Professional Responsibilities

Question 1

Your project was won by your company because of its commitment to PMI practices. Your customer has a term in the contract specifying that all presentations be given by a Project Management Professional (PMP). The PMP assigned to your project has resigned effective today and the project performance report is due for presentation next Thursday. As the project manager, what should you do?

Answer 1

Hire a consultant that holds the PMP certification and follow the process defined by your company’s Contracts Department.

Question 2

While reviewing the status of a project you find a metric being tracked by one of the stakeholders that does not appear in the communication or management plans. The report reveals a variance in resource performance that could be negative if published and received by the customer. As project manager, what is the BEST approach:

Answer 2

Contact the stakeholder and review the metric to determine the validity of the data.

Question 3

Your company has recently bid on a contract with a customer that has worked with you on 10 previous projects with similar products. Since you are not the lowest bidder and the customer wants to give the business to a tested provider, they have formally asked you to cut project management costs by 90%. The customer cites the previous outings and suggests that the request is not unique but operational for someone with your experience. What should you do to win the contract?

Answer 3

Send the customer performance reports from projects that were not managed by a project manager.

Question 4

Your company has contracted to build a power plant in Brazil. You have been contacted by the Harbor Master who has asked you to pay an “access fee” to unload your materials. What is the FIRST thing you should do?

Answer 4

Contact the governmental official who approved the project and verify the “access fee” and to whom it should be paid.

Question 5

A vendor has a meeting scheduled to begin next week to discuss details of an upcoming project. You have received word from your project selection committee chairman that the chances are good the initiative will be canceled. As the project manager what should you do?

Answer 5

Postpone the meeting and reschedule after project selection is completed.

Question 6

Three of your employees are required to obtain work visas in the country where the customers business is conducted.The team has requested payment for the rights to work in this country. Who has responsibility for these charges?

Answer 6

The company conducting the work.

Question 7

In the management of projects, most will have some change requests from the customer or stakeholders. Your project has been plagued with change requests. The change control board has approved a few of these changes and found that no conditions have been provided for in the contract for funding. As the project manager what should you do?

Answer 7

Negotiate with the project sponsor to determine a corrective action.

Question 8

Your company is considering hiring a vendor of consulting services. Your personal portfolio owns stock in the consulting company. You should:

Answer 8

Formally notify your sponsor of the conflict and remove yourself from the selection process.

Question 9

You are attending a kick-off party for a new project in another country. During the festivities, you determine that all of the subcontracted labor has been awarded to one of your team’s family members. As the project manager, what should you do FIRST?

Answer 9

Evaluate the vendor selection processes and notify your company sponsor to determine what action should be taken.

Question 10

You are three months into deployment of a new standard desktop for your customer’s 22,000 machines. The vendor that authored the operating system has just held a press conference to announce the latest version of their software. You are installing the old version. As the project manager what do you do?

Answer 10

Meet with the customer and explain the impact of changing the implementation to use the latest version of the software, explaining that common cause variations are routine concerning breakthroughs in technology.

Question 11

A project that you have been given is not going to meet the agreed upon delivery date. Your senior sponsor, the CIO, says that you should not mention it to the customer until it gets closer to the project completion date, 18 months away. You are not comfortable with this and feel that you should negotiate the issue. What should you do?

Answer 11

Ethically state the options with your sponsor and recommend that the customer be bought in.

Question 12

A senior project manager that you work for gave you a copy of the PMP certification test that he was able to acquire. What should you do?

Answer 12

Tell him that this is in violation of PMI ethics and report this to PMI.

Question 13

You are put on a new initiative that the President of the US has implemented. You are to drill for oil in North Alaska. When you begin, you realize there are endangered Buffalo roaming the range that you are authorized to drill in. Your CEO, who is a good friend of the President, was the one who convinced the President that this project would cause no negative effect on the ecology. What should you do?

Answer 13

Tell him that the job site is on a Buffalo roaming range that is protected by the Federal Government.

Question 14

The FCC just determined that cellular towers must be placed 10 miles apart. They are suspected of causing amnesia. You are in charge of a project that has been running $10,000,000 worth of advertising, claiming that your company will provide coverage from anywhere in this area. You recommend that your company stop the ads and explain the new guidelines and how they affect coverage through new ads. You are demonstrating the importance of what characteristic as a project manager?

Answer 14

Understanding legal requirements and ethical standards.

Question 15

Pat is about to take the PMP exam and seems like a sure bet to pass. Upper management tells a customer that Pat is a PMP. What should you do?

Answer 15

Tell Pat to inform the customer that he will be a PMP upon passing the exam.

Question 16

Your company has just gone in contract with the Department of Defense to maintain all aircraft in the Pacific. Your company refuses to hire any locals because they only hire Americans from the states. In the contract there is an EEO instruction stating that any contractor must be an equal employment opportunity organization. Your boss says he doesn’t care because he only hires from the “good ole USA.” What should you do?

Answer 16

Tell him the company is in violation of legal requirements in the contract.

Question 17

Professional responsibilities for project managers include the knowledge of:

Answer 17

Legal requirements

Question 18

As a child you and your family would spend numerous summers in the Bluestone National Parks. These are some of your fondest childhood memories. Your company, an oil refining company, will put a pipeline through the park. Your father feels this will be dangerous to the park and is against your company doing this. You assure him that there is no risk to the park. His perception is classified as what to project management?

Answer 18

An assumption

Question 19

You are a retired AF acquisitions officer and you were involved with the selection of vendors for new aircraft. An aircraft company hires you just after it laid off 1,700 employees. You feel that you were hired for your contacts in the AF acquisitions office. Is this a violation of the PMP’s Code of Conduct?

Answer 19

Yes, there is an appearance of impropriety.

Question 20

While at a customer site you are given a sports car to drive from the company while on site. What may be wrong with this?

Answer 20

This can be seen as inappropriate.

Question 21

Your organization has never done much in the way of project management. You went to a training seminar and realize that you are starting from scratch, even though your company has been around for 80 years. What might you do to share your experiences and share information throughout the organization?

Answer 21

Initiate a policy that lessons learned are required at the end of each project.

Question 22

The financial data of cashflows on a proposed project that your company is interested in pursuing shows a Benefit to Cost Ratio of 1.5 to 1. You realize that these cashflows are over a 5-year period and they do not reflect true cashflows. What was not considered over the period of years?

Answer 22

Present Value

Question 23

Your customer and your system integration management team has identified the requirements for a new personal computer watch. You must assemble a project management team to undertake the development of a:

Answer 23

WBS

Question 24

At a PMI meeting, your chapter is providing training on project management. The local chapter would like you to train on the processes of PM. What are they?

Answer 24

Initiation, planning, execution, monitoring & controlling, closure, and professional responsibilities

Question 25

Your organization has been missing its delivery dates on the last seven projects. You have taken several estimating classes and you have discovered a method that allows for duration estimates that include different variable estimates to better determine duration. What is this method called?

Answer 25

PERT

Question 26

Your organization has decided to establish methodologies for implementing project management. You have recommended that all of the project managers meet to consolidate their project management files. What would be a good way to accomplish this?

Answer 26

Establish a repository on the server

Question 27

You set up a monitoring system on your project to collect data about duration estimates and improve schedule estimating. As tasks are completed you would most likely use this data to justify:

Answer 27

The use of PERT estimates

Question 28

When conducting a close-out on a project you recommend that the most effective way to achieve an effective post-mortem is through a

Answer 28

Meeting

Question 29

While gathering information during a postmortem you identify a mistake that you could have avoided. Your team made a mistake that was made in a previous project. How could this have been prevented?

Answer 29

By establishing a risk repository after each project

Question 30

As the technical lead on many projects you have been recognized as the leading authority in D++ programming. Senior management realizes this and designates you as the new Project Manager. Your first project finds that your team is complaining to management that you are working them too hard. Management asks you what you could do to improve this conflict.

Answer 30

Attend a training class on leadership and communication

Question 31

A new project manager needs to get training. Project demands prevent her from having any time away from the job. What would be the best alternative?

Answer 31

Enroll the project manager in an Internet-based course

Question 32

IT projects are continually missing the features expected by the customer. You research the problem and realize that there are only technical team members gathering requirements. What might your recommendation be?

Answer 32

Have the IT team establish representation with marketing, sales, finance, and other organizations to gather requirements 3.a

Question 33

Your organization has a new college hire who does not have the needed work experience to satisfy the number of hours of experience. You are told by your supervisor to help “fudge” the hours. What code of ethics are you violating?

Answer 33

Compliance with all organizational rules and policies

Question 34

You have an extroverted employee who is failing the on-line courses that your company has just purchased. What should you do?

Answer 34

Send the employee to the same training in a classroom environment

Question 35

Your customer submitted a change request for a screen that opens and says that the University of West Dakota rules. Your lead programmer refuses to do this because he is an East Dakota alumnus. What method of conflict management should you use?

Answer 35

Competing

Question 36

Your customer identifies that they want to order your newest and most powerful computer, the Octal 929, with maximum RAM and the largest possible hard drive. You realize that this is for the front office receptionist. What should you do?

Answer 36

Identify that they do not need a PC this powerful

Question 37

You are meeting with a director of the IT department. She refuses to support your new project on implementing a system-wide Intranet database for your organization. You ask to meet with her to discuss the support that you will need from the IT department. You realize that she is upset that the project was not assigned to her, but you inform her that this project is best placed under operations. She tells you at a “very loud” level that you are naïve and an idiot. What source of conflict management would be best followed?

Answer 37

Avoiding

Question 38

While working on a database project for the Department of the Interior Defense, you were exposed to classified information. A database of employees would be great for your new multi-marketing business. What code of ethics are you violating?

Answer 38

Responsibility; Regulations and Legal Requirements

Question 39

You are designing a new computer system for a major client and realize that there will be numerous modifications to the design. There is bound to be conflict on the scope, time, and cost for this project. What will be a good way to minimize conflicts?

Answer 39

Identify sound change control policies in the beginning of the project

Question 40

When both parties have equally important needs to be achieved on a project it is necessary to use which style of conflict management?

Answer 40

Collaboration

Question 41

You have a new project and your dream has become a reality; your team is allocated at 100%. At your first team meeting, everyone is arguing. You quickly realize that you are in that ridiculous phase that a trainer once called “storming.” What should you do?

Answer 41

Confront the issues; provide high direction and support.

Question 42

Which communicates more information, the words we use or our tones and inflections?

Answer 42

Tones and inflections (Para lingual)

Question 43

Your company has gone into partnership with a software development company from Atlantis. They do not use e-mail because they do not have Internet access. What should you do?

Answer 43

Phone them regularly

Question 44

You have been hired by the new CEO (the company’s first female CEO) to break up “the good old boy” system that is currently in place. Your project team is not used to the matrix and self-directed teams. They seem to be like a military unit waiting for your commands. What should you do?

Answer 44

Start a new training program on participative management and team building

Question 45

You have been assigned to a project in the West Pole. The team assigned to you includes some of the most highly technical and educated employees you have ever had, and you have been in charge of some of the best teams in the USA. However, they have a habit that you are not comfortable with—they take a nap for 3 hours every day. You realize that you must:

Answer 45

Understand and value others

Question 46

What would be a benefit of establishing team “ground rules” at the kickoff meeting?

Answer 46

Established standards for professional communication

Question 47

What would be a good way to track progress if your customer will only pay for the work done?

Answer 47

Earned Value

Question 48

A team member in Cashmere cannot attend your status meetings. The time difference would be at 3 AM for this team member. What should you do?

Answer 48

Correspond via e-mail

Question 49

Your team members from Cashmere are known for being “aloof.” What might you do for your team members from Cashmere?

Answer 49

Provide your entire team with training on team cultures

Question 50

One team member at your kickoff meeting recommends that the team agree to “civilized disagreement.” You are not sure that you agree with this idea and ask that the team think about it and vote on it at the next team meeting. In your final comment you remind everybody about the last team that stayed in the “storming” phase. What should the team do?

Answer 50

Vote for civilized disagreement; it is beneficial to change

Question 51

You rented offices for your start-up business, hired a staff and acquired equipment. You stop in at town hall and pick up information regarding a business license. You find that it will cost more than $500 annually just to pay personal property taxes on the equipment you already installed, and you are hard pressed to make ends meet as it is. Then your neighbors in the next suite of offices tell you they have been there for six years and haven’t bothered with a business license; it’s strictly voluntary to apply. What do you do?

Answer 51

You don’t have a choice. You must have a business license

Question 52

One of your team members arrived anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half late three times in a week. Following the final incident, you lost your patience and lectured her in the presence of her associates. Another team member asks for a private meeting and tells you that you were wrong. The employee has had a good reputation at the company for three years, and was doing her project assignments. But she is a single mother and suddenly there were significant problems with her day care arrangements that required immediate attention. She was sorting it out as quickly as possible, and should have discussed it with you. What will you do?

Answer 52

Admit that you were wrong and apologize to the employee

Question 53

As your project progresses, you, your client and the entire team are growing increasingly excited about possibilities that were not apparent when the project was initiated. Your project sponsors are too far removed from the action to appreciate the potential. What is the best way of persuading management to support a more ambitious project?

Answer 53

Prepare a presentation on the benefit/costs of the expanded ideas

Question 54

A vendor failed to attend the bidders’ conference because of illness of the proposed project manager. They ask for a repeat, and to minimize the burden on the contracting organization, offer the use of their conference room, breakfast and lunch, and their limousine for transportation. It’s your decision.

Answer 54

It’s too bad about the illness. You can give them minutes of the bidders’ conference, but it will not be repeated

Question 55

Your friend, a longstanding member of PMI and a certified PMP, has also joined an alternative professional project management society, and invited other members of your local chapter to do the same. You don’t see anything wrong with that, but at least one member of the local chapter objects and reported it to PMI as an ethics violation. You received an inquiry from PMI asking if you were invited to join the alternative society. What do you do?

Answer 55

Answer their question

Question 56

Your agency has gone through a competitive procurement and selected five firms that are now deemed to be ‘pre-approved’ to compete for certain kinds of tasks, thus simplifying the selection process for these tasks. One of the firms annually invites a number of individuals in positions similar to yours to an industry conference and picks up travel and lodging expenses. You received an invitation this year for the first time. How do you respond?

Answer 56

Thank them, and decline the invitation

Question 57

You think of yourself as a ‘hands on’ manager. You take care of all the communications activities, but only after you have delved into each task sufficiently to make your own analysis of its status. What is a likely outcome of the project?

Answer 57

Failure due to staff dissatisfaction and lack of management.

Question 58

You are interviewing an applicant who seems especially anxious to join your leading-edge project. At the same time, you would like to learn all you can about the project he just finished, as your firm is even now preparing its bid for the next phase. How can you use this interview as an intelligence-gathering exercise?

Answer 58

You can’t

Question 59

Your boss agreed to sign you up for the spring session of project management training. The list was published six weeks later without your name on it. After getting over being mad and then sorry for yourself, you asked her why you weren’t included as agreed. She was devastated. She had simply forgotten to do it. Whose fault was it?

Answer 59

Yours. The training was most important to you, so you needed to take responsibility to assure it was not overlooked

Question 60

Your project is running like clockwork. You hit your targets on schedule and your estimate at completion suggests you will, at worst, not be over budget. Why is this happening?

Answer 60

Your team works together and does the job

Question 61

You are the project manager for development of a convention center in another city. While inspecting the work of the construction subcontractor, you find that they eliminated a fire exit. The foreman on the site assures you that they reviewed the plans with the local inspector, who concurred that the exit was redundant. However, the architect states that while the local code might not require the exit, his analysis of expected traffic flow indicates it is needed. Demanding rework will delay the project. What will you do?

Answer 61

Require that the project be in compliance with the architectural plan

Question 62

Your employer, a home-improvement firm, has assigned your team to remodel a client’s kitchen. In the conduct of the project, you inadvertently learn that the client has illegally tapped into the local television cable. What do your membership in PMI and your PMP status obligate you to do about this situation?

Answer 62

Advise your employer of the issue and urge that the cable company be advised

Question 63

You have to give a presentation to NATO representatives in Brussels explaining the intended role of a proposed new weapons system, and return to the US with feedback. A critical focal point of your visit is:

Answer 63

Be sure the parties understand the substance of what is being said

Question 64

Some entrepreneurs have commenced a project management training business, but do not make it clear in their literature just who is behind the company. In fact, their web site and their brochures imply, without exactly saying so, that they are a part of PMI, but you have been reliably advised that they are not. What are you going to do about it?

Answer 64

Inform PMI

Question 65

You have made up your mind that it is in the long-term interest of your firm that you veto a proposed joint venture. Right decisions are not always popular decisions, and there are always those who will disagree with decisions you make. Everyone else on the Executive Committee is for it, but the decision must be unanimous. There are a number of ways you could put your decision into effect, some of which would avoid a confrontation with the other committee members . . .

Answer 65

Prepare your facts and make your case to the Executive Committee

Question 66

Your project entails running a water line to a new development. The quickest and least expensive route is through a lot that borders on property that stores chemical waste. You have heard that some of the waste may have leaked out, but there hasn’t been an investigation yet. If there is chemical waste, it could have an effect on the workers and any maintenance work done on the line. The only other option takes the water line a quarter mile out of the way and will incur significant cost. How should you proceed?

Answer 66

Submit a change order to reroute the water line and obtain the extra funds. You have a duty to make decisions based on the best interests of society and public safety

Question 67

While out to dinner the other night, you saw a colleague in your contracting department sitting in the bar with a bidder for a contract that is out for bid. What should you do?

Answer 67

Ask her if she was talking about the contract and if she will report the conduct to her boss

Question 68

You are talking with a team member who has not been performing as expected. This person is from another country and the culture is very different from yours. You are taking the time to make sure you understand what they are saying and where they are coming from. This is an example of:

Answer 68

Respect

Question 69

Your team members from Kashmir are known for being “aloof.” What might you do for your team members from Kashmir?

Answer 69

Provide your entire team with training on different cultures

Question 70

You are posting an internal advertisement for a position for a technical writer for your team. You get several applications, from both qualified and unqualified candidates. How should you handle the situation with the unqualified candidates?

Answer 70

Give them the position description and let them interview. Anyone who is authorized, should have access to that information.

Question 71

You are part of a source selection committee for a contract worth three million dollars. One of the bidders is a company you own stock in. Is this a conflict of interest?

Answer 71

Yes. The code of ethics states that we treat the appearance of a conflict of interest the same as a conflict of interest

Question 72

Yes. The code of ethics states that we treat the appearance of a conflict of interest the same as a conflict of interest

Answer 72

Report him to appropriate authorities

Question 73

Today, like every Friday, you are supposed to turn in a dashboard report that gives the status of your project, schedule, and budget as red, yellow, or green. You pride yourself on running a tight project and always being able to report status as green. Unfortunately, today you found out that a risk event has occurred, and it looks like you will be late and possibly over budget. What is your next step?

Answer 73

Identify the issues and disclose the full extent of the schedule variance and the possible budget overrun

Question 74

You heard through hallway conversations that Tony was behind on some project work. You just received his status report that says everything is going to plan. What should you do?

Answer 74

Trust the report, but verify the content

Question 75

Your status report is due today. You are behind schedule, but several team members have agreed to work over the weekend to get caught up. What should you report for your project status?

Answer 75

Report that you are currently late but have a plan to catch up

Question 76

You and a coworker have been doing some research on the usefulness of earned value for IT projects. You put together a white paper and presented it to the corporate council where is was well received. You were talking about the paper at a networking event and someone asked you to give a presentation on it, and they would pay you $1500. How should you respond?

Answer 76

Accept the offer and invite your coworker to present with you since it was a joint effort