PMI-PBA Mock Exam Lite - 1

Question 1

The agile technique of on-demand scheduling is not suitable when:

Answer 1

The use of a predictive lifecycle is mandated by the customer.

If the use of a predictive lifecycle is mandated by the customer, no other project life cycles can be selected. Hence most of the agile techniques will be inapplicable in those scenarios. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 177]

Question 2

You work for a venture capital firm that continuously evaluates potential acquisition opportunities regarding emerging products and technologies. The organization primarily uses the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of all opportunities as a financial viability measure. Which of the following statements regarding Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is correct?

Answer 2

IRR is the rate at which the Net Present Value of all cash flows will equal zero.

The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) gives the projected annual yield of an investment (rate of return) considering the time value of money. The IRR value signifies the interest rate at which the net present value of all cash flows will equal zero. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]

Question 3

You have recently joined an organization. The organization’s business analysis and project management processes are not as mature as the organizations you have worked for in the past. You are coaching elicitation techniques to the young business analysts in the organization. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT?

Answer 3

Elicitation means collecting product information that stakeholders always have readily available.

Elicitation is more than collecting or gathering product information. Stakeholders do not always have product information readily available with them. A business analyst has to work out ways to elicit product information from the stakeholders. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 154]

Question 4

You are reviewing a product team’s performance. The team is developing a small business application and is currently planning the project. The committed project duration, according to the product charter, was six months. However, the business analyst has already spent over two months in elicitation planning activities. What is your opinion about this?

Answer 4

The business analyst must have balanced the needs of the project against the quantity of requirements elicitation.

Spending two months off time for elicitation planning does not look all right for a six-month project. In the current situation, you have less than four months to do the actual elicitation and product development. The business analyst should have been more aware that elicitation consumes project resources; therefore, there is a cost for each facilitated workshop completed, each interview conducted, and every survey sent. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 53; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 127]

Question 5

You have been assigned to lead the business analysis activities for a major organizational transformation project. The scope of your business analysis activities includes analyzing the business needs and recommending customizations to an existing ERP solution in the market. The project stakeholders are geographically distributed and working in different time zones. In order to successfully complete your task, you should:

Answer 5

Identify the best approach for collaboration with the distributed stakeholders.

When stakeholders work remotely, it is helpful to identify the methods used for connectivity. This information can be used when determining the best approach for collaboration, for example, conference calls, desktop sharing, web conferencing, etc. Limiting the business analysis activities to one location or deploying the system with standard configurations will be bad choices. Requesting additional budget and time are irrelevant here. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 44; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 115-116]

Question 6

You are a junior business analyst on a team that is analyzing an organization’s operating model. You are currently working with a senior business analyst and helping her prepare for an upcoming elicitation activity. All of the following activities may be performed to prepare for an elicitation activity EXCEPT:

Answer 6

Decomposing epics into smaller user stories

Decomposing epics into smaller user stories is a task the development team needs to assist you with; this is not an elicitation activity. The rest of choices are all valid activities performed to prepare for an elicitation activity. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 161]

Question 7

Your team has recently released a new software application in the business. The application has been well-received by the business stakeholders. You want to conduct a formal solution evaluation at this stage. Which of the following is the ideal way to conduct a post-production solution evaluation?

Answer 7

Comparing the actual results of acceptance testing to the expected or desired results.

Solution evaluation activities are performed to assess whether a solution has achieved the desired business results. Solution evaluation consists of the work done to analyze measurements obtained for the solution by comparing the actual results of acceptance testing to the expected or desired results. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 278]

Question 8

A product team is developing a product using Agile product development methods. The team is currently struggling with completing their started user stories. You have investigated this further and found out that the team is not appropriately planning their work-in-progress items. Which of the following tools should you recommend the product team use to better manage their work-in-progress items and plan these in accordance to their capacity?

Answer 8

Kanban

Kanban is an adaptive technique in which items are pulled from a backlog and started when other product backlog items are completed. Kanban also establishes work-in-progress limits to constraint the number of product backlog items that can be in progress at any point in time. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 400]

Question 9

The product owner has just asked your team to drop a user story from the current sprint. According to the product owner, the business requirements have changed and so have the priorities of the user stories on your Agile project. What should you do next?

Answer 9

Move the story back into the backlog.

The user story is not wanted at this stage. However, it has not been established that it is unwanted. The best course of action is to move the story back into the product backlog where it will be reprioritized. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 264]

Question 10

You are analyzing the requirements for a complex ERP system development project. As your next business analysis deliverable, you are required to develop a model that visually shows the complex flow of system use cases. The model is expected to show the user and system interactions and mirror the textual district descriptions of the system use cases. You decide to develop an activity diagram to meet this requirement. Activity diagrams are:

Answer 10

A type of process model

An activity diagram is a type of process model that visually shows the complex flow of use cases. Activity diagrams are like process flows in syntax; however, they commonly show user and system interactions in one diagram and mirror the textual descriptions of use cases. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 387]

Question 11

You have been hired as a business analyst into a manufacturing firm. The head of business development has asked you to review how the department manages its sales pipeline and recommend improvements. When you interviewed some senior stakeholders, you were surprised to find out that nobody has a clear idea regarding “who does what?” in the sales pipeline management and rather react to sales opportunities as they come. You call a workshop and invite some key stakeholders to define a new process flow. What should you do next?

Answer 11

Confirm the defined process with a wider stakeholder group.

The problem at hand was that there was no agreed and documented sales pipeline management process. To resolve this problem, you called a stakeholder workshop to define the sales pipeline process flow. As the next step, you need to perform the Confirm Elicitation Results process to validate this process with a wider stakeholder group, i.e., all involved and relevant stakeholders. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 170]

Question 12

You are planning to conduct a requirements elicitation workshop with key stakeholders. The prime goal of the meeting is to come up with a high-level product feature model and schedule subsequent elicitation activities. You decide to use an affinity diagram during this workshop. How can an affinity diagram help in this context?

Answer 12

Affinity diagrams provide a sample format for the development of a feature model.

The feature mode can be used in combination with brainstorming techniques to help stakeholders identify features by focusing on the groupings, similar to an affinity diagram. Affinity diagrams provide a sample format for the development of a feature model. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 193]

Question 13

You have scheduled a product team meeting to help you define the story map for the upcoming iteration. Which of the following is the correct way of setting up a story map?

Answer 13

Horizontally, setup the story map to show what will be delivered within an iteration; and vertically, depict the higher-level groupings of the user stories.

Story mapping is a technique used to sequence user stories based upon their business value and the order in which their users typically perform them. Regarding the setup: horizontally, setup the story map to show what will be delivered within an iteration; and vertically, depict the higher-level groupings of the user stories. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 261]

Question 14

You are currently assessing the financial viability of a product idea. The steering committed would like to make their decision based on the IRR and payback period associated with the investment. You want to use a technique that would combine the results from the payback period and IRR valuations method. What should you do next?

Answer 14

Create a weighted ranking matrix.

Creating a Pareto chart does not make any sense. Using IRR as a primary valuation technique and using the payback period as a tie breaker or vice versa does not mean that you are combining the results from these two valuations techniques. A weighted ranking matrix is used to weight, rate, and score each criterion against a set of options. This table can be used to combine the results of the two valuation techniques by using these as criteria and assigning weights to these criteria. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]

Question 15

You have completed the product requirements elicitation activities and documented all the requirements in a requirements management tool. You have used these requirements to identify all product use cases. Which of the following tools should you use to model the flow of these use cases?

Answer 15

Activity diagram

Activity diagrams are types of process flows that can be used for general workflow modeling, but commonly are used to visually show the complex flow of use cases. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 198]

Question 16

You have recently been assigned as the lead business analyst on an ERP system design and development project. This is a complex project and the entire system needs to be developed inhouse. Given the costs, time and resource commitment, the senior leadership is not only keen about how you initially develop the business case and conduct the feasibility study, they will also be very interested in how system evaluation activities are performed throughout the product lifecycle. Solution evaluation is usually complex and requires preparation. Which of the following statements regarding preparation for Solution Evaluation is correct?

Answer 16

Solution Evaluation often requires early preparation.

Solution Evaluation often requires early preparation, so that what is needed to perform this work is in place later when evaluation is conducted. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 277, 279]

Question 17

You are leading an Agile project. A business analyst has helped you define the product backlog. However, only the product owner has the authority to prioritize the user stories in the backlog. What decision-making technique does the product owner exercise in the project to prioritize the user stories?

Answer 17

Autocracy

Since the only product owner has the authority to prioritize the user stories, this is the autocratic style of decision making. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 267]

Question 18

You are leading a product planning session and the team has selected a few Epics and broken these down into smaller user stories. You now need to sequence these based upon their business value and the order in which their users will typically perform them. Which of the following techniques will help you do this?

Answer 18

Story mapping

Story mapping is a technique used to sequence user stories, based upon their business value and the order in which their users typically perform them, so that teams can arrive at a shared understanding of what will be built. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 101]

Question 19

You are auditing a product team’s performance. In order to audit the alignment of the development efforts to the business objectives, which of the following documents should you analyze to understand the scope of the product the developers are working against?

Answer 19

Product backlog

Although the situation statement, the business case, and the project charter should all contain a high-level product scope, these documents are generally not referred to by the developers as the reference for product development. The product backlog lists all the product backlog items—typically user stories, requirements, or features—that need to be delivered for a solution. The product backlog is used by the developers as a reference for all product development activities. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 213]

Question 20

You have recently established a team that will work on a new product development project. As a team building activity, you have arranged a workshop. Your team consists of three smaller teams; the business analysts, the project management team, and the product development team. You are explaining to the team the differences between project and product lifecycles. Which of the following statements regarding product lifecycles is incorrect?

Answer 20

A product lifecycle succeeds a project lifecycle.

A product lifecycle encompasses one or more project lifecycles; it doesn’t succeed a project lifecycle. If a project is all about creating a new product, that project lifecycle is part of the overall product lifecycle. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 15]

Question 21

You have conducted a few requirements workshops and documented all elicited high-level user stories. You have also selected a subset of these stories to be included in the first iteration for development. However, prior to any development work on these stories, you must:

Answer 21

Elaborate the stories and refine the backlog.

Story elaboration is the process by which user stories are further detailed with additional information until they are ready for development. The rest of the choices are all irrelevant to the context. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 214]

Question 22

Which of the following is a series of conditions the entire team agrees to complete before a user story is considered sufficiently understood for work to begin to construct it?

Answer 22

Definition of Ready

“Definition of ready” is a series of conditions that the entire team agrees to complete before a user story is considered sufficiently understood for work to begin to construct it. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 394]

Question 23

All the following are ways to determine whether value has been delivered by the released product EXCEPT:

Answer 23

Evaluating the product team productivity.

Evaluating the product team’s productivity is part of project performance evaluation and not post-implementation solution evaluation. The rest of the choices are ways to determine whether value has been delivered by the released product. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 281]

Question 24

You are the business analyst on a software development project. During a requirements elicitation workshop, the stakeholders proposed some conflicting requirements. You tried facilitating a consensus but that did not work. What should you do next?

Answer 24

Follow the process set forth in the stakeholder engagement approach.

The business analyst does not decide which features are built and which are not. The authority lies with the stakeholders, and in adaptive projects, with the product owner to approve or reject requirements. As the business analyst, you are responsible for first trying to resolve this conflict through negotiation. If consensus is not possible among the immediate team, the authority levels governing the requirements approval process set forth in the stakeholder engagement approach need to be followed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 264]

Question 25

The product owner of your project wants the project team to apply an adaptive technique that reduces the number of decisions the team must make at any given point in time by delaying all decision making as late as possible. What is your opinion about this?

Answer 25

This is a valid adaptive technique called Real Options.

Scope creep means uncontrolled changes. Progressive elaboration involves continuously detailing project scope as more detailed and specific information become available. The scenario presents a valid adaptive technique that insists on reducing the number of decisions a team must make at any given point in time by delaying all decision making as late as possible. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 89]

Question 26

Which of the following is not a part of the data gathering tools used in Control Quality process?

Answer 26

Control Chart

Control chart is a monitoring tool, while the rest of the choices are valid data gathering tools used during Control Quality process. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Pages 302, 303]

Question 27

At what point in time would you consider the solution has reached a point of diminishing returns?

Answer 27

When additional value that could be obtained from the solution does not justify the additional effort needed to achieve that value.

A point of diminishing returns is reached when additional value that could be obtained from the solution does not justify the additional effort needed to achieve that value. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 279]

Question 28

Which of the following techniques challenges the traditional product requirements management approaches by guiding the product teams to analyze only those features that are deemed to be of the highest value and reduce the time spent on analyzing low-value requirements?

Answer 28

Feature injection

Feature injection, mostly used in an adaptive development, challenges the traditional product requirements management approaches by guiding the product teams to analyze only those features that are deemed to be of the highest value and reduce the time spent on analyzing low-value requirements. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 88]

Question 29

You are leading an organizational process transformation project and currently facing a lot of resistance from the existing staff. In order to get a better handle over the situation, you decide to conduct a detailed stakeholder engagement analysis. Which of the following tools helps in determining the gaps between the current and desired stakeholder engagement levels?

Answer 29

Stakeholder engagement assessment matrix

Monte Carlo analysis and the fishbone diagram are risk management and quality management tools respectively. Stakeholder register is a project artifact and not a tool or technique. The correct answer is “stakeholder engagement assessment matrix” which helps a project manager in mapping the current and desired stakeholder engagement levels. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 521]

Question 30

You have recently joined a product team developing an ICT service request management system. You find out that the project team has not setup a requirements traceability matrix for the project and is only working against a product backlog. As a result, the product backlog contains a number of product requirements that are related to each other, but these relationships have not been documented anywhere. For example, there is a requirement that, “all managers should be able to download all system reports as PDF files”. There is another requirement that, “all downloaded PDF reports must be sent to the requestor’s primary email address”. What is the relationship between these two requirements?

Answer 30

Subsets

The requirements have a subset relationship. A subset requirement generally adds further detail to a higher-level requirement. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 259]

Question 31

The new chief procurement officer is not happy with your organization’s current time-consuming paper-based procurement processes. He has asked you to digitize the processes using the latest technology. You are currently performing Needs Assessment processes. How will you determine the expected business value that would be provided by the proposed solution?

Answer 31

By calculating the expected reduction in processing time.

In business analysis, business value refers to the time, money, goods or intangibles in return for something exchanged. In this scenario, the goal is to reduce the procurement processing times and the business value can be demonstrated by reduction in this processing time. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 59]

Question 32

A product team has selected a scope and a process model to define the requirement of a process automation project. Which of the following can be used a supporting data model for this project?

Answer 32

State diagram

A state diagram is a data model. None of the other choices are data models. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 185]

Question 33

Your project stakeholders are geographically distributed, and the time zone differences make scheduling conference calls difficult. If eliciting requirements through facilitated workshops is not possible, which of the following techniques should you consider first for eliciting product requirements from the stakeholders?

Answer 33

Interviews and surveys

The business analyst may choose to elicit requirements through facilitated workshops when key stakeholders are local but use interviews or surveys when key stakeholders are dispersed or when time zone differences make scheduling conference calls difficult. Documentation analysis may be used when stakeholders are not available at all. Brainstorming is a wrong choice as that requires facilitated sessions. Benchmarking requirements will not give you your stakeholders’ requirements. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 44; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 115-116]

Question 34

What does the term INVEST stand for?

Answer 34

Independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, and testable

The term INVEST describes the characteristics that user stories need to demonstrate to be considered “good” and “ready” for development in adaptive approaches. INVEST is an acronym for independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, and testable. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 223]

Question 35

You have been hired as a consultant to setup a PMO in an organization. You have defined a portfolio, program and project management framework of the organization and have recruited the new PMO team. You are now reviewing the published organization’s five-year strategy to identify potential projects that can now be launched through the new PMO. Which business analysis technique are you performing?

Answer 35

Document analysis

Document analysis is an elicitation technique used to analyze existing documentation to identify information relevant to the requirements. While identifying problems or opportunities, this technique involves reviewing information relevant to the business need. For example, strategic goals and objectives, performance goals and results, customer survey results, documentation about current processes, and business rules might be analyzed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 61]

Question 36

You have been assigned as a lead business analyst on a complex cross-functional process automation project. The business process has multiple touchpoints with different business units and involves a number of stakeholders. Which of the following techniques should be used to quantitatively or qualitatively analyze information to determine whose interests should be considered during the project?

Answer 36

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder analysis is a technique used to systematically gather and analyze quantitative and qualitative information to determine whose interests should be taken into account throughout the project. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 39; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 115]

Question 37

It is said that nothing is constant but change. One of the critical success factors of any project is how well the changes are managed throughout the project lifecycle. However, change management practices and approaches differ between predictive and adaptive projects. Which of the following statements regarding change management is incorrect?

Answer 37

A change request process must always be followed regardless of the project life cycle.

In adaptive projects, there is no formal change request process. All of the other choices are correct. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 272]

Question 38

You are planning to conduct a requirement workshop with key stakeholders. The prime goal of the meeting is to come up with a high-level product feature model and schedule subsequent elicitation activities. Which of the following tools can be used during the workshop as a template to develop the feature model?

Answer 38

Affinity diagram

The feature mode can be used in combination with brainstorming techniques to help stakeholders identify features by focusing on the groupings, similar to an affinity diagram. Affinity diagrams provide a sample format for the development of a feature model. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 193]

Question 39

Agile teams identify project risks and determine respective mitigation actions during which of the following events?

Answer 39

Daily standups, retrospectives and demonstrations

Risks can be identified at any time: daily standups, retrospectives and/or demonstrations. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 244]

Question 40

You are leading the business analysis activities for a procurement workflow digitization project. The organization has a complicated and non-standard procurement workflow and you need to closely work with the SMEs to understand the digitization requirements. Which of the following is the most viable elicitation technique to use when defining the future state procurement workflow?

Answer 40

Facilitated workshop

Facilitated workshops are viable elicitation techniques to be used when defining the future state because these support interactivity, collaboration and work towards a stated objective. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 79]

Question 41

Early in the project, you are meeting with your team and would like to address all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats the project is facing. What tool should be used?

Answer 41

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT Analysis chart would be the best choice. SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 415]

Question 42

Which of the following techniques does not help in identifying underlying root cause of a given problem?

Answer 42

Burndown charts

Brainstorming can be used to identify root causes by generating a number of divergent ideas. This is usually an underpinning technique for more accurate root cause analysis techniques such as Five Whys and Fishbone diagrams. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 131]

Question 43

You have recently taken over a project that has been struggling to keep key project stakeholders engaged since inception. The project requires developing an ERP system for your organization and the project currently is in the design phase. A number of stakeholders are complaining that the current design doesn’t match their stated requirements. Which of the following tools will help you trace the design to the requirements?

Answer 43

Requirements traceability matrix

The requirements traceability matrix provides a structure to trace requirements to product design. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 148]

Question 44

You are currently in the process of developing your business analysis work plan. You have already identified and agreed to the business analysis deliverables and have sequenced your business analysis tasks. You are now reviewing your business analysis tasks to determine the required roles and responsibilities for these tasks. Which of the following tools should you use to do this analysis?

Answer 44

RACI

RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform) analysis is performed in business analysis when determining roles and responsibilities for the business analysis effort. The rest of the choices are tools that cannot help in analyzing roles and responsibilities. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 63; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 111]

Question 45

You are leading the business analysis activities for a product team developing a software application for a client organization. All product requirements and design documents need to be approved by the client prior to development. Further, these need to be updated to correspond to each product release. These updated documents are known as:

Answer 45

As-built documentation

The as-built documentation is the analysis and design documentation that has been updated to correspond to a released product. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 388]

Question 46

A business analyst may select several tools and techniques for requirements elicitation. Which of the following is a technique that is generally considered a viable technique to use to gain an understanding of the business environment and situation prior to engaging directly with stakeholders?

Answer 46

Document analysis

Document analysis is a viable technique to use to gain an understanding of the business environment and situation prior to engaging directly with stakeholders. The rest of the choices all require stakeholder engagement. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 167]

Question 47

As the business analyst, you have developed a use case diagram for the product being developed. You have also created textual descriptions for all the identified use cases. When you supplied this information to the development team they requested further information; ideally a model that describes how users and system processes will interact with one another across any involved users or systems and the order in which the processes or steps will be performed. What should you do next?

Answer 47

Develop a sequence diagram

You need to develop a sequence diagram to meet the team’s requirement. Sequence diagrams describe how user or system processes interact with one another across any involved users or systems and the order in which the processes or steps are performed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 199]

Question 48

You are leading a customer experience improvement project. For your upcoming elicitation event, you need to walk the participants through the customer journey. Which of the following is a prototyping technique that shows the sequence or navigation of events through a series of images or illustrations?

Answer 48

Storyboarding

Storyboarding is a prototyping technique that shows the sequence or navigation of events through a series of images or illustrations. Wireframes, on the other hand, are static blueprints or schematics of a user interface and are basically used to identify functionality. The other two options are irrelevant. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 168]

Question 49

The central PMO of your organization performs initial business analysis activities for each project until the project is formally initiated, and a project team is formed. You are the business analyst on a project and need to start the Assemble Business Case process. If the Identify Problem or Opportunity process was performed by the PMO, what should you ask them to provide you as the input to the Assemble Business Case process?

Answer 49

Situation Statement

The situation statement is an output of the Identify Problem or Opportunity process that is an input to the Assemble Business Case process. You must request for the situation statement of the project. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 58]

Question 50

You are serving as a business analyst and a project manager on a product team developing an online collaboration tool. Given the uncertainty with the product requirements, the team has decided to develop the project using Agile practices. On this project, you cannot implement a formal requirements approval process. In this situation, which of the following can be used in place of approval?

Answer 50

Definition of ready

The definition of ready can be used in place of approval in adaptive life cycles to help the project team know that the user story is sufficiently elaborated and ready to be brought into an iteration for the development team to work on. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 265]