PMP – Monitoring and Controlling

After several project delays, the project manager has determined that changes are needed to the product deliverables to ensure quality. The project manager takes the following steps:

First – Issues a formal change request
Second – Communicate the change to all stakeholders
Third – Receives feedback that the communications approach did not meet stakeholders’ expectations

What should the project manager do next?

Refer to the communications management plan and issue a status report
Ensure including stakeholder’s expectations in the project management plan by issuing a change request
Hold a meeting with the project sponsor to better understand stakeholders’ expectations
Review the communications management and stakeholder engagement plans to see if the processes were followed. An update to one or both plans might be warranted.

A deliverable on the project’s critical path is behind schedule.

The cost performance index (CPI) is 1.3. The project manager can put the project back on schedule.

Which three results are the most likely for this project?

(Choose three)

Activities will be performed in parallel
Project scope will be revised
Associated risk will increase
Cost will increase
The team should expect rework

During the daily standup meeting a team member suggests that rework is being caused because there seems to be too much work.

How should the project manager respond to this?

Try using a Kanban board for reviews
Request the team resources explicitly implement time boxing or spikes
Replace the underperforming team members
Investigate to determine whether this is a time or quality issue

During a conversation with a friend, the project manager hears that union action may occur within the next two weeks. The project manager knows that at this stage of the project, any project delays could cause substantial harm to both budget and schedule, and any union action will affect the project team.

Earlier, the probability of a union action was considered minimal, so it was unanticipated. Also, the project manager has worked successfully with the union in the past.

How should the project manager respond to this issue?

Get more information through informal discussion channels and use that information to decide and plan the next step
Update the risk in the risk register with this new information and notify relevant stakeholders
Plan to reward those who do not participate and identify possible disciplinary actions for those who do participate
Schedule a meeting with the union’s leader and use personal influence in an attempt to resolve the problem

Project Alpha is developing a customer service prototype for a company’s marketing department. The customer stakeholder group introduces it to franchise owners and direct customers of the company. The prototype scores 95% of the functional requirements defined in the scope, which results in a passing score based on the project’s agreed upon quality metrics.

The franchise group is unwilling to approve the prototype since it does not fulfill a particular functional requirement, even though the direct customer group approves.

How can the project manager handle communication with this diverse stakeholder group?

Send a survey to each group asking for specific feedback on the prototype
Thank the customers for their approval, review the WBS, and verify the requirements documentation with the franchise group
Consult with the franchise group, show them the direct customer approval, and negotiate for the approval
Check the RACI matrix for each for which group approval is needed and is still unclear, as an executive stakeholder to make the final decision

Over the past six months, the development cost per story has risen by more than 250% due to a faulty platform that is no longer supported. The product vision highlights the platform’s unique features that are prerequisites for the product.

What should the project manager do to determine next steps?

Cancel the product due to it exceeding the budget constraints
Ask the product owner to select an alternative platform
Cancel the project as the product vision cannot be fulfilled
Run what-if cost impact scenarios with the product owner

A project involves six different companies, and the project sponsor is part of a global organization. At the midpoint of the project, the project manager learns that one stakeholder is experiencing difficulties and cannot provide their level of involvement.

The project manager needs to do __________________ and then ___________________.

Fill in the blanks of the correct pairs of answers

Avoid the risk, update the stakeholder engagement plan
Avoid the risk, update the stakeholder register
Mitigate the risk, update the stakeholder engagement plan
Mitigate the risk, update the stakeholder register

After issuing a test summary report with no significant defects, an analyst performs some additional testing where a defect is discovered and you are immediately notified. You are scheduled to meet later today with stakeholders to obtain their acceptance of the final deliverable.
What should the project manager do?

Cancel the meeting and have the defect fixed before reviewing the deliverable with stakeholders.
Proceed with the meeting to obtain acceptance, without bringing up the newly found defect since the test summary report is clean.
Proceed with the meeting, pointing out the newly discovered defect so the stakeholders can decide whether to have it fixed or accept it as-is.
Bring the analyst with you to the meeting to explain why testing continued after the test summary report was issued.

While preparing a project’s third progress report, the project manager identifies that the project will experience delays due to late material deliveries. The two previous project reports indicated that the project was on track.
What should the project manager do next?

Eliminate the user testing from the project plan.
Utilize the current server to complete user testing.
Request to expedite the new server from the supplier.
Await the arrival of the new server and reevaluate timelines for user testing.

A project team implements a change approved by the change control board (CCB). The change was intended to minimize risk but had the opposite effect.
What should the project manager have done to avoid this outcome?

Confirmed the effectiveness of the risk response and monitored progress.
Updated the assumption log with details concerning the risk.
Performed a risk analysis to quantify project risk exposure.
Developed a probability and impact matrix to determine the risk's priority level.

Due to increased price volatility, a vendor asks the project manager of a large development project to make a price change that will affect the project contract.
What should the project manager do?

Request that the change control board (CCB) meet with the vendor to discuss the change.
Execute the price change requested by the vendor and update the project contract.
Comply with the vendor's request and update the project management plan.
Analyze the impact and submit a formal change request, if appropriate.

During user testing, the client agreed to the final product. One day later, the client indicated that it may not be acceptable.

What should be the project manager’s first step for resolving this issue?

Discuss concerns with the client and consult the project’s acceptance criteria
Review the project’s quality management plan
Review the project’s requirements documentation
Refer to the project charter and lessons learned register

During a meeting, a project manager learns that a business result needs to be delivered in four weeks, although the original schedule stated 16 weeks. The project manager also realizes that there is no technical resource available. The project manager knows the technical resource manager because they have worked together on a previous project.

What would be the first thing the project manager should do?

Notify the project sponsor about the lack of an IT technical resource
Immediately escalate the issue to decision-makers in the organization
Check with the technical manager to see if there is an available technical resource
Hire an outside party to meet the need for a technical resource

A project that should have been 90% complete by now is only 65% complete. The total budget is $120,000 US, and the actual costs spent to date (AC) is $80,000.

What is the schedule performance index and cost performance index of the project?

SPI is .72, and the CPI is .98
SPI is 1.38, and the CPI is 1.2
SPI is .94, and the SPI is 1.04
SPI is .80, and the CPI is .91

An energy infrastructure vendor delivers a complex solution proof of concept to a new strategic customer. The predictive project should be complete in 10 weeks, but there is an extensive list of outstanding items, and some are dependent on external events with uncertain scheduling.

How should the project manager handle this outstanding item?

Transfer the outstanding items to the next project with the customer
Plan five agile iterations to complete the task as soon as possible conditions allow
De-scope the outstanding tasks and remove them from the invoice
Add resources and crash the schedule to complete outstanding tasks

In a weekly project status meeting, a key team member expresses concerns about the overall approach documented within the project management plan. The project manager is surprised because the team is executing a vital component of the project, and the concern has not been raised before.

What steps should the project manager take?

Update the risk register to document the concerns, then continue with the meeting’s scheduled agenda items
Recognize that the concern must be discussed and resolved before continuing with the meeting’s agenda items
Address the team with a generic reminder about meeting etiquette, then ask if the team wants to use the time to discuss the concerns raised during the meeting fully
Immediately acknowledge the team members’ concerns, continue with a scheduled agenda, and then privately meet with the team members to understand the concerns expressed

After missing two consecutive major deadlines because of delayed glass deliveries, a manufacturing company changed the glass supplier to meet production deadlines. Three months later, production reports quality problems with the new glass. The project manager determines that the supplier change caused quality problems.

How should the project manager avoid this issue in the future?

Update the risk information and the lessons learned register
Review the assumption log to revisit or change current assumptions
Confirm that the implemented risk responses were effective
Evaluate new roles, update the probability and impact matrix

The quarterly results show that the competitors are driving prices down. The company is losing market share midway through a product development project, and the sponsoring unit is not likely to get a return on its investment.

Which two actions should the project manager take to adapt the project to those new conditions?

(Choose two)

Incrementally replace local staff with outside expert staff who can work at the hourly rate or less
Re-scope the project to deliver the same features as a competitor to match the pricing
Make a cost-benefit analysis of deliverables to optimize delivery cost and speed
Fast-track the remainder of the project to deliver the intended scope with less overhead cost
Create an agile track to maximize value within a fixed budget incrementally

Which of the most urgent threat listed in the risk register?

Risk Probability Impact Trigger date
R1 high medium June 30
R2 low low June 14
$3 high high June 21
$5 medium medium June 10

R1
R2
R3
R4

While preparing a project’s third progress report, the project manager identifies that the project will experience delays due to late material deliveries. The two previous project reports indicated that the project was on track.
What should the project manager do next?

Discuss it with the project team to determine the most appropriate response.
Add it to the issue log and include it in the project report.
Contact the procurement manager to expedite delivery of the material.
Escalate the issue to the project owner and request a schedule change.

A key stakeholder requests a change that will solve a critical issue that might affect the continuity of operations. However, the project is nearing completion, and the change would increase the overall project cost and delay the completion date.
What should the project manager do?

Assign the decision regarding the critical nature of the change to a more knowledgeable stakeholder.
Submit a change request to the change control board (CCB).
Revise the work breakdown structure (WBS) and the project scope statement to include the change.
Communicate the impact on the budget and schedule to the project sponsor.

Two key stakeholders, who are also members of the change control board (CCB), complain they were not aware of an extension to the project schedule. The project manager knows that the extension was necessary to add value to the project.

What should the project manager have done to avoid this issue?

Submitted a change request to the entire CCB without discussing it first with the stakeholders.
Run a what-if analysis to determine the impact of the change.
Asked the project sponsor if there was any float in the project schedule.
Consulted the stakeholders before following the established change process.

Quarterly results show that competitors are driving prices down. The company is losing market share, and midway into the project development project, it appears the sponsoring unit is not likely to get a return on their investment.

Which two actions should the project manager take to adapt the project to these new conditions?

(Choose two)

Incrementally replace local staff with outside expert staff who can work at half the hourly rate or less
Re-scope the project to deliver the same features as the competitors to match their pricing
Perform a cost-benefit analysis of deliverables to optimize delivery cost and speed
Fast-track the remainder of the project to deliver the intended scope with lower overhead costs
Split out an agile tract to incrementally maximize value within a fixed budget

The project sponsor requests that an element of the product be swapped for equipment supplied by a local manufacturer in order to have a more sustainable supply chain.

Which action should the project manager take?

Properly implement the change and submit a change request for formal documentation
Refer to the change control process to ensure the issue to examine the issue further
Stop all current production and initiate the perform integrated change control process
Refuse to fulfill the request because it will lead to scope creep

A project has the following characteristics:

A quality management plan is in place.
The quality management plan states that the project deliverables must be reviewed at least 1.5 weeks before the deadline.
Four deliverables had missed this quality requirement

Which step should the project manager take?

Reach out to the project sponsor for their input
Modify the quality management plan to conform to project practices
Request that the project undergo an internal audit
Use a cause-and-effect diagram to determine the root cause of the problem

The last three agile iterations showed a trend of increasingly prolonged test work.

Which activity about the project which activity should the project manager plan to address the root cause?

Adopt test automation tools
Plan an iteration of testing only practicing a paired testing policy
Plan more backlog requirement
Break down the stories into smaller packages

A recently formed agile team is exhausted after working 12-hour days to fulfill sprint commitments.

Who needs to properly perform their duties in this situation?

Project manager
Team members
Product owner
Scrum master

In response to slippage on some scheduled tasks, the project manager re-prioritized the number of subsequent tasks to try fixing the problem.

This did not work, so the project manager needed to escalate the issue.

Which two items does the project manager need to consult?

(Choose two)

Change management plan
Stakeholder engagement plan
Communication management plan
Risk management plan
Configuration management plan

A project manager is managing a credit card acceptance software project. During testing, it was learned that the application cannot accept foreign credit cards, making it nearly useless. The team leader had entered a user story that said, “Customer can pay using a credit card,” but it was put into the backlog as too large for the sprint.
What should have been done as a project manager to prevent this issue?

Ensure that a detailed user story was presented to the project team.
Have the project team implement the user story during the next sprint.
Ensure that the team performs iterative backlog refinement.
Ensure that the team recorded detailed application functionality requirements from the stakeholders.

After monitoring a product’s development after the first three releases, the product owner wants to launch a product even though it lacks some features identified in the minimum viable product (MVP). A stakeholder is not satisfied with this version and feels it needs to meet the previously agreed-upon MVP definition.
How should the project manager proceed?

Review the positives and negatives of releasing the product in its current format and bring this analysis to the project sponsor to decide.
Work with the stakeholder and the product owner to try and find alignment but support the product owner as they are ultimately responsible for the product.
Schedule a meeting with all stakeholders and the product owner to review the project’s Pareto Chart.
Empower the project team to decide how to proceed as the product’s development is the project team’s responsibility.

A project that should have been 90 percent complete by now is only 45 percent complete. The total project budget is US$110,000, and the actual cost of work performed is US$60,000.
What can be determined from this information?

The project is under budget with a CPI of 1.21.
The project is over budget with a CPI of 0.83.
The project is under budget CPI of 0.83.
The project is over budget with a CPI of 1.21.

A stakeholder learns that the equipment purchased for a project is higher quality than initially agreed upon. The stakeholders are concerned that this deviation has negatively impacted the budget. The stakeholder contacts the project manager and demands clarification.
What action should the project manager have taken to avoid the situation?

Updated the communications management plan.
Shared results of risk analysis for the equipment.
Performed integrated change control procedures.
Conducted regular equipment quality assessments.

In an iteration review, the definition of done (DoD) was not met.

What is an appropriate way for the project manager to proceed?

Ask the project sponsor to update the project charter and reassign the authorities and responsibilities.
Request that the project team develop new features to replace the features that were rejected.
Determine the root cause with the team in the retrospective meeting and suggest plan to address the deficiencies.
Send a new change request to the change control board (CCB) for approval, adding budget to the baseline.

An agile innovation team is highly productive. However, the head of operations informs the product owner that the company is not getting sustainable return on investment from the team’s work.

How should the product owner address the problem?

Define a minimum viable product (MVP) with the team and prioritize relevant backlog items
Reduce the number of team members is necessary to guarantee a positive return on investment
Identify minimal marketable features (MMF) and prioritize relevant backlog items
Work with the project manager to run a retrospective and perform project cancellation

In a hybrid product design project, the team encounters a 3D printer malfunction, resulting in costly losses of titanium supplies. When the production team tells the agile programming team about the problem, it becomes clear that mistranslated data sheets create issues for both teams. However, the agile team resolved their problems a month before the malfunction.

What could the agile team have done to prevent the current malfunction?

Prioritize the stories impacted by information in the data sheets
Ask the product sponsor to hold the project pending translation corrections
Summarize the retrospective conclusions on information radiators
Formally request a change of supplier equipment to the project

After three agile iterations, the project showed a trend of increasingly prolonged test work, which the team performed, causing intensive backlog refinement.

What metrics show that the problem was effectively addressed?

Increase in value per story
Speed of impediment resolution
Stories completed per iteration
Decrease in backlog story size

While a project manager prepares the monthly project status report, four new risks are identified. These new risks could affect critical milestones.

What should the project manager do before presenting this new risk information?

Review the risk report and lessons learned repository
Review the organizational process assets and risk register
Refer to the project risk management plan in the risk report
Add them to the risk register, analyze them for impact on the project, and identify response plans

The project manager learns that one team member needs to complete a critical path activity outside of the project, resulting in a scheduling risk for the project.

What can be done to help the project manager eliminate this risk?

Meet with the team member’s manager and negotiate for an alternative time to complete the other task
Ask the team member to focus on the critical task while obtaining an additional resource from another department
Send a report to the project sponsor, documenting noncompliance from the member’s manager
Tell the team member’s manager to release the team member from outside activities until the scheduled project activity is complete

A project that should have been 90% complete by now is only 84% complete. The total budget is $110,000 USD and the actual cost to date is $82,000 USD.

What is this project’s schedule performance index SPI and the cost performance index CPI?

SPI is .93, and the CPI is 1.13
SPI is 1.07, and the CPI is .99
SPI is 1.15, and the CPI is .93
SPI is .96, and the CPI is 1.18

After 20% of the project was completed, the customer decided to change the provider for data center implementation. The new provider’s project manager requested a meeting with the customer to clarify the project’s impact if the requirements were not well gathered.
Which project areas could be impacted if the requirements are not well gathered? (Choose 3)

Cost
Quality assurance
Schedule
Quality customer service
Quality planning

During the fourth iteration of an agile project, the customer requests a technical change to the development of the project deliverable.
What should the project manager do in this situation?

Update the project scope for this change and inform the sponsor
Inform the project team of the request, have them decide how to proceed with development, and have them coordinate the changes with the stakeholders.
Work with the stakeholders to decide how best to proceed and communicate the process changes to the project team.
Calculate the impact of the customer’s request on the schedule performance index (SPI) and communicate this to the sponsor.

During a project meeting, a team member informs the project manager that a due task was not completed on time because of a last-minute work crisis.
What should the project manager do?

Check the task dependency, priority and impact of delay on the whole project
Talk to to the team member privately, ask him/her to work overtime on the task
Ask other team members to step in and assist in the completion of the task
Review the task progress with the team and decide the course of action

As a predictive project enters the execution phase, a functional manager discovers that one of the materials to be used in the product will harm the environment and urges the project manager to switch to a more environmentally friendly material. What should the project manager’s initial response be?

Develop a proof of concept plan to assess the feasibility and impact of the change and present it to the project sponsor.
Immediately authorize the change in materials and initiate the transition to an environmentally friendly material.
Inform the functional manager that material changes are not permitted during the execution phase of the project.
Instruct the functional manager to submit a formal change request through the established change management process.

A project manager is hired to lead a project with an international pharmaceutical company. The project is in the planning stage and must adhere to a strict budget and timeline to beat competitors to market. While reviewing the project initiation documents, the project manager realizes that cost and schedule estimations for a required regulatory review have not been completed.

Which two actions should the project manager take? (Choose 2)

Create a change request to add the review.
Inform the project sponsor immediately.
Ask the organization’s compliance team to complete the review.
Perform a cost of quality (CoQ) analysis.
Determine the cost and schedule impacts.

A local government passes a law that affects the scope of a project currently in the execution phase. The regulation change was unforeseen and will take effect within weeks of the law passing. The project manager knows that the project schedule and budget will be impacted.
What should the project manager do?

Immediately halt the project until the regulation change can be incorporated into the project plan.
Delegate the responsibility for assessing the impact of the regulation change to a team member.
Proceed with the project as planned until the new regulation is implemented and the impacts are known.
Seek expert judgment to assess the impact of the regulation change on the project schedule and budget.

The latest software built for a virtual reality headset release did not include urgent change requests already implemented by the electronics work stream. The product owner informed the software team about the change during a daily meeting, but no one recorded it.

What should the project manager do to avoid this problem in the future?

Refine the product backlog with the team and product owner before the next iteration
Increase the frequency of backlog refinement meetings and note the change in the retrospective
Run an ad hoc retrospective and add the urgent change process to the team charter
Remind the team that the role requires fast and proactive problem-solving

The customer contemplates adding new features to a project deliverable.

Which mandatory step must the project manager take before a project team member can start working on these new features?

Verify requirements
Ensure approval from the responsible individual identified in the project management plan
Gain approval from the project sponsor
Ensure key subject matter experts (SMEs) approve

Due to resource challenges, a contractor is late with a credit critical project deliverable, even though the work is nearly complete. The project must be delivered on time because the next project depends on the on–time completion of this one.

There is a 22% buffer in the project schedule for cost overruns, but only three weeks left in the schedule.

How can the project manager resolve this issue?

Hire a new vendor to replace the current vendor
Make use of the buffer to look into alternative vendors that can assist with project deliverables
Discuss with the vendor the contractual implications of this slippage and negotiate for on-time completion
Escalate this issue to the project sponsor immediately

A hybrid project combines IT integration and software development tasks. The predictive and agile teams seem to be working in silos, resulting in misaligned deliverables and scheduling issues.

Which two measures most effectively enable the team to better synchronize their deliverables?

(Choose two)

Alter the story size to ensure complete integration as part of the IT build requirements
Use a predictive schedule to limit the features the software team wants to develop
Create a Kanban board to track the progress of the deliverables for both teams
Breakdown IT work packages into more granular tasks to align to the software releases
Define common milestones with an overall dependency network to be used by both teams

Company executives closely monitor its progress six months into a strategic agile project. The COO expresses frustration that the last weekly burn-down chart shows the projected completion date significantly late, moving back and forward several times.

How can the project manager forecast the completion date more accurately and with more certainty?

Ensure more detail is elaborated on with the team for upcoming backlog items
Educate the executive committee on the flexible nature of agile planning
Plan for variable size iterations according to the story complexity and load
Reduce the frequency of the progress report sent to senior stakeholders

The IT integration team has a significant setback in a hybrid project. Testing has confirmed that the hardware does not support the target operating system. The agile team software release must now run on a later operating system version.

What should the project manager do next?

Meet with the scrum master to determine if the product vision is still valid
Meet with the product owner and team to update the product backlog with this issue
Work with the agile team to run a root cause analysis on why the problem did not surface earlier
Inform the team at the daily meeting and update the definition of done and definition of ready

A sponsor proposes a project scope change that is popular with the project team and key stakeholders.

What should the project manager do?

Follow the change management process.
Notify stakeholders of the change.
Update the project requirements.
Modify the work breakdown structure (WBS).

A team member is working on a critical task for a project and approaches the project manager immediately before the start of a project meeting and informs the project manager that the task was not completed on time.
What should the project manager do?

Dismiss the team member from the meeting and ask him/her to continue working on the task.
Reallocate the task to another team member and emphasize the importance of finishing it on a time.
Send an e-mail to the whole team and ask them for support in completing this specific task.
During the meeting, review all open tasks with the team and jointly decide on which action to take.

A project manager is new to the organization and is assigned to replace the project manager of an active project. What should be one of the first things the project manager does?

Schedule meetings with the project stakeholders to learn more about the project deliverables.
Setup meetings with the team members to discuss the project’s status and risks.
Conduct a Pareto analysis to identify which tasks need to be prioritized.
Prepare by reviewing the risk register and mitigation strategies.

A manufacturing project is in the implementation phase. During a status meeting, a team member tells the project manager that a solution has been found for a persistent failure of equipment used in the implementation; however, this solution is temporary, and the equipment could fail again.
Which document should the project manager update?

Issue log
Risk management plan
Assumption log
Stakeholder register

A software development project is using a hybrid development approach to apply the cost and schedule controls mandated by the project sponsor. The project team completed its second iteration 3 days earlier than planned.

Which two actions should the project team take? (Choose 2)

Spend the extra time clearing technical debt.
Hold a retrospective early and take the time off.
Use the time to get ahead for the next iteration.
Document the time and cost savings and note the change in velocity.
Adjust or tailor the iteration planning estimation process.

A project team is working on an older server to develop a software application. The team has ordered a new server for end-user testing as the older server cannot perform this testing. The new server has not arrived in time for the scheduled testing window, delaying the end-user testing.

What should the project manager do in this situation?

Review and adjust the project timeline while waiting for the new server to arrive.
Perform user testing on the current server.
Bypass user testing and proceed to the next task.
Ask the supplier to rush the delivery of the new server.

Over the past six months, the cost per story point in agile projects has risen by more than 250% due to a faulty platform that is no longer supported. The project will exceed the budget increment threshold at the next iteration.

Who should decide whether the project should be canceled?

The head of business control
The product owner
The procurement manager
The product manager

A customer requests a change in the technical approach for product development. The project manager learns about this request during a recurring project review.

How should the project manager respond?

Work with team members to immediately implement the new approach
Let the team decide on the appropriate approach, giving teams the authority to implement and select their decision in talks with stakeholders
Discuss the pros and cons of the proposed approach with stakeholders, then select the approach that is best for the team and notify team members
In order to obtain buy-in from the sponsor, allow the team to benchmark the approach

A client’s employee asks the project manager for an additional, new product feature during a status meeting.

To which document should the project manager first refer to determine who has the authority to approve this request?

Change log
Change management plan
RACI matrix
Change request document

The team working on a project encountered and resolved a technical issue, allowing the project to continue. The project manager has been warned that the same issue will probably arise in similar projects.

What should the project manager do first when responding to this warning?

Ensure that the issue log is updated and update the lessons learned register
Create a risk report and keep the report current
Notify the project sponsor about the warning
Ensure that the lessons learned repository is updated

The project manager schedules an iteration review and learns that key stakeholders disapprove of the development of a feature.

What should the project manager do first to address the issue?

Invite project team members and stakeholders to attend a brainstorming session to identify an appropriate response
Address the stated issue only during a retrospective, including the stakeholders who are concerned
Ask the project sponsor to function as a neutral party in negotiation with those stakeholders who are dissatisfied
Determine the impact of the conflict by listing the pros and cons of the situation

Before the next iteration begins, the project team must meet an unexpected challenge that threatens to delay the current pace. The task in the next iteration cannot be completed because of this challenge. Another team within the project depends on the timely completion of the task in order to fulfill their work.

How should the project manager resolve the issue?

Meet with both teams separately and challenge them to figure out a way to meet the required deadlines and complete the project on time
Meet with the product owner to prioritize the iteration backlog so that it does not impact the teams or obligations
Increase the number of team members for the project team and increase the duration, ensuring that the work will be completed according to schedule
Let the team members know you want them to do their best under difficult circumstances, and make sure to note the iterations challenges in the next retrospective

What is the schedule variance if PV = 4000, AC = 2000 and CPI = .75?

-1,500
-1,750
-2,500
-2,750

An agile project team has implemented design changes over several iterations. The data privacy officer is concerned because their team wasn’t involved in these decisions.
How should the project manager address these concerns?

Ensure that a data privacy team member attends every future daily standup
Request the data privacy officer assign a data privacy team member to join the project team.
Set up a meeting with the data privacy officer to identify and implement a process to meet requirements.
Meet with the project owner to reverse the changes the project team made without consulting the data privacy team.

A project manager struggles to keep a technical system implementation on track after losing a critical team member two months ago. The project has missed multiple milestones and is now in critical status.
What should the project manager have done to prevent this situation?

Replaced the key member with a more experienced one.
Reassigned the key member's tasks to other team members.
Motivated the team to meet all milestones and deadlines.
Identified the risks early and developed a mitigation plan.

After comparing actual results to the performance measurement baseline, the project manager discovers that the project’s work and cost performance measures are better than expected. The project manager doubts that these favorable variances can continue until the end of the project.
What should the project manager do?

Conduct performance reviews with the team members.
Update the risk register.
Notify the stakeholders.
Review the project management plan.

A 10-month site development project started on 1 January. The current performance is as follows:

* The schedule performance index (SPI) is 1.2.
* 80% of the work is complete.
* The planned value of the project is US$100,000.
* The cost performance index (CPI) is 1.1.

Which option identifies the current time and actual cost (AC)?

It is August and the AC is US$100,000.
It is July and the AC is less than US$80,000.
It is June and the AC is US$100,000.
It is July and the AC is more than US$80,000.

A project manager is leading a development project for an external customer in another country. The project manager’s company is required to comply with certain regulations, and the project manager’s project has been selected for an audit. The customer does not think the audit is necessary and has asked the project manager not to disturb the project team.

What should the project manager do?

Exclude the project development team from the compliance audit as requested by the customer.
Initiate the audit without informing the customer because the company is required to comply.
Schedule a steering committee meeting with all stakeholders to discuss and come to a common understanding.
Meet with the customer to explain the need to meet the compliance requirements and proceed with the audit.

The success of an ongoing agile project is measured as follows: (table)

Sprint	Stories Planned	Stories Completed	Planned Value	Earned Value
1	15	10	450K	300K
2	20	18	600K	540K
3	20	25	800K	1000K
4	22	25	1100K	1250K

Two weeks Sprint – stories planned – stories completed – plan value – earned value

What two conclusions can be drawn from these figures?

(Choose two)

The teamwork is less efficiently over time
The tracking was not prioritized for time to value
The backlog was prioritized for time to value
The team maintained a steady rate of efficiency
The team worked more efficiently over time

The project is seven months into execution. The project manager determines that the cost performance index CPI is .80.

According to a trend analysis, the CPI has a downward trend.

What should the project manager do next?

Issue a change request to redo the cost baseline
Just ask for additional resources
Crash the project schedule
Utilize the management reserve

A new law is expected within the next six months that will affect the business product line. The following product is launching and should be completed within three months. Unfortunately, the new product will not meet the proposed law’s requirements.

How should the project manager respond to this potential problem?

Schedule a meeting with the sponsor and key stakeholders to determine risk. Then, using the results of the meeting, revise the assumption log in the project charter if needed
Revise the risk management plan. Then, move ahead with planning the project
Move ahead with the project, following the plan. Then, ensure on-time completion, so that the project will not be affected by any possible rule change.
Schedule a meeting with the sponsor and key stakeholders to warn them about the new law. Then, advise them to cancel the project until the legislation is finalized.

A project that should have been 70% complete by now but is currently only 55% complete. The total budget is USD $210,000, and the actual spent today is USD $162,000.

What is this project’s schedule performance index (SPI) and the cost performance index (CPI)?

(Try to estimate and eliminate answers before doing the math)

SPI is 0.79, and the CPI is 0.71
SPI is 1.27, and the CPI is 0.98
SPI is 0.82, and the CPI is 1.05
SPI is .99, and the CPI is .96

A project manager receives complaints from a project sponsor because of the delay in developing a prototype.

The project manager consulted with the resource management plan and discovered that the delay was due to a lack of knowledge in a specific skill that was needed by the cross-functional project team.

How can the project manager perform this task better in the future?

Create training sessions at the start of the project so all necessary skills are learned
List required skills for the project and organize the project team based on those skills
Consult with the project sponsor to add training since the lack of a specific skill becomes apparent
Empower team members to problem-solve where skills may be lacking, using the skills that they currently have

An efficient, agile team in a large corporation generated ideas and added innovative features to the backlog. After the additional features are evaluated and completed, the portfolio owner rejects all of them.

What is the most likely reason the situation happened?

The team did not use the normal quality control processes
The product manager refuses to pay for the teams and unplanned work
The team would be entitled to intellectual property rights on the features
The product owner did not sufficiently align the ideas with a portfolio owner

How might performance metrics be distorted?

When out-of-sequence activities that are easy to accomplish are worked on to improve performance indcators
By staffing the team with highly competent resources
By revising the project baselines as changes are approved
By leveraging lessons learned to improve team performance

A project manager is working with a new team on an agile project. The team is regularly missing milestones and are unable to meet the pace of the sprints.
How should the project manager proceed?

Contact the sponsor to see if additional budget can be made available to incent the team members financially to improve performance.
Reference earlier sprints completed by the team and modify future sprints to align with the team’s velocity to enable success.
Reach out to stakeholders to identify individuals with more experience to replace the slower project team members.
Train the team on how to use Kanban to improve their overall performance.

During a team meeting, team members discussed a project’s external dependencies and asked the project manager for advice. What should the project manager ask the team to do?

The team must list out products launched by the competitors and try to copy their style.
The team must list all external dependencies and assess their impact on project deliveries.
The team must list out the impact of a new competitor in the market.
The team must concentrate on their assigned work and forget external dependencies. This will not affect their work.

A project is showing a negative schedule variance. The project manager sees that one team is causing the delays.
What should the project manager do?

Meet with the team to identify strategies to resolve the delays.
Meet with the project sponsor to determine an approach to getting back on schedule.
Run a risk analysis to determine the impact of the delays on project success.
Meet with human resources to discuss possible actions to get project back on schedule.

A project team has intermittent problems with transportation to a remote site. Work is scheduled for an 18-month interval that includes only one rainy season to minimize the impact. However, now the site has been overrun by invasive weeds. Specialists are needed to inspect the site, but the timeline has been impacted and the project is in danger of being derailed.

How should the project team handle this situation?

Prioritize the issues according to their impacts to scope, schedule, cost, and quality.
Escalate the situation to the project sponsor.
Wait for the specialists to inspect and advise.
Accept the schedule extension and the incurred cost.

Multiple stakeholders express dissatisfaction with a project deliverable.
What should the project manager do next?

Review the final scope statement.
Update the risk management plan.
Review the documented project requirements.
Schedule a meeting with the stakeholders.

The customer indicates they would like to add functionality to a product in development. Although this request was made during the execution stage of the project, the project manager determined that the cost for the additional cost would be small. The additional functionality, if successful, would increase the opportunity for profit.

What should the project manager do next?

Acknowledge the functionality would offer a great opportunity, but determine that the product proposed addition is out of scope
Submit a change request and then evaluate the impact on the project
Move forward, using the project management reserve to add the requested functionality
Identify an already developed feature to combine with the new functionality and use the combination to meet the customer’s request

Ongoing agile project is measured as follows:

Sprint	Stories Planned	Stories Completed	Planned Value	Earned Value
1	15	10	450K	300K
2	20	18	600K	540K
3	20	25	800K	1000K
4	22	25	1100K	1250K

Total	77	78	2950K	3090K

According to the table, which two of the following are the project metrics?

(Choose two)

SPI equals 0.98
CPI equals 1.05
CPI equals 1.30
SPI equals 1.01

The project team has been efficiently delivering results. The product upgrade they are working on must be released in three months, or else the competitor’s new product will make theirs obsolete. Citing that reason, the product owner suddenly requests a feature revision. However, no one on the project team is capable of doing the work. The project sponsor is willing to extend the budget but cannot extend the schedule.

What should the project manager do?

Meet the new demand by adding new resources with the required skills
Recommend suspending the project until a firm decision can be made
Discuss options with the project sponsor and choose the best one
Challenge the request and initiate customer research to determine whether the new feature is desirable

A steering committee has replaced the project’s single sponsor due to a significant increase in the project size.

What should the project manager how should the project manager approach this change?

Taylor communications to the new steering committee, recognizing that there has been a change in stakeholder structure
Follow the initial project plan risk recognizing that the sponsor is the key stakeholder, and the new committee members work in a lesser capacity
Schedule an introductory meeting with the new steering committee meeting committee and the team while continuing to follow the initial project plan
Ensure that the new steering committee members receive the project’s current status report

Several items remain blocked in a Kanban column despite the team’s effort to address that. The retrospective reveals that the impediments can be traced back to a particular department head. Previously, the project manager has tried to educate the stakeholders, but they still show resistance.

What should the project manager do next?

Ask the department head for budgetary compensation proportional to the delays incurred due to the lack of cooperation
Use stakeholder analysis to identify an aligned senior stakeholder to influence the department head
Ask the team member to find other stakeholders who can help work around the department head barrier
Set up an information radiator ranking stakeholders according to their active support of the project goals

A project manager identifies three critical risks with the probability of high impact on the schedule and budget of the project. This project is producing critical deliverables for the company.

The team member meets to devise a solution for the risk and decide that three specific resources will be required to address the risk. However, these resources are already committed to a separate project, which a different project manager manages.

Which party should the project manager work with first to find a solution?

The project team members – to assist in training the new team members quickly so they can complete work on time
The project sponsor – to request more funding for the budget to hire contractors
The three resources – to convince them to join the team or, at least, agree to coach the existing team
The other project manager – to negotiate reallocation or sharing of the three required resources

How might a project manager in a predictive environment choose to tailor the team’s approach to address too much work in progress and high rates of scrap (waste)?

By streamlining approval decisions through having fewer people authorized to make decisions
By using a burn-down chart to depict progress towards deliverables
By adding more feedback verification loops and quality assurace steps
By using lean techniques like value stream mapping and kanban boards to visualize work, identify issues, and propose solutions

At the end of an iteration, a team member tells the project manager that a planned task is unfinished because of an issue that appeared days ago but could not be resolved. Why should the project manager discuss the issue during the retrospective to prevent this type of situation in the future?

It is a timely opportunity to discuss issues and ideas for improvement to encourage team-based problem solving.
It allows the project manager to address the issue during a demo, which leads to high levels of buy-in from the team members.
The team member will have the opportunity to resolve the issue before the retrospective.
The project manager can emphasize how to maximize the time available to resolve the issue.

A project manager learns that a few stakeholders disagree regarding the results of one project deliverable.
What is the next step the project manager should take?

Review and analyze the project requirements document.
Review the approved version of a scope statement.
Organize a meeting with the stakeholders.
Modernize documented project risks and their responses.

A project manager identifies a risk during the implementation phase of a project that was not anticipated during planning. How would facilitating a brainstorming session allow the project manager to mitigate the risk while keeping the project on schedule?

Brainstorming would enable the project manager to apply qualitative data analysis techniques.
Brainstorming with the project team can identify multiple ideas in a short amount of time.
Brainstorming with project stakeholders can result in new assumptions regarding risk tolerance.
Brainstorming ways to add funding can help mitigate the risk and compress the schedule.

A competitor company has accused a project of an intellectual property (IP) violation, specifically use without permission. In a letter addressed to the CEO, the competitor company’s lawyer demands surrender of the prototypes and all collateral containing the IP. The project sponsor encourages the project manager to keep working and deliver the product as planned.

What should the project manager do?

Stop all work until the legal issue is resolved.
Meet with the team to decide on continuing the work.
Initiate a cost-benefit analysis.
Consult a legal subject matter expert (SME) about the alleged violation.

During a high-risk project, several risks have been materialized and responses have been implemented, However, the project still appears to be in trouble. The project manager is concerned that the risk management rules are not being carried out as specified.
What should the project manager do to identify the weaknesses of the risk management process?

Transfer the risks.
Update the risk register.
Request a risk audit.
Analyze the risks.

A project is 50% completed.

An essential project team member requests two months’ leave for personal matters.

What should the project manager do first?

Check with this team member to see if the leave can be postponed
Discuss the issue with the functional manager and request a replacement
Assess how the leave will impact the project
Refer to the resource management plan

A project manager works with the customer who repeatedly submits requests for new requirements for existing software products.

The project manager has already provided the stakeholders with the completed scope definition for the product’s next version release.

Which step is appropriate for the project manager to take next?

Hold a meeting with the product manager to request that the number of new requests be reduced
Define project boundaries immediately with the sponsor
Organize a meeting with the stakeholders to set expectations
Analyze the scope management plan to see how changes in scope are managed

The trend shows that stories are incomplete, which becomes apparent at the end of the iterations. Several team members worked on the stories, and no blockers were identified.

How can the agile team resolve the situation?

Put the stories back into the product backlog and wait for a less intensive iteration to work on them
Use the next iteration for a team spike to determine the feasibility of completing the stories
Put the stories in the blocked column and work with the product owner to remove impediments
Work with the product owner to further break down the stories in the backlog and update the definition of ready

The project has a quality management plan in place.

This plan states the project deliverables must be reviewed for quality at least five business days before the deadline.

What should the project manager do for deliverables that fail the quality requirement?

Generate a cause-and-effect diagram for analysis
Rewrite relevant portions of the quality management plan
Inquire regarding the feasibility of an internal audit of the project
Contact the project sponsor

A contractor sent an email request for urgent payment of their last invoice on a project going through a long execution phase stage with multiple contractors.

How should the project manager respond to the contractor’s request?

Negotiate payment terms at a meeting with the sponsor and the contractor
Authorize the payment by notifying accounts payable and follow-up to ensure it was made
Act according to the agreed-upon commitments in the procurement management plan and the signed agreement/contract
Authorize payment only after reviewing the forecast spent versus actual spend to see if the actual status allows it.

During an iteration, the project team working in France encounters problems that may cause a delay in the completion of a specific task. Teams in Spain need the task to be completed to meet their schedules. These teams work together virtually.

What can the project manager do to resolve the problem?

Ask the team in Spain to work harder to complete on time to avoid delaying the work of the other teams
Ask the teams to collaborate virtually to find a solution to avert the potential delay
Increase the iteration length and add additional resources to the project team so that they can meet the appropriate deadlines
Ask team members to perform to the best of their abilities during the iteration and engage in a retrospective after completion of the iteration

A project management organization needs to assess the performance of two project teams. Both projects have the same scope of work, but Team 1 works virtually and has calculated 100 story points, while Team 2 works in the office and has calculated 80 story points.
Which team has the better performance?

Team 1 because they work virtually.
Team 2 because they work in the office.
Team 1 with 100 story points performed better than Team 2 with 80 story points.
Team 2 with 80 story points performed better than Team 1 with 100 story points

Two stakeholders informed the project manager that the status of a critical project phase was not communicated to them. Although the project phase is in these stakeholders’ areas of interest, the stakeholders have only recently been identified. What should the project manager do first?

Review the communications management plan.
Perform a stakeholder analysis and update the stakeholder register.
Identify new ways to send project status reports to all stakeholders.
Schedule a status meeting and invite the two new stakeholders.

While reviewing the quality of deliverables with the team, the project manager determined that several quality issues could have been avoided by using a checklist. The project manager implements a checklist to ensure that future deliverables align with the project management plan.
What did the project manager do in this situation?

Defined new quality metrics.
Used corrective action.
Facilitated a retrospective.
Conducted a lessons-learned meeting.

Which type of key performance indicators (KPIs) provide early warning signs of potential problems?

Appraisal indicators
Leading indicators
Lagging indicators
Variance indicators

An external provider is late with the delivery of a finished item. As a measure of goodwill, and to maintain the project’s schedule, the provider offers to bear the cost of renting a temporary system.

Since no schedule slippage will occur, what should the project manager do next?

Account for this additional resource in the work breakdown structure (WBS).
Take no further actions because there is no schedule slippage.
Conduct the Perform Integrated Change Control process.
Update the project documents.

An empowered agile team showed impressive progress in the first four iterations, but now the product owner has noticed low output in the latest five iterations without any apparent reason.

What could be the cause of this situation?

The team worked on low-complexity stories from the backlog in the first four iterations
Technical debt has set in, and the team’s output will keep dropping until the cause is eliminated
The team was in the storming stage in the development and now has moved to norming
d. There is most likely a specific under-performing team member slowing the team down

The product owner repeatedly complains, saying that a function developed by the development team does not seem to align with the original design.

What will help to solve this issue?

Ask the product owner to explain his point of view clearly to the team
Ask the quality assurance team to identify any mismatches and functionality compared to the initial design
Ask the development team to rewrite the function so that it matches with the project scope
Update the product owner twice per week on product development

Significant variations have occurred with the project scope and schedule after six iterations. These are due to the customer’s technology regulations and security policies, which are regularly reviewed. The project manager suggests taking innovative approaches to the next iteration to avoid possible delays.

What should the project manager do first?

Rank the importance of each improvement item, then implement actions identified during the last retrospective
Engage in a cost-benefit analysis that can help predict the profit that could be realized through the use of new technology in the next phase
Research new technology trends and management tools that had been successful in similar projects
Attend the backlog refinement meeting and include the customer’s change requests in the discussion

Most of an agile team’s members are away for a month, but the project must make progress. The project manager outsources the work to overseas contractors to work remotely on the stories. In their first sprint, the overseas team did not understand specific usability requirements but still managed to complete five previously blocked stories because the original team could not handle the algorithmic complexity of the work.

What should the project manager do in this situation to make progress on the project?

Engage an interpreter to translate all the requirements
Assigned all the usability stories to the remote remaining local team members
Reprioritize the backlog to match the remote team skills
Find another remote team with better linguistic skills

An R&D unit executive who is a project stakeholder occasionally visits the agile team’s work area to give instructions about urgent feature work. The team begins work. During the sprint reviews, the product owner became upset that the team worked on the requested features.

How should the project manager address the problem?

Escalate to ensure that the executive no longer interferes with the team
Meet with the executive and product owner to agree on a workflow
Ensure that the executive issue change requests for the four new items
Give the executive access to add new items to the backlog

A project manager is also a business manager in a highly regulated industry. The project sponsor, a high-level executive, has asked for changes that disregard legal requirements.

What should be the first step in the project manager’s response?

Immediately schedule a meeting with the stakeholders to discuss the situation
Request the change control board to cease approval of change requests
Check with the organization’s relevant legal practitioner for guidance
Review the organization’s lessons learned repository for precedents and direction

What does it mean that deliverables have been verified?

They have been accepted by the customer
They have been turned over to the customer
They have been inspected during quality control testing
They have been completed by a project team member

The stakeholders and project team working on an agile project meet with the project manager at the end of an iteration. The project manager learns that the schedule is slipping, although all work was planned to meet the high-level objectives outlined in the project scope.
What should the project manager have done to keep the project on track?

Worked with the team to understand their expectations of using the agile approach.
Empowered team members to self-organize specific tasks to meet the objectives.
Prioritized work that could have had an early finish to allow for early benefits realization.
Selected and sequenced the work in order to meet the high-level objectives.

A project manager learns that the project team will miss a milestone because team member A has not completed the task requirements needed by team member B. When meeting with team member A, what should the project manager do?

Direct team member A to turn over the responsibilities for completing the task requirements to team member B.
Identify any obstacles to meeting the task requirements and determine if team member A needs help completing them.
Ask team member A to work directly with team member B to complete the requirements in order to meet the milestone.
Ask team member A to recommend a replacement who can complete the task requirements.

A project is entering the user acceptance testing phase. After several business end users raised questions and concerns, the project manager discovered that critical business requirements were omitted from the business requirements analysis.
What should the project manager do to resolve this issue?

Interview the team that analyzed to learn why these business requirements were omitted.
Modify the requirements management plan and communicate to the stakeholders that the project schedule might be impacted.
Schedule a meeting with the project sponsor to report end users' concerns.
Meet with the change control board (CCB) to review change requests.

A skincare company reports growing customer complaints about underweight products.

The project manager needs to determine if a change on the production line is needed.

Which tool or technique can the project manager use for this task?

Scatter diagram
Affinity diagram
Control chart
Histogram

A project has the following characteristics:

To determine what products should be created, a feasibility study was conducted.
A change request was approved to develop another product that contradicts the original requirements.
Data analysis was conducted before the change request was approved

Which action should the project manager take?

Execute the change requests
Decline the change requests
Ask for a detailed report on the data analysis results
Ask for a feasibility study of the new product

An agile team needs help to solve a blocking issue with packaging design. Eventually, they find a solution, requiring a different product format.

What should the team do before further developing the solution?

Create a prototype and demo it to the end customer
Ask the product owner to approve the change
Run a cost-benefit analysis to determine its value
Check if the change is consistent with the product vision

A planned task in a sprint was nearly completed because of an issue that appeared three days prior but was not resolved. The team revealed it in the next daily standup meeting, but the project manager wants to prevent this type of situation.

Which of the following should the project manager do?

During the retrospective, examine the issue
In the demo, address the issue
During the next iteration planning meeting, discuss the issue
Document it in the risk register

A project manager must ensure that all data security requirements are covered during a data warehouse development project’s execution stage. Each database created during different project phases must have a specific data security policy to comply with governmental data security laws.

How should the project manager plan to meet these requirements?

Plan a database development specification, then regularly check to ensure the work aligns with the specification
Arrange a review of the data security status every quarter, and recommend remedial steps for noncompliance items
Tell the database developer to submit documentation of data security items and the steps they intend to take to correct items that are not that do not meet specification
Add a quality assurance specialist resource to the project team, who will be responsible for monitoring the data security quality of the project

The project team collected sensitive client data during the initial stages of a project to help develop the project management plan. The team is now working on deliverables for the project when the compliance manager discovers a data breach and alerts the team to a compliance issue.

What document should the project manager review first?

Statement of work
Issue log
Business case
Risk register

What is an acceptable cause for revising a project’s baselines?

A change to project scope with a schedule extension that requires no additional funding has been approved
A change has been requested by the CEO to add a new feature
A delay on a critical path activity has been reported
A risk event previously identified by the team has occurred, and the contingency reserve is needed to fund the risk response

The director of security compliance is upset because the compliance team has not been informed about the product design decisions taken by the agile team members over the past five iterations.
What should the project manager do to start correcting the situation?

Invite a delegate from the security compliance team to attend the daily standup meetings.
Ask the security compliance director to assign a delegate from the compliance team to work full time with the agile team.
Meet with the security compliance director to determine a strategy to fulfill the compliance requirements.
Ask the product owner to increase the budget to add iterations for the re-work needed for compliance.

A project manager leads a project with an aggressive timeline that requires fast time to market because a competitor is working on a similar product. The project team cannot meet the go-live date, and no other internal resources can assist.
How should the project manager mitigate this risk?

Look for external resources who can assist in meeting the required go live date.
Ask the team to remove the obstacles preventing them from meeting the go-live date.
Ask the project sponsor to set a new go-live date based on available resources.
Ask the team to focus only on the critical features and meet the go-live date.

A significant risk to a project is identified, and the risk management plan is executed. Upon completion of the approved actions, what should the project manager do?

Update the risk management plan.
Revise the project schedule and the budget.
Update the lessons learned.
Identify new risks and monitor residual risks.

A project manager recognizes that certain components must be imported to meet the project’s requirements. However, due to the potential impact of an unfavorable exchange rate, the project manager decides that incurring a loss is not justifiable and chooses not to take any action to mitigate it.

Which risk response strategy did the project manager employ?

Transfer
Avoid
Minimize
Accept

The company has hired a new architectural excellence board to promote new programming paradigms. The agile team continues to work on new and existing software products.

How should the project manager deal with this new development?

Inform the agile team that resulting changes will be postponed as long as possible
Be patient and wait until the board gives the team explicit instructions
Speak with the product owner to add this change to the backlog
Negotiate with the board to prevent disruptions to the teamwork

The agile team will take over from another supplier to maintain a client’s website. The team notices that recent browser changes imply that most of the website’s existing content would now require users to install a plug-in.

How should the agile team move forward?

Inform the client and propose an impact analysis
Update all pre-existing code to remove plug-in dependencies
Inform the client about the previous suppliers negligence
Deliver the code updates as defined in the contract

The agile teams surpasses the planned number of stories in the last three agile iterations.

How can the project manager be sure all the work performed is complete?

As the product owner, if results are satisfactory
Check results against the definition of done
Ask the team to cross-check one other member’s work
Check the results of the tests performed

The pandemic has caused delays, making it exceedingly difficult to launch a new product on time. Television ads for launch dates have already been purchased, so the CEO has asked the project manager to find a way to launch the product even if some minor features are not included.

What would be the most effective step toward a successful and timely product launch?

Double the size of the team to ensure that any defects will be detected and corrected as soon as possible
Ask the team to remove the task most likely to fail on the first attempt and the scope requirements relating to those tasks
Fast-track the schedule and establish new test and readiness milestones as close as possible to the planned launch date
Plan a parallel iterative track to develop requirements for a minimum viable product (MVP) and de-scope unnecessary predictive task

Certain key stakeholders are dissatisfied with the development of the project’s key feature. They express their dissatisfaction during an iteration review meeting.

What should the project manager do first to resolve this issue?

Gather the project team for a brainstorming session and identify the solution
Identify the reasons why there are issues with the feature, then address the issues
Create a list of the pros and cons of the situation to define the impact of the conflict
Ask a neutral party, such as the project sponsor, to function as a negotiator with the stakeholders

After completing a project, the team meets to conduct a lessons-learned session. During this meeting, the team saw that all deliverables were completed within the defined parameters. However, during the testing, a large number of errors were identified.
What should the project manager have done in this situation?

Set up a meeting with the testing team to get more information about the testing methods.
Evaluated when the mitigation strategy will be implemented to prepare for future projects.
Conducted a Monte Carlo analysis, which will determine potential outcomes and responses.
Planned for these errors in the risk register to look for in future projects.

A project manager is responsible for a new agile project that is global in nature. After a few sprints have been completed, the quality assurance team, based in a different country from the PM, has generated a long defect list. The PM is certain that these issues are not related to project quality, but are from language misinterpretation.
What should the project manager do to address these issues?

Request additional budget to hire a local quality assurance team.
When the project is nearing completion, merge the development team with the quality assurance team to test the deliverables.
Meet with the quality assurance team to criticize the list they provided.
While performing sessions with the full project team, review the project requirements and their descriptions.

A project that should have been 75 percent complete by now is only 65 percent complete. The total project budget is US$200,000, and the actual cost of work performed is US$110,000.
What can be determined from this information?

The project is under budget, has an SPI of 0.94, and a CPI of 1.04.
The project is over budget, has an SPI of 1.04, and a CPI of 0.94.
The project is over budget, has an SPI of 1.18, and a CPI of 0.87.
The project is under budget and has an SPI of 0.87 and a CPI of 1.18.

A vendor informs a project manager that the equipment can be delivered earlier than anticipated. The project manager recognizes that this is an opportunity to complete the project ahead of schedule.
What should the project manager do next?

Request management approval.
Use the equipment offered.
Revise the project schedule.
Determine if there is a risk.

A project manager identifies new risks that might affect the completion of critical tasks. The project manager needs to present these new risks to project stakeholders in the monthly status report.

In addition to the risk report, which document should the project manager reference when preparing the status report?

Risk register
Assumption log
Risk management plan
Probability and impact matrix

A merger of two companies combines an agile software project and a predictive electronics project into a hybrid project. Two months later, requirements changed in both tracks, but neither had a complete picture of the status or importance of the requirements.

How can the project manager best resolve the problem?

Integrate the product backlog into the requirements specification and educate this software team on working with a new document
Create a requirements traceability matrix by combining the product backlog with the requirements specifications
Integrate the revised work packages and updated product backlog items into a new master WBS for progress tracking
Integrate the requirements specification into a product into the product backlog, educate the electronics team, and work with the new document

The marketing director is displeased that the agile innovation team is producing too many novelty products with too little business value.

Which two approaches should the project manager take to correct the team’s approach?

(Choose two)

Work with the product owner to tighten the value criteria in the definition of ready
Ask the team to take a training course on direct marketing
Increase story sizes to integrate more valuable features
Survey end users and integrate resulting values rank into the product backlog
Add a product process so the marketing director can approve each story

Several unforeseen impediments suddenly appear on the Kanban board for a hybrid project. Each team member has reported one or more different problems relating to a regulatory specification issued by the predictive track.

Which parameter is likely to be highest in the risk assessment?

Manageability
Dormancy
Connectivity
Controllability

Some customers and users have not completed the required training. The project manager must consider the risk it poses to project’s timely completion. End-user training is a required project deliverable.

Which action should the project manager perform?

Update the risk register to document the concerns and then develop a plan to ensure the end-users complete their training
Revise the risk register and discuss it at the next project status meeting
Dedicate additional post-implementation support to mitigate the risk
Modify the project schedule to account for the training delay

The project sponsor asked the project manager to change production materials because these materials could cause health problems for the consumers.

Which step should the project manager take?

Follow the planned change control process and thoroughly investigate the matter
Immediately implement the change and submit a change request for formal documentation
Continue the current work and start the change control process
Reject the change because the request is outside the scope

A team misunderstood one product functionality documented in an earlier project stage. During the current iteration, the functionality has not yet been developed, but a business representative has mentioned the deficiency.

How should the project manager proceed?

The functionality was formally approved, so initiate the change management process
Schedule a meeting to discuss and brainstorm the functionality with the project team and business representative
Ensure that the issue is addressed by escalating it to the project sponsor, who should discuss it with the representatives
Continue with the current sprint, recognizing the issue will be identified during the testing phase

What should you do to reduce risk exposure when previously approved risk responses have not been implemented?

Submit a change request to exploit an opportunity that may potentially counter the effects of the ignored risk responses
Privately meet with the stakeholders associated with the issue and collaborate to remove any impediments to the risk responses
Reassign risk ownership to team members who are more engaged in the project
Escalate the issue by calling a meeting with the stakeholders and their senior managers to discuss disciplinary measures

A key stakeholder has submitted several requests for new functions for a product under development. The project manager just completed the scope definition for the product’s next version release and communicated the scope statement to all stakeholders.
What should the project manager do next?

Revise the communications management plan to define the number of new feature and function requests that can be submitted.
Review the acceptance criteria for the product deliverables as defined in the scope statement.
Meet with stakeholders to emphasize their alignment with product objectives and the goals of the project.
Review the scope management plan to determine how new functionality requests are to be accommodated.

A project team received training on the technology involved with a project deliverable. Several team members have been replaced in nine months of working on the project. Productivity has slowed because new team members are unfamiliar with the technology, and the project schedule is at risk of being delayed.
What should the project manager do?

Meet with the entire team and ask existing members to train the new team members.
Negotiate an increase in budget with the project sponsor for additional training for the new team members.
Issue a change request for new team members already trained in the relevant technology.
Facilitate a workshop with a subject matter expert to familiarize team members with the technology.

A project manager is leading a project to develop a new system for a government agency using a predictive approach. The project’s governance framework is designed to ensure that the system meets the needs of the stakeholders and complies with all applicable regulations. The project manager receives an approved change request for a project’s governance framework.
What should the project manager do to implement this change?

Review the changes to the governance framework and update relevant planning documents.
Recalculate the duration of project activities affected by the change to the governance framework.
Put the project on hold until the impact of the governance framework can be assessed.
Submit the formal change request to the project steering committee for final approval.

A project is nearing completion when the project manager learns that a change in market regulations may impact the project. What should the project manager do?

Check the stakeholder register.
Update the cost baseline.
Review the risk management plan.
Perform a cost-benefit analysis.

Before preparing a monthly project status report, project team brings three risks to the project manager’s attention.

The project manager wants to reference additional information before presenting this as new risk information.

Where can the project manager look to evaluate these risks?

Issue log
Risk register
Risk management plan
Lessons learned repository

A project manager for a construction firm meets with stakeholders. All stakeholders agree on a 20-month lifecycle for a project. After work has begun, the project manager learns that stakeholders would like the project to be completed within 16 months at most.

Which step should the project manager take?

Negotiate with the stakeholders to reduce project requirements
Add team members to the project
Ask team members to work more quickly
Reduce the scope and crash the schedule
Advise against modifying the timeline

While reviewing the issue log, the project manager notices that tasks assigned to two team members are behind schedule.

What should the project manager do?

Notify the responsible team members of this need to complete the overdue task quickly to avoid introducing extra project risk
Document the issue, escalate to the project sponsor, and ask how they would like it resolved
Tell the team members who are behind schedule that they should explain why tasks were delayed and how they will get back on schedule
Work with the relevant team members to review the delayed task and decide on strategies for resolution

A project is started with an approved scope.

As the team implements the project design, a team member states that the product will not meet approved requirements in certain situations. Correcting the issue increases scope and cost, and the project will also miss the deadline.

The project sponsor does not have additional funding to support the project.

What should the project manager do first?

Perform risk management analysis
Follow the change control process
Crash the schedule
Contact the customer and negotiate for risk acceptance

An organizational change program has met with internal resistance, a previously identified risk. A logistics manager is particularly affected, due to the reduction of the team size and the rate of change driven by agile planning of the predictive implementation. The product manager or supervisor formally requests the change program to delay the team’s implementation.

What should the project manager do next in response to this request?

Work with the project sponsor to re-prioritize the program backlog sequence
Request that the sponsor escalate the strategic issue to the executive committee
Perform root cause analysis on the key factors causing the manager’s resistance
Review the risk register and implement the relevant risk responses for the case

A project manager for a virtual team reviews progress during the third iteration of project product development. Still, the team dashboard that shows progress on work is faulty and is not showing updates.

What action should the project manager take?

Keep the team working and send frequent email updates to the stakeholders
Rank the need to fix the dashboard according to the business value for upcoming iterations
Get the dashboard fixed
Document the issue as a new project risk and propose a solution

Since the beginning of the project, the product owner has kept asking during ceremonies about the budget spent on each iteration. The product owner seems much more interested in the cost than in the product itself.
What should the project manager have done earlier to change the product owner’s behavior?

Worked on different approaches of estimating to give confidence in the cost spent in each product increment
Worked on a communications management plan with reports of the budget spent in each iteration versus planned to avoid these discussions during ceremonies
Worked with the product owner to clarify their role in an agile project and the scope of the agile ceremonies
Worked on a fixed-price contract to switch the product owner's attention to value instead of money

A project team received training on the technology involved with a project deliverable. Several team members have been replaced in nine months of working on the project. Productivity has slowed because new team members are unfamiliar with the technology, and the project schedule is at risk of being delayed.
What should the project manager do?

Meet with the customer as soon as possible to discuss changes to the blueprint.
Begin construction as scheduled while simultaneously reviewing the blueprint with the customer.
Discuss the process of deliverable component acceptance with the customer.
Review the stakeholder engagement plan and stakeholder expectations.

A supplier for a regulatory project is responsible for making the component changes. The supplier is unlikely to meet the project schedule. Based on the risk response plan, the project manager secured stakeholder approval to use paper forms until the component changes go live. It is still possible, however, that the paper form changes may not be ready in time.
Which risk type is the project manager facing in this situation?

Secondary risk
Residual risk
Primary risk
Compliance risk

A new project manager resumes a project in its execution phase. During a project status meeting, a team member reports an issue shared by a stakeholder.

What should the new project manager do first?

Review the issue log.
Immediately address the issue.
Review the stakeholder engagement plan
Update the risk management plan.

An innovative product fails to satisfy targeted consumers despite significant investments in quality control and marketing campaigns.

Which agile practice will prevent future failures of this nature?

Run continuous consumer usability testing and on product releases
Align objectives between the product owner and marketing
Identify the persona type of the target consumer
Add more features and tests to the minimum viable product (MVP)

A project manager is working on a software development project.

The completed scope definition for the project’s next version release has already been provided to stakeholders; however, two customers are repeatedly submitting new feature requests.

What should the project manager do next?

Ask to meet with the product manager and discuss reducing the number of new requests
Meet with the sponsor immediately to discuss project boundaries
Meet face-to-face with stakeholders to set expectations
Assess the scope management plan to see how changes in scope are managed

Two months into a three-year mobile telecom rollout, the project manager discovers that approximately 15% of the equipment is prohibited for delivery because of an embargo. The procurement contract does not cover the embargo case, but the company could, in court, incur several penalties for incomplete delivery.

What is the appropriate solution for this situation?

Add an agile track to explore and plan the delivery of alternative equipment
Explore insurance and contingency options to cover the cost of the risk
Compare the penalty cost of delivery or not delivering and choose the lowest
Accept the client penalties, close the project, and cease business in that country

The agile team is tasked with building a version of the smartphone shopping application suitable for older people. Marketing has not found any volunteer test users fitting the profile.

Which action would be the most effective ensuring the best product value is delivered?

Examine evaluations of similar competitor products
Ask older relatives about the price point they want
Remove eyeglasses when testing the user interface
Ask the product owner to run friendly tests with older relatives

While monitoring the progress of the agile team, the project manager notices that an experienced member’s output is much lower compared with that of junior team members. This is a surprise, as the expert works diligently on the most complex task and always produces defect-free results.

Which is the most likely explanation for the developer’s low output?

The expert works faster and reports fewer hours than the junior members
Younger team members usually are more productive
The story point estimates on the expert’s work are consistently too low
The expert runs more tests and therefore, completes fewer stories

A hybrid pharmaceutical project adds new activities for the team to run machine learning (ML) processing of medical scans. An agile team of doctors uses the output from the ML analysis to determine next steps in a patient case. The project manager has updated the scope statement and schedule.

In which three of the documents should the project manager record this new process? (Choose three)

Stakeholder register
Sprint backlog
Definition of ready
Risk register
Resource management plan

What should you do when you observe the development team spending a significant amount of time responding to operational issues and, upon review of the project schedule, determine their activities are behind schedule?

Tell developers to ignore all operational work while they are assigned to your project
Instruct the developers to forward all future operational issues to the project sponsor for increased visibility
Refer to the resource management plan, and discuss the situation with the development team and their functional managers to ensure that either the agreed-upon resource commitment to project activities will be restored or a change request to extend the schedule should be submitted to the sponsor
Put the project on hold to allow the developers to address all operational issues before resuming their project responsibilities

A project manager is working on an agile project. The project has 100 user stories broken down into ten iterations. Each user story is worth US$100. The actual expenditure is US$4,500, and 50 user stories were delivered after five iterations.
Which statement is accurate?

The project is behind schedule and is over budget.
The project is on schedule and is under budget.
The project is on schedule and on budget.
The project is behind schedule and under budget.

A project manager is leading a project to deliver a new product to the market. The project sponsor has asked for a broadened scope and to provide a “scaled-up version” of the final product.
What should the project manager do?

Request a formal confirmation of the change.
Get stakeholder approval to revise the budget.
Initiate integrated change control process.
Update project management plan.

A supplier reports being over capacity, which may delay their delivery. What should the project manager update?

Risk register
Stakeholder register
Issue log
Project schedule

The end customer rejects a deliverable that does not meet the agreed-upon quality specifications and is rejected by the end customer. After investigation, the project team finds a fault with the vendor-provided parts, which caused the issue.

The vendor says that they cannot correct the situation.

What should the project manager review before deciding on the next steps?

The service level agreement (SLA) established with the vendor
The procurement management plan and contract agreements
The internal quality assurance reports
The resource management plan

A startup company needs to quickly expand its product portfolio to meet market demand. Recently, staff members have worked on two or three agile teams, each dedicated to a different product line. Output is diminishing, and defect rates are rising in all teams.

In which two ways can the project manager help the agile teams improve their work?

(Choose two)

Perform root cause analysis in the subsequent retrospectives
Influence the product owners to right-size their portfolios
Organize dedicated teams to reduce context switching
Appoint dedicated test teams to offload the agile teams
Train the agile teams to improve time and focus management

A project manager implemented an approved change to manage risk. Three months after the implemented change, the project manager learned that the change did not produce the desired result, instead, it produced negative consequences.

How should the project manager avoid this problem on future projects?

Update the probability and impact matrix after assessing any new risks
Revisit or change existing assumptions after reviewing the assumption log
Update the lessons learned register with the risk information
Update the risk register with the risk

A retiring project manager hands materials to a new project manager. The project appears to be running smoothly until a critical component fails during testing.

What is the appropriate first step when responding to this issue?

Review the risk management plan to identify that this risk and accompanying response have been captured
Check with other local team members and project managers to see how they would respond to the issue
Revise the timeline to account for slippage due to the additional time needed to implement mitigation
Communicate with stakeholders describing the issue, propose comments, and potential changes to delivery dates related to the project

A project manager develops the project management plan and schedule based on an agreed-upon project lifecycle of 16 months. Later, due to changing business requirements, the project sponsor requested completion within nine months.

How should the project manager respond to this proposed change?

Perform an impact evaluation of the request and evaluate the change in scope
Collaborate with key stakeholders and project team members to discuss the business requirements
Modify the original project schedule to meet the revised deadline
Meet with project stakeholders and team members to discuss which project aspects can be removed from the scope

A project’s workflow is increasing significantly, and the resource level is insufficient. In response, management outsources some primary tasks to keep the project on schedule.

What should the project manager do in this scenario?

Review the communication management plan
Review and revise the procurement management plan
Escalate to the project sponsor
Revise the organization chart

A project has the following characteristics:

$3 million budget
Plan value of $630,000
Actual cost of $650,000
Earned value of $ 540,000

Which statement about the current status of the project is true?

The project is ahead of schedule and under budget
The project is behind schedule and over budget
The project is ahead of schedule and over budget
The project is behind schedule and under budget

What does a horizontal trend line on a scatter chart represent?

A positive correlation between the two variables
A negative correlation between the two variables
No correction between the two variables
A correlation with one variable but not with the other

A project manager is assigned to join a mega-industrial project already underway. The latest performance indices are CPI=0.42 and SPI=0.20. This project is:

Ahead of schedule and under budget
Ahead of schedule and over budget
Behind schedule and under budget
Behind schedule and over budget

The supplier of a tool for a manufacturing project informs the project manager that delivery will be late. The project manager orders the tool from another supplier. After the tool from the second supplier arrives, the original supplier delivers the tool and submits an invoice according to the procurement agreement.
What should the project manager do next?

Return the tool to the original supplier and refuse to pay the invoice because delivery was late.
Keep the extra tool as a spare, pay the invoice from the contingency reserve, and update the lessons learned log.
Consult the original supplier's procurement agreement to apply late delivery terms, and inform legal counsel of the issue.
Compare the quality of both tools, select the tool that gives the best value, and return the other tool.

A project’s outcome is highly sensitive to and dependent upon financial market activity. Therefore, the company’s financial advisor delivers daily exchange-rate forecasts. The project’s budget was planned using a conservative scenario with high exchange-rate variations. The project manager wants to review this budget to update the probability and impact of a possible new scenario using current financial conditions.
To what should the project manager refer?

Stakeholder register
Risk register
Lessons learned
Marketplace conditions

Steve is looking at his project budget and notices that the cost and staffing levels are high. At which point in the project will this generally be?

Starting the project
Organizing and preparing
Carrying out the work
Closing the project

PMP – Monitoring and Controlling

PMP – Monitoring and Controlling

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