PMI-PBA Mock Exam Lite - 14

Question 1

Which of the following is an approach that suggests that the team should begin with understanding how the user will use a product, write test cases, and then develop solutions against the tests?

Answer 1

BDD

Behavior-driven development (BDD) is an approach that suggests that the team should being with understanding how the user will use a product (its behavior), write test cases for that behavior, and then develop solutions against the tests. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 219]

Question 2

You are analyzing a number of reasons that have been provided to you that have caused a particular situation. These reasons are interrelated, i.e., one reason caused the other. Which of the following tools should you use to understand the relationships between these reasons and identify the real root cause of the situation?

Answer 2

Interrelationship diagram

The fishbone diagrams, also known as Ishikawa diagrams, are tools to identify potential root causes of the situation but do not help us analyze the interrelationship between these potential root causes or reasons. An interrelationship diagram is a special type of cause-and-effect diagram that depicts related causes and effects for a given situation. These help uncover the most significant causes and effects involved in a situation. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 71]

Question 3

You are leading an Agile in-house software development project. Halfway through the project, due to a new governmental regulation, a few new product requirements have been requested. What should you immediately do?

Answer 3

Add new stories to the bottom of the product backlog.

New stories and changes are added to the bottom of the backlog, where they sit until the next time the backlog is reprioritized. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 273]

Question 4

How can you use a business objectives model to prioritize product requirements?

Answer 4

By weighing how much each requirement contributes to achieving the business objectives.

The goal model and business objectives models describe the business objectives that the solution is meant to achieve, along with the high-level features for the solution. Either model can be used as a tool to help prioritize the requirements according to how much they support or achieve the objectives. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 233]

Question 5

Projects with adaptive life cycles use product backlogs to define a project’s scope. The product backlog is a set of:

Answer 5

User stories

In projects with adaptive life cycles, the overall scope of the project will be decomposed into a set of requirements and work to be performed, referred to as product backlog. Backlogs include product requirements and user stories. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 131]

Question 6

An Agile team was not able to complete any stories during the fourth iteration. How would this be reflected on a burndown chart?

Answer 6

The burndown for the iteration will remain flat at the number of story points remaining at the start of the iteration.

A burndown chart shows a team’s progress by showing the number of story points remaining in the project. The vertical axis shows the number of story points remaining and the iterations are shown across the horizontal axis. The linear trend of a burndown chart is downward sloping. However, if no story points are delivered during a particular iteration, the burndown chart will remain flat for that iteration. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 131]

Question 7

You are the lead business analyst on an organizational transformation project. You have recently completed the initial Needs Assessment activities and assembled a business case. The business case recommended a particular solution which was approved by the steering committee. What should you do next?

Answer 7

Collaborate with the project manager to develop the project charter.

You have assembled the business case and gotten it approved. The next logical step is to collaborate with the project manager to develop the project charter. The rest of the options are all activities that should have been completed as part of the feasibility study that should have been completed prior to assembling the business case. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 99, 103]

Question 8

You are working on a team that is designing an automated manufacturing line. You have been asked to develop a scope model that defines the in-scope events that the solution must react to. The model must also articulate the system’s response to any event trigger. Which of the following models should be used for this?

Answer 8

Event response table

Among the given choices, only context diagrams and event response tables are scope models; decision table and decision trees are rule models. An event response table defines the in-scope events that a system must react to and also articulates the system’s responses to these events. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 192]

Question 9

You are analyzing the elicited product requirements and identifying the product scope. You need to present a high-level product scope model to the steering committee next week. You decide to use a context diagram to define the high-level scope of the system. What does a typical context diagram focus on?

Answer 9

All direct system and human interfaces to the systems within a solution.

Context diagram is a scope model that shows all the direct system and human interfaces to systems within a solution. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 186]

Question 10

Your organization is considering developing a new product to obtain competitive advantage in the market. If the product timing is right, the organization will also gain a significant market share. Which of the following techniques can be used to help facilitate discussions about priorities by placing product features on a matrix according to their criticality and market differentiation?

Answer 10

Purpose alignment model

The purpose alignment model is used to help facilitate discussions about priorities by placing product features on a matrix according to their criticality and market differentiation. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 408]

Question 11

The process of moving future amounts back into their present value, taking the time value of money into account, is generally known as:

Answer 11

Discounting

The process of moving future amounts back into their present value, taking the time value of money into account, is generally known as discounting. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]

Question 12

You have been assigned a new project to deploy an enterprise-wide ERP solution digitizing the core organizational governance and control processes. The project is currently in the initiating stage and you want to undertake a detailed stakeholder analysis. Which of these is not a legitimate model used to analyze stakeholders?

Answer 12

Sufficiency model

The sufficiency model is not a valid model. The other choices are valid models used to analyze stakeholders. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Pages 512, 513]

Question 13

A new business transformation team has been set up and you have been appointed to lead this team. You need to analyze the organization’s business needs, identify a few opportunities and present these to the executive leadership team for further action. You have identified a few senior stakeholders who can help you identify business improvement opportunities; however, these stakeholders have extremely busy schedules and you can only plan your activities according to their schedules. You decide to interview these stakeholders individually due to their availability constraints. What is the risk involved in this approach?

Answer 13

The stakeholders might not be able to collaborate and work toward a stated objective.

Facilitated workshops are more effective than individual interviews as these allow participants to collaborate and work toward a stated objective. In this scenario a facilitated workshop might not be possible because of the stakeholders’ schedule conflicts. The risk with interviewing is that your stakeholders might not be able to learn from each other’s ideas and collaboratively work toward identifying the improvement opportunities. The rest of the choices are stakeholder issues that are irrelevant to the chosen elicitation technique. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 79]

Question 14

As part of a major organizational transformation, a new CEO of ABC Co. was appointed. The CEO asked his leadership team to identify new products that would enhance the organization’s image in the market. The chief operating officer suggested that the business can benefit from having an organization-wide ERP system and a new customer service center. Which of the following is correct?

Answer 14

Both are valid product ideas.

Products are created as parts of solutions to address business needs; therefore, they provide business value. A product can be tangible or intangible. In this scenario both the ERP system, and the customer service center are valid example of products that would add value to the business. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 9]

Question 15

You have recently completed a major data center upgrade project. The project delivery has been accepted by the IT group and you are now finalizing the administrative closure activities. One of the requirements is the development of the project’s final report. Which information would you NOT include in this report?

Answer 15

Lessons learned from previous similar projects

The lessons learned from the previous similar projects are used throughout the project. These are already part of the organizational process assets and are not recorded in the final project report. The rest of the choices are valid sections of a final project report. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 127]

Question 16

A project team is currently struggling due to frequent interruptions by various delays and impediments. During the sprint retrospective, it was agreed to adopt some form of visual management that can help with work-in-process management and improve the flow. Which of the following tools should be used to facilitate this?

Answer 16

Kanban board

The team should consider making work visible using Kanban boards and experimenting with limits for the various areas of the work process in order to improve flow. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 233]

Question 17

In the past, you had issues with stakeholders who come back to you a year after you thought the project was complete. This time, you are going to have the stakeholders sign an acceptance of deliverables document. This procedure should be included in:

Answer 17

Scope Management Plan

Any process that formalizes the acceptance of the deliverables of a project should be included in the scope management plan. [PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition, Page 137]

Question 18

George is managing a telecommunication network deployment project. Most of the key project stakeholders are happy with the project so far. However, George has some potential concerns that might become issues in the near future. The next project status update meeting with the key stakeholders is the next day. What should George do?

Answer 18

Discuss these concerns with the key stakeholders

Effective stakeholder management requires addressing potential concerns that have not yet become issues and anticipating future problems that may be raised by stakeholders. Such concerns need to be identified and discussed as soon as possible to assess associated project risks. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 524]

Question 19

You have formed a small team of analysts responsible for conducting system evaluation activities for all organizational software development projects. You want to schedule system evaluation activities for all organizational products. All the following are reasonable times to conduct system evaluation activities EXCEPT:

Answer 19

Well before the system development project is initiated.

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. This cannot be done prior to the development of the solution. The rest of the choice are all valid points in time to conduct solution evaluation. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 279]

Question 20

You are leading a complex project with a huge list of features. Due to schedule and budget constraints, you might not be able to develop all of the features in the first release. You decide to conduct a MoSCoW analysis of the features to determine the feature set that maximizes business value. Once you conduct this analysis, which of the following features would you most likely drop from the current release?

Answer 20

Won’t have

MoSCoW stands for must have, should have, could have, and won’t have. Applying MoSCoW rules to project requirements ensure that the highest valued business requirements/features are developed first. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 234]

Question 21

You are leading the business analysis activities for an enterprise-level software development project. The database designer asked you to supply the dataflow diagram so that she may start designing the database. The database designer has come back with an ERD and asked you to validate the conceptual data design. Which of the following tools can now be used to analyze the two models together and assess the degree of alignment between the two?

Answer 21

Traceability matrix

A traceability matrix is a table that connects or traces links between items. Most commonly, business analysts use traceability matrices to trace requirements backward to features and business objectives. A business analyst can repurpose the traceability matrix to analyze models to ensure that they are complete. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 195]

Question 22

You have been appointed as the business analyst on a key organizational system migration project. The system is currently live and is used by several staff members. You are currently planning your business analysis activities for this project. Which of the following regarding business analysis planning is incorrect?

Answer 22

It increases requirements-related risks.

Business analysis planning reduces a number of requirement-related risks instead of increasing them. The rest of the choices are all correct statements. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 38; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 127-129]

Question 23

A software vendor has recently hired you to manage some of its key projects. During your orientation at the organization you were told that the organization has recently adopted Agile practices for project management. A chart was then shown to you where Agile and Kanban were shown as a subset of Lean. What is your view on this?

Answer 23

Agile and Kanban are subsets of Lean because they are named instances of Lean thinking.

Agile and Kanban are subsets of Lean because they are named instances of Lean thinking that share Lean concepts such as “focus on value”, “small batch sizes”, and “elimination of waste”. [PMI’s Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 11]

Question 24

You have been hired as an Agile guru in an organization that has delivered all of it past projects using strict predictive methods. You asked the product development team to walk you through the product’s roadmap and feature model. The development lead is not sure about the difference and relationship between the two. What’s the relationship between a feature model and a product roadmap?

Answer 24

Feature models identify the list of features for a product roadmap.

A feature model is a scope model that visually represents all the features of a solution arranged in a tree or hierarchical structure. Feature models identify the list of features for a product roadmap. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 95]

Question 25

You are reviewing a legacy system and analyzing how its users are currently using the system. You have conducted multiple workshops with the users to understand the manual workarounds being performed by the users to compensate for the gaps in the product functionality. However, so far you have not been successful. You decide to observe how the users operate the system in real-time to better understand these workarounds methods and practices. What is the typical disadvantage associated with this technique?

Answer 25

The users might behave differently when being observed.

You can use the observation technique to identify the workarounds being used by the product users to compensate for the gaps in the product performance. Such workarounds could be missed when using interviews and other verbal communication techniques, because it may not occur to users who are familiar with using the product for a long time to mention how they compensate for a lack of functionality. However, a typical disadvantage with the observation technique is that the users usually behave differently when being observed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 283]

Question 26

You are using a business objectives model to prioritize your product requirements. Some of the requirements do not trace back to the stated business objectives. These requirements are regarding some product features that were requested by key stakeholders. What should you do next?

Answer 26

Assign a lower priority to these requirements.

Any requirements that do not trace back to and support the business objectives can be cut from scope or assigned a low priority. Since the requirements were put forward by key stakeholders, cutting these from the scope is not an option. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 233]

Question 27

You are managing a Transportation Management System development project for a major courier service in your country. The project has a big number of stakeholders, who have so far struggled with defining the project requirements in a level of detail required for system development. As a result, you have decided to try Agile approaches for system development. With the detailed system requirement not defined, which of the following is one of the major risks on your project?

Answer 27

Scope creep

Uncontrolled project scope changes are often referred to as scope creep. Scope creep is often viewed negatively, but can be managed using a change control process. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 168]

Question 28

You are leading the business analysis activities for a product development initiative. You have recently completed all requirements elicitation activities and identified all product backlog items. All of the following are acceptable ways to store the WIP product backlog EXCEPT:

Answer 28

Organizational process assets library

The product backlog can be stored in a requirements management tool or spreadsheet, or may simply reside in a list and be tacked to a wall. However, WIP backlogs are not uploaded to the organizational process assets library until the project has been completed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 213]

Question 29

Your team has decided to test Agile methods on your current project. You have agreed to this request, however, you would like the team to understand and agree on some basic Agile principles and concepts. On adaptive projects, sprint planning means:

Answer 29

Identifying a subset of product backlog for development in the next sprint.

In adaptive projects, iteration planning, or sprint planning, is the activity used to identify the subset of project backlog items from the product backlog that the development team will work on for the current/upcoming iteration or sprint. The iteration/sprint planning plans one iteration/sprint at a time, not all of the remaining iterations/sprints. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 267]

Question 30

Your organization is considering launching two new products. The organization cannot fund these projects internally and needs to secure funding from the bank in order to proceed. The IRR for Project A is 4.5%, while the IRR for Project B is 6.2%. The minimum market lending rate offered to your organization is 8.1%. What should you do?

Answer 30

Do not invest in any of the projects.

IRR is a measure of return to cost; therefore, the higher the IRR, the higher the return a solution option is expected to deliver. However, the IRR of both projects are way less than what would be the cost of these investments, i.e., the lending rate of the bank. In this case, it is advisable to disregard both of the projects. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]

Question 31

Which of the following correctly depicts the most common order in which the project management processes are executed?

Answer 31

Control Quality is before Validate Scope

Validate Scope is primarily concerned with the acceptance of all the deliverables while Control Quality is primarily concerned with meeting the quality requirements specified for the deliverables. Control Quality is performed before Validate Scope. The other responses are incorrect. [PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition, Page 164]

Question 32

Linda has been assigned to establish a PMO in her organization. Linda believes this project cannot succeed unless all the key project stakeholders support the project. She also believes she needs to pay special attention to stakeholder management to ensure success of this project. First, she needs to develop her stakeholder register. To produce the project stakeholder register, which of the following processes must Linda start?

Answer 32

Identify Stakeholders

The stakeholder register is developed during the Identify Stakeholders process. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 507]

Question 33

You have completed product requirements elicitation process and developed the product’s use cases. You are now preparing to validate these uses cases in stages. During the first stage, you want to test the sets of steps that are followed through the use case scenarios when everything goes as planned or expected. Such a flow is called:

Answer 33

Normal flow

Within the context of use case analysis, the normal flow is the set of steps that are followed through the use case scenario when everything goes as planned or expected. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 402]

Question 34

You are wrapping up a requirements elicitation workshop and gathering the notes, sketches, diagrams, and models developed during the workshop. As the next step, you plan to refine this information and update the requirements management tool. You have also scheduled a requirements review workshop with senior stakeholders who will then validate this information. The validated requirements in the requirements management tool is:

Answer 34

Formally documented confirmed elicitation results

Unconfirmed elicitation results consist of the information obtained from completed elicitation activities. These results of elicitation activities may be documented either formally or informally. When you gathered the notes and other artifacts produced during the workshop, these were considered as informally documented. However, when you will refine this and update the requirements management tool, these will become formally documented. Further, when this information will be reviewed and validated by the senior stakeholders, this will become confirmed elicitation results. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 169, 172]

Question 35

You are designing system functionality tests that will be used by the product team to validate whether the system provides the desired functionality to its users. Which of the following is a semi-formal activity conducted by SMEs to evaluate if the system provides the functionality for a typical day of usage by a role that interacts with the system?

Answer 35

Day in the Life Testing

The day in the life (DITL) testing is a semi-formal activity conducted by someone with in-depth business knowledge. The results obtained from DITL testing enable validation or evaluation of whether a solution provides the functionality for a typical day of usage by a role that interacts with the solution. The rest of the choices are the tests that are conducted by the product team internally. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 393]

Question 36

You are leading a business improvement initiative. You have gathered several project requirements and now you need to classify these requirements into three hierarchical levels and establish traceability. Which of the following is the correct order of the requirement levels should you use?

Answer 36

Business -> stakeholder -> solution requirements

Requirements are typically written at three levels: business, stakeholder, and solution requirements. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 216]

Question 37

You are auditing a multi-million-dollar construction project that your organization is performing for a state department. You have found out that although the project plan is highly detailed, most of the recent change requests are of low quality, vague and lack sufficient details. However, all of these change requests have been approved by the change control board at the state department. No deliverables have been presented for customer inspection to date. What new risk has been introduced by this?

Answer 37

The deliverables might fail acceptance.

While anything bad can happen, the primary risk you are facing here with vague change requests is that these can be interpreted in multiple ways. Since you haven’t presented any deliverables for customer inspection, you face a serious risk of deliverables rejection during the Validate Scope process as the customer might have interpreted these change requests in a different way than the project team. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, page 131]

Question 38

The sponsor of a project created a document that included the business need and the cost-benefit analysis. What would this document be termed as?

Answer 38

The business case

The business case usually provides information from a business standpoint so that any investment in the project can be justified. Typically it would contain both the business need as well as the cost-benefit analysis. The business case is an input to the Develop Project Charter process. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 77]

Question 39

A product team is considering a number of models that can be developed to analyze the elicited product information. All the selected models will be developed by the product’s business analyst in the upcoming days. Which of the following is an interface model that can be used on this project?

Answer 39

Report table

A report table is an interface model. The rest of the choices are not examples of interface models. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 185]

Question 40

The MD of your organization has asked you to analyze and propose a future-state for one of the core business processes and identify the capabilities required to attain that future-state. He hands you the Situation Statement that contains an objective statement of the problem and the associated opportunity. Which of the business analysis processes do you need to perform next to produce the required capabilities for the future-state processes?

Answer 40

Assess Current State

You have been provided with the Situation Statement. This implies that the Identify Problem or Opportunity process has been completed. You now need to perform the Assess Current State process prior to performing Determine Future-State and Prepare for Transition to Future-State processes. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 63]

Question 41

As a result of a new government regulation over the use of certain materials for product packaging, your organization has initiated a project to replace existing product packaging with regulation compliant materials. You have met with your project sponsor who told you that you must complete the project by the end of the year, no exceptions. This should be included in the project scope statement as a:

Answer 41

Project Constraint

An imposed deadline or milestone is an example of a constraint. Such project constraints are documented in the scope statement. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 154]

Question 42

An Agile team is struggling with coordinating work in progress. This is causing unnecessary conflicts and delays on the project. Which of the following two techniques can help this situation?

Answer 42

Kanban boards and daily stand-ups.

Help the team learn that they self-manage their work. Consider Kanban boards to see the flow of work. Consider a daily stand-up to walk the board and see what work is where. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 233]

Question 43

You are currently preparing for the Solution Evaluation activities for a new accounting system your organization is developing inhouse. All of the stated benefits of the project are intangible, and therefore not possible to measure. In this case, how would you conduct Solution Evaluation?

Answer 43

Define measurements that provide indirect evidence that the benefits have been achieved.

You need to define measurements that provide indirect evidence that the benefits have been achieved. You cannot choose to ignore benefit measurements if benefits are intangible. Further, if the benefits are intangible, neither NPV or IRR can be used. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 279]

Question 44

You are sending invites for a product requirements elicitation event. As part of the invitation, you have attached the agenda, the product scope, and the elicitation preparation materials. Which of the following should also be attached to the invite?

Answer 44

Situation statement

The three inputs to the Conduct Elicitation process are elicitation preparation materials, product scope, and the situation statement. For the elicitation event, the participants will provide better quality inputs if they are more aware of all these inputs. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 164]

Question 45

Halfway through the iteration, a major issue with the product has surfaced. This would require immediate attention from the team. However, the time required to fix the issue is expected to be more than the time left on the sprint. What should be done now?

Answer 45

Product owner adds an item to the sprint backlog.

The team doesn’t add items to the backlogs, only the product owner is authorized to do that. If the issue requires immediate attention, then the item needs to be added to the iteration/sprint backlog. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 216, 400]

Question 46

Your team is currently developing an organizational information system. In order to put the system into operation, you would need a few new roles in the IT department who will manage this system. Which of the following techniques will help you identify the role requirements and competencies required to perform effectively in each role?

Answer 46

Job analysis

Job analysis is a technique that can be used to identify the job requirements and competencies required to perform effectively in a specific job or role. On the other hand, gap analysis is conducted to understand the gaps between the current-state and the future-state processes. The other two choices are irrelevant. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 117]

Question 47

Which of the following statements is correct regarding the Kanban method?

Answer 47

The Kanban method is less prescriptive than some Agile approaches and less disruptive.

The Kanban method is based on the principle of pulling work and does not prescribe the use of timeboxed iterations. The Kanban method is less prescriptive than some Agile approaches and less disruptive to being implemented. Organizations can begin applying the Kanban method with relative ease. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 233]

Question 48

State tables and state diagrams are useful for solutions involving workflows and can help with the discovery of business rules that relate to an object moving from one state to another. In which situation would you prefer developing a state diagram instead of a state table?

Answer 48

When you want the stakeholders to focus only on the valid transition flow.

State tables are mostly used for analysis to ensure that all transition combinations have been considered. State diagrams are used for the ease of stakeholders to visualize the valid transition flow. Note that stakeholders can validate the transition flow using both models given that they understand the models, however, unlike state tables, state diagrams only focus on the valid transition flows. The last two choices are applicable to both models. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 203]

Question 49

You are helping an organization mature its business analysis practices and methods. Which of the following is an organizational structure created whereby business analysts are managed centrally or are provided mentorships centrally for the purpose of improving the business analysis discipline across the organization?

Answer 49

Business Analysis Center of Excellence

A Business Analysis Center of Excellence is in organizational structure created whereby business analysts are managed centrally or are provided mentorships centrally for the purpose of improving the business analysis discipline across the organization. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 389]

Question 50

Your organization desires to automate some of its production processes to reduce its production costs. You have identified four potential solution options and are currently assessing the financial viability of these options. Following are the expected IRRs of these four options: Option A—5%; option B—12%; option C—7.5%; and option D—11%. Which option will you select?

Answer 50

Option B

IRR is a measure of return to cost; therefore, the higher the IRR, the higher the return a solution option is expected to deliver. In this case, option B has the maximum IRR of 12%, so needs to be selected. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]