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Ashley, a senior project manager, recently took over a project to produce a safe and effective drug from another project manager who just left the company. Ashley was surprised to find out that there was no change control board to review, approve, or deny a change request for the project. Upon further investigation, she found that there was no organizational change control board to manage changes for the entire organization. What should Ashley do in this situation? A. Carry on with the change request without a change control board B. Establish a change control board for her project C. Make all the decisions about the requested changes herself with the help of the team members D. Ask the sponsor to approve or deny the change requests - - correct ans- - Correct Option: B EXPLANATION A change control board (CCB) consists stakeholders, managers, project team members, senior management, and other people, and it is responsible for reviewing, approving, or denying change requests. Some organizations have permanent CCB staffed by full-time employees to manage changes for the entire organization, not only for the project. The project manager should consider establishing a CCB for the project if the organization does not have one. There is an issue with one of the manufacturing processes that is used to create the required parts for routers and switches that your company produces. What should you use to identify the cause of this issue and the effect it may have on your project? A. Continuous improvement
B. Histogram C. Ishikawa diagram D. Flow chart - - correct ans- - Correct Option: C EXPLANATION Ishikawa diagram or cause and effect diagram is a tool used to systematically identify and present all the possible causes and sub-causes of a particular problem in a graphical format. It can help in quality control by identifying the causes that contribute to a specific quality problem. Cause and effect diagrams are particularly useful for identifying the causes of risks While creating the stakeholder register, you realize that some of the stakeholders can negatively impact your project. Which of the following elements should you NOT include in your stakeholder register? A. List of key expectations identified for each stakeholder B. Contact information of the stakeholders C. A rating of the stakeholders' impact and influence on the project D. A plan to increase support and minimize obstruction for each stakeholder - - correct ans- - Correct Option: D EXPLANATION Stakeholder register contains all details related to the identified stakeholders including buy not limited to: ' Stakeholder classification: Internal/external, neutral/resistor/supporter, and others. ' Identification information: Name, title, location, organization, role in the project, position, and contact information. ' Assessment information: Key requirements and expectations, potential impact, importance, and influence on the project. Stakeholder management plan, an output of the Plan Stakeholder Engagement process, contains stakeholder management strategy. The stakeholder management strategy defines an approach to manage stakeholders throughout the entire project life cycle. It defines the strategies to increase the support
team. Since all the team members are in the same building and having meetings in the same meeting room most of the time already, colocation is not a technique we should be considering in this case. Other techniques listed here will be beneficial to resolve conflict and concern about deliverables. While working with your client on the final acceptance of the application, you are delighted to find out that the application exceeded the performance criteria specified in the requirement specification approved by the client. You implemented several features that were not in the project scope to exceed the client's expectation. What can you conclude about the project performance? A. The project was a success as it provided features beyond the customer's expectation without any cost and schedule impact B. The project was a success as it exceeded the customer's specified performance criteria C. The project was unsuccessful as it has been gold plated D. The project was a success as it made the client very happy. - - correct ans- - Correct Option: C EXPLANATION The project was unsuccessful as was gold plated. You should always focus on meeting and exceeding customer expectations by delivering the features and functionalities as per the requirement specification approved by the clients. Gold plating or giving extra to the clients should be avoided. The trustworthiness of a message to its receivers is based on their level of trust in the communicator. This is an example of _______. A. Encoding B. Decoding C. Noise D. Medium - - correct ans- - Correct Option: C
EXPLANATION
Anything that interferes with the meaning of a message is considered noise or communication blocker. Source credibility, or the credibility of a message to its receivers, may be influenced by receivers' level of trust in the communication. Your sponsor is not happy with the cost estimate you submitted for a construction project. The sponsor suggested that you come up with an exceptionally accurate cost estimate at your earliest convenience. What will be your best course of action in this situation? A. Use the historical information from a similar project and make adjustments for known differences B. Use a rule of thumb estimate C. Perform a cost aggregation for raw materials and labor for each activity in the WBS D. Use the three-point estimate technique - - correct ans- - Correct Option: C EXPLANATION Cost aggregation describes the bottom-up estimate, which will provide the most accurate estimate in this case. Other estimates, such as heuristic and analogous estimates are very quick but are not very accurate. Three-point estimate is also not the best option in this scenario. You are overseeing the ERP implementation project that will cost the company $ million and will take three years to complete. Six months into the project, higher management decides to terminate your project as it finds an off-the-shelf solution that can be implemented in three months at a fraction of the planned cost. What is the first thing you should do in a situation when your project no longer seems commercially viable for the company? A. Conduct scope verification B. Release the team immediately C. Document the lessons learned
A. Mutual exclusivity B. Statistical independence C. Normal distribution D. Attribute sampling - - correct ans- - Correct Option: D EXPLANATION Attribute sampling is a method of measuring quality that involves observing the presence (or absence) of some characteristics (attributes) in each of the units under consideration to determine whether to accept a lot, reject it, or inspect another lot. You decided to use a technique called rolling wave planning in your web-based insurance and tax payment application project. Which of the following may be your key reason for selecting this technique? A. To prioritize project activities B. To achieve the appropriate level of detail in each work package at the right time. C. To sequence project activities D. To estimate the duration of project activities - - correct ans- - Correct Option: B EXPLANATION Rolling wave planning takes the progressive elaboration approach and plans current/near term work in great detail, while future work is planned in a more abstract and less detailed way. Your PMO stipulates that plurality support is the minimum level of support for any major decision in a project. You disagree with a block of supporters on a plan to purchase a piece of expensive equipment for your project. This block is larger than any other in your team even though it is only 45 percent of the total team. What should you do in this kind of situation? A. Have an urgent meeting with the sponsor.
B. Insist that any major decision should be supported by more than 50 percent of the team C. Do nothing as PMO permits decisions to be made by a plurality rather than a majority D. Ask PMO to reevaluate their policy - - correct ans- - Correct Option: C EXPLANATION Plurality is a group decision making technique where a decision is based on the largest block in a group even if a majority is not achieved. As PMO permits plurality, you have no option but to agree with the largest block in a group. Asking PMO to reevaluate their policy will not resolve the problem immediately. You have been assigned as a project manager for an ongoing project and asked to provide activity duration estimates as soon as possible. You are surprised to find out that there is no detailed information available on the project. You explore your organizational process assets and identify a few similar projects that had been completed in the past. Which of the following tools are you using? A. Analogous estimate B. Three-point estimate C. Heuristic estimate D. One point estimate - - correct ans- - Correct Option: A EXPLANATION An analogous estimate measures project parameters such as budget, size, complexity, and duration based on the parameters of a previous, similar project and historical information. It is usually done during an early phase of the project when not much information is available. A control chart measures the results of processes over time, displays them in a graph format, and measures variances to determine whether process variances are in control or out of control. The upper and lower control limits are usually set as:
A. Quality management plan B. Scope management plan C. Change management plan D. Configuration management plan - - correct ans- - Correct Option: D EXPLANATION Configuration management plan is a subset of the project management information system (PMIS) that describes the different versions and characteristics of the product, service, or result of the project and ensures accuracy and completeness of the description. Workarounds, or unplanned responses to emerging risks that were previously unidentified or accepted, are determined during _______. A. Plan Risk Management process B. Monitor Risks process C. Plan Risk Responses process D. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis process - - correct ans- - Correct Option: B EXPLANATION The project must be in the Monitor Risks process if risks have occurred. Workarounds are unplanned responses developed to deal with the occurrence of unanticipated risk events that were not included in the risk register. There are 36 communication channels in your project. How many members do you have in your team? A. 9 B. 10 C. 36
D. 18 - - correct ans- - Correct Option: A EXPLANATION Number of communication channels = n(n-1)/2, where n= number of members in the team, so 9(9-1)/2 = 72/2 = 36 You have 9 members in the team to have 36 communication channels. While identifying risks in your project, your team cannot find an efficient way to reduce the impact and probability or to insure against one of the risks. The relevant work is integral to the project; thus, you cannot simply remove the work package. There is no suitable company to outsource the work to either. What is the best course of action in this situation? A. Identify ways to transfer the risk B. Accept the risk and have contingency reserves C. Identify ways to avoid the risk D. Keep looking for ways to mitigate the probability and impact of the risk - - correct ans-
- Correct Option: A EXPLANATION Transferring risk may increase costs but will assist in moving the risk from the primary to another group or entity, lowering the overall risk exposure. You notice that you are not utilizing your resources evenly in the project. You want to apply resource leveling by moving some of your activities from a week when you are using a lot of resources to a week when you are hardly using any. Which of the following tools and techniques would be a good choice in this situation? A. Network diagram B. Responsibility assignment matrix C. Organizational breakdown structure
D. There is no other seller except one who can provide the goods or services - - correct ans- - Correct Option: B EXPLANATION In non-competitive forms of procurement, a seller is usually selected from a list of qualified sellers interested in and capable of doing the job. Even though competition can result in the selection of a better seller and decreased price, there is no reason for going through the entire procurement process unless the law requires it. If the law requires at least three proposals or quotations, then you cannot go for a sole source. You are the project manager overseeing the development of a new console video game. It has 10 components, and 5 team members are working on it. There are 15 stakeholders for this project, and one of the stakeholders is the previous owner of the company. One of the components is of major concern because it is a difficult one to implement. You find out that it will take 10 days to complete the component. You also find out that as of now the CPI=.81, and the SPI=1.2. What should be your main concern in this project at this time? A. The stakeholder who was the previous owner B. Schedule C. Number of stakeholders in this project D. Cost - - correct ans- - Correct Option: D EXPLANATION Your SPI is more than 1, which indicates that you are ahead of schedule, but your CPI is less than 1, which suggests that you are over budget. Cost should be the main concern at this time. A project manager is interested in knowing the approximate cost of her project so that she can identify whether the vendors' offered price is reasonable. The best tool to use in this scenario is: A. Inspection and audits
B. Independent estimate C. Screening system D. Weighting system - - correct ans- - Correct Option: B EXPLANATION Independent Estimates or in-house cost estimates are often provided by consulting services During a brainstorming session, your team members came up with several ideas and later on ranked and prioritized them using the nominal group technique. Which of the following techniques will you use to sort these ideas into groups by similarity for review and analysis? A. Delphi technique B. Mind mapping C. Group decision making technique D. Affinity diagram - - correct ans- - Correct Option: D EXPLANATION Affinity diagram is a technique in which the ideas generated from other requirements gathering techniques are sorted into groups by similarity. Each group of requirements is then given a title. This sorting makes it easier to see additional scope (or risks) that have not been identified. While planning human resources for a data center project you are overseeing, you used a graphical and hierarchical structure of the identified resources arranged by resource category (such as labor, material, equipment, and supplies) and type (such as expertise level, grade, and experience). This hierarchical chart is also helpful in tracking project costs and can be aligned with the organization's accounting system. You are using a: A. Work breakdown structure
You may have two activities to design a software component and test it. Depending on the result of the testing, you may or may not redesign the component. Which of the following network diagram techniques will you use that permits loops to represent non- sequential activities? A. Graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT) B. Activity on node (AON) C. Activity on arrow (AOA) D. Precedence diagramming method (PDM) - - correct ans- - Correct Option: A EXPLANATION Graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT) is a modified network diagram drawing method that allows conditional branches and loops between activities. You are working for a healthcare project facility and overseeing the implementation of a new computer infrastructure and office automation project at the local hospital. The project was progressing well, and not many change requests had been submitted. Recently, you made a major release in the project and communicated the successful news to all the relevant members of the project. You were surprised when the customer called to inform you that he was not very happy with the deliverable and would be asking for a major modification soon. What should you do first in this kind of situation? A. Do a scope verification of this deliverable to check if it satisfies project objectives B. Have an urgent meeting with the sponsor to discuss the situation C. Ignore the customer's concern and concentrate on the next deliverable to complete the project on time D. Assure the customer that the next deliverable will have additional fea - - correct ans-
- Correct Option: A EXPLANATION In this specific situation, the project manager should do a scope verification of the deliverables to ensure that they satisfy project objectives and were completed
satisfactorily. A project manager should always get all the details first before taking an action such as discussing the concern with the sponsor. Gold plating or offering customers extra or additional features will not solve any real problem and should be avoided. While working in a foreign country, you are asked to pay the security guard for private protection service every time you transfer expensive equipment from one warehouse to another. You know this would not be a common practice in the US as it may be considered a bribe, but it is customary in the country you are now working in. What would be your best of action? A. Pay for the service as it is customary in the country you are now working in B. Never pay for the private protection service C. Ask for guidance from PMO D. Ask for guidance from the sponsor - - correct ans- - Correct Option: A EXPLANATION If it is customary in the country you are working in to pay for the private protection service, it will not be a bribe. A long as it is acceptable, reasonable, and legal in that country, you should pay the security guard the protection fee. You have been working with a few vendors to procure the services and goods you need for one of the critical projects you are overseeing. You sent out your RFP template to these vendors so that they can submit their proposals to you. The RFP contains a narrative description of the products and services that you need for the project. Which part of the RFP document does this BEST describe? A. Statement of work B. Business case C. Resource management plan D. Project charter - - correct ans- - Correct Option: A EXPLANATION
It is intended to assure that no seller receives preferential treatment and all sellers have a clear, common understanding of the procurement (technical requirements, contractual requirements, etc.) The key objective is to provide all potential contractors with the information they need to determine if they would like to continue or prebid conference. One of your clients did not approve a major component that your team has just completed and requested several changes. You consider the component to be fully completed as per the specifications. It also meets all of the required quality criteria. You were unable to come up with an agreement on the appropriate compensation for the changes the client was asking for. Both of you have been handling the disputes in accordance with the resolution procedures outlined in the contract. You are currently involved in: A. Procurement negotiations B. Procurement audits C. Claims administration D. Procurement performance review - - correct ans- - Correct Option: C EXPLANATION Claim administration is a technique in the Control Procurements process that documents, monitors, and manages disputed changes when the buyer and seller disagree on scope, the impact of changes, or the interpretation' One of the projects that you were managing was recently canceled due to a change in marketplace conditions. What is your best course of action in this situation? A. Renegotiate with the higher management to continue the project B. Gather lesson learned C. Complete the project deliverables D. No action is needed since the project was canceled - - correct ans- - Correct Option: B
EXPLANATION
You should make sure to gather lessons learned so that future projects can benefit. There is no reason to renegotiate with the higher management at this time. The project manager should document the number of completed and pending deliverables when the project is canceled. Your organization was recently awarded a fixed price contract and also received a SOW. As a project manager for the project, which of the following components will you not expect to see in the SOW? A. Business need B. Project scope description or what is to be done C. How the project supports the strategic plan D. Market conditions - - correct ans- - Correct Option: D EXPLANATION SOW is a narrative description of products, results or services to be supplied by the project, including the business need, product scope description or what is to be done, and how the project supports the strategic plan. It does not include market conditions or competitor information. While reviewing the status of your project, you found that for a given time period, your AC is $390,000 and PV is 380,000. Your have a budget of $900,000 and so far have completed 40 percent of the work. What should you report to the management about your project? A. The project is behind schedule and over budget B. The project is behind schedule and under budget C. The project is progressing according to the plan D. The project is ahead of schedule and under budget - - correct ans- - Correct Option: A
