Project Management Exam Flashcards

1
Q

Project Charter’s most important function

A

it authorizes project; shows the agreement by the key stakeholders

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2
Q

What’s in the Project Charter

A

project name, sponsor name, project manager name; simple, precise project statement; objective; scope; performance measure; major milestones; major deliverables; assumptions; constraints; business need met; signatures of authorized representatives to acknowledge approval of the project charter

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3
Q

when is the project charter created

A

in the defining/initiating stage

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4
Q

Checklist Purpose

A

method of assuring that all needed documents are written; only ensures that the actions on the list are addressed; one way of monitoring activities/tasks (do not monitor completeness); ambiguous/unnecessary items must be excluded

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5
Q

Checklist issue

A

only as good as the completeness of the items listed and the team’s attention to the work being done; only ensures that items have been addressed

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6
Q

statement of work

A

Provide more detailed descriptions of what must be planned; clarifies the actual work to be done

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7
Q

Statement of work: what does it define

A

project’s outcomes in terms of objectives, specific deliverables, acceptance criteria, technical requirements, milestones, constraints, and assumptions

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8
Q

Work breakdown structure

A

developed from project scope and statement of work, details each activity that must be completed; helps identify specific skills, training, and experience needed on the project

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9
Q

product scope

A

is used to describe the portion of the scope statement that defines the features and functions of the project outcome or deliverables; the “what”

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10
Q

Purpose of WBS

A

organizing resources; assigning responsibility to resources; identifying the interaction and contingencies of tasks and how to assign them; control points/milestones; accurate estimating of time/cost for budget purposes; confirming expectations with the customer/sponsor; providing communications platform for the team and stakeholders; validates project scope understanding

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11
Q

Creating the WBS

A

will require the team to decompose the deliverables into activities and tasks that represent the work needed to produce the deliverables; anything that will require resources to complete the project should be accounted for

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12
Q

The WBS is not

A

an exhaustive list of all tasks; a project plan, schedule, or chronological list; an organizational structure

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13
Q

risk appetite

A

the degree of uncertainty an entity is willing to take on in anticipation of a reward

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14
Q

risk tolerance

A

the degree, amount, or volume of risk that an organization or individual will withstand

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15
Q

risk threshold

A

measurements along the level of uncertainty or the level of impact at which a stakeholder may have a specific interest. Below threshold the org will accept; above the org will not tolerate

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16
Q

Risk Avoidance

A

during the planning, the team identifies the risk and sets a path to avoid

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17
Q

Risk mitigation

A

team acts to reduce the impact/likelihood of risk

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18
Q

risk transfer

A

shifts risk to a third party

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19
Q

risk acceptance

A

recognize the risk and accept as part of the project or normal business practice; often done with low impact

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20
Q

risk categories

A

organization, external, technical

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21
Q

PMBOK

A

risk breakdown structure; follows the wbs and insures that each activity and task in the WBS is reviewed for risk and opportunity documented as identifiec

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22
Q

Top-down estimation

A

initial estimates of cost (rough costs) are necessary at the proposal phase of a project for the org to determine if the project should be approved for planning/execution; often provided by someone at the org who has knowledge or experience from prior similar projects; often documented by previous lessons learned

23
Q

Parametric estimation

A

top-down method; defining phase; ratio and reporting methods; based on the relationship between the current project and historical data

24
Q

ratio method

A

uses experience from prior projects to estimate the overall cost of the current project; can be adopted for other project types where the historic costs can be equated to the current project

25
Q

apportion method

A

based on ratio method but takes into consideration functionality or types of work required; requires an overall project cost be provided

26
Q

bottom-up estimation

A

require that estimates be made at the detailed work activity level of the WBS; generated by functional experts; developed during planning phase; requires people with expertise

27
Q

cost management

A

process of measuring how close actual costs are to the budget and then making changes in project execution as needed

28
Q

padding

A

extra time or extra money just in case; problem with bottom up estimation; provides an inaccurate estimate to the customer; encourages waste

29
Q

contingency reserve

A

costs included in the budget to cover situations that may occur; included in the baseline budget

30
Q

management reserve

A

amount added to the overall budget to cover unknown risk; can only be used with approval

31
Q

PERT

A

estimate activity duration times

32
Q

CPM

A

used for estimating project activity durations; assumes that the estimates do not vary

33
Q

CCPM

A

assumes resources are limited

34
Q

PRINCE2

A

focuses on specification of the outputs

35
Q

Initiating

A

business need and what problem the project will solve; defines the project; evaluates proposals; project selection; identifies major stakeholders; project charter

36
Q

planning

A

documents all customer requirements/deliverables; estimating resources; finalizing project scope; finalizing project budget; finalizing project schedule; creating WBS; creating the network diagram; creating the activity list; writing a plan for specific areas

37
Q

executing

A

acquiring project team members; training/coaching team members; communicating with stakeholders; managing stakeholders; implementing the project plan; documenting change requests; assessing team member performance; recognizing and rewarding performance

38
Q

monitoring and controlling

A

keeping the project activities in sync; verifying that the deliverables meet scope; documenting and CR; monitoring the schedule/budget; assessing project quality; resolving issues about scope/activities/interpersonal; reporting project performance; monitoring project risk; monitoring vendor/provider performance; determining when planning is needed

39
Q

closing

A

paying outstanding vendor invoices; reconciling vendor accounts; returning excess materials/supplies/assets; writing lessons learned; project documentation; delivering completed project to customer; receiving sign-off from customer; archiving all project documents

40
Q

project sponsor

A

person in the project org who has authority to expend resources for projects; signs the project charter

41
Q

time value of money

A

money is worth more today than in the future

42
Q

payback period

A

the amount of time required to earn back the cost of doing the project

43
Q

internal rate of return

A

recognizes the time value of money using the duration of the investment return and the return rate

44
Q

net present value

A

total future benefits of a project minus the costs of the project

45
Q

functional/departmentalized org

A

oldest/most basic form; lines of authority are clearly defined; SMEs are available to work on multiple projects

46
Q

Matrix

A

less clearly defined lines of reporting; the SME reports to the PM; the functional supervisor retains admin auth/responsibility for the SME; PMs have access to a large reservoir of tech skilled people/SME; issues balancing resources; SMEs are not in daily contact with other SMEs; customer issues are met with quick response; admin personnel are not duplicated in each team; more flexible

47
Q

Projectized

A

PM has full authority; timely decision making/responses to stakeholders are faster/clearer; must have enough work for smes

48
Q

PMO

A

aligns project investment to corporate stategy; monitors status/availability of resources; reduces overhead; central repository for project policies, procedures, historical records, lessons learned; consistent policies/procedures

49
Q

one point estimation

A

provides a single estimate for an activity based on their own knowledge or historical info

50
Q

triangular distribution

A

duration = O+M+P/3

probabilistic: provides best case and worst case

51
Q

beta distribution

A

duration = O+4M+P/6

places emphasis on the most likely estimate; probabilistic

52
Q

standard deivation

A

p-o/6

53
Q

deterministic estimate

A

predictable

54
Q

probabilistic

A

uncertain