PMI-PBA Mock Exam Lite - 11

Question 1

You have recently taken over leadership of an Agile team that is halfway through a complicated project. You have recently examined project requirements and now want to get an idea of team velocity. Which document should provide some insight on the team’s velocity?

Answer 1

Burndown chart

You need to have a look at the burndown chart. The burndown chart will tell the number of story points remaining and the current team’s velocity. Teams might update velocity on a Kanban board, but this is not a common practice. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 131]

Question 2

You are reviewing a project team’s performance and analyzing the product’s burndown charts produced during the last three sprints. You note that the remaining number of user stories have been increasing overtime. This phenomenon is known as:

Answer 2

Backsliding

Backsliding is a circumstance in a burndown chart with the remaining quantity of what is being tracked increases overtime. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 388]

Question 3

You have been recently been hired to lead the development efforts of a major process automation initiative in your organization. Last year a team was formed to undertake this initiative, but that team failed miserably to deliver. Most of the stakeholders were already negative and this made the situation even worse. Which of the following techniques can now be used to elicit information about product features that customers/stakeholders find problematic?

Answer 3

Speedboat

Speedboat is an elicitation technique that uses game play to elicit information about product features that customers/stakeholders find problematic. None of the rest of the choices facilitate such type of analysis. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 166]

Question 4

A change log is an important input to the Manage Stakeholder Engagement process. Which process provides this input?

Answer 4

Perform Integrated Change Control

Project change logs are an output of the Perform Integrated Change Control process. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 113]

Question 5

You need to integrate your newly developed cost accounting system to the existing human resources system. The existing system has specific integration requirements. Which of the following models should you develop to document these integration requirements?

Answer 5

System Interface Table

A system interface table is an interface model that captures all the detailed level requirements for a single system interface. System interface tables are created for each system that interfaces to the solution system. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 205]

Question 6

The CTO of your organization has sent you a project brief for a recently authorized project and appointed you as the lead business analyst on the project. You are currently planning your business analysis activities for this project. You have developed a decomposition model and identified business analysis tasks, activities, and deliverables for the project. Which of the following needs to be developed next?

Answer 6

Business analysis work plan

A decomposition mode is used to identify business analysis tasks, activities, and deliverables by detailing out the business analysis work. These outputs are ultimately sequenced into a business analysis work plan. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 132]

Question 7

You are leading a business process transformation project. As part of the project you are required to map the current-state, design the future-state, and conduct a detailed gap analysis. Which of the following modelling language could be selected to map out the current and the future states?

Answer 7

BPMN

From the given choices, only Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a modeling language. The rest are programming languages. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 402]

Question 8

You recently completed all product requirements elicitation activities for your project. You have documented all the requirements as user stories and added them to the product backlog. Which of the following techniques will now help you sequence these stories based upon their business value and the order in which their users typically perform them?

Answer 8

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. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 261]

Question 9

A project team has decided to test Agile methods on a recently awarded project. The product backlog has been established and prioritized in order of business value and implementation dependencies. How would you select user stories for your first sprint?

Answer 9

Select stories from the top of the backlog.

The product owner prioritizes and ranks the product backlog. Neither the team, nor the scrum master has the authority to reprioritize this list. Unless there are any technical limitations, stories from the top of the backlog are always selected for the next sprint. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 273]

Question 10

You are analyzing a business to identify business improvement opportunities. Once you collected the operational data, you found out there are a number of improvement opportunities. You want to conduct a cost benefit analysis and perform 80/20 analysis of the opportunities. Which of the following tools will help you in this matter?

Answer 10

Pareto diagram

A Pareto diagram helps demonstrate the 80/20 principle whereby 80% of the problems can be related back to 20% of the causes. Fishbone diagrams and Five Whys analysis are root cause analysis techniques, which might be helpful in analyzing the opportunities further. However, since the question is asking you to identify the tool that would help you with the 80/20 analysis, the correct answer is Pareto diagram. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 69]

Question 11

You have completed all product requirements elicitation activities for your Agile project. Which of the following models should you use to document the stakeholder requirements?

Answer 11

User Stories

User stories are a method to document stakeholder requirements from the user’s point of view with a focus on the value or benefit achieved by the user with the completion of that story. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 215]

Question 12

You are leading an Agile project. The product backlog contains approximately 1500 user stories. As your next step, you need to define the acceptance criteria for the project. What should you do?

Answer 12

Define the acceptance criteria for each user story.

Each user story should have its own acceptance criteria. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 215]

Question 13

You have been assigned to create test cases for a product being developed. Which of the following business analysis models, in comparison to the rest, is relatively more important input to your test cases development effort?

Answer 13

Decision tables

Context diagrams and ecosystem maps are developed at a high-level which is generally not suitable for test case development. Decision tables and decision trees are useful as a foundation for test case creation, with each combination of decision and outcome being a test case. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 189]

Question 14

There are a number of ways to confirm elicitation results with stakeholders. Which of the following scenarios calls for a business analyst to distribute elicitation results to stakeholders for confirmation after an elicitation workshop instead of performing and confirming elicitation concurrently during the workshop?

Answer 14

Key stakeholders send their subordinates for the elicitation workshop.

Confirming elicitation results directly during elicitation is not preferred when key stakeholders send delegates or subordinates to participate in the elicitation activity on their behalf. All other choices are incorrect. If the key stakeholders lack the product knowledge, other tools such as prototyping should be used. Project’s cost and schedule performance should not dictate the performance of this process. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 171]

Question 15

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 several stakeholders. You conducted a detailed stakeholder analysis to determine whose interests and requirements should be considered during the project. Where shall you document the outcomes of this analysis?

Answer 15

Stakeholder register

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. The results of stakeholder analysis are documented in the stakeholder register. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 122]

Question 16

In Agile projects, retrospectives are team meetings that are scheduled either at a regular interval or once a planned piece of work is completed. Which of the following is the correct sequence of conducting a retrospective meeting?

Answer 16

Set the stage -> Gather data -> Generate insights -> Decide what to do

In adaptive projects, retrospectives are meetings that are scheduled on a regular basis or conducted when a body of work is completed, such as the conclusion of an iteration or at the end of a project phase. The purpose of a retrospective is to task the project team with identifying those areas where team performance can be improved. Typically, retrospectives use the following steps: Set the stage -> Gather data -> Generate insights -> Decide what to do -> Close the Retrospective. Note that retrospectives are closed with an action plan; these do not include the action themselves and measuring the results. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 52; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 149]

Question 17

A product team is developing a business performance management and reporting system. The team has requested you to help them setup a mechanism for tracking product information through the project and product life cycles. How would you help this team?

Answer 17

Setup a traceability matrix

A traceability matrix is a grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them. The matrix can support linkages among many different types of objects, providing a mechanism for tracking product information through the project and product life cycles. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 261]

Question 18

You project is under audit. The lead auditor has asked you to demonstrate that all product backlog items are aligned with the business goals and objectives. What do you need to do next to meet this requirement?

Answer 18

Develop a traceability matrix and show backward traceability of backlog items.

Backward traceability is performed from the requirements to the scope features and business goals and objectives that triggered them. Forward traceability is performed from the requirements to design and test components and ultimately, the final product. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 253]

Question 19

You have been recently hired as a PMO Expert in an organization that has historically delivered projects under functional managers. You were able to gather necessary resources to establish a central PMO in the organization and now you have shifted your attention on standardizing project management processes. Historically the organization has stressed quality control processes instead of scope validation processes. You now have a stiff challenge to convince the senior leadership that scope validation is equally important. Why must the Validate Scope process be completed in a project?

Answer 19

To obtain formal acceptance of deliverables by the customer or sponsor

Validate Scope is the process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables by the customer or sponsor of the project. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 163]

Question 20

Greg’s project is in the initiating stage. The sponsor of the project has asked Greg to present a list of the identified project stakeholders at the next project update meeting. The sponsor has also asked Greg to present the project stakeholders’ current and desired engagement levels so they can brainstorm on the stakeholder engagement strategy. Which of the following is a presentation tool that can help Greg summarize all this information in a tabular format?

Answer 20

Stakeholder engagement assessment matrix

Both the communications and stakeholder management plans are detailed textual documents. They are not presentation tools. On the other hand, both the stakeholder register and the stakeholders engagement assessment matrix contain the required information. However, the stakeholders engagement assessment is the best tool to be selected in this situation since it presents the information required by the project sponsor in a tabular format. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 521]

Question 21

Which of the following techniques can ensure that the stakeholders are engaged at appropriate project phases and to obtain or confirm their continued commitment to the success of the project?

Answer 21

Stage gate meetings

Stage gate or phase review meetings give project stakeholders a chance to review project progress and planned future actions. This gives them a chance to have their voice heard and recorded. The rest of the choices are techniques that are internal to a project. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 21]

Question 22

You are leading the business analysis activities for a process automation project. You have completed the requirements elicitation activities and defined the current-state and the future-state process flows. Which of the following tools can now be used to ensure that all stakeholders are covered in the process flow, and that all the people who perform the process steps have been considered?

Answer 22

Organization chart

Process flows can be compared to organizational charts to ensure that all stakeholders are covered in some process flow and all people who perform the steps are covered in the organizational charts. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 195]

Question 23

You are replacing a system that is currently being used by a big number of business units and stakeholders in your organization. The project’s stakeholders list has become long and difficult to manage. You want to group the stakeholders based on their characteristics to allow easier management of this information. Once the stakeholder groups have been identified, what should you do next?

Answer 23

Update the stakeholder register

Stakeholder lists can quickly become long and difficult to manage; therefore, placing stakeholders into groups based on their characteristics will allow for easier management of the information. Once this analysis is complete, the results are then documented in the stakeholder register. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 122]

Question 24

You are auditing an internal organizational project. You want to start by assessing project requirements and are looking for some documentation on project’s deliverables and the work required to create those deliverables. Which document should you ask the project team to present?

Answer 24

Project scope statement

The project scope statement is the correct response. This document describes the project’s deliverables in detail and the work that is required to create those deliverables. It also forms the baseline for evaluating whether requests for changes are within or outside the project’s boundaries. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 154]

Question 25

Konrad is the business analyst on a process automation project and is currently sequencing his business analysis task for the project and determining the roles and responsibilities for each task. The list of business analysis deliverables has not been agreed to by the key stakeholders. What would be your advice to him?

Answer 25

Get agreement on the list of business analysis deliverables with the key stakeholders prior to planning business analysis work.

The process of developing a business analysis work plan is: Identify the deliverables -> Determine the business analysis tasks and activities -> Determine the timing and sequencing of tasks ->Determine the roles and responsibilities -> Identifying the resources -> Estimate the work. Konrad must get agreement on the list of business analysis deliverables with the key stakeholders prior to planning any further business analysis work. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 61-65; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 111]

Question 26

Your organization is currently planning to develop a new product. The product, if successful, could provide significant competitive advantage to your organization. Which of the following techniques would you use if you want to determine the dollar value of the investment in the product in today’s dollar value considering the cash inflows, outflows, the time value of these flows?

Answer 26

NPV

The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) gives the projected annual yield of an investment (rate of return) considering the time value of money. On the other hand, the NPV (net present value) of an investment is the difference between the present value of cash inflows and the present value of cash outflows over a period of time considering the time value of money. Payback period (PBP) is the time needed to recover an investment. Return on Investment (ROI) is the percentage return on an initial investment. Both PBP and ROI do not consider time value of money. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]

Question 27

Which of the following is a series of conditions that the entire team agrees to complete before an item is considered sufficiently developed to be accepted by the business stakeholders?

Answer 27

Definition of Done

The definition of done (DoD) is a series of conditions that the entire team agrees to complete before an item is considered sufficiently developed to be accepted by the business stakeholders. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 219]

Question 28

You are leading a new product development project for your organization. The project sponsor asks you to provide him with a list of minimum marketable features of the product. Which of the following product features should you send back?

Answer 28

The smallest features that are expected to deliver customer value.

Minimum Marketable Features (MMF) is a prioritization mechanism in which the smallest piece of functionality that still delivers value to the customer is identified. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 401]

Question 29

You have been asked to develop a scope model for your product. Due to the complexity of the product, you think it would be useful to develop multiple scope models. One of the team members recommended developing the following models. Which of the following is NOT a scope model?

Answer 29

Entity relationship Diagram

The Entity Relationship Model is a data model and not a scope model. The rest of the choices are all examples of scope model. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 185]

Question 30

Your organization recently rolled out a new insurance claims management tool which has attracted significant customer dissatisfaction. You want to examine each complaint and the associated root causes to identify the needed capabilities to address the complaints. You decide to use a capability table to document the outcomes of this analysis. What is the main disadvantage of this approach?

Answer 30

Capability tables are not suitable to address all system defects.

Capability tables are used for analyzing capabilities in a current or future-state. Within future-state analysis, the mode can be used to display the capabilities needed to solve a problem or seize an opportunity. However, capability tables are not very useful in identifying system defects and bugs. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 67]

Question 31

Which of the following techniques would you use if you want all SMEs to anonymously converge to a single outcome?

Answer 31

Delphi

Delphi is a consensus-building method that consolidates anonymous input from subject matter experts using rounds of voting. The rest of the choices are group decision-making techniques and do not keep SMEs’ inputs anonymous. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 228]

Question 32

You are leading a complex ERP system development project. Although you are developing the system using predictive approaches, you expect several change requests coming in throughout the project life cycle. Although each change request will go through a formal change control process, you want to ensure that the product team is always building against the approved requirements. Which of the following tools should you apply to ensure that the solution being built always conforms to its approved product requirements?

Answer 32

Configuration management system

Configuration management system helps ensure that the solution being built conforms to its approved product information. It provides a process for verifying this conformance, documenting changes, and reporting the status of each change throughout the project life cycle. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 273]

Question 33

Which of the following is a system development approach that suggests that a team should begin with understanding how the system users will use the system? Once this is understood, the team writes tests cases to test these scenarios, and then develop solutions against the test cases.

Answer 33

Behavior-driven development (BDD)

Behavior-driver development (BDD) is an approach that suggests that the team should begin with understanding how the user will use a product (its behavior), write tests for that behavior, and then construct solutions against the tests. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 218]

Question 34

You are responsible for managing the upgrade of an assets management system. You want to determine the access requirements for a large number of users. These users are geographically dispersed and in different time zones. Which of the following is the best tool to be used if you need to quickly elicit some basic access requirements from this group?

Answer 34

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are written sets of questions designed to quickly accumulate information from a large number of respondents. Since you want to elicit basic access requirements form a large group, this technique will provide you the required result faster than the rest. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 168]

Question 35

You are leading an organizational business process change project. A number of project stakeholders believe that the new process will increase their daily workload and yield no direct benefit to them. How should you deal with these disinterested stakeholders?

Answer 35

Look for ways to obtain their engagement.

Those stakeholders whose workload is likely to increase may never become supportive of the project. Understand the concerns of the disinterested stakeholders and look for ways to obtain their engagement despite the lack of support the stakeholders may have toward the project. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 40; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 115]

Question 36

You are analyzing a business workflow that is paper-based and involves several peoples’ interactions. Which of the following models should you develop to describe the current-state movement of data between entities, data stores, and processes?

Answer 36

Data Flow Diagram

A data flow diagram is a data model that is used to describe the movement of data between entities, data stores, and processes. These entities can be actors or systems. Data flow diagrams show the data inputs and outputs for each process. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 188]

Question 37

You have recently taken over a project that is in the execution phase. The first set of deliverables is ready for customer inspection and you are now looking for the approved process that needs to be followed. A process that states how formal validation and acceptance of the completed project deliverables will be achieved is documented in the:

Answer 37

Scope Management plan

The correct response is the Scope Management Plan. This plan provides guidance on how project scope will be defined, documented, validated, managed and controlled by the project management team. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 137]

Question 38

You work as an engineer for a large engineering firm. During this past week, you have corresponded with your department supervisor about the horizontal stabilizers required for the wings on a new aircraft you are designing. Which communication dimension does this represent?

Answer 38

Upward

In this case, your communication is with your supervisor who has a different level of responsibility and authority. This is an example of an upward dimension of communications. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 361]

Question 39

You are working for a consulting firm that has been engaged by a fast-moving consumer goods company to assess its manufacturing processes. A number of defects have been reported in the manufacturing process and you have conducted a thorough root cause analysis of the situation. Which of the following diagrams can be used to communicate the results of your root cause analysis?

Answer 39

Pareto diagram

A Pareto diagram is a histogram that can be used to communicate the results of root cause analysis. Pareto diagrams are a special form of vertical bar chart used to emphasize the most significant factor among a set of data. The rest of the choices do not have this capability. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 69]

Question 40

You have recently joined a team that is developing a management information system. You are surprised to find that although a thorough list of product components and sub-components exists, no documentation exists that establishes relationships between these. Which of the following is a graphical tool you should use to fill-in this gap?

Answer 40

Feature model

A feature model is a scope model that visually represents all the features of a solution arranged in a tree or hierarchical structure. The feature model helps teams establish and communicate relationships between different features. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 260]

Question 41

The product owner of your project has supplied you a reprioritized product backlog and has identified the user stories to be included in the next sprint. While most of the team members are happy with this change, some of the team members are not sure if some of the stories can be developed at this stage. What do you think is the source of this team conflict?

Answer 41

Missing definition of ready

The definition of ready is a series of conditions that the entire team agrees to complete before a user story is considered sufficiently understood so that work can begin to construct it. The source of the conflict in this scenario indicates the absence of the definition of ready for the user stories. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 212]

Question 42

You have been assigned as the business analyst on a new project in your organization. You are required to present your elicitation approach to the project steering committee. How should you schedule your elicitation activities?

Answer 42

Schedule these throughout the project.

Elicitation processes are repeated throughout the product and project life cycle. You need to schedule these throughout the project. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 155]

Question 43

Which of the following is an example of rolling wave planning in a project following an adaptive life cycle?

Answer 43

Iterative scheduling with a backlog

Iterative scheduling with a backlog is a form of rolling wave planning based on adaptive life cycles. The rest of choices are made up responses. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 177]

Question 44

You are leading the business analysis efforts for a major process digitization project in your organization. The database engineer has approached you and asked you to supply requirements relevant to the database design. You are considering developing a model and sharing the model with the database engineer. Which of the following model should you develop?

Answer 44

Entity Relationship Diagram

ERDs are typical inputs for database designers and architects to use in database design. The rest of the choices are not of much use in this regard. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 191]

Question 45

You are leading a software development project using traditional SDLC methods. The team has decided to develop use cases to facilitate the product development. You are not comfortable with relying only on the use cases for specifying all product requirements. Which of the following is a limitation of use cases?

Answer 45

Use cases are not well-suited for capturing non-interaction-based requirements.

A use case is a process model that uses textual narrative to describe the system-user interactions to achieve successful completion of a goal. Each use case contains a normal flow and an alternative flow. However, uses cases are not well-suited for capturing non-interaction-based requirements of a system such as algorithms or mathematical requirements. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 214]

Question 46

You have recently completed your product elicitation activities and now want to show the results to the stakeholders. Although you have developed a detailed traceability matrix, you think that will be too complex for the stakeholders to consume and provide feedback. Which of the following is a lightweight form of a traceability matrix that is used to identify whether the product requirements are adequately defined?

Answer 46

Interaction matrix

Interaction matrix is a lightweight version of a traceability matrix that is used to figure out whether requirements are sufficiently detailed or if any entities are missing. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 399]

Question 47

You have been hired to review and optimize some of the project management processes for a complex project your client organization is performing. This is a multi-year, multi-million dollar project and currently plagued with uncontrolled changes. What is a recommended method for controlling change within such a project?

Answer 47

Have each change approved or rejected through a formal change control process.

The change control procedure varies from project to project. However, every change request must be processed through a formal change control process. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 113]

Question 48

You are leading the business analysis activities on a software development project. You have recently completed all planned product requirements elicitation activities. You now want to classify the requirements into groups for further review and analysis. You decide to use an affinity diagram for this classification. What is the prime benefit of using an affinity diagram in this context?

Answer 48

It will help process a large set of requirements.

An affinity diagram is a technique that allows large numbers of ideas to be classified into groups for review and analysis. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 77]

Question 49

A product team has recently completed all product requirements elicitation activities. This information needs to be transformed into models for an upcoming stakeholder update meeting. The team has already developed a scope and data model for the product. Now the team wants to develop a rule model to complement the already developed models. The following options were suggested by a team member. Which of the following models cannot be used as a rule model?

Answer 49

Wireframe

A wireframe is an interface model and not a rule model. The rest of the choices are all rule models. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 185]

Question 50

You have been hired to review a business analysis guide an organization has developed to uplift their business analysis skills and to standardize their business development activities. You are not happy with some of the recommended product requirements prioritization techniques given in the guide. Which of the following technique is irrelevant when it comes to product requirements prioritization?

Answer 50

WBS

Some common techniques for determining priority are MoSCoW, multivoting, timeboxing, and weighted ranking. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 56; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 127]