Answers
Answers
2. A company has to make a choice between two projects, because the available resources in
money and kind are not sufficient to run both at the same time. Each project would take 9
months and would cost $250,000.
1. The first project is a process optimization which would result in a cost reduction of
$120,000 per year. This benefit would be achieved immediately after the end of the
project.
2. The second project would be the development of a new product which could
produce the following net profits after the end of the project:
1. year:
$ 15,000
2. year:
$ 125,000
3. year:
$ 220,000
Assumed is a discount rate of 5% per year. Looking at the present values of these
projects' revenues in the first 3 years, what is true?
Both projects are equally attractive.
The first project is more attractive by app. 7%.
The second project is more attractive by app. 5%.
The first project is more attractive by app. 3%.
project. The process is intended to produce steel bolts with a length of 20 cm. The control
limits are 19.955cm and 20.045cm.
The measurements made at the end of the process yielded the following results:
20.033cm, 19.982cm, 19,995cm, 20.006cm, 19.970cm, 19.968cm, 19.963cm, 19.958cm,
19.962cm, 19.979cm, 19.959cm.
What should be done?
The process is under control. It should not be adjusted.
The process should be adjusted.
The control limits should be adjusted.
The measuring equipment should be recalibrated.
4. Your project management team includes two external consultants each from a different
company. You found that repeated conflicts between the two consultants already slow
down project progress and jeopardize achievement of objectives.Which stage of team
development can be difficult to overcome in such a situation?
5. During a project Earned Value Analysis is performed and gives the following results:
EV: 523,000; PV: 623,000; AC: 643,000.
Which results are correct?
CV: +120,000; SV: +100,000
CV: +100,000; SV: +120,000
CV: -100,000; SV: -120,000
CV: -120,000; SV: -100,000
6. A project manager spent some days to create a multi-page document which he called
Project Charter. The document should have been issued by the project sponsor. The
sponsor found the document outsized and asked for a condensed document.
Which of the following is not normally an element of the Project Charter?
The formal authorization to apply organizational resources to project activities
Detailed work package descriptions
The business need that the project was undertaken to address
Scope Statement
Requested Change
10. A project manager needs a certain number of identical valve housings for a power station
project.
He starts with 100 raw items which are made as metal castings. Out of this batch, 15 are
found leaking from micro-porosities in a subsequent pressure test. 6 of these housings
can be recovered by a special sealing process for raw castings.
The 91 housings are then being machined. After this process step 10 machined castings
are found leaking. 3 of these items can also be saved using another sealing process for
machined castings.
The remaining 84 housings are getting mounted to the power plant pipework. During a
pressure test after this process step it is found that 12 valves are leaking. Out of these a
number of 6 valves can be saved by replacing the sealing rings used.
Finally the project manager has 78 valves which he can use. What is true?
FTY = 0.91, RTY = 0.84
FTY = 0.65, RTY = 0.78
FTY = 0.84, RTY = 0.91
FTY = 0.78, RTY = 0.65
11.
You found the following Earned Value Analysis information for a recently closed out
project:SPI = 0.7, CPI = 1.0
The project has been cancelled while it was executed. At that time the project was
behind schedule and on budget.
The project has been finished. It came in behind schedule but on budget.
The project has been finished. It came in ahead of schedule but on budget.
The project has been finished. It came in on schedule but over budget.
You are working as a project manager for a major US-based public company. This
morning you received alarming news that the major strategic project you are responsible
12. for will not be able to provide financial benefits to the organization as expected. This
drawback will significantly influence future profits of the entire corporation. What should
you do right now?
You should not overact and check at least three options before making any
decisions.
You must immediately inform the corporate management to ensure Real Time
Issuers Disclosures.
You should investigate detailed information on the problem before escalating it to
corporate management.
You should find a quick solution for the problem and implement this immediately.
A project management team has subcontracted work to a service company. Which of the
following tools is the best choice to assure that this company will be able to meet the
14. quality requirements of the project?
Quality audit
Deliverable inspection
Fixed price contract
Service level agreement
15. With your team you are using judgment from subject matter experts to identify and
analyze project risks. There is a small number of experts available, but some of them
have long been in a teacher-student or manager-assistant relationship.
Which of the following techniques can ensure best that there is no dominating opinion
during an expert review?
Peer review
SWOT analysis
Delphi technique
Monetary value calculation
16. You are running a project for a customer based on a cost reimbursable contract with the
following terms:
Target costs:
$ 1,000,000
Fixed fee:
Benefit/cost sharing:
80% / 20%
100,000
Price ceiling:
$ 1,200,000
Which is the PTA (= Point of total assumption, Break point) of the project?
$1,300,000
$1,500,000
$80,000
$1,125,000
17. During execution of a project which is performed for a customer on a T&M (Time and
Material) contract base, a new project manager is taking over the assignment.
He discovers that two members assigned to the project have charged time without
performing any work for the project customer. Upon further investigation, he determines
that this occurred because there have been no other project assignments open for these
employees. The customer is unaware of these facts.
What should the project manager do?
Try to find some productive work for these staff members in the project and leave
them on the team.
The best thing is to do nothing. The customer will not realize the problem anyway.
Try to find a responsible person for the over-assignment who can be made
accountable.
Take the two people off the team immediately and arrange for the refund of the
excess charges to the customer.
18. In the following network logic diagram start dates are defined as early morning, finish
dates are evening.
If tasks are scheduled to begin at early start date, what is true?
19. Your project is executed with a globally spread virtual team. The project progress has
been found to be too slow. Which measure is most likely to immediately speed up the
project?
A project management team wants to procure some customized products which are
available in identical grade and quality from many vendors. What should be included in
20. the procurement package to ensure that their offers will be comparable?
A statement of work describing the needs of the project in sufficient detail to enable
vendors to make suitable proposals
A statement of work specifying attributes and metrics of the requested deliverables
in detail to allow vendors submission of bids
The approved project scope statement, the WBS which should be broken down to
Work Package level and the WBS dictionary
The risk management plan and the reports from those risk management reviews
which have been made so far
The ability to communicate using drawings and pictograms which are understood all
over the world.
22. You are assigned as the project manager to a project which is executed for a customer
under FP contract. Your customer informed you this morning that they insist on certain
"refinements" of the project scope. You agree that the requested actions make really
sense to the project, but believe that they constitute a major change increasing the
project scope. What should you do next?
Accept the request of the customer. Diligently document the additional costs and
working hours spent by yourself and the team on the implementation of the change
and invoice these to the customer at appropriate rates.
Perform Earned Value Analysis to assess the current status of the project and get all
the numbers you need to communicate the case to the Change Control Board which
then will have to make the best decision regarding the customer request.
Check the contract, the project charter, the scope statement and other documents
related to the project and the contract. Assess the impacts of the scope change.
Then discuss the situation with the Project Sponsor and the Change Control Board.
Talk to the project sales department and find a joint solution with them how to best
reject the request considering the commercial and strategic value of the customer to
the organization you are working for.
23. During a project the scope of a product purchased on a cost reimbursable contract has
increased. In the contract the fee to cover the contractors indirect costs and allow a
profit is calculated as 20% of the direct costs. What is most likely to be true?
The contractors indirect costs will increase and the customers payment for them
will increase, too.
The contractors indirect costs will increase but the customers payment for them
will not increase.
Neither the contractor's indirect costs nor the customers payment for them will
increase.
The contractors indirect costs will not increase but the customers payment for
them will.
24. A project management team is evaluating the causes that might contribute to
unsatisfactory performance and quality. Which of the following statements is not true?
Normal process variation is attributable to random causes and sometimes also called
"white noise".
Special causes are easier to predict and handle than random causes (also called
common causes).
Special causes are unusual events which are difficult to foresee and mostly produce
outliers.
25. You are performing a project management audit in your company and find that most of
the project plans are neither consistent nor up-to-date.
26. You want to perform active risk acceptance. What should you do?
27. A project manager made 3-point estimates on a critical path and found the following
results:
Assuming 3 Sigma precision level for each estimate, what is the standard deviation of
the allover path?
App. 4.2 days
App. 5.2 days
App. 6.2 days
You can not derive the path standard deviation from the information given.
28. A project team is suffering from misunderstandings between team members who have
different cultural backgrounds. The project manager is evaluating how to improve
communication and collaboration.
Which of the following statements is not true?
Only those who realize that cultural differences are a resource to be fully utilized will
survive in international project business.
There is a common ground for people from different cultures on which they can
interact without unsolvable conflicts.
Cultural differences will always remain an obstacle to be overcome for cross-cultural
projects.
The limits of the six sigma area on either side of a control chart to plot measured
values; data found outside the area are out of specification and can lead to rejection
of an entire batch.
The area consisting of typically three standard deviations on either side of a mean
value of a control chart to plot measured values found in statistical quality control
The area consisting of typically three standard deviations on either side of a mean
value of a control chart to plot measured values found in quality assurance
30. You are assigned as the project manager in a project with an aggressive schedule. During
a recent meeting your team complained about the high pressure applied and the many
hours of overwork time.
What should you do first?
Try to obtain additional budget and time.
Improve team communication and availability of high quality data on risks. Use this
information to enable you to make well-founded decisions earlier.
The problem might be the customer disturbing project rhythm. Keep him on
distance from the team.
Apply fast tracking to shorten project duration without additional work.
31. Activity 1 has a duration of 20 days, Activity 2 of 10 days, Activity 3 of 5 days and
Activity 4 of 6 days.
32.
F: 8 days
C: 6 days
G: 7 days
D: 9 days
H: 12 days
Assuming that there are no other schedule constraints on the activities, what is the total
minimum duration of the project?
37 days
19 days
34 days
49 days
An employee should always discuss the matter with people external to the company
before following the "chain of command" and discuss it with the immediate superior.
The consequences of whistleblowing are often extreme and include possible being
branded as having bad judgment, firing, civil action and imprisonment.
Prevention means keeping errors out of the process by applying actions before the
process starts changing its input.
Variables sampling means that the result is classified into one of the 3
categories:"acceptable" - "acceptable after rework" - "rejected".
Inspection is often mainly done to keep errors out of the hands of the customer
instead of as a means of process control.
35. Which statement describes best why you should document assumptions?
Assumptions limit the project management team's options for decision making
because they can not be controlled by the team.
It is axiomatic of the quality management discipline that the benefits outweigh the
costs.
The primary cost of meeting quality requirements is the expense associated with
project quality management activities.
The primary benefit of meeting quality requirements is less rework, which means
higher productivity, lower costs, and increased stakeholder satisfaction.
37. You have recently been assigned as a project manager to a new B-O-T (Build, Operate,
Transfer) capital project. Reviewing the initial documentation you found out that it has
been calculated with a very small margin during its operations for the shareholders. What
should you do?
As you are not responsible for lifecycle costing, you don't have to worry about
operation profits. Focus on project costs from initiation through handover.
Ensure maximum profits by buying the best and cheapest items, components and
modules - potentially from a big number of different suppliers - and integrating
them.
Create a realistic plan broken down to a sufficient level of detail. Perform all risk
management processes. Ensure real-time communications with all stakeholders.
Try to get a second project manager assigned to share decision making and
accountability with the person..
38. A project is managed by a project coordinator. Which of the following statements is most
likely to be true?
Looking at the different ways how stakeholders from different countries organize
their projects, there is no one "best way".
Communicating across cultures should only be done using language. The nonverbal
dimension bears too many risks.
Activities in PDM which are not necessary and can be dropped if time is running out.
Arrows in ADM which represent dependencies between nodes without real activities.
Activities, which can be passed to the team members with the lowest IQ.
41. A change request in a project has been rejected some weeks ago. Yesterday, the project
manager found out that it nevertheless has been implemented by the team members,
who knew of the change request, but not of the rejection.
In order to avoid such a situation, Rejected change requests are input to which process?
Schedule Development
Scope Verification
Monitor and Control Project Work
Information Distribution
A warning sign that a previously identified risk might be occurring or has occurred
43. According to the project plan, a contractor is scheduled to deliver some software
components today afternoon. A regular payment is due to be made to this contractor
tomorrow.
You and your project team received a note this morning informing you that the software
delivery will be delayed by 2 weeks.
What should you do right now?
You should delay payment for 2 weeks.
You must immediately find a different contractor.
You should conduct a meeting with the contractor to resolve the delivery issues
before making the payment.
You should make the payment and reschedule the project plan.
44. In a software company a large number of simultaneously performed projects utilize the
same groups of human and other resources.
45. What does the acronym RACI commonly stand for in project management?
46. You have used estimates made by your team members and applied Critical Path Method
to compute a network logic diagram for your project. Then you found out that it can not
sufficiently be optimized for scarce resources and fast progress against a deadline. What
should you do next?
Remove physical constraints and replace hard logic with soft logic.
47. A ________ is a pre-contract agreement that formally establishes the intent of one party
to buy products or services from another party and establishes some preliminary
consideration in order to reserve resources for the anticipated contract.
Memorandum of understanding
Letter of intent
Letter contract
Individual risks
49. Being assigned as the project manager to a project you perform Earned Value Analysis
and find the following results:
EV: 250,000; PV: 200,000; AC 275,000
BAC is 500,000.
What is right?
EAC = 400,000
EAC = 550,000
BTC = 400,000
ETC = 75,000
50. An estimation has been made that the construction of a residential home will cost a
certain amount per square foot of living area. This is an example of what type of
estimating?
Analogous estimating
Bottom-up estimating
Top-down estimating
Parametric modeling
51. Which of the following should not be reason for rebaselining in a project?
Scope changes
Cost variances
New information indicating that the basis for the original project cost estimates was
incorrect
52. What is true when a change control systems provision for changes without formal review
in case of emergency is being utilized?
Changes can be simply applied without further managerial activities if they help
solving the problem.
Changes must still be documented and captured so that they do not cause problems
later in the project.
53. Which of the following is generally not regarded to be a motivator according to Frederick
Herzberg?
54. Companies and institutions most commonly hire project management leaders with
55. You are the project manager and have recently signed a contract with a service provider
for the development of a complicated software solution This software is necessary to
control the machinery equipment which your project team will develop. It is a lump-sum
contract with additional incentives for meeting predefined schedule targets. The payment
schedule and incentives are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
10%
20%
50%
20%
with order
after submission of prototype (+ 5% if delivered one week early)
after product delivery (+ 5 % if delivered one week early)
after final product acceptance (+ 5 % if delivered one week early)
Yesterday the company submitted the prototype to your project team. This was 2 weeks
after the scheduled delivery date and 3 weeks after the date necessary to qualify for the
incentive payment.
This morning, the manager of the contractor approached you to ask for changes to the
payment schedule. They found that their initial work and costs were much higher than
originally expected and they now wish to increase the second payment to 30% and
reduce the final payment to 10%.
During the discussion you got the impression that the company is in serious financial
trouble.
Which of the following should be the most appropriate initial step?
Offer to pay 25% now and to reduce the final payment down to 15%. Make sure
that the contractor agrees in writing that the open work for your project will be done
by their company with the highest priority.
Point out that the contractor is not in a position to demand a change to the contract.
Ensure that sufficient pressure is applied to ensure that the delay doesn't get to big
and no additional costs occur.
Offer the subcontractor to the pay the unearned incentive as an unbureaucratic
measure to help the company and to make sure that they will be able to finish the
work for your project.
Revisit the processes of project risk management, re-assess your risks related to
scope, time, costs, and so on and check your time and budget contingencies, then
urgently meet the contractor.
56.
Audit
Inspection
Testing and measuring
Screening
It allows one to easily identify the breakdown level of the item in the resource
structure.
It defines ethical behavior in the project and the responsibilities to the customer and
the profession.
58. You are the manager of your company's project management office. The company is
running many concurrent projects; most of them share a resource pool of technical staff.
Understanding how resources are utilized across projects has been found essential to
overall project performance, including cost effectiveness and profitability.
This morning you received a message that the resource pool members will be unable to
perform as planned for the next months because the overall work load has grown too
high and while delays are adding up, the morale of the staff is going down.
What should you do next?
Ensure that quantitative information for all projects is being made available in a
uniform fashion and that this information is reliable. Then consolidate this
information to get an understanding of the status of the portfolio. Then propose the
appropriate decisions.
Implement an enterprise project management software solution which is able to
level the human resources across the various projects and which has the capability
to model resource assignment on a percentage level thus optimizing resource
utilization for the overall organization.
Do nothing related to the described problem unless you are explicitly requested by
59.
You have been criticized that certain specifications in your Scope Statement do not meet
the test for SMART objectives. But what are SMART objectives?
Objectives specified in far more detail than necessary for a execution of a successful
project.
Easily achievable objectives which help you reducing the pressure on yourself and
the team.
Objectives that should be achieved in order to attain formal recognition by both the
customer and the project sponsor.
Objectives that are described using specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and
time-related specifications.
60. You have been assigned as a project manager to a software project. While you and your
team are working on a WBS (Work breakdown structure), you notice that you are
spending a lot of time discussing the level of granularity needed to create a sufficiently
decomposed document.
Which of the following criteria should probably not support your discussion at this
moment?
Status/completion of WBS items is measurable.
Time/cost of WBS items and activities is easily estimated.
62. During a company event, you had the opportunity to talk to a colleague project manager.
He told you that in his current project actual costs are 15% under cumulated costs
budgeted for today.
What do you think?
The information given to you by the colleague is not sufficient to assess project
performance.
The project will probably be completed with total costs remaining under budget until
the end.
A significant cost increase during the further course of the project will probably
bring the costs back to baseline level.
Original cost forecasting and budgeting for the project must have been poor to allow
this variance.
Project managers should visit their customers far more often than what is usual in
order to avoid misunderstandings and bad emotions.
International projects may have an increased need for traveling which can lead to
additional costs and troubles with time zones.
Committee decisions can have the paradox outcome, that a jointly made or
approved decision is not desired by any individual group member.
64. Which of the following statements describes best the relationship between project phases
and the Project life cycle?
The Project life cycle includes the time when the project is performed and the
expected product lifespan after that.
In project management, the sequence of project phases and phase gates is often
referred to as Project life cycle.
The Project life cycle is regarded as a sequence of project activities while phases are
defined to control overlapping activities.
The Project life cycle describes how iterations of project management processes are
used when a project schedule is developed.
65.
Which is for most project situations an appropriate order for the development of scope
related documents?
67.
The output of the resource planning process is a document "resource requirements". This
a description of what types of resources are required in what quantities...
...for each element at the lowest level of the work breakdown structure.
...where the term resources is limited to human resources.
...to be obtained solely from the performing organization.
68.
Which statement describes best the meaning of the term Cost baseline?
69.
70. Which is not true in regard of RoI (Return on Investment) for a project?
It defines the cumulated net income from an investment at a given point in time or
during a defined period.
It includes investment, direct and indirect costs and may include allowances for
capital cost, depreciation, risk of loss, and/or inflation.
A project sponsor requested Earned Value Data on two concurrent projects from the
project managers. Both projects are regarded as equally important and strategically
71. beneficial and have been finished by over 80%. He received the following
information:Project A: PV: $1,800,000 EV: $2,300,000 AC: $2,100,000Project B:
PV: $2,000,000 EV: $1,500,000 AC: $1,600,000The sponsor considers to shift some
resources from Project A to Project B to speed up the second project which is currently
behind schedule. What is the most likely outcome of such a measure?
Changing team assignments during late course of a project typically increases cost
efficiency.
Changing team assignments during late course of a project typically increases time
efficiency.
According to the Law of diminishing returns, the consolidated Cost variance of the
two projects will decrease.
According to the Law of diminishing returns, the consolidated Cost variance of the
two projects will increase.
72. Which of the following statements describes best the relationship of quality and grade?
Low grade is always a problem; low quality may be overcome by a good rework and
repair process.
Both quality and grade can often be improved through intelligent measuring, testing
and examining.
Network templates which contain only portions of a network are often referred to as
73.
Subnets or fragnets
Subprojects
Programs
WBS items
74. In making an investment in a project, investors require compensation for which of the
following?
The risk-free rate of return plus a risk exposure premium plus a premium for
expected inflation
75.
You just created the following network logic diagram to describe the planned flow of
activities for your project which will start tomorrow:
Which potential inconsistency in the diagram should you solve right now?
Activity E is a logical dangle in relation to the sink before the finish milestone.
Activity F is a logical dangle in relation to the burst point after the start milestone.
You can not calculate a critical path when lags and/or leads are calculated in
percent.
Activities E to F need another task drawn as a hammock to calculate Level Of Effort.