PMP - Head First PMP - GH Flashcards
- The terms of union contracts are considered ______________ in your project plan.
A. Assumptions
B. Constraints
C. Requirements
D. Collective bargaining agreements
Answer: B
When you work with a union, then the union contract can have an impact on your project. That means you need to consider the union itself a stakeholder, and when you do your planning you need to make sure any union rules and agreements are considered as constraints.
Note Working with unions will add rules that your project must comply with, and the contract is an important tool to ensure compliance.
- A project manager is reporting the final status of the closed contract to the stakeholders. Which form of communication is appropriate?
A. Informal written
B. Informal verbal
C. Formal written
D. Formal verbal
Answer: C
All project reports must be communicated as formal written documents. Not only that, but anything that has to do with a contract definitely needs to be formal written.
- Which of the following is not a tool or technique of the Control Quality process?
A. Inspection
B. Quality audits
C. Pareto charts
D. Statistical sampling
Answer: B
Quality audits are when your company reviews your project to make sure that you are following all of the processes in your company correctly. They are a tool of the Manage Quality process.
You have just delivered a product to your client for acceptance when you get a call that some features they were expecting are missing. What’s the first thing you should do?
A. Get your team together and reprimand them for building a product that doesn’t meet user expectations.
B. Tell the client that the product passed all of your internal quality inspections and scope verification processes, so it must be fine.
C. Tell the team to start building the missing features into the product right away.
D. Call a meeting with the client to understand exactly what is unacceptable in the product and try to figure out what went wrong along the way.
Answer: D
You can’t do anything about the problem until you understand it. You should meet with the client to get a better understanding of what went wrong and why the product is not meeting their needs.
Which of the following is not a tool or technique of Estimate Costs?
A. Bottom-up
B. Parametric
C. Cost aggregation
D. Analogous
Answer: C
Cost aggregation is used to build your budget, but it is not a tool for cost estimation. Bottom-up, parametric, and analogous estimation techniques are used for both cost and time estimates.
Which of the following is not a source of information about specific project constraints and assumptions?
A. The Scope Management plan
B. Requirements documentation
C. The project scope statement
D. The scope baseline
Answer: A
The project Scope Management plan is a really important tool in your project. It tells you exactly how you’ll create the project scope, define the WBS, verify that the work has been done, and make changes to the scope. But it doesn’t tell you about specific assumptions that you and the team have made, or constraints on your project. To find those, you should look in the requirements documentation and the project scope statement.
Note The scope baseline contains the WBS and project scope statement, so you’ll find constraints and assumptions there, too!
A project manager uses a facilitator who holds a meeting to gather opinions from team members anonymously. One team member is having difficulty understanding the process that they are being asked to follow. Which of the following is NOT an effective way to handle this situation?
A. Follow up with the team member individually and work together to determine how to ensure that they have the correct skills in the future
B. Confront the issue by pausing the meeting, bring the team member to the front of the room, and explain in detail how the process works
C. Reschedule the meeting for a future time, without placing blame or pointing to any individual as a reason to move it
D. Schedule a training session for the entire team to learn and practice the facilitated process
Answer: B
Singling out an individual who is having trouble and correcting them in front of the entire team is highly demotivating, and can cause serious problems with teamwork in the future.
Joe is an excellent programmer. He was promoted to the role of project manager because he understands technology better than anyone else in the company. Unfortunately, he is having trouble doing the project management job and his projects are failing. What is this an example of?
A. Gold plating
B. Halo effect
C. Preassignment
D. Ground rules
Answer: B
The halo effect is when you put someone in a position he can’t handle, just because he’s good at another job. Just because Joe is a great programmer, that doesn’t mean he’ll be a good project manager.
When are the most expensive defects most likely to be introduced into a product?
A. When the product is being assembled
B. When the product is being designed
C. When the Quality Management plan is being written
D. When the product is being reviewed by the customers
Answer: B
The most expensive defects are the ones introduced when the product is being designed. This is a little counterintuitive at first, but it really makes sense once you think about how projects are run. If your team introduces a defect into a product while it’s being assembled, then they have to go back and fix it. But if there’s a flaw in the design, then you have to halt production and go back and figure out all the things that flaw affected. You may have to order new parts,reassemble components, and maybe even go back and redesign the product from the ground up.
Note That’s why your Quality Management processes are so focused on reviewing EVERY deliverable—not just the final product, but all of the components, designs, and specifications, too.
You are the project manager for a railroad construction project. Your sponsor has asked you for a forecast for the cost of project completion. The project has a total budget of $80,000 and CPI of .95. The project has spent $25,000 of its budget so far. How much more money do you plan to spend on the project?
A. $59,210
B. $80,000
C. $84,210
D. $109,210
Answer: A
This question is asking you to create a forecast using estimate to complete (ETC), which uses CPI to project how much money is likely to be spent for the rest of the project. The first step is to plug the numbers into the formula EAC = BAC / CPI, which yields EAC = $80,000 / .95 = $84,210. That’s how much money you’re likely to spend on the project. Now you can figure out ETC = EAC – AC = $84,210 – $25,000 = $59,210.
Which of the following best describes decomposition?
A. Waiting for a task to expire so that it can break down into smaller tasks
B. Taking a deliverable and breaking it down into the smaller work packages so that it can be organized and planned
C. Categorizing work packages
D. Dividing work packages into deliverables that can be planned for
Answer: B
Decomposition is the main tool for creating the WBS. It just means breaking the work down into smaller and smaller pieces based on how your company does the work until it is small enough to categorize and organize hierarchically.
Which is the best definition of quality?
A. A product made of very expensive materials
B. A product made with a lot of care by the team who built it
C. A product that satisfies the requirements of the people who pay for it
D. A product that passes all of its tests
Answer: C
Quality Management is all about making sure that the product you are building conforms to your customer’s requirements. If you have done a good job of gathering and understanding those requirements, all of the measurements you take on your project should help you see if what you are building will satisfy your clients in the end.
Which of the following is NOT a Project Constraint?
A. Quality
B. Scale
C. Time
C. Cost
B. Scale
A project manager is running a data center installation project. He finds that his stakeholder is angry that he’s run over his budget because the staff turned out to be more expensive than planned. The stakeholder’s unhappy that when the project is over, the servers won’t have as much drive space as he needs. Which of the following constraints was not affected by this problem?
A. Quality
B. Resource
C.Time
D. Cost
C. Time
Which of the following is NOT an example of operational work?
A. Building a purchase order system for accounts payable
B. Submitting weekly purchase orders through a purchase order system
C. Deploying weekly antivirus software updates
D. Yearly staff performance evaluations
A
You’re managing a project to build a new accounting system. One of the accountants in another department really likes the current system and is refusing to be trained on the new one. What is the BEST way to handle this situation?
A. Refuse to work with him because he’s being difficult
B. Appeal to the accountant’s manager and ask to have him required to take training
C. Get a special dispensation so that the accountant doesn’t have to go to the training
D. Work with him to understand his concerns and do what you can to help alleviate them without compromising your project
D. Work with him to understand his concerns and do what you can to help alleviate them without compromising your project
Which of the following is used for identifying people who are impacted by the project?
A. Resource list
B. Stakeholder register
C. Enterprise environmental factors
D. Project plan.
B. Stakeholder Register
Your manager asks you where to find a list of projects that should be managed together.
What is the BEST place to find this information?
A. Project plan
B. Project charter
C. Portfolio charter
D. Program charter
D. Program Charter
You want to know specifically which business goal a group of projects and programs is going to accomplish. Which is the BEST place to look for this information?
A. Project plan
B. Project charter
C. Portfolio charter
D. Program charter
C. Portfolio
A project coordinator is having trouble securing programmers for her project. Every time she asks her boss to give a resource to the project he says that they are too busy to help out with her project. Which type of organization is she working in?
A. Functional
B. Weak matrix
C. Strong matrix
D. Projectized
A. Functional
A project manager is having trouble getting customer feedback on her project. Even though she knows the product won’t be complete for several months, the company guidelines say she should release an early version and get feedback from end users. Which type of organization is she working for?
A. Functional
B. Virtual
C. Hybrid
D. Projectized
Answer: C
The project manager in this scenario is working for a hybrid organization. She used predictive methods to understand that her project won’t be completed for several months and is about to use adaptive methods to get early feedback on the unfinished product.
The project manager for a construction project discovers that a new water line is being created in the neighborhood where he’s managing a project. Government regulations require that a series of forms for city environmental changes need to be filled out before his team can continue work on the project. This is an example of:
A. A portfolio
B. A program
C. An enterprise environmental factor
D. A project
D. A Project
You’re a project manager working on a software engineering project. Your manager is asking you to write down your performance goals for the year and measure them for your next performance evaluation. What leadership style is your manager using?
A.Charismatic
B Interactional
C.Transactional
D. Performance
C. Transactional
Which of the following is not a stakeholder?
A. The project manager who is responsible for building the project
B. A project team member who will work on the project
C. A customer who will use the final product
D. A competitor whose company will lose business because of the product
\
D.
A project manager runs into a problem with her project’s contractors, and she isn’t sure if they’re abiding by the terms of the contract. Which knowledge area is the BEST source of processes to help her deal with this problem?
A. Cost Management
B. Risk Management
C. Procurement Management
D. Communications Management
C
You’re a project manager for a construction project. You’ve just finished creating a list of all of the people who will be directly affected by the project. What process group are you in?
A. Initiating
B. Planning
C. Executing
D. Monitoring and Controlling
A. Initiation
You’re a project manager working in a weak matrix organization. Which of the following is NOT true?
A. Your team members report to functional managers
B. You are not directly in charge of resources.
C. Functional managers make decisions that can affect your projects.
D. You have sole responsibility for the success or failure of the project.
Answer: D
In a weak matrix, project managers have very limited authority. They have to share a lot of responsibility with functional managers, and those functional managers have a lot of leeway to make decisions about how the team members are managed. In an organization like that, the project manager isn’t given a lot of responsibility.
Which of the following is NOT a project?
A. Repairing a car
B. Building a highway overpass
C. Running an IT support department
D. Filming a motion picture
C
A project manager is running a software project that is supposed to be delivered in phases. She was planning on dividing the resources into two separate teams to do the work for two phases at the same time, but one of her senior developers suggested that she use an agile methodology instead, and she agrees. Which of the following BEST describes the relationship between her project’s phases?
A. Sequential relationship
B. Iterative relationship
C. Constrained relationship
D. Overlapping relationship
B
Agile development is a really good example of an iterative approach to project phases. In an agile project, the team will typically break down the project into phases, where they work on the current phase while planning out the next one.
Which of the following is NOT true about overlapping phases?
A. Each phase is typically done by a separate team.
B. There’s an increased risk of delays when a later phase can’t start until an earlier one ends.
C. There’s an increased risk to the project due to potential for rework.
D. Every phase must go through all five process groups.
B.
You’re the project manager for an industrial design project. Your team members report to you, and you’re responsible for creating the budget, building the schedule, and assigning the tasks. When the project is complete, you release the team so they can work on other projects for the company. What kind of organization do you work in?
A. Functional
B. Weak matrix
C. Strong matrix
D. Projectized
D
Which process group contains the Develop Project Charter process and the Identify Stakeholders process?
A. Initiating
B. Executing
C. Monitoring and Controlling
D. Closing
A
The first things that are created on a project are the charter (which you create in the Develop Project Charter process) and the stakeholder register (which you create in the Identify Stakeholders process). You do those things when you’re initiating the project.
- You’ve just received a change request. This means:
A. The project charter is complete, but the work cannot begin yet because you need to make a change to the scope baseline.
B. You are in the Direct and Manage Project Work process, and you can implement the change now.
C. The change needs to be approved before it can be implemented.
D. There is a defect in a deliverable that must be repaired.
C. The change needs to be approved before it can be implemented.
This is really a question about inputs and outputs. There’s only one process that takes “change requests” as an input, and that’s Perform Integrated Change Control. That’s where your changes get approved. The otheranswers all refer to other processes: A is about building a baseline (which is part of Develop Project Management Plan), while B and D are both about Direct and Manage Project Work.
- Which of these is not an input to Develop Project Charter?
A. Enterprise environmental factors
B. Project management plan
C. Agreements
D. Business documents
Answer: B
The Project Management plan is created in the Develop Project Management Plan process, which happens after Develop Project Charter. Develop Project Charter is the very first process on any project, and the inputs in answers A, C, and D exist before the project started. The Project Management plan is created during the project.
- What is the output of Direct and Manage Project Work?
A. Approved change requests
B. Project Management processes
C. Deliverables
D. Forecasts
Answer: C
The whole reason for the Direct and Manage Project Work process is to actually do the project work, and the deliverables are the products or services that are created by the project. Don’t get fooled by answer D—even though the work is performed in Direct and Manage Project Work, the information about how that work is performed is turned into forecasts in Monitor and Control Project Work.
- You’re managing a graphic design project. One of your team members reports that there is a serious problem, and you realize that it will cause a delay that could harm the business of the stakeholders. Even worse, it will take another two days for you to fully assess the impact—until then, you won’t have the whole story. What is the BEST way to handle this situation?
A. Create a change request document and submit it to the change control meeting.
B. Pull out the project charter and show them that you have authority to make decisions.
C. Meet with the stakeholders and tell them that there’s a problem, and you need two more days to get them the information they need.
D. Update the lessons learned and add it to your organizational process assets.
Answer: C
When you get a question about communication, look for the answer that provides the most complete, honest, and up-front information, even if that information won’t necessarily solve the problem or make everyone happy.
- You’re a project manager on a construction project. The electrician has started laying out the wiring, when the client comes to you with a change request. He needs additional outlets, and you think that will increase the cost of the electrical work. What is the first thing you do?
A. Refuse to make the change because it will increase the cost of the project and blow your budget.
B. Refer to the Project Management plan to see how the change should be handled.
C. Consult the contract to see if there is a clause.
D. Make the change, since the client requested it.
Answer: B
All changes must be handled using the change control system, which is a set of procedures that is contained in the Project Management plan. There is no way to tell from the question what specific steps will be in that change control system—answers A, C, and D are all possible ways to deal with changes, depending on the situation. The only way to know for sure what to do is to follow the change control procedures in the Project Management plan.
- The work authorization system:
A. Ensures that every work package is performed at the right time and in the proper sequence
B. Authorizes the project manager to spend money on work
C. Is a set of processes and tools that aids the project manager in effectively guiding the project to completion
D. Is a formalized, written description of how to carry out an activity.
Answer: A
This is a just-the-facts-ma’am question, and answer A is the actual definition of the work authorization system. (This term is used in the PMBOK® Guide—technically it’s not specifically defined there, but you might still see it on the exam.)
- You’re the project manager at a telecommunications company. You recently had stakeholders approach you with changes. You figured out that the changes would cost additional time and money. The stakeholders agreed, you were given additional time and budget, and the changes were approved. Now you have to incorporate the changes into the project. What do you do next?
A. Modify the project charter to include the changes.
B. Use the project management information system to make sure the work is performed.
C. Make sure to track your changes against the project’s baseline so you know how much they eventually cost.
D. Incorporate the changes into the baseline so you can track the project properly.
Answer: D
The first thing you do after a change is approved is to update the baseline. If you chose answer C, don’t feel bad—it’s easy to get a little mixed up about what a baseline is used for. The whole purpose of the baseline is to figure out whether your project has deviated from the plan. But a change isn’t a deviation from the plan! A deviation is accidental, while a change is done on purpose. That’s why it’s so important to get the change approved: that way, everyone knows about it, which means that you can plan for it. And updating the baseline is how you do that planning.
Note You use the baseline to protect yourself from nasty surprises…and an approved change is not a surprise.
- You are a project manager on a software project. When you planned the project, your enterprise environmental factors included a policy that all changes that cost over 2% of the budget need to be approved by the CFO, but smaller changes could be paid for by a management contingency fund. One of your stakeholders submitted a change request that requires a 3% increase in the budget. Your company has an outsourcing effort, and you believe that a small change to the way that the change is requested could allow you to take advantage of it and cut your costs in half. What is the BEST way to handle this situation?
A. Work with the stakeholder to figure out how to reduce the cost of the change by a third.
B. Request approval from the CFO.
C. Refuse the change because it is over 2% of the budget.
D. Document the change request, since all changes must be documented.
Answer: B
When your company has a policy, you need to follow it and not try to work around it. Also, don’t get fooled by answer D—the question said that a change request was submitted, so it’s already documented. The exam could contain tricks like that!
Note The important stuff in this question is all in the second and third sentences. The outsourcing detail is a red herring.
- You’re on the project selection committee. You’re reviewing a document that describes the strategic value of a potential project and its benefits to the company. What’s this document called?
A. Project charter
B. Business case
C. Benefit measurement method
D. Contract
Answer: B
This is a business case—it describes the benefits of doing a project and can be used to decide whether it’s worth it for your company to do the work. Sometimes the benefits will be about gaining capabilities, not just money.
Note:
There will be questions on the exam where there are two valid answers but only one BEST answer.
- One of your team members has discovered a defect in a deliverable and has recommended that it be repaired. Which of the following is NOT true:
A. The project charter has authorized you to perform the work.
B. Your project is in Monitor and Control Project Work process.
C. The defect repair must be approved before the deliverable can be repaired.
D. You must update the Project Management plan to document the defect.
Answer: D
Defects do not need to be documented in the Project Management plan. Take a look at the other answers—do you understand why they are correct? Answer A is simply the definition of the project charter; it doesn’t have anything to do with the defect, but it’s still true. When you’re performing the Monitor and Control Project Work process, you need to make sure defect repairs are approved before you change the deliverables, so answer B is true as well. And as far as answer C goes, that’s the whole purpose of the Perform Integrated Change Control process: to approve defect repairs, changes, and preventive and corrective actions!
- You are holding a formal, approved document that defines how the project is executed, monitored, and controlled. You are holding:
A. The Project Management plan
B. The performance measurement baseline
C. The project charter
D. The work breakdown structure
Answer: A
This is the definition of the Project Management plan!
- You are the project manager for a software project, when the sponsor pulls the plug and cancels the project. What do you do?
A. Give the team the day off to recuperate from the bad news.
B. Create a budget summary for the remaining unspent budget.
C. Follow project closure procedures to close the project and update lessons learned.
D. Find new assignments for any people previously assigned to your project.
Answer: C
Even when a project is terminated, you still need to close it out.
- You are managing a software project, when you find out that a programming team whom you were supposed to have access to has been reassigned to another project. What is the first thing that you should do?
A. Figure out the impact that this will have on your project.
B. Bring a copy of your project’s charter to the other manager, and explain that you need that team for your own project.
C. Go to your sponsor and demand the team.
D. Figure out a way to compress the project schedule so that you can work with the team if they become available.
Answer: A
If a resource is not available to you, it doesn’t matter what’s in your project charter or what your sponsors and stakeholders want. You need to figure out how to move forward from here, and the first step in doing that is evaluating the impact that this new problem will have on your project.
- You are a project manager on a software project. There are several changes that need to be made, and you need to decide how to apply project resources in order to implement them. What do you do?
A. Decide the priority of the changes and announce them to the team.
B. Call a team meeting and invite the stakeholders, so that everyone can reach a consensus on the priority.
C. Deny the changes because they will delay the project.
D. Consult the Change Prioritization plan for guidance on prioritizing new changes.
Answer: A
The project manager must decide the priority of the changes. If the changes need to be made, that means that they were approved. So you can’t simply deny them. And you can’t call the team in for a meeting, because they need to do the work. Some people may think that the stakeholders need to be involved—but since the change was already approved, you’ve gotten their buy-in. Now it’s up to you to decide the order in which they’re implemented.
Note:
There’s no such thing as a Change Prioritization plan! Keep an eye out for fake artifacts and processes.
- You’re a project manager on a software project. Your team is busy executing the project and creating the deliverables, but there have been several changes requested by stakeholders over the past few weeks. Each time you got one of these changes, you called a meeting with your team and the stakeholders to discuss it. Why did you do this?
A. Every change needs to be evaluated by a change control board.
B. You’re delegating the work of evaluating changes.
C. You do not have a good change control system in place.
D. You are using a project management information system to assign the work.
Answer: C
When you get a change request, you need to consult the Project Management plan and follow the procedures defined in the change control system. It is generally not a good idea to involve the entire team in evaluating each change that comes in—there may be many changes, and if you pull your team off the job for each one, they’ll never get their job done!
- You are the project manager on a construction project, and you have just received a change request. You consulted the Project Management plan, and followed the procedures laid out in the change control system. You are in the process of reviewing the change and documenting its impact. Your manager asks you why you are doing this. Which process are you doing by reviewing the change and documenting its impact?
A. Perform Integrated Change Control
B. Monitor and Control Project Work
C. Manage Requested Changes
D. Direct and Manage Project Work
Answer: A
Once a change is requested, all of the work that you do with it falls under Perform Integrated Change Control, right up until it’s approved and you can implement it.
Note Doesn’t C seem like the right answer? Too bad it’s not a real process!
- Which of the following is NOT true about the project charter?
A. The project charter defines the requirements that satisfy customer needs.
B. The project charter defines the work authorization system.
C. The project charter makes the business case that justifies the project.
D. The project charter includes the milestone schedule.
Answer: B
The work authorization system is defined by the company, and it’s external to the project. You can think about it as the rules that you are told to follow in order to assign work in your company. They are part of the enterprise environmental factors, an input to Develop Project Charter.
Note Remember that lessons learned are documented throughout the project, not just at the end! That’s why they’re part of work performance data.
Note When you close a process or phase, you need to make sure each deliverable has been accepted by the stakeholders.
- You have just verified that all of the work on your project is completed. Which of these things is NOT part of the Closing process?
A. Update historical information by documenting lessons learned.
B. Document the work performance data to show the deliverables that have been completed and record the lessons learned.
C. Verify that all of the deliverables have been accepted by the stakeholders.
D. Follow the project closure procedure.
Answer: B
The work performance data is documented as part of Direct and Manage Project Work. By the time the project closes, it’s too late to use the work performance data! That’s why it’s an input to Monitor and Control Project Work—so you can take corrective action if the work is not being performed well.
- Which of the following is NOT true about the Project Management Plan?
A. The Project Management plan contains the Scope Management plan.
B. The Project Management plan gives authority to the project manager.
C. The Project Management plan contains the schedule baseline.
D. The Project Management plan contains the performance baseline.
Answer: B
The project charter authorizes the project manager.
- Which of the following is NOT an output of the Direct and Manage Project Work process?
A. Work performance data
B. Deliverables
C. Project documents updates
D. Forecasts
Answer D
You’ll learn about forecasts in Chapter7—they’re used to help predict whether the project will come in on time and within budget. If not, preventive or corrective actions will be needed! But you don’t need to know that to know they’re not an output of Direct and Manage Project Work.
- You are a project manager starting a new project. Your manager warns you that previous projects ran into trouble. Which of the following would be BEST for you to rely on to help plan your project:
A. Our project management expertise
B. Historical information
C. The change control system
D. Forecasts
Answer: B
Historical information is an important input into Develop Project Charter, which is the first process that you perform when you start a new project. Historical information is very important, because it’s how you learn about past projects’ successes and failures. It’s not actually listed as its own input. It’s a part of organizational process assets—and it really is a huge asset to any organization!
When you add lessons learned to your organizational process assets, you’re recording important historical information that other project managers can use later.
- Which is NOT true about the project charter:
A. The project manager must be consulted before the charter is finalized.
B. The charter is issued by the project sponsor.
C. The project manager’s authority to manage the project is granted by the charter.
D. The charter gives a summary milestone schedule.
Answer: A
The project manager may be consulted when the project charter is created, but that’s not always the case. It’s possible that the project manager for a project is not even known when the charter is created!
- Which of the following is NOT an input to the Develop Project Management Plan process?
A. Outputs of the planning processes
B. Project charter
C. Expert judgment
D. Enterprise environmental factors
Answer: C
While you may employ good judgment in developing your Project Management plan, expert judgment is not an input. It’s a tool/technique used in the various processes.
- You are the project manager on a network engineering project. Two weeks ago, your team began executing the project. The work has been going well, and you are now a day ahead of schedule. Two stakeholders just approached you to tell you that they have an important change that needs to be made. That change will put you behind schedule. What do you do?
A. Implement the change because you’re ahead of schedule.
B. Refuse to make the change because the stakeholders did not take it to the change control board.
C. Refuse to make the change until the stakeholders document it in a change request.
D. Make sure the stakeholders know that you’re open to change, and tell them to talk to the project sponsor.
Answer: C
The first step in handling any change is to document it. That’s why change requests are an input to Perform Integrated Change Control: the change control process cannot begin until the change is written down!
- Diane is a project manager at a software company. She just got a change request from one of her stakeholders, but is concerned that it will cause a serious problem with her schedule. She called a meeting with the project team, and decided that there was a real change, and now they need to start change control. Which of the following is NOT an output of the Perform Integrated Change Control process?
A. Project document updates
B. Approved Change Requests
C. Project Management plan updates
D. Change requests
Answer: D
If you’re having trouble remembering what the inputs and outputs are for Monitor and Control Project Work and Perform Integrated Change Control, one way to think about it is that change control is all about deciding whether or not to do something. Monitor and Control Project Work is where you spot the problems—that’s why all of the requested changes are outputs of it, and inputs into Perform Integrated Change Control. Perform Integrated Change Control is where those recommendations get evaluated and turned into approved actions and changes. The ones that are not approved are rejected. Then they go back to Direct and Manage Project Work, where they are implemented, because that’s project work and all project work happens in that process.
- Which of the following is TRUE about a work breakdown structure?
A. It contains work packages that are described in a linear, unstructured list.
B. Each item in the WBS represents a feature in the product scope.
C. The WBS represents all of the work that must be done on the project.
D. The WBS is created by the product sponsor and stakeholders.
Answer: C
The work breakdown structure is all about breaking down the work that your team needs to do. The WBS is hierarchical, not linear and unstructured. Did you notice that answer B was about product scope, not project scope?
- Which is NOT an output of a Scope Management process?
A. Business case
B. WBS dictionary
C. Change requests
D. Accepted deliverables
Answer: A
There are two ways you can get to the right answer for this question. You can recognize that the WBS dictionary, change requests, and accepted deliverables are all Scope Management process outputs. (You’ll see change requests in every knowledge area!) But you can also recognize that the business case is used in the Develop Project Charter process, which is part of the Initiating process group.
- Which of the following is NOT TRUE about a work breakdown structure?
A. It describes procedures to define the scope, verify work, and manage scope changes.
B. It contains a graphical, hierarchical list of all work to be performed.
C. It can be broken down by project phase or deliverable. D. It is an important element of the baseline.
Answer: A
Did you recognize that answer A was describing the Scope Management plan? Once you know what the WBS is used for and how to make one, questions like this make sense.
- What is the correct order of the Scope Management processes?
A. Plan Scope Management, Define Scope, Create WBS, Collect Requirements, Validate Scope, Control Scope
B. Plan Scope Management, Collect Requirements, Control Scope, Create WBS, Validate Scope
C. Plan Scope Management, Collect Requirements, Define Scope, Create WBS, Validate Scope, Control Scope
D. Plan Scope Management, Collect Requirements, Baseline, Define Scope, Control Scope, Validate Scope
Answer: C
You’ll need to know what order processes come in, and one good way to do that is to think about how the outputs of some processes are used as inputs for another. For example, you can’t create the WBS until the scope is defined, which is why A is wrong. And you can’t do change control until you have a baseline WBS, which is why B is wrong.
Take a minute and think about how there’s no “right” order for Validate Scope and Control Scope. You could have a scope change at the beginning of the project, so Control Scope would come first. But a change could happen late in the project, too! If there’s a major change to the project after the scope’s verified, you need to redo it.
- The goal of Validate Scope is:
A. To inspect the scope statement for defects so that it is correct
B. To gain formal acceptance of the project deliverables from the sponsor and stakeholders
C. To get everyone in the project working together toward a common goal
D. To verify that all PMBOK® Guide processes are complied with
Answer: B
There are some questions where you’ll just have to know what a process is all about, and this is one of them. That’s why it’s really helpful to know why Validate Scope is so helpful to you on a project. You use Validate Scope to check that all of the work packages were completed, and get the stakeholders and sponsor to formally accept the deliverables. Note Inspection isn’t just done at the end of the project. You do Validate Scope on every single deliverable made by you and the team.
- You’ve taken over as a project manager on a highway construction project, and the execution is already under way. Your sponsor tells you that moving forward, all asphalt should be laid down with a 12” thickness. The scope statement and the WBS call for 9” thick asphalt. What is the BEST course of action?
A. Look for a cheaper supplier so the cost impact is minimized.
B. Tell the sponsor that the work is already under way, so you can’t accommodate his request.
C. Refuse to alter the plans until the change control system has been used.
D. Tell the team to accommodate the request immediately.
Answer: C
One thing to remember about change control is that if you want to make the sponsor and stakeholders happy with the project in the end, sometimes you have to tell them “no” right now. When you’re doing Control Scope, the most important tool you use is the change control system. It tells you how to take an approved change and put it in place on a project, and there’s no other way that you should ever make a change to any part of the baseline. That means that once everyone has approved the scope statement and WBS, if you want to make any change to them, then you need to get that change approved and put it through the change control system.
- You are managing a software project. Your team has been working for eight weeks, and so far the project is on track. The lead programmer comes to you with a problem: there is a work package that is causing trouble. Nobody seems to know who is responsible for it, the accounting department does not know what cost center to bill it against, and it’s not even clear exactly what work should be performed. Which of the following would BEST help this situation?
A. Alternatives analysis
B. WBS dictionary
C. Scope Management plan
D. Scope validation
Answer: B
An important tactic for a lot of exam questions is to be able to recognize a particular tool, technique, input, or output from a description. What have you learned about that tells you who is responsible for a work package, tells what control account to associate with it, and describes the work associated with it? That’s a good description of the WBS dictionary.
- Historical information and lessons learned are part of:
A. Organizational process assets
B. Enterprise environmental factors
C. Project management information system (PMIS)
D. Work performance information
Answer: A
- Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of a requirements traceability matrix?
A. It describes how WBS dictionary entries are traced to work packages, and how work packages are decomposed from deliverables.
B. It’s used to make sure that all of the subplans of the Project Management plan have been created.
C. It helps you understand the source of each requirement, and how that requirement was verified in a later deliverable.
D. It’s used to trace the source of every change, so that you can keep track of them through the entire Control Scope process and verify that the change was properly implemented.
Answer: C
The requirements traceability matrix is a tool that you use to trace each requirement back to a specific business case, and then forward to the rest of the scope deliverables (like specific WBS work packages), as well as other parts of the project: the product design (like specific levels in Cows Gone Wild) or test strategy (like test plans that the Ranch Hand Games testers use to make sure that the game works).
Note The idea is that you’re tracing a deliverable from its initial description all the way through the project to testing, so that you can make sure that every single deliverable meets all of its requirements.
- It’s the end of execution for a large highway construction project. The work has been done, and the workers are ready to pack up their equipment. The project manager and project sponsor have come by with specialists to check that each requirement has been met, and that all of the work in the WBS has been performed. What process is being done?
A. Control Scope
B. Validate Scope
C. Scope Testing
D. Define Scope
Answer: B
When you’re getting the sponsor and stakeholders to formally accept the results of the project, you’re doing Validate Scope. This involves an important too: inspection. That means carefully checking the deliverables (in this case, what the workers built on the highway) to make sure they match the WBS.
- You have just been put in charge of a project that is already executing. While reviewing the project documentation, you discover that there is no WBS. You check the Scope Management plan and discover that there should be one for this project. What is the BEST thing for you to do:
A. Immediately alert the sponsor and make sure the project work doesn’t stop.
B. Stop project work and create the WBS, and don’t let work continue until it’s created.
C. Make sure you closely manage communications to ensure the team doesn’t miss any undocumented work. D. Mark it down in the lessons learned so it doesn’t happen on future projects.
Answer: B
Note Answer D is a good idea, but it’s not as important as creating a new WBS. This question is a little tricky. The most important thing about a WBS is that if your Scope Management plan says it should be there, then your project absolutely cannot be done without it. And a general rule is that if you ever find that there is no WBS, you should always check the Scope Management plan to find out why.
- A project manager on an industrial design project finds that the sponsor wants to make a change to the scope after it has been added to the baseline, and needs to know the procedure for managing changes. What is the BEST place to look for this information?
A. WBS
B. Scope Management plan
C. Change request form template
D. Business case
Answer: B
This is another question that is testing you on the definition of a specific document, in this case the Scope Management plan, which is one of the subsidiary plans of the Project Management plan. Think about what you use a Scope Management plan for. It gives you specific procedures for defining the scope, breaking down the work, verifying the deliverables, and managing scope changes—which is what this question is asking. All of the other answers don’t have anything to do with managing changes.
- You have just started work on the project scope statement. You are analyzing the expected deliverables when you discover that one of them could be delivered in three different ways. You select the best method for creating that deliverable. What is the BEST way to describe what you are doing?
A. Alternatives analysis
B. Decomposition
C. Define scope process
D. Stakeholder analysis
Answer: A
Here’s another example of how there are two correct answers but only one BEST one. Answer C is true—you are doing scope definition. But is that really the best way to describe this situation? Alternatives analysis is part of scope definition, and it’s a more accurate way to describe what’s going on here.
Note When you look at a few ways to create a deliverable and then decide on the best one, that’s alternatives analysis.
- You’re the project manager on a software project. Your team has only completed half of the work when the sponsor informs you that the project has been terminated. What is the BEST action for you to take?
A. Verify the deliverables produced by the team against the scope, and document any place they do not match.
B. Call a team meeting to figure out how to spend the rest of the budget.
C. Work with the sponsor to see if there is any way to bring the project back.
D. Tell the team to stop working immediately.
Answer: A
This question is an example of how you need to rely on more than just common sense to pass the PMP exam. All four of these answers could be good ways to handle a terminated project, but there’s only one of those answers that corresponds to what the PMBOK® Guide says. When a project is terminated, you still need to complete the Validate Scope process. That way, you can document all of the work that has been completed, and the work that has not been completed.
- You are managing an industrial design project. One of your team members comes to you with a suggestion that will let you do more work while at the same time saving the project 15% of the budget. What is the BEST way for you to proceed?
A. Tell the team to make the change because it will deliver more work for less money.
B. Refuse to make the change until a change request is documented and change control is performed.
C. Refuse to consider the change because it will affect the baseline.
D. Do a cost-benefit analysis and then make sure to inform the sponsor that the project scope changed.
Answer: B
Are you starting to get the hang of how this change control stuff works? The baseline isn’t etched in stone, and you need to be able to change it, but you can’t just go ahead and make changes whenever you want. You need to document the change request and then put that request through change control. If it’s approved, then you can update the baseline so that it incorporates the change. Note You definitely can’t just make the change and inform the sponsor later. All changes need to be approved.
- You are the project manager for a telecommunications project. You are working on the project scope statement. Which of the following is NOT included in this document?
A. Authorization for the project manager to work on the project
B. Requirements that the deliverables must meet
C. A description of the project objectives
D. The list of deliverables that must be created
Answer: A
When a question asks you about what a particular document, input, or output contains, be on the lookout for answers that talk about a different document. What document do you know about that gives the project manager authorization to do the work? That’s what the project charter is for.
- Which of the following is NOT an input to Control Scope?
A. Work performance data
B. Project management plan
C. Requested changes
D. Organizational process assets
Answer: C
Sometimes Control Scope is easiest to think about as a kind of machine that turns approved changes into updates. It sucks in the approved changes and all of the other Scope Management stuff (the Scope Management Plan, Requirements Management Plan, and Scope Baseline), does all the stuff that it needs to do to update those things, and then spits out updates. And sometimes it spits out new requested changes because when you’re making changes to the WBS or scope statement you realize that you need to make even more changes.
- Which of these processes is not a part of Scope Management?
A. Scope Identification
B. Collect Requirements
C. Control Scope
D. Validate Scope
Answer: A
Scope Identification is a made-up process. It didn’t appear in this chapter, and even though it sounds real, it’s wrong.
- You are the project manager for a new project, and you want to save time creating the WBS. Which is the BEST way to do this?
A. Make decomposition go faster by cutting down the number of deliverables.
B. Use a WBS from a previous project as a template.
C. Don’t create the WBS dictionary.
D. Ask the sponsor to provide the work packages for each deliverable.
Answer: B
WBS templates are a great way to speed up creating the WBS, and the easiest way to create a template is to use one from a previous project. It is not a good idea to cut out deliverables, skip important outputs like the WBS dictionary, or make the sponsor do your job for you. Note You can also use a template for the Scope Management plan.
- The project manager for a design project is using the Define Scope process. Which BEST describes this?
A. Creating a document that lists all of the features of the product
B. Creating a plan for managing changes to the baseline
C. Creating a document that describes all of the work the team does to make the deliverables
D. Creating a graphical representation of how the phases or deliverables decompose into work packages
Answer: C
This question asked you about the Define Scope process, but all of the answers describe various outputs. Which of these outputs matches Define Scope? Well, the main output of Define Scope is the scope statement, and answer C is a good description of the scope statement.
- You are the project manager for a construction project. You have completed project initiation activities, and you are now creating a document that describes processes to document the scope, decompose deliverables into work packages, verify that all work is complete, and manage changes to the baseline. What process are you performing?
A. Develop Project Management plan
B. Define Scope
C. Create WBS
D. Develop Project Charter
Answer: A
Note Did you guess “Create WBS” because it was a Scope Management process and the question mentioned decomposing deliverables into work packages? This question asked you where you defined the procedures for doing all of the Scope Management processes. Where do you find those procedures? You find them in the Project Management plan—specifically, the Scope Management subplan. And you build that in the Develop Project Management Plan process.
- You are a project manager working on a project. Your sponsor wants to know who a certain work package is assigned to, what control account to bill it against, and what work is involved. What document do you refer her to?
A. Scope Management plan
B. WBS
C. WBS dictionary
D. Scope statement
Answer: C
There’s only one document you’ve seen that shows you details of individual work packages and contains a control account, a statement of work, and a resource assignment. It’s the WBS dictionary.
- You are the project manager for a software project. One of the teams discovers that if they deviate from the plan, they can actually skip one of the deliverables because it’s no longer necessary. They do the calculations, and realize they can save the customer 10% of the cost of the project without compromising the features in the product. They take this approach, and inform you the following week what they did during the status meeting. What is the BEST way to describe this situation?
A. The project team has taken initiative and saved the customer money.
B. A dispute is resolved in favor of the customer.
C. The team informed the project manager of the change, but they should have informed the customer, too.
D. The team did not follow the Control Scope process.
Answer: D
When you read the question, it looks like the team really helped the project, right? But think about what happened: the team abandoned the plan, and then they made a change to the project without getting approval from the sponsor or stakeholders. Maybe they discovered a useful shortcut. But isn’t it possible that the shortcut the team found was already considered and rejected by the sponsor? That’s why change control is so important.
Note Did you notice how the question made it sound like the team did a good thing by ignoring Control Scope and making changes that were never approved?
- Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of the project scope statement?
A. It describes the features of the product of the project.
B. It is created before the Scope Management plan.
C. It decomposes deliverables into work packages.
D. It describes the objectives, requirements, and deliverables of the project, and the work needed to create them.
Answer: D
Some questions are just definition questions. When that definition is a which-is-BEST question, there could be an answer that makes some sense, and it’s tempting to stop with it. In this case, answer A sounds like it might be right. But if you read answer D, it’s much more accurate.
- A project manager at a cable and networking company is gathering requirements for a project to build a new version of their telecommunications equipment. Which of the following is NOT something that she will use?
A. Specific descriptions of work packages that will be developed
B. One-on-one interviews with the senior executives who need the new equipment for their teams
C. An early working model of the telecommunications equipment to help get feedback from stakeholders
D. Results from a focus group that she ran when starting the project.
Answer: A
The question asked about the tools and techniques for Collect Requirements, and answer A is the only answer that has to do with the Create WBS process. The rest of the answers were descriptions of Collect Requirements tools and techniques: interviews (answer B), prototypes (answer C), and observations (answer D).
- Which of the following is NOT an output of Collect Requirements?
A. Requirements observations
B. Requirements traceability matrix
C. Requirements documentation
D. Requirements Management plan
Answer: A
The outputs of Collect Requirements are requirements documentation and the requirements traceability matrix. “Requirements Observations” isn’t really an output.
Note The easiest way to make sure you get questions like this right is to think about how each of those outputs is actually used later in the project.
- You’re managing a project when your client tells you that an external problem happened, and now you have to meet an earlier deadline. Your supervisor heard that in a situation like this, you can use schedule compression by either crashing or fast-tracking the schedule, but he’s not sure which is which. What do you tell him?
A. Crashing the project adds risk, while fast-tracking adds cost.
B. When you crash a project, it always shortens the total duration of the project.
C. Crashing the project adds cost, while fast-tracking adds risk. 4
D. When you fast-track a project, it always shortens the total duration of the project.
Answer: C
You’re likely to get some questions that ask you about crashing and fast-tracking, and it’s important to know the difference between them. When you crash the project, it means that you add resources to it, especially to the critical path. There’s no real risk in doing that—in the worst-case scenario, the extra people just sit around!—but it does cost more. Fast-tracking means adjusting the schedule so that activities overlap. The same resources are doing the work, so it’s not going to cost more, but it’s definitely riskier, because now you’ve eliminated buffers and possibly broken some dependencies! And remember that crashing or fast-tracking won’t always work to make the project go faster!
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 674). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- Given this portion of the network diagram to the right, what’s the EF of activity F? 41 49 53 61
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 664). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- Given this portion of the network diagram to the right, what’s the LS of activity F? 41 49 53 61 Figure 6-127.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (pp. 664-665). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 664). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- You are managing a software project. Your QA manager tells you that you need to plan to have her team start their test planning activity so that it finishes just before testing begins. But other than that, she says it can start as late in the project as necessary. What’s the relationship between the test planning activity and the testing activity?
a. Start-to-Start (SS)
b. Start-to-Finish (SF)
c Finish-to-Start (FS)
d. Finish-to-Finish (FF)
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 665). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 665). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Answer: C
Don’t let the jargon fool you! You don’t need to know anything about software testing to answer this question. When you have two activities, activities, and the first activity has to be timed so that it finishes before the second one starts, then you’ve got a Finish-to-Start relationship, or FS.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP: A Learner’s Companion to Passing the Project Management Professional Exam (p. 675). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- You’re managing an industrial design project. You’ve come up with the complete activity list, created network diagrams, assigned resources to each activity, and estimated their durations. What’s the next thing that you do?
A. Use rolling wave planning to compensate for the fact that you don’t have complete information.
B. Create the schedule.
C. Consult the project scope statement and perform Sequence Activities.
D. Use fast-tracking to reduce the total duration.
B.
This is a which-is-next question that describes a project that’s completed the Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, and Estimate Activity Durations processes. The next process in Project Schedule Management is Develop Schedule, which means that the next thing you do is create the schedule!
- Which of the following is NOT an input to Develop Schedule?
A. Activity list
B. Project schedule network diagrams
C. Resource calendars
D. Schedule baseline
D.
The schedule baseline is an output of the Develop Schedule process, not an input. You should definitely know what goes into the schedule baseline: it’s a specific version of the schedule that you set aside and use for comparison later on, when you want to know if the project is running late.
- Three members of your project team want to pad their estimates because they believe there are certain risks that might materialize. What is the BEST way to handle this situation?
A. Estimate the activities honestly, and then use a contingency reserve to cover any unexpected costs.
B. Allow more time for the work by adding a buffer to every activity in the schedule.
C. Tell the team members not to worry about it, and if the schedule is wrong it’s OK for the project to be late.
D. Crash the schedule.
A.
You always want to be honest with your estimates. Every project has unknowns and risks, and there’s no way to estimate any activity exactly! Luckily, we have tools to deal with this. You can use reserve analysis, a tool of Estimate Activity Durations, to come up with a contingency reserve that you can use to plan for these risks
- You’re managing a software project. You’ve created the schedule, and you need to figure out which activities cannot slip. You’ve done critical path analysis, identifying the critical path and calculating the early start and early finish for each activity. Which activities cannot slip without making the project late?
A.The ones with the biggest difference between ES and LF
B. The activities on the critical path
C. The activity with the most lag
D. The last activity in the project, because it has no float
B.
The critical path is the path in the network diagram where any delay will cause a delay in the schedule. These are the activities that cannot slip without making the project late.
- What is the critical path in the activity list to the right? Start-A-B-C-Finish Start-A-D-E-F-Finish Start-G-H-I-J-Finish Start-A-B-J-Finish
A Start 6 B A 4 C B 8 D A 1 E D 1 F E 2 G Start 3 H G 3 I H 2 J B, I 3 Finish F, J, C —
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (pp. 667-668). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 667). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- What is the float for activity F in the activity list to the right? 0 7 8 10
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 668). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 668). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- You’re managing an interior decoration project when you find out that you need to get it done earlier than originally planned. You decide to fast-track the project. This means:
A. Starting the project sooner and working overtime
B. Assigning more people to the tasks at a greater total cost, especially for activities on the critical path
C. Starting activities earlier and overlapping them more, which will cost more and could add risks
D. Shortening the durations of the activities and asking people to work overtime to accommodate that
C
This is the definition of fast-tracking, and you’re probably getting the hang of this one by now. You may get a question like this, but you’ll almost certainly see fast-tracking as an incorrect answer to several questions.
- Slack is a synonym for:
A. Float
B. Lag
C. Buffer
D. Reserve
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (pp. 668-669). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Answer: A
Remember that when you see slack, it’s the same thing as float. Either term could appear on the exam.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 677). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
- You’re managing a construction project. You’ve decomposed work packages into activities, and your client needs a duration estimate for each activity that you come up with. Which of the following will you use for this?
A. Milestone list
B. Activity list
C. Critical path analysis
D. Project schedule network diagram
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 669). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 669). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
Answer: B
This question is asking about the E
stimate Activity Durations process. Take a look at the answers—there’s only one answer that’s used in that process: you need to start with the activity list in order to do the estimates for the activities. The other answers are things that are inputs, tools, or techniques for other processes. Note When a question asks what you’d use for a process, it’s asking you to pick an input, tool, or technique that’s part of the process.
Greene, Jennifer; Stellman, Andrew. Head First PMP (p. 678). O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition.
