Project Management Foundations (LL)

Question 1

Which technique would you most likely use to gather valid requirements and get buy-in from various departments?

Answer 1

focus groups

Question 2

Project objectives help you flesh out a project by _____.

Answer 2

defining project scope

Project objectives help identify the items you include in project scope.

Question 3

Your client has asked for a project that will fix productivity concerns with the customer service department. After asking “why” several times, you are able to determine the cause and create a _____.

Answer 3

problem statement

This is what clearly defines the problem or opportunity that the project will address.

Question 4

Ramesh is creating objectives for his project. Which SMART step will help him identify actual progress?

Answer 4

Measurable

This SMART step refers to the objectives that make it easy to determine whether or not they have been achieved.

Question 5

The sponsor of Project T5 assigned you as the project manager, and the project has already been approved. What is the first thing you need to do as the project manager?

Answer 5

Review what has been done and complete any tasks not addressed.

Question 6

Krisha is gathering information on her stakeholders, such as department names, factors that motivate them, who they listen to, and their contributions on the project. What is this document called?

Answer 6

a stakeholder analysis

This document includes much of the information Krisha needs to effectively communicate with each stakeholder.

Question 7

You are managing a project that is implementing a new financial system. You need to include some of the finance department’s resources on the team. Which stakeholder should you approach?

Answer 7

a functional or line manager

This stakeholder is most accountable for the resources that are needed for a project.

Question 8

Several stakeholders for a project disagree on the priorities of many project objectives. Who would you ask first for help resolving this issue?

Answer 8

the project sponsor

The project sponsor wants the project to succeed and has enough authority to help you resolve issues, particularly with other stakeholders.

Question 9

You are the project manager for a healthcare system implementation project. The sponsor has asked you to create a project definition. What will the sponsor use this document for?

Answer 9

to decide whether to approve the project

By defining the project, the customer or sponsor can make an informed decision whether the project makes sense for the organization.

Question 10

Your project seems to be going off track, so you take action to resolve the problem. In which project management phase are you working?

Answer 10

Monitoring and Controlling

This phase checks on the status of the project and compares it to what was planned.

Question 11

The boss has asked you to research project management tools that will help with building and planning tasks on a timeline. Which type of tool would you most likely consider?

Answer 11

a scheduling program
Project managers typically use this tool to build and manage a project schedule.

Question 12

During which waterfall phase does the project manager bring the full team on board and orient them to the project and expectations?

Answer 12

executing
At the beginning of the executing phase, you kick off the project, get resources on board, and explain the rules for the project.

Question 13

Your organization runs numerous projects and wants to choose the most appropriate resources for each project team. Which of the following is the best tool for identifying project resources?

Answer 13

enterprise project management software
Enterprise project management software offers tools to find resources with the right skills and availability.

Question 14

You are hiring a new project manager to take over a project with several teams that often disagree on what they are supposed to do. Which competency would you feel is most important in a candidate for this situation?

Answer 14

strong leadership skills

This skill is needed to help guide and inspire the team to do the right things and work together.

Question 15

Which organizational factor is most important when you need to make a difficult decision?

Answer 15

the organization’s mission
When a project supports the organization’s mission, the project will likely get more support and resources, so the mission helps determine the best thing to do.

Question 16

Which of the following skills is not crucial for a project manager to possess?

Answer 16

accounting
Although project managers do need to understand aspects of finance, accounting skills can be provided by others.

Question 17

Camille wants to use the Agile approach on the project she will be managing. What significant benefit does the agile methodology provide?

Answer 17

The customer receives value from the project sooner.

One of the key benefits to an agile methodology is that the customer receives value sooner, because partial solutions are delivered on a regular schedule.

Question 18

A project that you manage is behind schedule. You have identified an approach that would get the project back on track, but it would require you to break one of your organization’s policies. What is the best course of action?

Answer 18

Determine if the rule is one that can be broken and come up with an alternative plan of action if your approach doesn’t work.

Question 19

Rosanne’s boss asks her to manage a project. Which question requires understanding of objectives, requirements, deliverables, and success criteria to answer?

Answer 19

How will you know when you are done?

Question 20

James is managing a project in which he has some authority to make decisions. In which type of organizational structure is James most likely managing this project?

Answer 20

a matrix organization
This organizational structure can be weak or strong, but does allow the project manager to have some authority to make decisions.

Question 21

What are the components that differentiate a project from operational work?

Answer 21

a unique goal, a temporary endeavor, and usually a budget

The definition of a project is “a temporary endeavor that has a unique goal and usually a budget.”

Question 22

What is not a required part of creating a project schedule?

Answer 22

Set a deadline for the project.

Question 23

Raghbir has done all the project planning and is ready to obtain stakeholders’ approval. However, the stakeholders are not co-located. What is the best possible approach for getting their approval?

Answer 23

Have a video conference with all stakeholders.

Question 24

Jivan is preparing an agenda for the project plan approval meeting. Which item should she not include in her agenda?

Answer 24

schedule the project definition meeting

The project definition meeting is held during the initiation phase of the project before the plan is created.

Question 25

Angela is about to start the project plan for a financial system migration project. What information should she identify first because it drives most of the plan?

Answer 25

the work that must be done

Question 26

Chloe is developing her risk management plan and wants to make sure that she can get early warning that a risk might occur. What is the key item she should document in her risk information forms?

Answer 26

the events that might trigger the risk

Question 27

Candace is a new project manager and has asked for your help with the project budget. Which type of cost typically represents the largest portion of a project budget?

Answer 27

labor

Question 28

You are building your project schedule. You have the tasks in the right sequence. What is the next step you should take?

Answer 28

Add the time that you estimate for each task.

Question 29

Turkan is developing a resource management plan for his project. Which part of this plan articulates who makes decisions, who performs work, and who needs to receive status on the project?

Answer 29

responsibility matrix

Question 30

Mei has obtained a graph showing duration data for past projects that follows a normal distribution. Which duration estimate provides the best chance for a project being selected and completed successfully?

Answer 30

the average of the worst-case value and the 50% probability value on the normal distribution

Question 31

The IT department says that there are several products that do what the project needs. What is the most important thing that will help you choose the right product?

Answer 31

understanding your project needs

Question 32

Madhukant’s project includes testing software functions. Which part of the quality management plan would address the processes that will be used to ensure the software is meeting the standards?

Answer 32

quality assurance plan

Question 33

Your coworker has to develop a cost estimate but is unsure which is the best one based on a bell curve of costs for past projects. What is a general practice for choosing the best estimate?

Answer 33

Choose a point halfway between the average and worst-case values.

Question 34

Linde has a tight budget for her project. She needs to potentially seek outside sources. Which plan should she consult to understand the products or services that are available?

Answer 34

the procurement plan

Question 35

Your boss is asking you to take on a reengineering project. The company hasn’t run reengineering projects before, but has hired several project managers with reengineering experience. Which technique is best to use in this situation to estimate time and cost?

Answer 35

Delphi technique

Question 36

This technique is best with large projects, in which major components are estimated and then broken down until reaching individual tasks.

Answer 36

top-down estimating

Question 37

This technique refers to estimating each task and then adding them all until the estimate is determined for the entire project.

Answer 37

bottom-up estimating

Question 38

Your client has just asked you to make changes to some features in the project. What would you do first?

Answer 38

Ask the client to document and submit a change request form.

Question 39

The change review board can’t get through all the change requests that are submitted. They want to focus on requests with significant impact. What process change would you propose to allow the review board to focus on significant changes?

Answer 39

Set thresholds so you or team leads can decide what to do with small change requests.

Question 40

When would you create a work package document that describes the work to be done in explicit detail?

Answer 40

the assigned resource is inexperienced

Question 41

The development team has encountered a problem with a software feature. They need to handle this problem quickly, but they can’t make a face-to-face brainstorming session because they aren’t local. Which alternative solution is best?

Answer 41

videoconferencing

Question 42

Which factor is a test you can use to determine whether you have broken down the work to the right level?

Answer 42

The work package is between 8 and 80 hours to complete.

Question 43

You have created a risk management plan for your project. Which type of response would you use if the scope was changed to remove a risky section of the project?

Answer 43

avoidance

Question 44

George is building his work breakdown structure (WBS) to organize and distribute the project work to various departments. Which type of tasks would he use to represent a department’s responsibility?

Answer 44

summary tasks

Question 45

One risk to your schedule is that a hard drive with customized software fails and you lose the work that was done. Resources on the project team regularly back up their work so they can resume work quickly after a hard drive failure. What type of risk management strategy do backups represent?

Answer 45

risk mitigation

Question 46

Which of the following skills is not crucial for a project manager to possess?

Answer 46

identifying deliverables

Question 47

Izzy has finished identifying risks for her big project, but is unsure how to account for unknown risks from a time and cost perspective. What is the general practice most companies use for projects?

Answer 47

Set aside a percentage of the budget and project duration based on past projects. If you don’t have past experience, use 15%.

Question 48

Kendra has a project team of varying skills and experience. Since the WBS task names are short and may not be enough for the team members to know what to do, what should Kendra do?

Answer 48

Kendra should have her team leaders create work package documents.

Question 49

The project customer and other stakeholders have approved your project plan. After you save the project baseline, those documents will be under the control of the _____.

Answer 49

change management process

Question 50

Which type of dependency is most common in project schedules?

Answer 50

finish-to-start

This type of dependency is best here because it means the finish of one task controls the start of the next task.

Question 51

Milestones can be used in many ways. What is not something that milestones do?

Answer 51

summarize schedule and cost performance
Milestones don’t have duration or assigned resources, so they can’t summarize cost. However, looking at only milestones does provide one type of high-level summary of the schedule.

Question 52

A stakeholder project review meeting is estimated for a one-day duration. There are eight stakeholders. How many work hours do the stakeholders spend in this meeting?

Answer 52

64

Question 53

What is not a required part of creating a project schedule?

Answer 53

what time people start working each day

Question 54

You have quite the diversified team in experience, skills, and hours they work. Which best practice should you follow to help ensure your schedule is as realistic as possible?

Answer 54

Add notes to your schedule to document resource changes and the reasons for the changes.

Question 55

Now that your project is underway, all resource assignments are running late. What is the likely cause?

Answer 55

not taking into account the hours that resources spend on non-project work each day

Question 56

Which activity is not part of the Adapt stage?

Answer 56

Review what has been completed and what is still on the backlog to choose the features for the next iteration.

Question 57

The Agile team is building and implementing features. The team lead runs a daily meeting to review the status on completed and incomplete work. Which Agile stage is the team in?

Answer 57

explore
This is the stage in which the team is working on the features assigned to the current iteration.

Question 58

The customer has identified several new features since the original backlog was built. What do you do to address them?

Answer 58

At the beginning of the next iteration, re-estimate, reevaluate, and re-prioritize the backlog features to decide which ones to include in the iteration.

Question 59

The Agile project management lifecycle _____.

Answer 59

includes activities similar to a Waterfall approach but performed in a different order and with different emphasis

Question 60

What are the names for the stages in an Agile iteration?

Answer 60

speculate, explore, adapt

Question 61

How can using an Agile approach help a company improve delivery?

Answer 61

by using an iterative approach to deliver value sooner

Question 62

Which choice is not a characteristic of Agile project management?

Answer 62

no documentation
Agile projects produce less documentation than a traditional Waterfall approach. They do not totally eliminate documentation.

Question 63

You need to resolve a serious disagreement over requirements between the project customer and another key stakeholder. What is the key communication technique to choose for this situation?

Answer 63

Hold a face-to-face meeting or videoconference.

Question 64

Callahan just completed the planning phase. Now he needs to have a kickoff meeting with the team. What is not something covered in the kickoff meeting?

Answer 64

a detailed review of the project plan

Question 65

Your project meetings run longer than planned and you’re determined to start and finish them on time in the future. What technique would you implement to accomplish this?

Answer 65

Create an agenda with topics and time estimates so you can move topics that exceed their time to the parking lot to be handled later.

Question 66

You have a project committee meeting with all stakeholders. What is the key step you need to take to make the meeting effective for the stakeholders?

Answer 66

Identify the purpose of the meeting and results you need from the stakeholders.

Question 67

Your team asks a lot of questions about their assignments. Although they turn to you to make decisions, they sometimes test the boundaries of what they can do. What stage of team building are they in?

Answer 67

forming
A forming team isn’t comfortable with what their goal is, so they ask a lot of questions. They need answers and direction. As they become more comfortable in their roles, they may challenge the project manager.

Question 68

You are project managing a team of 10 people. Lately, one of your team members is not performing up to par. What is the least likely approach you should use to handle this situation?

Answer 68

Quickly find another team member to take over.

Question 69

There’s a conflict on Mack’s virtual project team. Which approach is best to address the conflict?

Answer 69

a video or phone conference

Question 70

A change request submitted by the project sponsor has an effect on several other projects within the organization. If the change request appears to be a positive addition to the project, who should you ask to approve the change request?

Answer 70

the organization’s executive board

Question 71

Camille receives a change request that will probably affect the project’s business case. How should she manage this change?

Answer 71

She should have the customer approve the change request.

Question 72

Pam owns several risks in a project. What is Pam’s first action as a risk owner?

Answer 72

Proactively implement risk responses before the risks become issues.

Question 73

What is a reason that you might not be able to tailor your project in some ways?

Answer 73

The project is in a highly regulated industry that has specific project management requirements.

Question 74

What is not something you would tailor in a project?

Answer 74

the project objectives

Question 75

Who applies the principles for effective project management?

Answer 75

anyone who works on projects

Question 76

Which factor could directly affect the strategy and portfolio changes that the leadership team makes?

Answer 76

the value realized from project-related work

Question 77

What is the initial driver for what the value delivery system does within an organization?

Answer 77

the organizational vision of senior leadership

Question 78

Estimating a project using the Delphi technique is an example of which type of tool?

Answer 78

method

Question 79

While each performance domain places on a specific topic, what is the overarching focus of all performance domains?

Answer 79

delivering outcomes, benefits, and value

Question 80

What do you use to specify what will be tested in project acceptance tests.

Answer 80

Deliverables and success criteria

Question 81

What is the core of the fairness value?

Answer 81

Act impartially and objectively.

Question 82

PMI’s definition of the Respect Value is to do what for ourselves, others, and the resources entrusted to us?

Answer 82

Hold in high regard.

Question 83

What are PMI’s four ethical values?

Answer 83

responsibility, respect, fairness, and honesty

Question 84

To satisfy the responsibility requirement, what do you need to do?

Answer 84

Own what you do or don’t do it.

Question 85

According to PMI, what personal characteristics depend upon you always being honest?

Answer 85

your reputation and credibility

Question 86

When a conflict surfaces, what do you need to do to demonstrate aspirational respect?

Answer 86

Directly approach the person with whom you have a conflict.

Question 87

PMI’s aspirational standards establish _____.

Answer 87

expectations we have of ourselves as individuals

Question 88

What is a key aspirational fairness behavior when making decisions?

Answer 88

transparency about your decision making process

Question 89

Aspirational honesty involves courageously sharing _____ even when it may be poorly received.

Answer 89

bad news

Question 90

To fulfill the aspirational standard for responsibility, you should only accept assignments that _____.

Answer 90

are appropriate for your skills

Question 91

What are the three major ethical concerns with using AI to help your research and writing?

Answer 91

lack of original thinking, accurate sharing of facts, and potential plagiarism

Question 92

What should you do first if your organization has a practice that could compromise your ethical standing?

Answer 92

Share your concerns with management.

Question 93

Does the law provide adequate guidance for our moral behavior as project managers?

Answer 93

No, there is inadequate case law for new technology, so we must follow our ethical values.

Question 94

What are five steps of PMI’s Ethical Decision Making Model?

Answer 94

assess the facts, consider alternatives, make an initial decision, apply PMI’s ethics, decide

Question 95

Which of these activities fall short of executing on the respect value?

Answer 95

Use your position to influence others for personal gain at their expense.

Question 96

Travis is using a chatbot to create a report for a proposed project. What should he avoid when implementing AI?

Answer 96

Using the AI output presented

Question 97

In order to achieve PMI’s aspirational standards for respect, which approach should a project manager refrain from using?

Answer 97

Look the other way

Question 98

Is it appropriate to place one ethical standard over another?

Answer 98

Yes, when supporting one ethical standard compromises upholding another standard

Question 99

Imani is a project manager and applying the PMI ethical decision-making model. Which action should she take after making and evaluating an initial decision?

Answer 99

Apply PMI’s ethics.

Question 100

While Margo is leading a project, she is faced with an ethical and moral situation. What does PMI require managers to do in these cases?

Answer 100

Take ownership, make a decision, and accept the outcome.

Question 101

A coworker is confronted with a situation that could affect their personal integrity. Which PMI aspirational standard for responsibility would you recommend they follow?

Answer 101

Always do what you say you will do

Question 102

Which approach does not align with PMI’s aspirational standards for honesty?

Answer 102

Take credit for a team’s achievements

Question 103

Which example goes against PMI’s honesty value?

Answer 103

Provide information out of context

Question 104

What prevents a project manager from overcoming the perspective-taking that is required with the fairness value?

Answer 104

acting subjectively

Question 105

Soo-ah was just promoted to project manager. Which area should she focus on, as it relates to ethical behavior and social media?

Answer 105

What is shared in the work setting and on personal accounts

Question 106

Project managers can treat aspirational standards from PMI as _.

Answer 106

Not optional

Question 107

To manage requirements effectively, you’ll need to be prepared to answer the following questions:

Answer 107

Who are the stakeholders?

What do our stakeholders need?

How important is each requirement?

How will we deal with issues?

Question 108

What are the steps involved in project requirements (10)?

Answer 108

Identify standards

Develop an elicitation plan

Identify stakeholders

Gather project requirements

Analyze requirements

Prioritize requirements

Create use cases

Document project requirements

Approve project requirements

Manage changes to requirements

Question 109

Requirements are the key to justifying what part of a project?

Answer 109

Goals, budgets, and resources

Question 110

As you develop project requirements, what will you need to do?

Answer 110

Define stakeholder needs, identify stakeholders, and resolve conflicts.

Question 111

We _____ requirements by determining how important they are.

Answer 111

prioritize

Question 112

Maintaining version numbers can help everyone ensure that they are using the _____ requirements document.

Answer 112

current

Question 113

If you have a large project, how should you prioritize project requirements?

Answer 113

by a ranking system

A one-to-ten ranking by importance is better for large projects than a necessary/optional binary system effective with small projects.

Question 114

Your project involves developing a new software. Which formal standard for requirements management must you comply with?

Answer 114

ISO, IEC, and IEEE 29148-2018

Question 115

The two steps in the requirements approval process are to _____ and to get management approval.

Answer 115

validate requirements with stakeholders

Question 116

What will you do first when the time comes to have your project requirements approved?

Answer 116

Provide the documentation to your stakeholders.

Question 117

The requirements document formalizes the _____ for a project.

Answer 117

goals

Question 118

_____ is focused on figuring out who will be involved, and how they will be affected, by a project.

Answer 118

Stakeholder analysis

Question 119

When you are creating a requirements report, also known as a scope document, what is the second step you will take?

Answer 119

including background information

Question 120

When you are creating a requirements report, also known as a scope document, what is the first step you will take?

Answer 120

creating an executive summary

Question 121

Elicitation is another word for _____.

Answer 121

Gathering

Question 122

Which attribute of project requirements deals with requirements that need to be modified or reviewed if they are not well defined?

Answer 122

Stability

Question 123

When you are gathering project requirements from stakeholders, why is it important that you capture the exact words your stakeholders use?

Answer 123

to avoid biasing the requirements

Question 124

What is the primary purpose of having project requirements?

Answer 124

They link the needs of your business to your customer as well as the project work you need to do.

Question 125

Which choice is an effective way to elicit requirements?

Answer 125

Analyzing business data, observing and documenting how people work, asking questions in group sessions

Question 126

Which organizations publish standards for project requirements?

Answer 126

ISO, IEEE, DLA

Question 127

Why should you always incorporate versioning when changes are requested?

Answer 127

To ensure you have the latest version of the requirements report

Question 128

When you are analyzing your stakeholders for influence and impact, which two factors are you measuring?

Answer 128

Influence is support for a project, and impact involves the project making a major change to the stakeholder’s work or life

Question 129

How can you achieve success in managing project requirements?

Answer 129

Be thorough and consistent

Question 130

What do use cases help you illustrate?

Answer 130

How a process should work

Question 131

You have properly identified your stakeholders. Which two plans will the analysis of these stakeholders help you create?

Answer 131

Elicitation and communication plans

Question 132

What does a good requirements management process help to do?

Answer 132

Justify project resources, manage stakeholder expectations, and focus team efforts

Question 133

How do you best describe a “use case”?

Answer 133

A story of how the solution should work when complete

Question 134

The characteristics of project requirements are also called _____.

Answer 134

Attributes

Question 135

Rafael has built an activity list for his project. What must he estimate in order to build his project schedule?

Answer 135

types and quantities of resources

Question 136

You are developing a schedule management plan for your project. Which part of the plan determines when you will take action if the schedule goes off track?

Answer 136

variances from the approved schedule

Question 137

Because milestones don’t represent _____, you can add as many as you need to your schedule.

Answer 137

work effort

Question 138

Felix needs to define a delay from the finish of one activity to the start of another and the delay does not represent work. What is the best way to model this situation?

Answer 138

Add lag from the dependency predecessor to the successor.

Lag defines a mandatory period of time between the completion of the predecessor and the start of the successor.

Question 139

Maneet is building her project schedule by creating dependencies between activities. Which of the following must she define for each dependency?

Answer 139

predecessors and successors

The activities that control others are called predecessors. The controlled activities are called successors.

Question 140

What is not an example of crashing a project?

Answer 140

replacing resources with less expensive alternatives

Question 141

Which choice is not a best practice for sequencing activities?

Answer 141

Every task in a schedule, including the first and last task, should have at least one predecessor and one successor.

Question 142

Kavita develops more accurate estimates as she learns more about her project. What is this approach called?

Answer 142

Rolling wave planning

Question 143

Instead of a single tester, you have been given a team of three testers. What adjustment should you make to the activities that the testers will work on?

Answer 143

Increase your estimate to account for overhead.

Question 144

Paulo’s manager has requested a resource plan for his current project. What information should Paulo include in that plan?

Answer 144

all resources required, when they are needed, and a high-level estimate for when major sections of the project will occur

Question 145

Getting to know your organization’s procurement processes, planning for the time procurement takes, and _____ will help you get the best resources within your organization.

Answer 145

building relationships with your organization’s resource managers

Question 146

Which resource assignment variable most often remains the same when you create a resource assignment?

Answer 146

work

Question 147

Work resources are best described as _____.

Answer 147

resources that you assign to activities by allocating their time