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Project Management Professional (PMP)® Certification Prep Quiz Questions and Answers

Answer :
  • Conduct a cost-benefit analysis, including competitive advantage, market impact, and strategic alignment.

Explanation :

This agile team and product owner should work together to figure out whether the effort required to fulfil this user story is worth the extra cost and effort that the project team expects. The cost-benefit analysis will help them all to understand the trade-offs involved in including the complex user story. By considering the potential benefits, costs, risks, and alignment with strategic objectives, the project team and product owner can make the best decision. This approach ensures that decisions are based on a thorough evaluation of all relevant factors and supports effective communication and collaboration with stakeholders.Investigating the risk is important but will not evaluate all of the aspects needed for the team and product owner to make this decision. Revisiting the project's budget and time line to accommodate the user story is an important consideration for evaluating the impact on budget and time line, but it should not be the sole basis for the decision. A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis is needed. While identifying alternative solutions or workarounds can be a valid approach in certain situations, it may not directly address the stakeholders' objection regarding the competitive advantage.
Answer :
  • Determine estimate at completion (EAC) and seek approval.

Explanation :

Increasing costs of products and services directly affects projects, so project teams need to adapt. An increase across all vendor services is probably a sign of a big change in the external business environment. Issuing a new request for proposal (RFP) with a cost limitation will not likely be successful because every vendor is affected. The solution here is to understand what is causing the price increases and seek a solution for the project that is sustainable. The project team might then choose to create a revised budget with the new costs of vendor services and goods, namely the estimate at completion (EAC) which will tell them the expected total cost of completing all work expressed as the sum of the actual cost (AC) to date and the estimate to complete (ETC). The product owner or project sponsor will decide whether the organization can or wants to continue supporting the project. Because it is early in the project, this is the most sustainable solution for the long-term health of the project. Management reserves and the contingency budget should be used for covering expenses resulting from issues, not to support a project budget that has been impacted because of external environmental factors.
Answer :
  • Regular communication with stakeholders throughout the project ensures that requirements and scope are valid.

Explanation :

Regular communication with stakeholders throughout the project is the best approach to preventing defects caused by incomplete requirements gathering and poor communication. This approach helps in identifying and resolving issues early on and ensures stakeholders are kept informed of the project's progress. It also helps in building a strong relationship with the stakeholders and ensuring their expectations are managed. Since the work for this project takes a hybrid development approach to software development, we can assume that complete requirements gathering is not likely to be possible. In software development, requirements can change throughout the project and the project team needs to be flexible to accommodate these changes. Assigning a dedicated team for requirements gathering is a good approach; however, it might not always be feasible due to budget and resource constraints. Holding stakeholders accountable for incomplete requirements might create a negative impact on the project team's relationship with the stakeholders. This approach may lead to a breakdown in communication and damage the project team's reputation.
Answer :
  • Can anyone be a servant leader?

Explanation :

The role and title of project manager or team lead can vary by project and organization. In general terms, the profession has embraced self-organizing teams and adaptability as core tenets, and the project manager or team lead is no longer the sole person responsible for and focused on delivering results. Instead, we focus on servant leadership, which is the practice of leading the team by focusing on understanding and addressing the needs and development of team members in order to enable the highest possible team performance. A person taking on this role should balance strategic thinking with daily project work. Understanding that learning is continuous also plays a part in self-organization, so we think of tenets rather than fixed guidelines for leadership characteristics. One such tenet of servant leadership is to understand the vision of the project, not just the daily issues; the servant leader should figure out how to create a balance between daily and strategic work in the context of a project and team. Therefore, the only question in this list to be answered with "yes " is: Can anyone be a servant leader?
Answer :
  • Evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of the contingency plan before implementing it.

Explanation :

After identifying a high-risk item with a costly contingency plan, the project manager's next step should be to evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of the contingency plan before implementing it. This will help the project manager to determine if the cost of the contingency plan is worth the risk mitigation benefit. The project manager should also consider other risk management options such as risk avoidance, risk acceptance, and risk transfer. By evaluating the cost-benefit analysis and considering other risk management options, the project manager can make an informed decision on how to proceed. Implementing the contingency plan without evaluating its cost-benefit analysis may lead to unnecessary expenses and negatively impact the project budget. Waiting to see if the risk materializes may lead to missed opportunities for risk mitigation, increased costs, and project delays. Ignoring a high-risk item is not a proactive risk management approach and may lead to serious consequences if the risk materializes.
Answer :
  • Inspection and auditing; quality improvement methods

Explanation :

Inspection is a quality control technique used in the Control Quality process to verify that products or deliverables conform or comply with specific quality standards, specifications, or other criteria. This happened during the catalog review. To avoid this issue from being repeated, the project team should perform quality improvement methods in the future. This may include updating their review and approval processes to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and implementing training programs for designers and photographers to understand the compliance requirements. Decision-making and problem-solving are parts of quality management and should occur before implementation and during monitoring and controlling. Data analysis does not apply in the act of examining a photograph. Audits check compliance with standards, policies, and procedures and can be used in the future. Testing is similar to inspection and also used in the Control Quality processin this case, the catalog review.
Answer :
  • Collaborate with the product owner to decide on a go-live date based on realistic estimates and available resources.

Explanation :

An agile approach to managing projects is driven by the 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto, one of which is: Agile processes promote sustainable development. The project sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace throughout the project. Sustainable development involves the use of ideal time, factoring planned leaves, and avoiding overtime or holiday working. Additionally, in this context, the project team lead or facilitator should ensure that the go-live dates are not arbitrary but based on achievable targets. Overtime should only be used as a contingency in the case of an emergency. It is not appropriate to motivate team members to work extra hours to meet project goals unless it is an exception. Team rewards should not be linked to working overtime or dealing with unreasonable time lines. Increasing the project cost baseline is not the appropriate way to deal with team members working overtime.
Answer :
  • Revisit the correct project process roles and responsibilities at the next retrospective.
  • Examine the project team-building or team-formation framework.

Explanation :

The team member has acted to close a project without the team. While the team member might have had the best of intentions or produced a positive outcome, their way of working is out of scope for healthy project team communication. Team members should not act alone, without the product owner, to close a project. Although virtual teams can suffer from poor communication, the problem here could also be a weak sense of team identity or a team member who does not have the correct training or know the teams way of working. The team member might have even ignored the teams way of working for professional advancement or in the genuine best interest of the project. Whatever the case, this team is disunified and it needs to be reunified. Revisit the correct project process roles and responsibilities at the next retrospective and examine how well this teams framework is working to make necessary changes.
Answer :
  • At the next retrospective, the project team should discuss and circulate guidelines for receiving and processing customer feedback.
  • The project team should process any relevant team lessons or improvement opportunities.
  • The project team should communicate any frustration with the product owner, who can coach the stakeholder towards a better solution.

Explanation :

Conflict or disruption is a normal part of an agile team environment; frustration in this context can be understood and processed with empathy. Neither the project team member, nor the customers, nor the stakeholder did anything wrong. Feedback can come from any stakeholder or source and can take many forms. The project team only has some control over how they receive it and what they do with it. However, the product owner may be able to play the role of intermediary and speak to the stakeholder about how to deliver this feedback in a more useful way. The team member's concern should be discussed at the next retrospective, where the project team can also discuss and circulate guidelines for stakeholder feedback so that it is useful for product and team development. Using the incident as a learning opportunity to improve the project team environment is also a good answer.
Answer :
  • Adding a new resource at this point is too risky.

Explanation :

The key issue in this question is the stage of the project and its criticality. Using Tuckmans Ladder Model as a guide to team dynamics, adding an unknown resource for a short period of time means the project team will start from the forming stage and wont reach their maximum productivity right away. This is a best-case scenario, because the outcome can be a far more serious disruption to the team dynamic at a critical point in the project. That risk is too high. Approvals can be expedited, and we can assume that since the project is business critical, the company would have paid for the extra resource. Option D presumes that a reprioritized backlog would deliver an inferior or inadequate product. But because this project team is using an agile development approach, any backlog decisions will have a strong chance of delivering positive outcomes for the customer.