What makes an effort a project?
It is a temporary effort to create a unique product, service, or result, with a definite start and end.
What distinguishes operational work from project work?
Operational work is ongoing, while project work has a definite end.
What does project management comprise?
It comprises five process groups and ten knowledge areas.
Where are project objectives defined?
In the project charter.
What does the Initiating Process Group formally authorize?
A project.
What does the Planning Process Group develop?
The project management plan and project documents.
What work does the Executing Process Group complete?
The work in the latest revision of the project management plan.
What does Monitoring and Controlling measure project performance against?
The project management plan.
Who is accountable for a project’s success or failure?
The project manager.
Who manages related projects together to achieve results unavailable from managing them separately?
The program manager.
What does the sponsor provide to establish the project’s initial basis?
The project statement of work and initial-scope information.
Who directs individuals’ work in matrix, project-centric, and functional organizations?
The functional manager shares direction with the project manager in matrix organizations; the project manager directs work in project-centric organizations, and the functional manager does so in functional organizations.
What work does scope management define and ensure is performed?
All required project work, and only that work.
What does product scope describe?
What the customer wants from the product.
What work is included in project scope?
The work performed to deliver product scope, including planning, coordination, and management.
What does Collect Requirements do after identifying stakeholders?
It records them in a stakeholder register.
Which methods can be used to gather project requirements?
Interviews, workshops, brainstorming, surveys, observation, and prototypes are examples.
What does the Requirements Traceability Matrix link requirements to?
Project objectives and other requirements.
What information does Define Scope use to determine project and deliverable inclusion?
Requirements documentation, the project charter, and information about risks, assumptions, and constraints.
What is the project scope statement?
An output of Define Scope that describes project and product scope and related boundaries and criteria.
What components make up the scope baseline?
The approved project scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary.
What does the Work Breakdown Structure hierarchically decompose?
The complete project scope and its deliverables into manageable work packages.
What does Define Activities break WBS work packages into?
Activities that can be estimated, scheduled, monitored, and managed.
Which PDM relationship type is most common?
Finish-to-Start.
When are activity duration estimates made in project planning?
After activities are defined and sequenced and their resource types and quantities are identified.
How do padding and reserves differ in activity duration estimation?
Padding is arbitrary extra time or cost due to missing information; reserves address identified risks and unknowns through risk management.
What does one-point estimating assign to an activity?
A single estimate.
What risks can one-point estimating create?
It can hide risks, encourage padding, reduce buy-in, and undermine trust.
How do analogous and parametric estimating differ?
Analogous estimating uses information from similar projects or activities; parametric estimating uses data-derived relationships between variables and outcomes.
Which estimates does three-point estimating combine?
Optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely estimates.
What is the critical path in a project network diagram?
The longest path.
What does total float measure in a project schedule?
Delay possible without delaying the project end date.
What project outcomes can Monte Carlo analysis estimate?
Completion-date and cost probabilities, critical-path likelihood, and overall project risk.
How do variable costs differ from fixed costs as work amount changes?
Variable costs change; fixed costs do not.
What distinguishes direct costs from indirect costs?
Direct costs are attributable to project work; indirect costs are overheads not specific to one project or activity.
How does bottom-up estimating build an overall project cost estimate?
It estimates individual activities or work packages, rolls them into control units, then combines them.
Which risks do contingency and management reserves address, respectively?
Contingency reserves address remaining known risks; management reserves address unknown risks.
What is the formula for the cost budget?
What does project quality measure?
The degree to which a project fulfills its requirements.
What does quality management establish to meet intended customer needs?
Policies and procedures.
What does continuous improvement, or Kaizen, involve?
An ongoing search for small process improvements.
What does Plan Quality define about a project?
Project quality and how to achieve it.
What key output does Plan Quality produce?
A Quality Management Plan.
Who sets specification limits, and what do they express?
Customers set them to express expectations or contractual requirements.
What makes a process statistically out of control?
A point outside control limits or a non-random pattern, such as seven points on one side of the mean.
Why are related projects managed together as a program?
Managing them independently can be challenging.
What does a portfolio aim to achieve?
A specific strategic business goal.
What is a project management office (PMO)?
A centralized department that supports and manages projects.
What does business value include?
The tangible and intangible elements of a business.
What sequence defines the project management process groups?
Initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, then closing.
What is progressive elaboration?
The continual refinement of estimates and scope.
When is the project manager assigned?
During the Initiating phase.
How should project planning respond to changes?
The plan should accommodate changes while keeping detail and effort appropriate to project needs.
When is the project manager assigned, and what charter task may they help with?
No later than project initiation, and they may help write the project charter.
Who governs portfolio projects or programs at the executive level for organizational value and return?
The portfolio manager.
What does the sponsor formally provide during project closing?
Acceptance of deliverables.
What can the project team help identify and execute in project management?
The project team can help identify project inputs and execute the project management plan.
What should the scope management plan define in advance?
How scope will be determined, managed, and controlled.
Whose requirements should be gathered to define project scope?
All stakeholders’ requirements.
What is prohibited when managing project scope?
Adding extras beyond the agreed scope, known as gold plating.
Which factors should integrated scope change management consider?
Effects on time, cost, risk, quality, resources, and customer satisfaction.
How can a software application’s product scope be assessed?
By comparing the application with its documented requirements and project scope statement.
What should requirements support rather than merely reflect personal wishes?
Stated objectives.
How can historical records from similar projects help define requirements?
They reveal relevant requirements, team expectations, and scope-definition mistakes to avoid.
How does the Delphi technique build agreement among experts?
It recirculates compiled anonymous responses until consensus.
When is plurality used to make a group decision?
When no option has majority support, the option with the largest number of supporters wins.
What must stakeholders confirm about collected requirements?
That they meet the stated objectives.
What does product analysis identify from customer- and sponsor-provided product objectives and descriptions?
Tangible deliverables.
How is a WBS created, and what must it exclude?
It is created top-down with team involvement and excludes deliverables outside the project.
When can a deliverable be treated as a work package?
When it can be confidently estimated, quickly completed without interruption or further information, and potentially outsourced or contracted.
What information can a WBS dictionary specify for each work package?
Its work description, start, schedule milestones, and acceptance criteria.
What does a schedule management plan establish about reporting?
The project’s reporting requirements.
When does rolling wave planning detail activities?
When needed to manage work in an approaching project life-cycle phase.
What does a milestone represent in a project schedule?
An interim deliverable or schedule point.
Which network diagram method do project managers generally use?
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM).
Who controls discretionary dependencies?
The project manager and team select them, and they can be changed.
What does a lead allow a successor activity to do?
Start before its predecessor is complete.
Who should ideally estimate activity durations?
The people doing the work.
Which planning tools and practices make padding less likely?
A WBS and WBS dictionary, calculated time and cost reserves, and identified risks and unknowns.
What happens to project risk as a near-critical path approaches the critical path’s duration?
Project risk increases.
How can float be calculated using early and late schedule dates?
or ; both give the same result.
What float do critical-path activities have?
Zero float.
How does fast tracking compress a project schedule?
It performs critical-path activities in parallel that were planned in series.
What does crashing do to project cost?
It always increases cost.
What does life cycle costing consider?
The product’s whole life, rather than only the project cost.
What is the aim of value analysis?
To find less costly resources and activities without reducing performance or scope.
When is a rough order of magnitude estimate made, and what range does it typically use?
During project initiation, typically from -50% to +50%.
How did Philip Crosby describe quality?
As conformance to requirements.
Which quality management concepts are associated with W. Edwards Deming?
The 14 points of quality management and the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.
What is gold plating in project work?
Adding value or scope beyond what the customer requested.
Where does marginal analysis place the quality improvement threshold?
Where quality benefits equal the incremental cost of achieving them.
How does Just in Time reduce inventory costs?
Suppliers deliver raw materials when they are needed.
Which inputs does Plan Quality use?
Organizational process assets, enterprise environmental factors, the stakeholder register, scope, schedule, and cost baselines, and the risk register.
What does ISO 9000 support in organizations?
Quality procedures and their use.
What constraint applies to additional project-specific quality standards?
They must not violate other relevant standards.
Which seven tools are considered basic quality tools?
Cause-and-effect diagrams, flowcharts, histograms, Pareto charts, run charts, scatter diagrams, and control charts.
Answer 69 questions on Project Management Foundations.
1. Which description best defines a project?
2. A company continuously processes customer payments as part of its regular business, while a separate team is assigned to implement a new payment platform with a defined completion date. Which distinction applies?
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