PMP (Project Management Professional) Exam 4

The main drawback of the projectized organization is that at the end of the project, the team is dispersed but they do not have a functional department (‘home’) to which to return.

Project closure occurs at the end of the project (as opposed to at the end of a phase), so the project management plan would not need to be updated. However, if the question was asking about the closing of a particular project phase, then the project management plan could also be updated.

Bottom-up refers to estimating based on the details of the activities.

A change control system is not required to obtain estimates, but without the other three choices, you cannot develop the estimates. You need the WBS to define the activities, the network diagram to see the dependencies, and the risks to determine contingencies. (These are high-level risks, not the detailed risks we identify later in the planning process group.)

The last thing that happens in all of the mentioned things in this question is reaching agreements on the calendar dates of activities, and this is an output of the develop project schedule process. The rest of the choices should also be done before developing the schedule, but since developing schedule is performed after all other activities, this process helps define the calendar date for activities.

Since this is about the priorities of the projects compared to each other, the decision should be made by an entity that has oversight to all of the projects. Project manager, project team, and the project management team are all the entities which have authorities only within the boundaries of a specific project.

Either Contract Administrator or Procurement Administrator are acceptable answers. The latter is a term that PMI now uses, though Contract Administrator has been used in the past. The project manager is responsible for the work stated within the contract, but the contract itself is the PA’s responsibility.

The first action should be to analyze the situation. Finding the cause of the cost overrun is the only one of the options that is relevant to analyzing the situation.

On an agile project, quality is owned by the entire cross-functional team.

Since you are sending out a scope of work along with the invitation, and you are giving the potential sellers the methodology of the project execution and the results, they should provide you with a proposal. Hence, this is called a Request for Proposal.

The product acceptance criteria is included in the project scope statement, but the other options are all purposes of the project charter.

According to the PMBOK^® Guide (6th Edition), the to-complete performance index (TCPI) is a measure of the cost performance that is required to be achieved with the remaining resources in order to meet a specified management goal, expressed as the ratio of the cost to finish the outstanding work to the remaining budget. TCPI is the calculated cost performance that must be achieved on the remaining work to meet a specified goal such as the BAC or EAC.

In the cost plus percentage of cost as an award fee type of contract, the contractor has the highest possible incentive.

Analysis of scope performance is done as part of the Control Scope process. Determining the cause and degree of variance relative to the scope baseline is an important aspect of this activity (called Variance Analysis). However, change requests that result from this activity, like any other change requests, are processed in the Perform Integrated Change Control process.

Of course, the first thing after the project initiation phase finishes is to start planning and to create the project scope statement and project management plan. But since you are just handed the project charter, and there is no mention of an emergency situation in the question or the fact that you have had input to the project charter, the wisest thing to do is to make sure that key stakeholders understand what the project benefits are, and that these are well documented within the charter or benefits management plan.

The Project Management Information System (PMIS) is the collective system that consists of tools and techniques used to gather, integrate, and disseminate the outputs of the project management processes. The key to this questions is that it is talking about various systems such as reporting, configuration management (version control), and integrating the processes. Configuration management systems and reporting systems are partially correct (both of those systems are included in the PMIS), but PMIS is more correct.

Quality audits should be performed throughout the project life cycle.

As in any other project, the first part of the project management plan to be prepared is always the project scope statement. The fact that this is a quality improvement project in nature does not change the best practices that are used in project management!

Answer:  project team assignments, project team assignment

The answer is project team assignments. According to page 334 of the PMBOK Guide, project team assignments are a recording of the team members and their roles and responsibilities for the project. This may be documented in a project team directory, project organization chart, and/or a schedule.

The affinity diagram allows large numbers of ideas to be sorted into groups for further review and analysis. It is one of the group creativity techniques used in gathering of requirements.

According to the PMBOK^® Guide, you should always first try to resolve conflicts internally, and you should use negotiating skills to try to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. So the best course of action is the negotiate a new schedule with the other project manager. The other options might be used as well, but only after attempting negotiation. Trying these other options first would indicate a passive management style.

Procurement audits review the procurement processes per the contract. Audit observations should be brought to the attention of both the buyer and seller’s project manager. Process analysis and audits are not part of Control Quality nor Validate Scope.

Emotional intelligence benefits conflict resolution, anticipating the actions of others, and reducing staff turnover. Directing others on how to do their jobs is a leadership style but is not a benefit of emotional intelligence.

Schedule compression means shortening the duration of the project through assigning more budget or resources.

Cost budgeting is not a part of the Executing process group. Cost budgeting is done during the Planning process group.

Prioritizing the changes is the job of the project manager. The project team should not meet with the stakeholders because you do not want to distract the team at this point—they should be doing the work. Someone from the team should not prioritize the changes because it is the project manager’s responsibility. And changes cannot automatically be ignored simply because you are in execution.

Virtual teams is the ability to leverage resources possessing the skills needed but who are not co-located with the project team.

Checklists are a simple but effective quality management tool that the project manager can use to ensure the project team is completing all of the required work.

The project objectives are stated in the project charter and it is the sponsor who issues the project charter. Therefore, helping to avoid unnecessary changes to the project objectives is the correct answer. Supporting project planning activities and contributing in the development of the project communication plan could be correct, but they don’t necessarily represent the best role that the sponsor can play. The project management plan should be developed by the project manager and approved by sponsor.

After the change is implemented the project management plan and project documents need to be revised, in order to reflect the change in the project. Since the change has already been made, all of the other options should have already been done.

The cause of non-compliance to expected performance levels needs to be established before any other action is taken. The situation requires the project manager to investigate and establish the cause of the problem before evaluating the alternatives stated in the other three choices. Discussing with the resource is the first step that the project manager can take to understand the root cause of the poor performance.

A phase or project must be formally closed and accepted. Of course the other choices are also required to be done, but only after the closure of the first phase.

According to the PMBOK^® Guide (6th Edition), the project coordinator reports to a higher-level manager and has authority to make some decisions. The project expeditor has no authority to make decisions.

When you find a variance between a projects actual and planned performance the best course of action is to take corrective actions. Preventive actions are taken to avoid such variances in future.

It is generally better to do the work yourself if using an outside company means you have to turn over proprietary data to the other company.

Even though it is occurring during the execution of the project, determining what standards to use is part of quality planning. Sometimes during the project execution or other phases we need to refer back to planning because planning is an iterative process. In planning, we determine what quality standards are applicable to the project and how to implement and control them. ‘Quality Update’ is a made up term and does not represent any of the quality management processes.

The project manager is responsible for arranging any project-specific training required to address the project needs.

A project is complete when all work, including all project management work, is complete and the product of the project, not just deliverables, accepted.

Overtime is never the first resort to solve such problems because the project manager loses credibility and performance by using overtime. This would likely create a cost impact on the project, or impact other projects or other work. Providing training is a good idea, but there’s no indication in the question that the resources lack skills which will help them work with better performance. Relaxing quality requirements is not viable, as it’s not ethical and professional to deliberately deliver low quality work. In this situation the only remaining viable option would be to look for any part of the scope that can be cut.

According to the PMBOK^® Guide (6th Edition), the next step after identifying a risk is always to perform qualitative risk analysis.

This question is asking, ‘When you finish estimating costs, what do you have?’ Preventing inappropriate changes from being included in the cost baseline is more correctly part of the cost management plan and the change control system.

Prevention improves quality by eliminating defects from the process rather than relying on inspection after. Therefore, prevention can reduce the likelihood that errors will occur in the process. The other items refer to inspection.

The most important thing to focus on is to create a deal that everyone feels good about. Negotiating the lowest price possible sounds like a good choice, but the lowest possible price might not be fair to your seller, and that could lead to the failure of the project in the future. Maintaining the integrity of the scope is important, but that is not the primary focus of negotiations. Making sure that legal counsel has approved your negotiating points may or may not be necessary depending on the situation.

The purpose of scope verification is to compare the deliverable to the requirements or scope statement, WBS or WBS dictionary. The project manager might have misunderstood and it would be best to check before talking to the team member.

The definition of opportunity cost includes the cost of choosing one project and giving up another, and thus it is the best answer.

The GDPR is a European data privacy regulation that requires firms to prove compliance. Since this is an international project, your boss is right to consider that it may represent a requirement for the project and should be investigated further. Since it is a regulation, compliance does not provide a competitive advantage. Therefore, its popularity and whether your competition is in compliance is immaterial. It may or may not add cost to the project.

A single-source seller means there is only one seller the company wants to do business with. The answer of only one qualified seller is incorrect as it describes a “sole source” seller. Also, there may be multiple sellers that can satisfy the project needs and just because there is only one seller in the market does not mean the seller can adequately fulfill the project needs.

The cost of this project will vary, at one standard deviation, from $3.5M to $4.5M. Since this is not insignificant, there would appear to be some ambiguity with the project definition. As there is uncertainty in the scope since it is not described in detail, we would not pick either of the fixed price options (fixed cost or fixed price plus incentive fee).

Of the two cost-plus options, you need to select the better of the two. Cost-plus percentage of costs is probably the worst type of contract to use, as there is no incentive for the seller to control costs. The only choice left is a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract.

In change-driven projects, the definition of “done” is agreed to in advance and the team and stakeholders meet to ensure that these objectives have been met and are acceptable. Planning on the next iteration and what to include occurs next. In change-driven projects, baselines are not established since detailed planning only occurs for the current iteration. Percent complete is not a meaningful metric in change-driven projects. In Agile, backlog items that are not complete at the end of the iteration are moved to a future iteration.

The situation described in the question is about quality control. While the project team is in fact analyzing the situation, ‘analyze quality’ is a made up term and is not the title of a project management process.