Project Management Professionals (PMP) Exam 5

By recording identified risks in the risk register, the project manager and team are able to keep track of all potential threats and opportunities. Furthermore, once a risk has been analyzed using qualitative and or quantitative risk analysis methods, the risk register serves as the central repository for planned risk responses and lists risk owners. As such, any time a new risk emerges on a project, the first step to take is to immediately document it in the risk register.

Monitor Communications is the process of monitoring and controlling communications throughout the entire project life cycle to ensure the information needs of the project and its stakeholders are met. In this scenario, the stakeholders are reaching out directly to the project team members, which is not the most effective use of the team's time. To determine why this is happening, you need to review the communications management plan to determine how stakeholder inquiries are to be managed. With this information, you can best judge whether the stakeholders are violating that agreement. After that, you can proceed to make whatever changes are needed to shield the project team from the time-consuming responses to the stakeholders' requests for information and develop a better communications protocol for stakeholder information requests.

Physical resource management is concentrated in allocating and using the physical resources such as materials, equipment, and supplies efficiently and effectively. Organizations should have data on how much inventory to keep on hand as the project progresses. Failing to manage and control resources efficiently can be a source of increased costs in a project. In the scenario described, you have determined expenses are higher than expected. One of the causes for increased costs is failing to maintain appropriate levels of inventory. Too much stock on hand may result in realizing the expenses for those supplies before they were expected when comparing against the cost baseline.

All of the available answers seem like possible options in this scenario, but the question is specifically asking what you should do 'first'. Although you have already analyzed the situation and you know what corrective actions are required, you must follow the proper change control procedure. A configuration element is a project artifact that has been placed under configuration control. Any change to a configuration element should be formally controlled and will require a change request. Since the question describes a situation requiring a change to a configuration element, the first thing you should do is submit a change request and have it approved before you can implement the changes.

Opportunity cost is regarded as the value of the alternative that is not chosen. If the decision is made to select project Alpha and forego the $45 million in potential profit from project Beta, the opportunity cost of this decision is $45 million, the value of project Beta.

The topic of this question is not covered in the PMBOK^® Guide. However, the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® Examination Content Outline (ECO) indicates that while there are some commonalities between the PMBOK^® Guide and the ECO, the exam is not bound by the PMBOK^® Guide. The list of enablers specified in the tasks of the ECO domains is not exhaustive either. The ECO assumes that prospective PMP aspirants are familiar with other sources of information/preparation, including but not limited to PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, PMI?s Practice Standards (e.g., Scheduling, Earned Value Management, etc.); organizational behavior theories such as Tuckman?s Ladder, Theory X and Theory Y, Maslow's hierarchy of needs; commonly frowned upon project management practices, such as gold plating; and others. We intentionally have these questions in our simulator so that you would be better prepared for the real exam. PMP aspirants are encouraged to explore additional sources of information and/or to be familiar with them from their project management experience.

Contested charges where the buyer and seller cannot reach an agreement are called claims. The contract usually has terms to handle claims administration. If the parties cannot resolve the claim, it should be handled by alternative dispute resolution (ADR), typically following procedures established in the contract. There are two types of ADR, arbitration and mediation. Direct negotiation between the parties is the preferred method. Litigation in the courts is the last option that a project manager should choose. Based on the scenario described, the project manager has negotiated directly with the seller. However, all conversations have ended in an impasse. In this situation, the next step for the project manager to take is to identify some form of alternative dispute resolution.

The WBS is considered by many project managers to be the heart of the projects lead by a predictive project management approach since a WBS lists the total scope of work to be carried out by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create required deliverables. The milestone list is an output from the Define Activities process to which the WBS serves as an input (as part of the scope baseline). The risk register is an output from the Identify Risks process to which the WBS serves as an input (as part of the scope baseline) used as a framework to structure risk identification techniques. Had the project manager and the team taken the time to create a proper WBS, it is likely the team would have had a more accurate milestone list and risk register with which to finish their project management plan on time and avoid the conflict described in the scenario.

The halo effect (also known as the Peter principle) states "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence." Most project team members are motivated by an opportunity to grow, accomplish, and apply their professional skills to meet new challenges. Their achievements continuously promote them within an organization to a certain level until they are unable to perform. Sam might have risen to his incompetency level, which is what you have likely forgotten to consider while promoting him to lead the development team.

The topic of this question is only briefly mentioned in the PMBOK^® Guide. However, the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® Examination Content Outline (ECO) indicates that while there are some commonalities between the PMBOK^® Guide and the ECO, the exam is not bound by the PMBOK^® Guide. The list of enablers specified in the tasks of the ECO domains is not exhaustive either. The ECO assumes that prospective PMP aspirants are familiar with other sources of information/preparation, including but not limited to PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, PMI?s Practice Standards (e.g., Scheduling, Earned Value Management, etc.); organizational behavior theories such as Tuckman's Ladder, Theory X and Theory Y, Maslow's hierarchy of needs; commonly frowned upon project management practices, such as gold plating; and others. We intentionally have these questions in our simulator so that you would be better prepared for the real exam. PMP aspirants are encouraged to explore additional sources of information and/or to be familiar with them from their project management experience. The PMBOK^® Guide is provided as a reference to indicate that the scenario refers the Develop Team process.

Initiating Process Group is performed to define a new project or a new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project or phase. The purpose of this Process Group is to align the stakeholders' expectations and the project purpose, inform stakeholders of the scope and objectives, and discuss how their participation in the project and its associated phases can help to ensure their expectations are met.

In the scenario described, you are about to start a new project phase. Therefore, you should start with the Develop Project Charter process. It does not necessarily mean you would develop a new project charter for each consecutive project phase, but it means that you will perform the processes of the Initiating Process Group starting with the Develop Project Charter process. You will review the project charter to see if the high-level assumptions and constraints made during project initiation are still valid, and whether or not the market conditions are still favorable for the project. Performing this process may result in an update of the charter or an addendum to the project charter. In an extreme scenario, this process may result in project termination.

While the PMBOK^® Guide does not explicitly mention going back to the Initiating Process Group to look at the project charter, it does provide several examples implying that the project team may choose to go with each new phase as a separate, stand-alone project. Undertaking a stand-alone project means performing all its processes, starting with the Develop Project Charter. The same logic applies to the next process in the Initiating Process Group, the Identify Stakeholders process. It is possible that new stakeholders became involved in the project, or some of the previous stakeholders left, or the level of engagement of the existing stakeholders have changed. Even if nothing has changed, the Develop Project Charter and the Identify Stakeholders processes should be performed. Otherwise, how would you be able to conclude that nothing has changed? Therefore, starting the new phase of the project with the processes of the Initiating Process Group is the best answer to the question asked.

The question describes a situation in which the project team completed the design phase of the project and began building the product. However, it appears the team did not sufficiently test the work done on the welding, which is part of the Control Quality process. This process is carried out to ensure the project outputs are complete, correct, and meet customer expectations before the customer accepts the deliverables as part of the Validate Scope process. As a result of not performing the Control Quality process, defects were found in the crane when the customer held a walkthrough. If the team carried out the Control Quality process properly, it is likely the defective welding would have been discovered, corrected, and the situation described in the scenario avoided.

A life cycle of a typical traditionally managed project consists of initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closure. Overall project risk is the effect of uncertainty on the project as a whole. Many various factors contribute to the overall project risk: technical, managerial, commercial, external, to name but a few. Deliverables are not produced up until the project enters its execution. Project objectives, such as scope, schedule, cost, quality, etc. are not being measured during project initiation and planning. At that point, there are many unknowns, and it's even unclear if the project will meet its objectives. Therefore, the overall project risk at the beginning of the project is the greatest. As the project progresses, decisions are made, and deliverables and produced and accepted, the overall project risk decreases. During project closure, there are typically not too many unknowns left (if at all). After the deliverables are accepted, and the project's objectives are met, the "victory" can be declared. This is where the overall project risk is considered very low or non-existent. Therefore, of the choices provided, the risk is the lowest during project closure (area D).

Academic research and analyses of high-profile project disasters highlight the importance of a structured approach to the identification, prioritization, and engagement of all stakeholders. The ability of the project manager and team to correctly identify and engage all stakeholders in an appropriate way can mean the difference between project success and failure. The stakeholder register is a project document where information about identified stakeholders is recorded. This document includes the stakeholders' main requirements and expectations for the project. Failure to appropriately identify key stakeholders early enough in the project could result in an incomplete stakeholder register and a project with numerous change requests submitted by stakeholders as they are identified.

This question involves two project management Knowledge Areas, Risk Management and Schedule Management. Crashing is an example of a schedule compression technique that can be used during the Develop Schedule process. This technique may help exploit the opportunity by adding more resources to the critical path. The processes of the Project Risk Management Knowledge Area aim to develop options and strategies to capture opportunities (positive risks) and minimize the effects of threats (or negative risks). In the scenario described, you have been presented with a chance to collect a bonus payment for early project completion. A contingency reserve including amounts of time, money, or resources to take advantage of the opportunity should be established. The opportunity to collect the bonus payment is within reach; therefore, the best course of action in this situation is to crash the schedule to shorten the critical path.

Delaying the decomposition of the system testing work package until later in the project is an example of rolling wave planning. Rolling wave planning is an iterative planning technique in which the work to be accomplished in the near term is planned in detail, while the work in the future is planned at a higher level. Decomposition may not be possible for a deliverable or subcomponent that will be accomplished far into the future. The project management team usually waits until the deliverable or subcomponent is agreed on, so the details of the work breakdown structure (WBS) can be developed. Therefore, the best approach is to use rolling wave planning and decompose the system development work package now, and then decompose the system testing work package later, when more project information becomes available.

The requirements management plan is a component of the project or program management plan that describes how requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed. A process that specifies how a project scope statement will be prepared is an element of the scope management plan and should be excluded from the requirements management plan. The incorrect answer choices represent components that should be included in the requirements management plan.

According to the scenario, you are carrying out the Identify Stakeholders process. Directions of influence is an example of a data representation technique that can be used as part of this process. This technique classifies stakeholders according to their influence on the work of the project or the project team itself. Stakeholders can be classified as upward, downward, outward, or sideward. The upward classification includes senior management of the performing organization or customer organization, sponsor, and steering committee. Therefore, the project sponsor should be classified as upward.

Approved change requests can be a corrective action, a preventive action, or a defect repair. The question reads, "some of the buttons on the remote control developed by the project for a new product do not work according to the specifications". This scenario is an example of a defect repair since it involves taking immediate action to correct a defective product component that does not meet product specifications. The performing organization is neither taking preventive action nor addressing a deviation (corrective action) from the agreed-upon project baselines. Gold plating does not apply here since the organization is adding extra buttons to the remote control unit not as a means of enhancing the product or making the customer happy, but as a means of meeting product specifications.

The Identify Stakeholders process is the process of identifying all people or organizations impacted by the project and documenting relevant information regarding their interests, involvement, and impact on project success. Both the Develop Project Charter process and the Identify Stakeholders process are part of the Initiating Process Group which should be completed before proceeding to the processes in the Planning Process Group. In this scenario, since the project charter has been developed and approved, the Identify Stakeholders process should be performed next.

The business documents include the business case and the benefits management plan. Both of these documents are created during pre-project work and are available as sources of information about the project's stakeholders during the first iteration of the Identify Stakeholders process. The business case identifies an initial list of stakeholders affected by the project. The benefits management plan may identify the individuals and groups that will benefit from the delivery of the outcomes of the project and are thus considered as stakeholders. Among the available options, only the business documents are available as sources of relevant information during the first iteration of the Identify Stakeholders process.

Using the critical path method may require drawing a project schedule network diagram, or listing all the possible the sequences of paths with the given activities, then adding up the durations, and knowing which path constitutes the critical path.

Given the activity list shown, you can see that:

• Start serves as predecessor for both A and E, creating a divergence into two paths.
• Activity A serves as predecessor for both B and C, creating another divergence.
• Activity E serves as a predecessor for both B and F, creating another divergence.

The project schedule network diagram is as follows.

The resulting list of paths with their aggregated durations is below. The critical path is Start-E-B-D-End, and the duration of the critical path with the data given is 14.

Based on the scenario described, the project team is performing the Estimate Activity Durations process. An input to this process is the resource breakdown structure (RBS), which is a hierarchical list of team and physical resources related by category and resource type that is used for planning, managing, and controlling project work. Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed description of the resource until the information is small enough to be used in conjunction with the WBS to allow the work to be planned, monitored, and controlled.

The Tuckman ladder is one of the models used to describe stages of team development. This model is typically referred to by project management practitioners as part of the Develop Team process. The model includes five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. While it is safe to say that most teams go through all five stages, some may get stuck in a particular stage or even regress (go back) to an earlier stage. On the other hand, projects with team members who worked together in the past might skip a stage. Each stage is distinguished by different dynamics among the team members resulting in various levels of team effectiveness. Team effectiveness is at its lowest level during the storming stage as the environment is characterized by a high degree of conflict and a lack of collaboration among the team members. As the team members begin to work together and trust each other, in other words, the relationships between the team members normalize (thus the name of the next stage, norming), the degree of team effectiveness increases. Teams that successfully go through the norming stage would eventually reach the performing stage, which is the highest level of team development. In the performing stage, the team function as a well-organized unit, and the team effectiveness is at its highest.

A power/interest grid is a classification model used for stakeholder analysis and management that groups the stakeholders based on their level of authority (power) and their level of concern (interest) regarding project outcomes. The classification and recommended management strategies are as follows:

• Low-power/low-interest: monitor only
• Low-power/high-interest: keep informed
• High-power/low-interest: keep satisfied
• High-power/high-interest: manage closely

Based on this scenario, the sponsor can be classified as high-power and low-interest; therefore, keeping the sponsor satisfied is the best strategy under the circumstances described in the scenario.

The stakeholder register is a project document that contains relevant information regarding stakeholder interests, involvement, interdependencies, influence, and potential impact on project success. Vendors are project stakeholders and as such should be included in the stakeholder register. The project manager and project team members should refer to this document when obtaining pertinent information about project stakeholders whether the stakeholders are internal or external to the performing organization.

The contract is the document you would refer to in order to understand the early termination procedure. A contract is a mutually binding agreement that obligates the seller to provide the specified deliverable. It constitutes a legal relationship. The early termination of a contract is a special case of the Control Procurements process that can result from an agreement by both parties, from the default of one party, or for the convenience of the buyer if provided for in the contract. The rights and responsibilities of the parties in the event of an early termination are contained in the termination clause of the contract.

The project manager is using historical duration information from comparable projects to estimate the duration of a future project. This gross value estimating approach is called analogous estimating and is frequently used to provide a ballpark figure when there is a limited amount of detailed information available about the project.

The scenario describes the use of techniques that will aid in the reduction of misunderstandings in written communication specifically. These techniques are known as the 5Cs of written communication:

1. Correct grammar and spelling
2. Concise expression and elimination of excess words
3. Clear purpose and expression directed to the needs of the reader
4. Coherent, logical flow of ideas
5. Controlled flow of words and ideas

However, the question asks which answer is 'not' a technique that will aid in the reduction of misunderstandings in written communication, or in other words, which answer is not one of the 5Cs of written communication. 'Communications register' is not one of the 5Cs components. Actually, 'communications register' is a made-up term.

Note, the term 'tools and techniques' used in this question to describe the 5Cs does not refer to the traditional meaning of tools and techniques of the project management processes. We are using this term as we consider it to be a reasonable description of the components comprising the 5Cs.

The process of identifying project stakeholders occurs for the first time in a project either before or at the same time the project charter is developed and approved. It is repeated as necessary but should be performed at the start of each phase and when a significant change in the project or organization occurs. Each time the identification process is repeated, the project management plan components and project documents should be consulted to identify relevant project stakeholders.

The change control board (CCB) is a formally chartered group responsible for reviewing, evaluating, approving, deferring, or rejecting change requests. The CCB can include project stakeholders, and a change may be requested by any stakeholder involved with the project. Therefore, it is possible for a member of the CCB to submit a change request.

In this scenario, the project sponsor requested a document that provides specific information about the product requirements of your current project. The requirements traceability matrix is a grid that links product requirements from their origin to the deliverables that satisfy them. Typical attributes used in the requirements traceability matrix may include a unique identifier, a textual description of the requirement, the rationale for inclusion, owner, source, priority, version, current status, and status date. Additional attributes to ensure that the requirement has met stakeholders' satisfaction may include stability, complexity, and acceptance criteria.

To answer this question correctly, you need to understand what process the project team is currently performing. In this scenario, you have identified project risks and therefore have finished creating the initial version of the risk register. This conclusion means that you have completed the Identify Risks process, which is one of the planning processes in the Project Risk Management Knowledge Area. According to the PMBOK^® Guide, project risk management processes occur in the following order: 1. Plan Risk Management 2. Identify Risks 3. Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis 4. Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis 5. Plan Risk Responses 6. Implement Risk Responses 7. Monitor Risks. Your next step is, therefore, to move into the Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis process, which is the process where you will prioritize risks for further analysis or action by assessing and combining their probability of occurrence and impact. The Perform Qualitative Risk Analysis process and, if needed, the Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis process should be done after the Identify Risks process in order to properly identify the risks on which to focus and plan. Only then should team members be assigned risk ownership. Assigning risk ownership to team members before determining which risks are the most likely to occur and impact the project is not an efficient use of resources and is not the proper protocol outlined in the PMBOK^® Guide.

The key elements of a benefits management plan include target benefits, strategic alignment, a timeframe for realizing benefits, benefits owner, metrics, assumptions, and risks. Identification of a set of options to be considered for addressing the business problem or opportunity is a key element of the project business case and should not be included in the benefits management plan. This element is most likely what was marked for removal by the PMO.

Data gathering techniques that can be used for the Identify Stakeholders process include questionnaires and surveys, brainstorming, and brain writing. Brain writing is a refinement of brainstorming that allows individual participants time to consider the questions individually before the group creativity session is held. Therefore, the first step of brain writing is providing the participants with the questions before the creativity session. This process will allow the participants to be better prepared which will make the meeting more effective than a traditional brainstorming session.

The question implies that the Manage Quality process, sometimes referred to as quality assurance, is underway. Design for X (DfX) is one of the tools and techniques which may be used during the Manage Quality process. DfX is a set of technical guidelines that may be applied during the design of a product for the optimization of a specific aspect of the design. DfX can control or even improve the product's final characteristics. The X in DfX can be different aspects of product development which can include but are not limited to quality improvement.

Changes may be requested by any stakeholder involved with the project and may occur at any time throughout the project life cycle. The project manager, the project sponsor, and the project team are all project stakeholders and therefore, can request changes. All of the answer choices are technically correct, but the option of 'any stakeholder' provides a complete answer and is, therefore, the best answer to the question. Additionally, the fact that the company authorizes a change control board (CCB) and the project sponsor is its member is irrelevant to the question asked. It is essential to discern the relevant information of a question to select the best answer of the choices given.

A change request is a document to record an adjustment to project scope, schedule, cost, etc. Changes may include corrective action, preventive action, or defect repair, among others. The engineer is proposing what she believes to be a valid design change which can be further evaluated by the change control board. Although changes may be initiated verbally, they should be recorded in written form and entered into the change management and/or configuration management system. Thus, of the available choices, asking the engineer to create and submit a change request is what the project manager should do next, and is, therefore, the best answer to the question asked.

One may argue that evaluating the change should come before submitting the change request. We had an extensive debate on the subject of change requests in general and on this question in particular. The reason being is that the PMBOK^® Guide does not do a good job in explaining the exact process in detail. We have discussed this process among our team of certified project management professionals and have concluded that the first thing that should be done when a change is requested on a project is the physical creation of the change request, a document if you wish, filling out a form. Otherwise, on what basis would a project manager and the project team spend time evaluating a request that is not even documented?

Monitor and Control Project Work is the process of tracking, reviewing, and reporting overall progress to meet the performance objectives defined in the project management plan. Of the available choices, only comparing actual project performance against the project management plan is performed during the Monitor and Control Project Work process.

The project described in the scenario is in the Collect Requirements process where project stakeholders' needs and requirements are determined and documented. A tool and technique used in the Collect Requirements process to elicit requirements from stakeholders is data gathering. Data gathering includes brainstorming, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and benchmarking.

A matrix diagram seeks to show the strength of relationships among factors, causes, and objectives that exist between the rows and columns that form the matrix. Depending on how many factors may be compared, the project manager can use different shapes of matrix diagrams; for example, L, T, Y, X, C, and roof-shaped. An X-shaped matrix can display four factors for comparison which is what required by the question, making the matrix diagram the best answer of those provided.

The question states that project planning is about to begin which suggests that project initiation has been completed. The project charter is created during the Develop Project Charter process as part of project initiation. The project team uses the project charter as a starting point for initial project planning. The type and amount of information in the project charter varies depending on the complexity of the project and the information known at the time of its creation. At a minimum, the project charter should define the high-level information about the project that will be elaborated in the various components of the project management plan.