PMI PMI Certifications PMI-SP Questions & Answers

• Question 51:

  You are the project manager of the MQQ project. Unfortunately, this project is not performing well and you must do something to address the problems in your project. Based on your planning for monitoring and controlling project performance, you know that there are three outputs of performance reporting. Which one of the following is the only output that is most appropriate for this poorly performing project?

  A. Organizational process assets update

  B. Performance reports

  C. Performance re-baselining

  D. Change requests

  Correct Answer: D

  Change requests are an output of performance report, and allow the project manager to address corrective actions and preventive actions to help the project get back in alignment with performance baselines. Answer option B is incorrect.

  While performance reports are an output of the performance reporting, these reports do not specifically address the problems in the project. Answer option A is incorrect. Updating the organizational process assets is an important activity, but

  it does not address the poor performance directly.

  Answer option C is incorrect. Performance re-baselining is not an output of performance reporting so this choice is not valid.

• Question 52:

  You are the project manager of the NHQ project. This project is slightly larger than the TR project, in which you also served as the project manager. You decide to use the actual activity duration of the GTR project as a basis for your current NHQ project. This, you reason, will save time for your project, as the previous project has provided the information. Which one of the following terms best describes the action you are doing in this scenario?

  A. You are creating an analogous estimate.

  B. You are creating a bottom-up estimate.

  C. You are relying on expert judgment.

  D. You are creating a rough order of magnitude estimate.

  Correct Answer: A

  This is an example of analogous estimate as you are creating an analogy between two similar projects. This estimating approach is also known as a top-down estimate type, and is somewhat unreliable. Answer option C is incorrect. Expert

  judgment relies on experts, consultants, or subject matter experts to guide your project decisions. An analogous estimate is a form of expert judgment, but this is not the best choice for this question.

  Answer option B is incorrect. A bottom-up estimate creates an activity duration estimate for each work package in the WBS. It is the longest estimate type to create, but it also the most reliable. Answer option D is incorrect. A rough order of

  magnitude estimate is a quick estimate, usually for project costs, that often has a broad range of variance attached to the estimate.

• Question 53:

  You have 83 project stakeholders from all across your organization. Some of the stakeholders, such as functional management, require weekly communication from you, while other stakeholders, such as the end users, only need quarterly progress updates. Where can you record this communication requirements based on your stakeholder analysis?

  A. Project communications management plan

  B. Project reporting structure

  C. Project schedule

  D. Project scope management plan

  Correct Answer: A

  The project communications management plan is a document to define who needs what information, when the information is needed, and the modality the information is expected. Stakeholder communication preferences are also recorded here. What is Project Communication Management? Project Communications Management is one of the nine Knowledge Areas. It employs the processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, distribution, storage, retrieval, and ultimate disposition of project information. The following processes are part of Project Communications Management: Identify Stakeholders Plan Communications Distribute information Manage Stakeholder Expectations Report Performance The Project Communications Management processes provide the critical links among people and information that are necessary for successful communications. These processes interact with each other and with the processes in the other Knowledge Areas as well. Answer option D is incorrect as the project scope management plan defines how the scope is created, managed, how changes to the scope are managed, and how the scope is validated. Answer option B is incorrect as the project reporting structure defines who reports to whom, not the preferences and requirements for communication. Answer option C is incorrect as the project schedule defines when project activities are to occur.

• Question 54:

  Amy works as a project manager for BlueWell Inc. Her organization wants her to create a new warehouse. Which of the following documents will she create to define the business needs, the project justification, and the current requirements?

  A. Project scope

  B. Feasibility study

  C. Project charter D. Work breakdown structure

  Correct Answer: C

  The project charter defines the business needs, the project justification, and the current requirements for the new warehouse that an organization wants to create. The project charter is the document that formally authorizes a project. The project charter provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities. According to PMBOK Guide, the project charter should address the following information: Requirements that satisfy customer, sponsor, and other stakeholder needs, wants and expectations Business needs, high-level project description, or product requirements that the project is undertaken to address Project purpose or justification Assigned Project Manager and authority level Summary milestone schedule Stakeholder influences Functional organizations and their participation Organizational, environmental and external assumptions Organizational, environmental and external constraints Business case justifying the project, including return on investment Summary budget If required, it also authorizes the next project phase, and updates the charter. The project manager should always be assigned prior to the start of planning, and preferably while the project charter is being developed. Answer option A is incorrect. The decomposition of the project scope results in the project's Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The work packages of the WBS will help the project manager and team create accurate time and cost estimates. Answer option B is incorrect. The feasibility study is usually created before the project scope, though not always. This document defines the likelihood of the project being able to reach its objectives. Answer option D is incorrect. The project scope defines all that the project should complete.

• Question 55:

  You are the project manager for your organization. Maagement has asked you for this current project. You use the critical chain method to create the project network diagram rather than the more traditional critical path method. What is the critical chain method?

  A. It examines only the non-critical path activities that are considered near critical, if the float is one day or less.

  B. It examines only the critical path activities to determine when the project completion date may be.

  C. It examines the availability of needed project resources to determine when activities may actually happen.

  D. It generates a Gantt chart that reflects the availability of project resources and considers working and non-working days for the project.

  Correct Answer: C

  The critical chain method is similar to the critical path method, but it considers the availability of project resources. The critical path method assumes that the project resources are available for the identified project work in the sequence of the work as defined in the project network diagram. The Critical Chain method is a project management technique in which schedule network analysis is used for the purpose of modifying and determining a set of project schedules to account for more inadequate than estimated project financial resources. This method tends to keep the resources levelly loaded, but requires the resources to be flexible in their start times and to quickly switch between tasks and task chains to keep the whole project on schedule. In the Critical Chain method, projects are completed more rapidly and with better scheduling consistency. Answer options B, A, and D are incorrect. These are not valid definitions for the critical chain method.

• Question 56:

  You work as a project manager for BlueWell Inc. By referring to the figure given below, you along with your project team is calculating the latest completion of an activity.

  

  What is the latest your project team can complete Activity I?

  A. Day 29

  B. Day 26

  C. Day 25

  D. Day 30

  Correct Answer: D

  Activity I can actually take all the way to Day 30 to complete. Note in the figure that Activity I does not need to be completed before Activity K can begin. This allows Activity I to take until Day 30 to complete as its late finish.

  Answer option C is incorrect. This is the earliest Activity I may finish. Answer options B and A are incorrect.

  These are not the valid calculation.

• Question 57:

  You are the project manager of the NHQ project. This project is currently running about 15 percent behind schedule and the management has asked you to rectify the problem. You have elected to crash the project. What does this term mean?

  A. Reject all proposed change requests for the project.

  B. Add resources to the project work.

  C. Add cost to the project budget.

  D. Cut non-value added activities to the project.

  Correct Answer: B

  Crashing means that the project manager will add resources to the project to complete effort-driven activities in the project. This schedule compression technique adds costs to the project. What is crashing? Crashing is a schedule

  compression technique to obtain the greatest amount of compression for the least incremental cost. Crashing works for activities where additional resources will shorten the duration. Approving overtime, bringing in additional resources,

  paying to expedite delivery to activities on the critical path are examples of crashing.

  Answer option C is incorrect. Crashing does generally add costs to the project because of the labor added, but this is not the best choice for the question. Answer options D and A are incorrect. These are not the valid definitions of crashing.

• Question 58:

  You are the project manager of the NHQ Project. This project has a Budget at Completion of $750,000 and is expected to take 18 months to complete. The project is supposed to be 75 percent complete, but due to some errors the project is only 60 percent complete. At this time the project has spent $465,500. Management has asked you to review the project work and report the project's SPI. What is the SPI for this project?

  A. 0.97

  B. 0.80

  C. $562,500

  D. -$112,500

  Correct Answer: B

  The project's schedule performance index (SPI) can be found by using the formula; earned value/planned value. The earned value is the percent of the project completed times the BAC. The planned value is the percentage of where the project should be times the budget at completion. In this instance, the formula reads: $450,000/562500 = 0.80. Schedule performance index (SPI) is the measure of schedule efficiency on a project. It is used in trend analysis to predict future performance. SPI is the ratio of earned value to planned value. The SPI is calculated based on the following formula: SPI = Earned Value (EV) / Planned Value (PV) If the SPI value is greater than 1, it indicates better than expected performance, whereas if the value is less than 1, it shows poor performance. The SPI value of 1 indicates that the project is right on target. Answer option A is incorrect. This value is the project's Cost Performance Index (CPI). Answer option D is incorrect. This value is the schedule variance for the project. Answer option C is incorrect. $562,500 is the planned value for the project.

• Question 59:

  Which of the following is an output of the Develop Project Charter process?

  A. Enterprise environmental factors

  B. Contract

  C. Business case

  D. Project charter

  Correct Answer: D

  The Develop Project Charter process documents the formal authorization of a project or a phase. It also documents initial requirements that satisfy the stakeholder's needs and expectations. It is used to validate the decisions made during the previous iteration of the Develop Project Charter process. The various inputs of this process are as follows:

  Project statement of work

  Business case

  Contract

  Enterprise environmental factors

  Organizational process assets

  The output of the Develop project Charter process is as follows:

  Project charter

• Question 60:

  You are the project manager for GGY Project. You are working with your project team to record the actual durations for the activities they have completed in the project schedule. Mary, one of your project team members, wants to know why you need to know how long it actually took the project team to complete their assignments as long as the project work is completed. Which of the following is the best response for Mary's query?

  A. Actual durations need to be recorded to track process improvement.

  B. Actual durations need to be recorded to create the schedule baseline.

  C. Actual durations need to be recorded to measure the actual progress of the project.

  D. Actual durations need to be recorded to perform quality control on the project management processes.

  Correct Answer: C

  The best answer is to track actual durations to measure the actual progress of the project. Actual duration is the time, in the calendar units, between the actual start date of the schedule activity and either the data date of the project schedule if the schedule activity is in development or the actual finish date if the schedule activity is complete.

  Answer option B is incorrect. The schedule baseline is not created based on actual durations. Answer option A is incorrect. Process improvement is part of the quality management knowledge area, but it is not a reason to track actual

  durations.

  Answer option D is incorrect. Quality control is the inspection of the project deliverables. It is not concerned with the actual durations of project work. The improvement of the project processes is defined in the Process Improvement Plan.