is an example of a constraint.
Contract
Risk plans, quality plans, and procurement plans are all ________ to the project plan.
Inputs
Project management software is an example of a ________ tool for project management methodology.
Hard
Templates and forms are a part of an organization’s ________ for project plan development.
Methodology
An engineer on a project participates in the Planning phase and makes considerable contributions to the technical planning. What type of skill/knowledge is this?
Stakeholder
The PMIS has both ________ and ________ systems that are useful in project plan development.
Manual, automated
The supporting detail, which consists of requirements, designs, and specifications, is part of:
Technical documentation
Anything that reduces the probability of potential consequences of risk events is:
Preventive action
You are working on a project, and the status reports you are getting indicate that the project is slipping schedule. You bring the necessary parts of the project team together and map a course that you can use to bring the schedule back in line with the baseline of the project plan. This is an example of:
Corrective action
Risk management, quality management, and scope management are examples of ________ skills.
Project management
Communication, leadership, and negotiation are examples of ________ skills.
General management
Product skills and knowledge are brought to the project team by:
Finding resources that bring the necessary skills and knowledge to the project.
The value of a work authorization system should be balanced with the ________ of the work authorization system.
Cost
After you have written an agenda, the next step is to ________ it.
Time
“The outcomes of the activities performed to accomplish the project” are:
Work results
Part of Project Integration Management is making sure that only ________ changes are implemented.
Approved
Ensuring that changes to the project are agreed upon, determining that a change has occurred, and managing changes when they occur is the definition of:
Integrated Change Control
If you make changes in product scope, these changes should be reflected in your:
Project Scope
Changes should be reflected across other ________ areas.
Knowledge
The baseline for the project and the standard against which all changes will be measured is the:
Project Plan
“Legally mandated” and “optional” are types of:
Change requests
If a change can be approved only by the project manager, this is still part of the:
Change Control System
Which of the following identifies the functional and physical characteristics of a system used on the project?
Configuration management
Additional planning occurs when:
Any change request is approved
The features and functions of a product or service are considered ________, and the work that must be done to deliver a product or service as the output of the project is considered ________.
Product scope, project scope
Completion of the project scope is measured against the ________.
Project plan
Completion of the product scope is measured against ________.
Product requirements
Completion of the product scope is measured against ________, and completion of the project scope is measured against the ________.
Product requirements, project plan
The process of formally authorizing that an existing project should continue into its next phase is part of ________.
Initiation
Formal authorization of advancement to the next project phase is generally not found in:
Small projects
Some type of authorization is needed on ________ projects.
Big, Special, Small
A market demand, a technological advance, and a legal requirement are all examples of:
Reasons for authorizing a project
When should detail about the product of the project be given?
As soon as possible in the project planning
A connection between the product being created and the overall strategy of the organization is created by the ________.
Product description
