PMI-PBA Mock Exam Lite - 5

Question 1

You will soon be leading a complex project. Project communication is critical to the success of the project; specifically, all team members need to be kept updated on project progress. Which of the following approaches will produce the best results?

Answer 1

Use a Kanban board.

The most effective method would be to use a Kanban board as that would provide a continuous means to visually communicate project status to the team. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 233]

Question 2

You are leading the business analysis activities for a software development project. You have gathered all the relevant documents and conducted a thorough analysis of these. Based on this analysis, you have drafted a number of potential system requirements and aligned these with the approved business requirements. What should you do next?

Answer 2

Schedule a workshop with relevant stakeholders and have these requirements reviewed by them.

You cannot pass these requirements on to the development team prior to having these reviewed and approved by the relevant stakeholders. As the next step, you should schedule a workshop with the stakeholders to have these requirements reviewed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 167]

Question 3

You are the lead business analyst on a team that is digitizing supply chain processes for the organization. The business analysis activities are currently in the need assessment stage. You have recently completed the Identify Problem or Opportunity process and about to start the Determine Future-State process. Which of the following justifies your process sequencing decision?

Answer 3

A current state assessment of SCM processes was recently conducted by another analyst.

The PMI Guide to Business Analysis recommends the Identify Problem or Opportunity -> Assess Current State -> Determine Future State sequence. It is clear that you have decided to skip the Assess Current State process. In situations where the current state has recently been assessed in sufficient detail, it is sometimes possible to use that knowledge as the basis for defining the future-state without conducting yet another current state assessment. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 64, 65]

Question 4

You are about to complete the first iteration of your project. You want to invite the product owner and a couple of other key stakeholders to obtain their feedback on your current progress. Which of the following Agile events should you schedule?

Answer 4

Demonstration

In iteration-based Agile, the team demonstrates all completed work items at the end of the iteration. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 294]

Question 5

Your organization has been a market leader of personally identifiable information detection software until recently when a new competitor has entered the market. In order to regain your market share, you wish to inform your customers regarding your future product releases and feature set. Which of the following should you publish to your customers?

Answer 5

Product roadmap

Product roadmaps are used internally, but they also provide valuable information to customers, vendors, and others who are external to the organization. However, the product backlog, the sprint backlog and the associated burndown charts are always kept internal. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 94]

Question 6

On a Scrum project, who is responsible for helping the team remove project impediments?

Answer 6

Scrum master

On Scrum projects, it’s the responsibility of the Scrum master to help the team remove impediments from the project. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 51]

Question 7

You are auditing a struggling product that was procured by the CEO of your auditee’s company about a year ago. The core functionality of the product, an online reporting tool, was that each factory worker will key-in their daily progress and the system will consolidate this information at the team level, then the supervisors will review these and add their own progress and notes. This information will then be consolidated at the respective managers, senior managers and vice presidents’ levels, where reports will be updated at each level and pushed upwards. After a detailed analysis, you found out that the product is not able to provide its intended business value because the factory workers are unable to key-in their daily progress due to the nature of their jobs and availability of the supporting technologies. As a result, some of these guys are reporting on a weekly, and at times, on a bi-weekly basis. You do not think that this situation can be improved, and this limitation should have been seriously considered prior to the product implementation. Which of the following most likely happened on this project?

Answer 7

A thorough feasibility study was not conducted.

This seems like a feasibility issue. It is likely that this was missed otherwise the operational feasibility of the system would have been thoroughly considered. There is no information provided to ascertain that any of the other choices is true. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 86]

Question 8

You are responsible for business analysis activities for a reporting system. The system will draw information from several systems and is also expected to provide inputs to a few management information systems. Which of the following elicitation techniques could you use to discover the proposed system relationships with other systems?

Answer 8

Spider web

The spider web is an elicitation technique used to discover unknown relationships between the product being analyzed and other products. Entity relationship diagrams are used to design databases and not to discover interrelationships. Similarly, tornado and Pareto diagrams are tools used in other contexts. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 166]

Question 9

In predictive projects, the scope baseline for the project is used to analyze a project’s scope performance. On the other hand, projects with adaptive lifecycles use:

Answer 9

Backlogs

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 a product backlog. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 131]

Question 10

A business analyst develops several models during a product life cycle. Many models, once developed, are often revisited, and updated. However, the development order might be different as some models can only be developed until more detailed and refined product information becomes available. From the list of given models, which one, in your opinion, should be developed after the others?

Answer 10

Data Dictionary

Ecosystem maps and context diagrams are typically developed early in a product life cycle; these models are developed to show the high-level scope of the product. Data dictionaries are often created after other data models have first been used to identify the data objects and when those objects need more details specified. The data dictionary details the data objects in an entity relationship diagram. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 187]

Question 11

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 and analyzing these using a RACI matrix. Your name against all the tasks you are expected to perform must be marked as:

Answer 11

Responsible

RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform) analysis is performed in business analysis when determining roles and responsibilities for the business analysis effort. The responsible role for a task indicates the person who will perform that task. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 118]

Question 12

You are working with your project team members to document the definition of done (DoD) for the selected user stories for an upcoming sprint. The definition of done (DoD) might include a number of elements EXCEPT:

Answer 12

Criteria of declaring a user story as understood by the team.

“Criteria of declaring a user story as understood by the team” is the “definition of ready” for the user stories, not the “definition of done”. 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 being to construct it. The rest of the choices are all valid items included in the definition of done. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 212, 219]

Question 13

Which of the following models will help you test your user stories regarding their suitability and completeness prior to assigning them to an upcoming sprint?

Answer 13

INVEST

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 14

A project team is currently reviewing the scope of a recently awarded project. They prepare the following WBS for the project. After defining the first level of the WBS, the team decides only to expand the first component and leave the rest until more project information becomes available. This is an example of?

Answer 14

Progressive elaboration

This is an example of progressive elaboration. Progressive elaboration allows a project management team to define work and manage it to a greater level of detail as the project evolves. [PMBOK® Guide, 6th edition, Pages 131, 158]

Question 15

You have been hired as a consultant by a projectized organization to introduce Agile development practices. You are working with project teams and ensuring basic Agile concepts are understood first. On projects using Agile development methods, what does definition of done (DoD) means?

Answer 15

The criteria for checking if a user story is complete.

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 16

Which of the following estimation techniques creates estimates that are derived from performing a comparison against a similar body of work rather than estimating based on absolute units of cost or time?

Answer 16

Relative estimation

Relative estimation is a technique that creates estimates that are derived from performing a comparison against a similar body of work rather than estimating based on absolute units of cost or time. The rest of the choices are more thorough estimation techniques that are based on absolute units of cost or time. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 409]

Question 17

In a sender-receiver model for communication, information is sent and received between two parties, defined as the sender and the receiver. In such a model, anything that interferes with the transmission and understanding of the message is called:

Answer 17

Noise

In a sender-receiver model, the key components include: Encoding of thoughts or ideas, a message as the output of encoding, a medium to convey the message, and decoding of the message back into meaningful thoughts or ideas. Anything that interferes with the transmission and understanding of the message is termed noise (such as distance, for example). [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 372]

Question 18

You are conducting a business analysis training for a group of junior business analysts. A team member is confused about the difference between the speedboat and sailboat elicitation techniques. What would be your response?

Answer 18

Speedboat focuses on negative influences, while sailboat focuses on positive influences.

The sailboat method is similar to the speedboat method but uses sails to encourage the recognition of positive influences rather than anchors to identify the negative ones. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 166]

Question 19

After a series of team conflicts resulting in serious project delays and cost overruns, you are helping the project team define some ground rules around conflict management. Which of the following is not an effective influencing technique?

Answer 19

Withdrawing from conflicts

Withdrawing from a conflict may temporarily alleviate the conflict, but it cannot influence the team members. The other choices are effective team influencing techniques. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 349]

Question 20

The processes from which of the following Business Analysis Knowledge Areas are used throughout all business analysis efforts and interact with all other Business Analysis Knowledge Areas?

Answer 20

Stakeholder Engagement

The processes in the Stakeholder Engagement Knowledge Area are used throughout all business analysis efforts and interact with all other Business Analysis Knowledge Areas. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 22, 23]

Question 21

You are helping a product development team analyze a product’s features and prioritizing these for development using a Kano model. What category you would select for product features that are expected to provide little satisfaction to the customers, but if not available, will cause significant dissatisfaction?

Answer 21

Basic

The basic features of a Kano model are the ones that provide little satisfaction to the customers, but if not available, will cause significant dissatisfaction to them. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 80]

Question 22

You are leading an organizational transformation program that is part of a merger portfolio. As part of this program, a project team is developing a new ERP system for the organization. The post-implementation solution evaluation of the ERP system will be part of?

Answer 22

Program activities

Post-implementation evaluation of solution performance occurs after a solution has been released. Therefore, it is more likely that the evaluation of solution performance will occur during program activities rather than project activities. In case a project is directly managed under a portfolio, rather than a program, the solution evaluation will be part of portfolio activities. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 281]

Question 23

You are introducing adaptive development techniques to a team that has no prior experience of adaptive development. You want the team to benefit from the feature injection method so that only the features with the highest business value are analyzed by the team. Which of the following is the typical three-step approach followed by the feature injection method?

Answer 23

Determine business value -> inject features -> spot examples

The typical three-step approach followed by the feature injection method is: Determine business value -> inject features -> spot examples. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 89]

Question 24

You are leading the business analysis activities for a robotic process automation project for a manufacturing firm. Requirement elicitation sessions can only be planned between two work shifts and the stakeholders are normally not available during a shift. This is a:

Answer 24

Constraint

The scenario has given an elicitation constraint as the elicitation periods have been imposed and this affects elicitation sequencing. Since this limitation is already imposed, this cannot be a risk as risks are uncertain events. Further this is neither an assumption nor a product requirement. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 54; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 156]

Question 25

Which of the following refers to the progressive elaboration of project requirements and the ongoing activity in which the team collaboratively reviews, updates, and writes requirements to satisfy the needs of the customer request?

Answer 25

Backlog refinement

Backlog refinement refers to the progressive elaboration of project requirements and the ongoing activity in which the team collaboratively reviews, updates, and writes requirements to satisfy the needs of the customer request. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 214, 388]

Question 26

A business analyst is using a collaborative technique during an elicitation workshop. He divides the participants into multiple teams and provides a plain box and art supplies to each team. Each team is then asked to decorate the box, marketing the product in a manner that would entice a customer to purchase it. Which technique is this?

Answer 26

Product box

Product box is an elicitation technique that uses game play to focus on the features of a product that are important to the customer. It divides the participants into teams, asking each team to design a box that represents how the product would be packaged. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 166]

Question 27

You are leading the business analysis activities for a team developing an accounting and cost control system for a major client. The client and your organization have agreed to use an Agile delivery lifecycle for this project. Halfway during the project, you find out that the indirect cost allocation module is no longer required by the customer. What should you do next?

Answer 27

Update the product backlog.

Since this is an Agile project, you don’t need a formal change request to incorporate the change. There has been a change in scope, so the product backlog must be updated and reprioritized. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 133]

Question 28

You are conducting a post-implementation solution evaluation of a product. During the review you found many instances where the product failed to meet the target performance levels. Which of the following elicitation techniques would you use to elicit the relevant information regarding the root causes and variances observed by the stakeholders while maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of the stakeholders?

Answer 28

Interviews

From the given choices, only interviews would allow you to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the stakeholders. The privacy and confidentiality of individual interviews may reveal considerations that might not otherwise be expressed in a facilitated workshop or focus group. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 283]

Question 29

You are the business analyst on an automated billing tool development project. You have recently completed requirements elicitation that has resulted in an overwhelming list of product requirements. You are currently analyzing your product requirements and looking for a way to prioritize them for development. Which of the following tools can be used for the prioritization of product requirements?

Answer 29

MoSCoW

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]

Question 30

A new organizational direction has been set by the CEO of your organization. As a result, a new organizational strategy has been developed by the executive team. You have been tasked to analyze the strategy and compare it with the current organizational capabilities and identify the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization. The outputs of your analysis will then be used to identify new projects your organization should initiate. Which of the following tools would help you conduct this analysis?

Answer 30

SWOT Analysis

Porter’s Five Forces and PESTLE analysis are used to analyze the competitive environment within an industry, while a SWOT analysis tends to look more deeply within an organization to analyze its internal potential. SWOT analysis is used to assess organization’s strategy, goals, and objectives and to facilitate discussions with stakeholders when discussing high-level and important aspects of an organization. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 72]

Question 31

The project sponsor has requested a product team to demonstrate the alignment of the product features to the approved product requirements. The team prepares a grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them. This grid is an example of:

Answer 31

Traceability matrix

A traceability matrix is a grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them. The rest of the tools do not show this traceability. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 261]

Question 32

You are leading the business analysis efforts on a complex IT project. You have recently completed your stakeholder identification process and have assembled a huge list of stakeholders. After developing and refining the stakeholder list, what should be your next logical step?

Answer 32

Analyze the characteristics after identifying stakeholders.

As the next logical step, after developing or refining the stakeholder list, the business analyst analyzes the characteristics for the stakeholders identified. The rest of the choices and stakeholder identification do not have any scheduling dependencies. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 40; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 115]

Question 33

You are leading the design and development of a business workflow automation project. Although the high-level scope and requirements are understood, you are struggling with the detailed system requirements during the system design phase. Your stakeholders do not have enough technical background and exposure to similar technologies. Hence, they are unable to provide you the information you are looking for during system design brainstorming sessions. Without these detailed requirements you are not able to progress with your system design. This single issue has already delayed the project by months. How should you resolve this deadlock situation?

Answer 33

Elicit and validate detailed requirements through prototyping.

The issue here is over the ability of the stakeholders to provide detailed requirements during brainstorming sessions. Stakeholders who do not have prior experience in using similar systems often struggle to articulate their requirements. In such situations, prototyping is often used to elicit and validate stakeholder requirements. Hiring an SME or a BA won’t resolve the problem at hand as the scenario doesn’t tell us that the team doesn’t have required elicitation and management skills. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, page 147]

Question 34

Your first product requirements elicitation event is in two days. The scope of the event is to understand the overall product context and identify the high-level business requirements. What should you do next?

Answer 34

Schedule resources and prepare necessary materials for the elicitation event.

You cannot just produce the product requirements on your own; these need to come from the stakeholders. If you already have a scheduled event, you need to prepare for it. Sending the agenda alone is not enough; you need to schedule resources and prepare necessary materials for the event. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 155]

Question 35

You are analyzing a complex engineering process. You have conducted a workshop to define the current-state process and now want to collect more detailed process information. One of the options you are considering is to go to the worksite and observe the engineering team perform the process. Which of the following is an advantage of this approach?

Answer 35

Observation can help uncover information that stakeholders are not able or willing to provide.

Observation is an elicitation technique that provides a direct way of obtaining information about how a process is performed. Observation can help uncover information that stakeholders are not able or willing to provide. The main drawback of the technique is that people may act differently when they are being observed. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 168]

Question 36

A product team is halfway through the development of a product. A new technology has recently become available in the market that can enhance the product. However, incorporating this technology at this stage means significant rework. The product team believes that effort spent on the development of the deliverables that would require rework is sunk cost and should not be a factor in making the right decision at this stage. Before you make any decision, you want to analyze the level of support from the stakeholders who would support such a decision against the level of resistance by the stakeholder who would not tolerate any delay on the project. Which of the following tools can help you conduct this assessment?

Answer 36

Force field analysis

Force field analysis is a decision-making technique that can be used to help product teams analyze whether there is sufficient support to pursue a change. Using this model, a team identifies the forces for or against a proposed change. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 266]

Question 37

You are managing a complex software development project for an external customer. You are using the waterfall approach to manage the project in line with the contractual requirements. However, you are not comfortable with this approach. You believe that customers don’t really know what they want upfront; rather, what they want emerges out of repeated two-way interactions over the course of the project. In your current situation, the waterfall approach has its emphasis on upfront requirements capture and design, followed by product development and finally the system testing. The customer will only be involved during the requirements gathering and system testing stages and will be completely out of touch during the development activities. Which of the following can help you mitigate the risk created by the waterfall approach:

Answer 37

Divide the project into multiple phases and organize phase gates.

In a predictive life cycle, the project planning is completed in the early phases of the project. Although the use of the waterfall life cycle is mandated by the client, the project manager can still customize the approach to obtain benefits offered by the adaptive approaches. In this case, dividing the project into multiple phases and organizing phase gates with the customer can help achieve this. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Pages 19, 21]

Question 38

You are developing a product that has multiple interfaces with other systems and users. You might need to develop a number of interface models to validate the requirements from different perspectives. Which of the following cannot be used as an interface model on this project?

Answer 38

Feature model

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

Question 39

You want to develop a scope model for your product that shows all the relevant systems, the relationships between the systems, and any data objects passed between them. You decide to develop an ecosystem map to show the product scope. What does a typical ecosystem map focus on?

Answer 39

All the relevant systems and the relationships between the systems.

An ecosystem map is a scope model that shows all the relevant systems, the relationships between the systems, and optionally, any data objects passed between them. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 190]

Question 40

During which of the following Agile events does an Agile team meet to discuss the ongoing work plan and make any adjustment to the work plan as required and address any impediments to work?

Answer 40

Daily Scrum

Daily Scrums are brief, daily collaboration meetings in which the team reviews progress from the previous day, declares intentions for the current day, and highlights any obstacles encountered or anticipated. Also known as daily standups. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 144, 244]

Question 41

Tim is managing an organizational workflow automation project and is having a tough time identifying detailed project requirements. Some project team members have suggested trying an adaptive project life cycle to handle this challenge. Tim is a bit concerned that abandoning a predictive lifecycle will introduce a significant risk of scope creep and has asked you for an expert opinion on the matter. Which of the following techniques used in adaptive lifecycles helps in minimizing scope creep?

Answer 41

Time-boxing

Time-boxed periods are durations during which the team works steadily toward completion of a goal. Time-boxing helps to minimize scope creep as it forces the teams to process essential features first, then other features when time permits. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 182]

Question 42

You have been assigned on a business intelligence application deployment at one of your client’s locations in the Middle East. You quickly learn that the organizational culture is not supportive of your business analysis processes and methods and the stakeholders are very hesitant in sharing any information unless you establish a relationship with them. Successful completion of your business analysis activities is critical for the success of this project. What should you do?

Answer 42

Make necessary adjustments to the business analysis processes.

Consider the cultural diversity that exists among the stakeholders and make necessary adjustments to the business analysis process to ensure these differences are considered. As a seasoned business analyst, you should rule out the other given choices. [Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, page 42; The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 115-116]

Question 43

You are leading a five-year long project. Your cost analyst reported that the accounting rate of return is 50% which can only be realized at the end of the project. You are not sure how meaningful that information is as the inflation rates haven’t been factored in by the cost analyst. Which of the following financial measures will produce a more reliable estimate in this situation?

Answer 43

Net present value

Economists and financial analysts generally use alternative approaches to measure financial benefits such as IRR and NPV since the accounting rate of return measure doesn’t factor in the time value of money. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 90]

Question 44

You had a product idea and have recently launched a startup and assembled a small product team. You have classified your product features using purpose alignment matrix considering two factors: criticality and market differentiation. What should be your strategy for the features classified as “partner”?

Answer 44

Look for a supplier for these features.

Partner features are the ones that are not considered mission critical, but if provided, they would enable the organization to differentiate itself in the market. As a result, an organization will look externally for a partner company to provide these features but will not invest in these features itself. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 82]

Question 45

Your firm has recently acquired a project management tool that hasn’t been doing well in the market. You have been asked to analyze its features and study its major facets to determine the possible changes or upgrades to the product to enable its success. What have you been asked to perform?

Answer 45

Opportunity analysis

Once a situation is discovered, it needs to be analyzed before being acted upon. Some analysis piece needs to be carried out prior to collecting functional or non-functional requirements for the future product upgrades. What you have been asked to perform is analyzing the opportunity to make the recently acquired product a success. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 70]

Question 46

The CEO of your organization has engaged a process improvement consultant to help improve some of the core business processes that have been shortlisted by the executive leadership team. During the first week of engagement, the consultant calls a senior stakeholder workshop to map the high-level future-state processes and proposes initiating multiple process improvement projects. You think this is an incorrect approach as the consultant went straight into “determining the future-state” prior to assessing the current state. What should you do next?

Answer 46

Communicate your concern to the relevant authority.

The CEO’s engagement of the consultant for a process improvement job identified by the executive leadership team indicates that the Identify Problem or Opportunity process was completed in some shape or form. The next step is to assess the current state which seems to be ignored by the hired consultant. You need to communicate your concern to the relevant authority rather than conducting this step yourself and sharing the outcomes with the consultant. The other two choices are extreme. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 63]

Question 47

You are managing a construction project. You have engaged a contractor to supply premixed concrete. The project team is complaining regarding the quality of the concrete received. The slump tests carried out at site are indicating unacceptable concrete strength thresholds which are documented in the agreement with the contractor. When you escalate this issue to the contractor, they tell you that a slump test is not a true measure of concrete strength as it only measures the wetness of concrete and not the concrete strength. They are insisting that you instead conduct a compressive cube test to measure the concrete strength. You know for a fact that a cube test provides a better idea about all the characteristics of concrete and through this test you can better judge whether concreting has been done properly or not. What should you do?

Answer 47

Reject the deliverables as they do not conform to the agreed standard.

You have the right to reject the deliverables if they fail to conform to the agreed standards. Whether a cube test is better and more accurate than a slump test is irrelevant. If the deliverables are of low quality and below the agreed standards, these need to be rejected. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, page 498] [For those interested in what slump and cube tests are: Wetness of concrete is measured by the slump test and this measurement is directly related to the concrete’s compressive strength. Compressive strength of concrete by cube test provides a better idea about all the characteristics of concrete. By this single test one judges whether concreting has been done properly or not.]

Question 48

Your consulting firm has been engaged by a major retailer to help mature some of its business development processes. As part of this engagement your firm has proposed to introduce some lean management tools and techniques to the organization. You are working with the client’s senior managers and coaching them in modern root cause analysis techniques. Which of the following techniques can be used to thoroughly understand the problem’s root causes?

Answer 48

Five-Whys

The fishbone diagram (also known as Ishikawa diagram) and interrelationship diagrams are both root cause analysis techniques. However, these are not sufficient for understanding all root causes. The Five-Whys technique thoroughly analyzes a problem’s causes. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, pages 70-72]

Question 49

You have been asked to conduct a post-implementation evaluation of a system. The product owner has asked you to quantitatively evaluate the system. How would you conduct a quantitative evaluation of the system?

Answer 49

By analyzing the data from the system

Analyzing the results from surveys, focus groups, or the results of exploratory testing of functionality are examples of qualitative or coarsely quantitative evaluation activities. Other evaluation activities involve obtaining more precise quantitative measurements, such as directly looking at data from a solution. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 278]

Question 50

You are currently analyzing a procurement process. According to the organizational policy, all submitted material or services requests need to be approved by the respective supervisors. If the value of the request exceeds ten thousand dollars, these need to also be approved by the departmental managers. What RACI classification would you select for the role that provides the final approval?

Answer 50

Accountable, since the role is accountable for the completion/quality of the task.

The RACI classifications are as follows: R – Role or person “responsible” for performing the task; A – Role or person “accountable” for the completion/quality of the task. C – Role or person who may be “consulted” to obtain information to complete the task. I – Role or person who is in some manner impacted by the task and hence needs to be “informed”. In this scenario, the purchase order check is accountable for the task since she is providing quality assurance. [The PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 118]