Need Answers to Project Management Questions

1. Which of the following is more reflective of managerial task?

a. creating vision and strategies

b. problem-solving

c. long-term risk-taking

d. communication by word and deed

2. Which of the following is more reflective of a leader’s task?

a. efficiency of operations

b. delegation and maintaining

c. motivation and inspiration

d. marshalling resources

3. A more apt title for a project manager is ______________.

a. controller

b. comptroller

c. project director

d. project leader

4. Friendliness with a purpose describes ______________.

a. empathy

b. self-regulation

c. obsequiousness

d. social skill

5. Project management is first and foremost a ______________ challenge.

a. people management

b. customer service

c. perception management

d. budget management

6. The ability to cognitively bring the past and future closer together is ______________.

a. creating future vision

b. time warping

c. time compressing

d. tesseracting

7. A project manager should have the ability to generate estimates of what will occur in the

 future, which is termed ______________.

a. time warping

b. creating future vision

c. predicting

d. chunking time

8. The organizational structure for the project team, including policies and procedures, is the

 _______________.

a. work breakdown structure

b. rules statement

c. scope statement

d. management plan

9. Which of these scope statement steps create the all-important bureaucracy for a project?

a. the management plan

b. the work breakdown structure

c. the scope baseline

d. the project goal criteria

10. In the case of projects developed for external clients, work authorization typically addresses

 ______________.

a. budget linkage

b. audit trail establishment

c. resource requirements

d. contractual obligations

11. All projects are promised in terms of the specific functionality or performance criteria they will

 meet. The key feature of the contractual documentation that specifies this functionality or

 criteria is the ______________.

a. contractual requirements

b. valid consideration

c. contracted terms

d. contractual performance

12. The exchange that is specified by the contractual documentation is ______________.

a. the terms

b. valid consideration

c. reciprocity

d. fair and unencumbered

13. The status accounting step of configuration management functions primarily as

 _____________.

a. a hierarchy

b. binding arbitration

c. cost control

d. memory

14. If viewed from a flow standpoint, the stage of configuration management that has provision

 for variable routing to the next step, depending on outcome at this stage, is _______________.

a. configuration control

b. configuration reviews

c. status accounting

d. configuration identification

15. Your first project team meeting got off to a bad start when the functional manager for your

 team’s physician refused to allow her to attend the meeting. This ______________.

a. goal-oriented conflict threatened the project’s success.

b. administrative conflict posed a serious threat to the project’s success.

c. interpersonal conflict was devastating to the project’s chance for success.

d. interactionist conflict meant there would be no project completion party in your future.

16. The husband in the marriage project meekly apologized and hid in the garage while the other

 project team member rampaged through the house. The husband holds the ______________

 view of conflict.

a. behavioral

b. interactionist

c. traditional

d. attributional

17. Some of the team members took great delight in stirring the pot at team meetings. They knew

 just how to get each team member agitated and then sat back and enjoyed the show. These

 trouble-makers defended their actions by claiming that they took the _______________ view of

 conflict.

a. traditional

b. behavioral

c. the high reliability

d. the interactionist

18. When a project manager imposes a judgment on warring parties, he is involved in

 ______________.

a. mediation

b. elimination

c. arbitration

d. acceptance

19. Principled negotiation is the art of ______________.

a. getting agreement with the other party while maintaining a win-win attitude

b. refusing to compromise your principles for the sake of a business deal

c. creating conflict to test for an adversary’s weakness and reducing conflict once the

 weakness has been exposed

d. dividing your resources in the face of superior numbers

20. An excellent starting point in negotiations is to ______________.

a. deduce their intentions from your fears

b. identify the person that is the source of the problem

c. deduce their fears from your intentions

d. put yourself in their shoes

21. The greatest project risk occurs when the probability of the event is _______________ and the

 consequences of the event are ______________.

a. high; high

b. high; low

c. low; high

d. low; low

22. The greatest project opportunity occurs when the project is in the _______________ phase.

a. concept

b. development

c. implementation

d. termination

23. The amount a company has at stake in a project rises above the dollar value of opportunity in

 the ______________ phase.

a. implementation

b. development

c. concept

d. termination

24. The mouse executive board meeting was drawing to a conclusion; the only way they would be

 able to detect the presence of the cat was to tie a bell around its tail. Under their risk

 management identification scheme, this would fall under _______________ risk.

a. commercial

b. execution

c. financial

d. technical

25. A method for conducting risk factor identification that consolidates the judgments of isolated,

 anonymous respondents is _______________.

a. a brainstorming meeting

b. the Delphi method

c. past history

d. multiple assessments

 

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1. All five members of a project team add 15% to their individual serial activities as a safety

 margin and submit their time estimates to the project manager. The manager adds the activity

 length estimates together and adds 10% for his personal safety margin. Then, anticipating a cut

 by top management, adds another 10% to his final project estimate. Much to his surprise, top

 management cuts 30% off his time estimate. How much of a cushion is now built into the

 project?

a 13%

b. 7%

c. 5%

d. -3%

2. All five members of a project team add 20% to their individual serial activities as a safety

 margin and submit their time estimates to the project manager. The manager adds the activity

 length estimates together and adds 20% for his personal safety margin. Then, anticipating a cut

 by top management, adds another 20% to his final project estimate. The executive level of the

 organization just completed a retreat where they read The One Minute Manager, Who Moved My

 Cheese and Critical Chain. They return from their retreat both energized and much wiser in the

 ways of project management. They know that everyone has been routinely adding 20% and

 want to scale the project back to an unpadded estimate. How much should they cut?

a. 42%

b. 60%

c. 33%

d. 27%

3. The student syndrome of wasting extra safety time can be described as ______________.

a. lack of motivation

b. procrastination

c. failure to communicate

d. lack of comprehension

4. Which of the following statements about CCPM activity networks is correct?

a. Project workers are more likely to meet a deadline for their activity than miss it.

b. There are no milestones in the CCPM activity network.

c. Project workers are more likely to miss a deadline for their activity than meet it.

d. There is no project delivery deadline in the CCPM activity network

5. Subcontractor deliveries are difficult to schedule with the critical chain project methodology

 because ____________.

a. the project manager cannot force subcontractors to use this project management

 approach

b. the feeder buffers for a subcontractor are as much as 50% shorter than for an employee

 or internal team

c. subcontractors routinely operate according to calendar delivery dates

d. the corporate culture of “no blame” does not naturally extend to subcontractors

6. The buffers supplied to noncritical paths in critical chain project management are called

 _____________ buffers.

a. slack

b. drum

c. rope

d. feeder

7. The amounts of individual resources that a schedule requires during a specific time period is

 referred to as the resource’s ______________.

a. loading

b. capacity

c. constraint

d. drag

8. A resource loading form is also known as a(n) ______________.

a. load schedule

b. resource usage calendar

c. activity resource schedule

d. network resource profile

9. A resource loading chart displays the amount of ______________.

a. time needed as a function of resource limits

b. resources required as a function of time

c. time needed as a function of money

d. resources needed as a function of money

10. Splitting activities refers to _____________.

a. assigning the work to two or more workers

b. assigning the work to two or more days

c. starting an activity, interrupting it to use a resource elsewhere and then returning to

 work on the activity

d. breaking each noncritical activity into two or more components and subdividing the

 resources they use by a similar divisor

11. The Minimum Late Finish Time rule stipulates that the _____________.

a. earliest late finishers are scheduled last

b. latest early finishers are scheduled first

c. earliest late finishers are scheduled first

d. latest late finishers are scheduled first

12. Mathematical programming is sometimes used to generate optimal solutions to resource

 constrained problems in a multi-project setting but suffers from _____________.

a. an inability to model project and activity due dates

b. resource substitution

c. resource constraints

d. problem complexity

13. In earned value management, schedule variance is defined as the difference

 between the _____________.

a. earned value and the actual cost

b. earned value and the planned value

c. actual cost and the planned value

d. cost and schedule performance indices multiplied by the budgeted cost at completion

14. The budget variance is calculated as _____________.

a. earned value minus planned value

b. planned value minus actual cost

c. earned value minus actual cost

d. cost minus planned value

15. In earned value management analysis, the cumulative amount of the budget becomes the

 _____________.

a. planned value

b. scheduled value

c. cost basis

d. cost driver

16. The project baseline is established by combining data from the _____________.

a. work breakdown structure and the project budget

b. time-phased project budget and the PERT chart

c. S-curve and the project budget

d. time-phased project budget and the work breakdown structure

17. Take the factors considered by earned value analysis and subtract those considered by project

 S-curves. The factor(s) you have remaining are _____________.

a. performance and cost

b. cost and schedule

c. time

d. performance

18. Knowing the correct steps to take once problems develop is a function of a team’s ___________

 ability.

a. communication

b. client acceptance

c. troubleshooting

d. technical task

19. Earned value management is also known as _____________.

a. the golden triangle method (GTM)

b. the achieved value method (AVM)

c. the program evaluation and review method (PERM)

d. earned value analysis (EVA)

20. All projects are unique _____________.

a. therefore all project management circumstances are equally unique

b. so knowledge cannot be transferred

c. but they may have several common points

d. so knowledge should not be transferred to avoid bias in future projects

21. Lessons learned analysis is best described as a(n) ______________ process.

a. bookkeeping

b. personnel reassignment

c. pressure relief

d. organizational learning

22. Which of these is not a consequence of a natural process for project closeout?

a. Team members suffer a natural let-down and are de-motivated to participate in future

 projects.

b. Managers can create a database of lessons learned analyses.

c. Closeout can serve as an important source of information for team members.

d. Structure for a systematic and complete project shut-down arises.

23. Which of these statements about early termination decisions is best?

a. The decision to pull the plug is usually clear-cut.

b. A project’s viability is usually a purely internal issue.

c. Projects that can fulfill a useful purpose in the marketplace are not killed.

d. External reasons, such as a change in the organizations environment, are often the

 reasons for project termination.

24. A mainframe computer company decided to enter the personal computer market with its

 Floridian Project, but subsequently decided to leave the market to focus on the mainframe

 business. The decision rule that they probably applied was to get out when ____________.

a. the project no longer meets strategic fit criteria

b. deadlines continue to be missed

c. project personnel turn over too rapidly

d. technology evolves beyond the project’s scope

25. The rapid evolution of technology and the need to freeze a project’s scope can combine to

 render a project ____________.

a. too costly to complete

b. obsolete before it can be finished

c. a poor fit with current company strategy

d. so complex that it will take too long to complete