CAPM Mock Test 2

Creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is related to three domains: Planning, Delivery and Measurement (PMBOK 7, page 194).

Option B: Scope development is a made-up term. PMBOK 7 defines eight domains: 1) Stakeholders, 2) Team, 3) Development approach and Life cycle, 4) Planning, 5) Project work, 6) Delivery, 7) Performance, 8) Uncertainty and ambiguity.

A) Forming: At this initial stage, the project team assembles for the first time. Project team members get to know each other’s responsibilities and skills. This might occur in the kickoff meeting.

B) Storming: Team members compete for roles and recognition as their personalities, strengths, and weaknesses emerge. This phase can involve conflict and adjustment as they learn to collaborate.

C) Norming: At this point, each project team member knows their roles on the team and how to interact with others. Although initial challenges may arise, they are swiftly addressed, allowing the team to progress effectively and initiate their tasks.

D) Performing: The project team at this stage becomes operationally efficient. This is the mature project team stage. Project teams develop synergy between each other. Project team members become performant and produce a high-quality product.

E) Adjourning: The project team finishes the work and disbands to work on other things.

First, the development team should collaborate with the product owner in order to remove some work items from the sprint backlog. The sprint backlog is a living artifact that should be updated whenever something new is learned or discovered. Afterward, in the sprint retrospective, the team should discuss how they can improve their estimations.

Option B: Reprioritizing the product backlog items won’t help solve this problem. This activity is often undertaken during the refinement sessions with the purpose of making user stories ready for the following iterations.

Option D: The agile team should be proactive and should not wait for the sprint review in order to inform the product owner that they couldn’t complete the affected work.

The project is 50% complete, so in order to calculate its EV, the following formula must be applied: EV = (BAC x % complete).

The project’s BAC is calculated by adding up all of the PVs of the project phases:

BAC = $2,000 + $2,000 + $3,000 + $3,000 = $10,000.

Therefore, the project’s EV = ($10,000 x %50) = $5,000.

The project charter is the document that authorizes the project manager to launch the project execution (PMBOK 7th edition, page 184). It also includes a brief description of the project and its requirements.

Options B & C: the scope statement and the project management plan contain a detailed version of these requirements.

A. Inspects progress towards the sprint goal = Sprint execution

B. Presents the project’s performance to the stakeholders = Sprint review

C. Discusses the improvements that can be applied in the upcoming sprints = Sprint retrospective

D. Provides estimates of the required effort to complete user stories = Sprint planning

Please note that in the real exam such a question usually comes in the form of “drag & drop”.

Flexibility is one of the most important aspects of the Agile approach; the scope of work can change in response to new requirements. An Agile, adaptive, or change-driven approach encourages collecting feedback from stakeholders on a regular basis. Unlike the predictive approach, the Agile approach doesn’t involve a Change Control Board (CCB).

The client establishes the project’s requirements. After all, the project was issued by the client.

Option A: Business analysts and marketers are stakeholders that could influence the project’s scope, but the client has the final say.

Option C: The project manager is in charge of meeting requirements rather than their definition.

The previous project manager made the assumption that the project would not experience any procurement delays.

Options A, B: There isn’t enough information to determine whether the scenario involves a schedule variance or a critical path activity.

Option D: The described situation is not a constraint.

The Kanban method involves pulling work into the system only when the team is capable of handling it. The Kanban method prioritizes productivity and efficiency through its workflow approach. Unlike the Scrum team, a Kanban team does not have predefined roles.

A Pareto Chart is a vertical bar chart that ranks defects in descending order according to their frequency of occurrence. The Pareto Chart helps the project team focus on the causes that create the highest number of defects. Pareto’s Principle, aka Pareto’s Law, states that a limited number of causes usually produce the majority of defects or problems, which is referred to as the “80/20 principle” or “80/20 rule”.

Option C: PERT is not a chart; it’s an estimation technique that uses a “weighted” average estimate rather than a simple average ( (Optimistic + 4 * Mean + Pessimistic) / 6 ).

An Agile retrospective meeting takes place at the end of each iteration during which the team discusses what happened during the iteration and determines improvement areas for future iterations. The retrospective allows issues to be identified and discussed along with ideas for improvements. Retrospectives are a primary tool for managing project knowledge and developing the team through discussing what went well and what needs to be improved (PMBOK 7th edition, page 71).

Explanation
20% of the project’s Earned Value is completed: EV = % finished x BAC = 0.2 x $120,000 = $24,000

In order to reduce misunderstandings when using written communication mediums, the project manager can rely on the 5 techniques or the 5Cs of written communication, which represent: Correct grammar and spelling, Concise expression and elimination of excess words, Clear purpose and expression directed to the needs of the reader, Coherent, logical flow of ideas, and Controlled flow of words and ideas. Tone variation is a verbal communication technique.

A Definition of Done is a checklist of required criteria in order to consider a product ready for delivery (Agile Practice Guide, page 151). Functional requirements describe the product requirements, e.g., website menus, functionalities, services, etc. Fit for Use is when a product serves its purpose as it is usable in its current state.

Saving an endangered species of rhinos from extinction is the only correct example of a project since it has a unique outcome and a limited time frame. Governments and NGOs usually lead this kind of project which can take years. However, activities occurring after the project is complete, such as routinely keeping track of the endangered species population, could be considered operations. Periodically cleaning the local park, cyclically producing shoes, or routinely preparing dinner are all examples of operations rather than projects.

Agile frameworks are known for their frequent and straightforward communication where a project manager is continuously checking in with the team to accordingly decide what could be alternatively done to improve the work pace and boost the team’s morale. Daily communication should not be confused with daily standup. Daily standup meetings are held by the agile team members who follow a scrum framework. The project manager or scrum master is not required to attend this meeting, but even if they do, the daily standup meeting should not be their only channel of communication with the team. Whether you adopt a predictive or an adaptive approach for your project, you have to use formal and informal communication according to the situation.

The project took more time than it should have most likely because the project scope was not clearly defined. There is no indication in the described situation that the project should have been broken down into smaller sub-projects. The project team doesn’t usually have the power to approve or disapprove change requests. Changes conducted on the project scope fall under the Change Control Board’s (CCB) responsibility. The fact that the project has exceeded its allocated time means that the sponsor is still supporting the project, therefore the project should not be halted.

Explanation
The process of breaking down project deliverables means the creation of the project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

If the team maintains an average velocity of 20 story points per iteration, it would take 11 iterations to complete the remaining 205 story points. (205 story points / 20 story points = 10.25 iterations). Since the timebox of an iteration should not be changed, the project team will need 11 iterations to complete the rest of the work.

In the Scrum framework, the sprint planning meeting should include the scrum master, product owner, and the whole scrum team. When needed, other stakeholders can be invited by the team to attend this meeting. During the sprint planning meeting, the product owner identifies the features with the highest priority. The team asks questions to get the necessary understanding to be able to turn high-level user stories into more detailed tasks.

This situation describes a constraint therefore it should be added to the assumption log. The assumption log records all the assumptions and the constraints of the project.

Smoothing means smoothing away the issue by minimizing its perceived scale. Postponing decision-making depicts withdrawal. Taking a decision based on a 3rd party’s input (the experienced team member) represents forcing. Taking into account both parties’ opinions is known as compromise.

Change requests may be submitted by any stakeholder involved with the project. The project sponsor(s), stakeholders, and the project team are all considered project stakeholders, therefore, they can all make change requests. CCB membership, power level, or involvement in project execution should not be restrictions for someone to request changes.

During the “Validate scope” process, deliverables are compared against the acceptance criteria and requirements in order to formally sign off the completed deliverables. “Validate Scope” consists in formalizing the approval and acceptance of the completed project deliverables. One of the outputs of the “Validate Scope” process is the accepted deliverables that were formally signed off and approved by the authorized stakeholder.

Option A, B: “Control quality” and “Control scope” should be carried out before the “Validate scope” process. The verified deliverables obtained upon conducting the “Control Quality” process are the input of the “Validate Scope” process.

A project manager should guide and motivate the team, making strategic decisions and resolving conflicts to keep the project on track. Project managers think beyond the immediate tasks and challenges, planning for the future and aligning project goals with broader organizational objectives. Building and maintaining trust is crucial for effective team collaboration and morale, helping to ensure that team members are engaged and committed to the project’s success.

The unwillingness to deal with a conflict is referred to as withdrawing. This conflict resolution technique is acceptable when some time to cool off is needed in order to achieve a better understanding of the situation, or when the other party is unassailable or uncooperative (PMBOK 7th edition, page 169).

Material shortage, technical difficulties, scheduling conflicts, etc. are problems that should be recorded in the issue log. An issue log allows stakeholders to record and monitor active issues and their status; who’s assigned to follow up and resolve a particular issue, for instance.

The purpose of creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is to both organize and visualize the project scope. This document organizes work into work packages and assigns each package a code of accounts. Besides, as a visual tool, the WBS helps the team check the overall work plan, see how the project should progress, and appropriately manage the project workflow. The WBS is developed after identifying the project requirements and defining its scope.

Scrum teams use four main events: sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.

Validate requirements is about ensuring that the requirements fulfill the business goals and objectives, confirming that they are the right requirements to achieve the intended outcomes (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 175).

A high-level approach for traceability and monitoring is established early in the planning phase in case of predictive approach. This approach is refined and adjusted throughout the course of the project. Typically, substantial elements of product information and deliverables are tracked (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 257).

Option B: In an adaptive approach, traceability and monitoring may be outlined at a high level during iteration 0. However, tracing and managing changes to product information are often not considered.

Since it’s less than one, a 0.91 CPI indicates that the project is over budget; meaning that the project spent more money than expected. There is no evidence that the project is behind or ahead of schedule.

When managing an Agile project, risk identification occurs in all types of planning meetings, such as daily stand-ups, release meetings, iteration reviews, and retrospectives.

Team velocity, i.e., the sum of story points’ sizes of the completed features in the current iteration, allows the team to plan its next iteration more accurately by taking into consideration their historical performance (Agile Practice Guide, page 64).

Storyboarding is a prototyping technique in which it involves creating a visual representation of a sequence of events or steps. (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 168)

It’s not enough to complete a project on time and under budget. You need to deliver value by creating a suitable product for your stakeholders’ needs. Customer satisfaction is about making sure that the people who are paying for the end product are happy with what they ultimately get. Conformance to requirements and usability of deliverables is the basis of customer satisfaction as they allow you to measure how well your product meets expectations.

Historical data is the most useful when it comes to validating project assumptions.

Attempting to produce deliverables of a higher quality than required to exhaust the allocated budget and satisfy the project client is known as gold plating.

Unlike the burnup chart which shows the completed work, a burndown chart is a graphical depiction of the work that still needs to be completed (PMBOK 7th edition, pages 108).

Bids, tenders, quotes, and proposals intersect with each other. Bids or tenders are used when the project is large and the scope of work is clear. Quotes, however, are mainly used to provide the price of particular products or services.

The sum of all tasks is 32 story points. Therefore, after calculation, you’ll find that it will take 3.2 iterations for the team to complete the tasks of the given release:

(32 story points / 10 story points = 3.2 iterations)

However, since the timebox of an iteration should not be changed, 4 iterations are needed to complete the release tasks.

Product scope is defined as the features and functions that characterize a solution (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 102).

Option D: The scope management plan defines how to elaborate the scope (when and how), and doesn’t include the scope of work (features and functions).

Organizational charts help analysts understand how different roles and departments are interconnected, which can reveal key stakeholders who will be affected by or can influence the implementation of a new solution.

Option A: Organizational charts do not provide financial information or budget details. Budgetary constraints are typically assessed through financial reports, budget plans, and cost analyses, not organizational structures.

Option C: While organizational charts show the structure and hierarchy, they do not give insights into departmental performance. Performance evaluation requires analyzing performance metrics, KPIs, and reports.

The “Identify stakeholders” process should take place either before or concurrently while creating and approving the project charter. Stakeholders’ identification should be carried out as many times as needed. However, it should always be executed at the beginning of each project phase and whenever a significant change occurs on both the project and the organization level.

An internal project is a project in which the customer is a person or department within your company. An external project, however, is a project in which the customer is an external party, whether it is a person or an organization. The customer or the client is the person, department, or organization that is supporting the project’s development financially. The end-user of a product is not necessarily the project client or customer. Some corporations focus almost entirely on internal projects. Internet and software companies, for instance, primarily create internal projects in which they are their own client and their end-user is the general public (Fundamentals of Technology Project Management by Colleen Garton, Erika McCulloch, page 84).

Option A, C, D: There is no indication in the question that the project is large or that it adheres to a traditional or agile approach.

The project manager should schedule a meeting with the concerned stakeholders to present the project, discuss and establish ground rules, ensure their involvement and identify any personal or organizational issues. The project manager can overcome stakeholder resistance by simply listening to their concerns. The purpose is to see things from their perspective. The project manager should understand what drives and motivates the stakeholder in order to establish common ground and understand the reason behind such resistance.

A defined budget is a project limitation i.e. a constraint. A predetermined project budget sets the maximum amount of money that the project manager is allowed to spend on a particular project, representing a limiting factor (constraint) for the project that can impact its quality, delivery, and overall success.

Anonymously gathering the input of subject matter experts depicts the use of the Delphi technique, also known as the Delphi method or Delphi forecasting. This technique can be performed by sending an anonymous questionnaire or poll to gather advice from each expert, followed by a group discussion.

The category of business stakeholders is a broad one, covering all those with an interest in the business; therefore, it can be made up of other role types, such as subject matter experts or users.(PMI Guide to Business Analysis, page 49).

A process flow is a business analysis model that visually represents the steps the user takes while interacting with a solution. Similarly, when a system’s steps are illustrated, the model is referred to as a system flow. An activity diagram, another type of process model, depicts the intricate flow of use cases. While activity diagrams share similarities with process flows in terms of syntax, they typically illustrate both user and system interactions within a single diagram, closely reflecting the textual descriptions of use cases (PMI guide to business analysis, pages 198 & 199).

Option B: Data flow diagram is a business analysis model that integrates processes, systems, and data to illustrate the flow of information through a solution. It addresses how inputs are converted into outputs and how processes are represented.

Option D: An Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a business analysis tool that illustrates the data objects or information relevant to a business and the connections between these objects, including the cardinality of their relationships. They are more focused on data structure than on workflows or system transitions.

Option E: A context diagram visually represents the scope of a product by illustrating a business system, such as a process, equipment, or computer system and its interactions with people and other systems (actors). The context diagram doesn’t show the detailed workflows or transitions within the system.

A Project Kick-Off Meeting is considered the formal announcement of the project approval for execution. This meeting takes place at the beginning of the project, once the plan and the project itself get approved but before executing or starting any work (PMBOK 7th edition, page 179). The Project Kick-Off Meeting is usually attended by the sponsor, other managers, the project team, as well as contractors and vendors (Effective Project Management Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Hybrid 8th edition by Robert K. Wysocki Pages 273, 274).

The sponsor’s role entails providing the project manager with the required tools and resources to carry out their work.

Option A, D: The sponsor does not take part in managing the project, nor do they get involved in team members’ assignments.

Option C: In a functional environment, the project manager has very limited power, therefore they can’t have the freedom to make all decisions in this type of environment.

In an iteration-based agile project, the product owner works with the team to refine the backlog and prepare user stories for the next iterations throughout one or multiple sessions, in the middle of the iteration (Agile Practice Guide, page 67).

Any change to the project management plan should go through the organization’s change control process by issuing a change request.

The compromise approach to conflict resolution is characterized by searching for solutions that bring a certain level of satisfaction to all parties involved in order to temporarily or partially resolve the conflict (PMBOK 7th edition, page 168). In the question, a temporary solution was suggested to ensure some degree of satisfaction for both the project manager and the functional manager (a lose-lose situation).

Option D: Smoothing emphasizes areas of agreement rather than areas of difference, leading to a yield-lose situation.

The meeting probably does not have either a clear agenda or a facilitator. An agenda organizes and structures a meeting’s discussions, while a facilitator ensures that the agenda is being followed and respected.

Option A: Minutes of Meeting, aka MoM, is a summary of what happened during a meeting. MoM serves as a written record for future reference, thus they cannot be what caused this meeting to be chaotic.

Option C: The meeting already has an objective; concluding a procurement in the negotiation phase. But, since no one is assigned to facilitate the meeting, it’s probable that the objective was not appropriately communicated to all attendees in the first place, resulting in the described chaos.

Kanban focuses on visualizing work, managing flow, and continuous delivery using a board without specific time-boxed iterations or daily standups. All the other options use daily standups and/or increments

The scope statement provides a comprehensive description of the project’s scope, including its major deliverables and exclusions. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of the entire scope of work required to achieve project objectives and deliver the desired outcomes. The WBS Dictionary is a comprehensive document that offers detailed information about each component in the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). It includes specifics on deliverables, activities, and schedules, providing a clear and structured understanding of the project’s elements.

The project manager is identifying stakeholders and analyzing their level of influence. Although the project has been active for two months, it is recommended to perform this activity on a regular basis, especially when the project gets into a new phase.

An inspection is a structured and detailed review process where an individual closely familiar with the work examines it for completeness, consistency, and conformance to both internal and external standards. This often involves using a checklist to assess requirements and offer feedback. Inspections can include walkthroughs or day-in-the-life testing. In contrast, a peer review is conducted by one or more colleagues who assess the work completed by the business analyst. This reviewer could be another business analyst, a team lead, or a quality control team member.

Option E: Audit is performed to make sure that all processes and procedures are followed. It’s not used to review the requirements.

A story point is a metric used to estimate the difficulty of carrying out a given user story in an agile project. In other words, it is an abstract measure of the effort required to implement a user story. A story point is simply a number that indicates the difficulty level of the story. The difficulty varies depending on the complexities, risks, and efforts involved (PMBOK 7th edition, page 178).

The cost increase should be tracked and communicated using a cost variance report.

Option B: A formal representation of the cost increase is not necessary.

Options C & D: A memo is not the appropriate means in this situation.

While business analysts may define acceptance criteria and ensure that the requirements are met, the actual process of quality assurance, including testing and validation, is typically the responsibility of a dedicated QA team

According to the network diagram, the project is at high risk. With five critical paths and two near-critical paths, any delay of any activity belonging to these paths will result in the whole project’s delay. Having more than one critical and near-critical path does not mean that the project requires more resources and an increase in the allocated budget. On the other hand, just because the project is at high risk of schedule delay does not mean it should be terminated.

Scope and performance validation includes scheduled meetings with the sponsor or customer to formally obtain acceptance of the deliverables. The task of evaluating solution performance is typically led by the business analyst or someone fulfilling that role.

Option D: End users provide feedback and may perform testing, but the formal acceptance usually comes from the project sponsor, who represents the business’s interests.

Incremental development approach is where the deliverable is incrementally enhanced by adding functionality in successive iterations until it meets the required capabilities and is deemed complete. It provides finished deliverables such as the MVP that the customer may be able to use immediately.

Data analysis includes techniques such as alternatives analysis in which it’s used to evaluate identified options in order to select the options or approaches to use to execute and perform project work. Data analysis techniques are used to organize, assess, and evaluate data and information (PMI Process Groups Guide, page 89).

Option B: Data collection refers to gathering information, in which it’s not considered a tool used to “plan schedule management”.

Option C, D: Decomposition and rolling wave planning are techniques for “define activities” process rather than “plan schedule management” process.

The decision tree method can help the project manager choose the best option for their project. Decision trees are used to support the selection of the best course of action among several alternative possible options. The decision tree uses branches representing the different decisions or events and their associated costs and risks.

Unlike parametric estimating, the analogous estimating technique uses expert judgment by comparing a particular activity to a similarly completed one on a previous project in order to determine its duration or cost. This means that the project manager should rely on expert feedback, i.e., completing a similar task in 14 hours.

Systems thinking requires both a holistic and detailed perspective, focusing on the organization as a system of interconnected parts. Systems thinking involves recognizing the organization as a collection of people, processes, and tools and analyzing how changes in one component can impact other related components. This comprehensive view is essential to effectively manage organizational changes and understand their broader implications (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 370).

Fishbowl windows and remote pairing are two techniques used to manage communication in remote teams. The project manager can create fishbowl windows by initiating long-lived video conferences, where team members join in at the beginning of the workday and leave at the end. Remote pairing, on the other hand, is when two or more people join an online event at a specific time to discuss and share screens when needed (Agile Practice Guide, page 46).

Option B: Changing the project life cycle from hybrid to agile won’t have any significant impact on communication if team members don’t take any specific measures or techniques to improve the way they interact with each other.

Option C: Colocating the team is not always feasible due to many considerations such as cost, talent availability, regulations, etc. However, when possible, getting the team together in person on a regular basis is a good practice.

The Change Control System is a set of procedures that describes how modifications to the project deliverables and documentation are managed and controlled (PMBOK 7th edition, page 237).

The Rolling wave method is used to address uncertainty by planning near-term work in detail while planning future tasks in a more broad manner (PMBOK Guide 7th edition, page 249). It’s a form of progressive elaboration that sets up near-term plans and “rolls” into the longer term as more details become available. In this way, rolling wave planning allows work to progress in current and near-term deliverables while planning for potential work packages continues.

In this case, the project is currently in the Collect Requirements process, which involves identifying and documenting the needs and requirements of stakeholders. Data gathering takes part in the Collect Requirements process to obtain stakeholders’ requirements. It puts in use tools and techniques like benchmarking, brainstorming, focus groups, interviews, questionnaires, and surveys.

SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Meaningful, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (PMBOK 7th edition, page 97). Each letter in SMART can have other alternatives, except the “S” which commonly refers to “Specific” or “Strategic and Specific”.

Stakeholders have the most influence and impact on a predictive project at its early stages. Stakeholder influence is mostly perceived in the early stages of the project. The project is flexible at this stage and can be changed and stakeholders generally take advantage of this. Once it starts to progress, the project takes on momentum and power of its own, thus, the cost of stopping it or altering its direction becomes very high.

Currency fluctuations can be handled using a Fixed Price with Economic Price Adjustment (FP-EPA) contract. This type of contract allows the adjustment of the fixed price or rate of the contract. The buyer and seller agree on pre-defined criteria for this adjustment. This is often used for long-term projects that can span multiple years to adapt to market uncertainties and changes. The criteria to adjust the fixed price are based on market conditions that are beyond the control of both the buyer and seller, including changes in the cost of labor and material, general inflation, and fluctuations in the currency market.

Option C: In a Fixed Price Incentive Fee Contract (FPIF), the buyer pays the seller a defined amount plus an additional incentive if the seller meets defined performance criteria.

Option D: A Firm Fixed Price Contract (FFP) includes a fixed price that the buyer pays the seller regardless of the seller’s costs. Fixed Price with Currency Adjustment is a made-up term.

The project calendar outlines the available working days and shifts for scheduling project activities.

Risk mitigation can imply prototype development in order to prevent the risk from scaling up. Creating a prototype will support the testing and through testing, you can generate the necessary data to probably even close the risk. To keep costs low, you can opt for partial prototypes for the specific portions of the process that involve the risk.

Gap analysis involves comparing the current state with the desired future state to identify any gaps that need to be addressed. It ensures that the product development aligns with the strategic objectives and market needs.

Option A: While market analysis is the activity of collecting information about factors that influence a marketplace, it does not take into account the company’s strategic objectives.

Option B: Developing a project plan comes after the initial research and analysis to ensure the plan is based on accurate market insights and identified gaps.

Option C: Benchmarking involves comparing an organization’s products, services and processes to industry best performance and practices from other competitors.

Daily scrum or daily stand-up meeting is a daily huddle meeting where the development team members inspect progress toward the Sprint goal, adjust the upcoming planned work, and rise encountered obstacles or impediments.

The Scrum of Scrums technique as defined in (Agile practise guide, page 126) is used when two or more Scrum teams consisting of three to nine members each need to coordinate their work instead of one large Scrum team. A representative from each team attends a meeting with the other team representative(s).

Option C: Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) as defined in (Agile practice guide, page 128) is a framework designed to coordinate multiple development teams working towards a unified goal. Its central principle is to preserve as many elements of the standard single-team Scrum model as possible, thereby minimizing extensions that could introduce unnecessary complexity.

As soon as a change gets approved, the project manager must update the time, cost, and scope baselines to reflect the impact of the change on all project aspects.

Option A, C: Each change gets through review as well as risk assessment by the Change Control Board (CCB) before getting approved or rejected.

Option D: A change control system represents a description of the way changes to the project scope should be managed. Actual changes are not part of the change control system

The business analyst is the one responsible for gathering, analyzing, and documenting the requirements. They ensure that the project team understands what needs to be built.

Task A is not yet complete: Data. Work performance data is the raw measurements and observations made during project execution (PMI – Process groups guide, page 23).

Task B is not accepted because of a security issue: Information. When data is analyzed, it becomes information.

Task C had a huge impact on the burndown chart: Report. Examining the whole picture in a burndown chart is a form of reporting.

Task D is added to the product backlog based on customer feedback: Practice. The activity of creating, refining, estimating, and prioritizing product backlog items is one of the agile practices.

Please note that in the real exam such a question usually comes in the form of “matching”.

The Daily Scrum is a brief, time-boxed meeting held each day during a sprint, typically lasting 15 minutes. Its purpose is to provide a regular opportunity for the Scrum team to synchronize their work, discuss progress, and plan the day’s activities. A retrospective is a recurring workshop where participants reflect on their work and outcomes to enhance both the process and the product. It serves as a structured opportunity for team members to evaluate what went well, identify areas for improvement, and apply lessons learned to future sprints. A Sprint Review, or Iteration Review, is conducted at the conclusion of each iteration to showcase and evaluate the work completed. This meeting provides an opportunity to demonstrate the results achieved during the iteration and gather feedback from stakeholders.

The first thing the project manager should do is listen to the customer, take note of the reasons behind their dissatisfaction, and verify the deliverables. Once this is done, the project manager will be equipped with all of the needed information to make the best decision. If they realize that it’s just a misunderstanding or the customer is missing some details regarding the project deliverables, then they can simply use their soft skills to explain and convince them that the deliverables are good. However, if the deliverables do not meet specifications or require improvement, then they should plan to implement changes in the upcoming iterations according to the priorities set by the customer. Since the project is hybrid, the project manager may also need to ask the customer to submit a change request if out-of-scope work is requested.

The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) is a sustainability framework for evaluating a company’s bottom line from the perspectives of profit, people, and the planet (PMBOK 7th edition, page 252). This concept implies that companies should commit to measuring their social and environmental impact, in addition to their financial performance, rather than solely focusing on generating profit.

Before taking any corrective measures, the project manager should determine the underlying cause of the problem. If it turns out that the concerned team member is overallocated.

Phase reviews, aka phase gates, phase exits, phase entrances, and stage gates, is a formal review of the project to evaluate its status. The results are documented and presented to the concerned stakeholders or the sponsor in order to get their approval to proceed to the next phase in the project lifecycle. (PMBOK 7th edition, page 244).

The project team is expected to deliver shippable product features by the end of each iteration. During the Iteration Review meeting, the project team demonstrates their work to the product owner and concerned stakeholders, in order to get feedback and approval (PMBOK 7th edition, page 179).

Promoting business analysis effectiveness involves fostering a mindset of continuous improvement and growth. This mindset encourages business analysts to identify opportunities to adapt processes and tools, aiming to deliver maximum value based on organizational needs. Enhancing business analysis capability through the language, practices, and tools of business analysis within the organization, making them more familiar and effective

(Business Analysis For Practitioners, page 93).

Option A: Hiring more business analysts without having a goal to improve business processes will not make business stewardship more effective.

Option C: Implementing a PMO could contribute to the effectiveness of business stewardship, however the PMO is not an essential practice. Not all organizations have the business need or the adequate size to set up a PMO.

Option E: Maintaining the status quo in business processes contradicts the idea of stewardship, which involves ensuring that business analysis practices evolve and improve over time. Maintaining the status quo does not align with the goal of enhancing effectiveness or capability.

The contract comprises all of the other mentioned documents. Any changes to any of the predetermined contract terms between the subcontractor and the project manager, including the defined scope of work, should be addressed in the contract.

The retrospective meeting is the right meeting to reflect on what happened during the sprint and how to improve the implemented processes. Therefore, rather than discussing how to improve future work efficiency, the meeting facilitator should steer back the discussion to only focus on the demonstrated feature and get the product owner’s feedback on what has been produced. This being said, if the documentation needs improvement, team members should create a technical task for it and demonstrate its importance to the product owner during Sprint Planning.

Once the business case is approved, the chosen solution approach sets the initial product scope. At this stage, the product scope is defined broadly by the capabilities and features linked to the selected option. As the product team conducts further analysis, the product scope is continuously refined. During the initiative, the product scope may be adjusted to accommodate evolving business needs, emerging risks, or constraints related to budget or schedule. (PMI guide to business analysis, page 103)

It will take the project team 3.3 iterations to complete the backlog work items:

(100 story points / 30 story points = 3.3 iterations)

It would take 4 iterations to complete the work because the timebox of the iteration shouldn’t be changed. Since the question specifically asks how many weeks are needed for completing work, then 8 weeks is the right answer.

Schedule Variance (SV) is a measure of schedule performance. It’s calculated through the difference between the Earned Value and Planned Value (SV = EV – PV). When the SV is negative, it indicates that the project is behind what was initially planned. When the SV is positive, it indicates that the project is ahead of what was originally planned.

Source Selection Criteria is a valuable tool for choosing a qualified seller from a short-list of potential candidates. This method can help the buyer ensure that the selected seller will offer the best quality for the products or services required.

Training costs fall under the cost of conformance to quality.

A mandatory dependency is also called a hard dependency or hard logic. For example, consider 2 activities A and B, if B has a mandatory dependency on A, it means action on B cannot be performed until action on A has been completed.

Option A: External dependencies involve a relationship between project activities and non-project activities (PMBOK 7th edition, page 60).

Option B: A discretionary or soft logic dependency, on the other hand, is an optional or preferred dependency.

Velocity is the sum of the story point sizes for the features actually completed in this iteration. Velocity allows the team to plan its next capacity more accurately by looking at its historical performance (Agile practice guide, page 64).

RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Inform. The RACI chart or matrix is an example of the Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM), which shows the relationship between activities and team members as it defines team members’ roles and responsibilities. It’s an efficient tool to make sure everyone is on the same page and understands what they are supposed to do.

Integrated change control should be performed throughout the whole project, from start to finish. Integrated change control is the process of reviewing all change requests, approving or rejecting changes, and managing implemented changes. Therefore, it should not be limited to a specific process group or project phase.

Lessons learned are known as retrospectives (PMBOK 7th edition, page 71). This meeting is used to check what went wrong and what could be improved.

Option C: A status meeting is held to review the actual status as well as risks. Status meetings could be eventually followed by preventive or corrective actions, change requests, or lessons learned meetings.

Option D: Review meeting is held to check or demonstrate deliverables.

The issue log is the right document to note all issues and the way they were resolved (PMBOK 7th edition, page 185).

Earned Value (EV) refers to the value of completed work, based on the approved budget assigned to that work.

Option C: Schedule Variance (SV) is a measure of schedule performance expressed as the difference between the earned value and the Planned Value (PV).

Option D: Cost Variance (CV) is the amount of budget deficit or surplus at a given point in time, expressed as the difference between the earned value and the Actual Cost (AC).

Interactive communication is the most effective communication method to maintain and improve relationships with stakeholders. Interactive communication is a real-time, dynamic, two-way flow of information.

The project team made the assumption that all of the company’s computers are compatible with the new operating system. Consequently, they planned the project based on this belief. But later on, they found out that their assumption is untrue.

The status meeting is a scheduled meeting that is held on a regular basis to monitor the project’s progress.

Douglas McGregor defined two models of worker behavior: Theory X and Theory Y. The new manager exhibits the traits of Theory X managers, who believe that the majority of people dislike work, lack motivation, and are in constant need of supervision. Theory X managers adopt an authoritarian style to make their teams work (PMBOK 7th edition, page 160).

Sprint Retrospective is a process-oriented meeting that is held at the end of each iteration. Its purpose is to explicitly reflect on the most significant events that have occurred during the iteration in order to make decisions on how to improve processes during the next iteration.

Options B & C: Sprint review or demonstration, on the other hand, is a product-oriented meeting.

When conducting a feasibility analysis for a project, several key factors are typically evaluated to determine its viability. These include:

Option A: Operational feasibility, which assesses the organization’s readiness for change and whether the change can be sustained post-implementation.

Option C: Cost-effectiveness feasibility, which provides a high-level estimate of the costs and anticipated benefits of the project. This estimate offers an initial overview rather than a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

Option E: Resources availability are considered constraints that restrict the project viability, i.e., checking whether technical skills are available and if they can be acquired affordably.

These variables among others help ensure a comprehensive evaluation of a project’s potential success (PMI guide to business analysis, page 86).

Option B: The feasibility study estimates the overall project cost but does not provide a detailed budget breakdown by activity or resource. This is completed during the detailed project planning phase.

Option D: The feasibility study might propose broad staffing needs but does not define specific team roles and responsibilities. This is established in the project management plan after the project is approved.

Product backlog is a prioritized list of user-centric requirements or features to be developed, similar to the WBS in that it outlines the work needed.

Option A: Sprint backlog is a list of tasks selected from the Product Backlog for a specific sprint in Scrum. It represents a subset of work for short-term focus rather than the entire project scope.

Option D: Iteration plan is the plan for a specific iteration or sprint, focusing on the tasks and goals for that iteration rather than the entire project scope.

Adaptive methodologies, such as Agile, are designed to accommodate changes and uncertainties by allowing for iterative and incremental development. This flexibility helps manage risks and ensures the project can still progress even if the vendor’s situation changes.

Requirements documents capture and manage all product requirements and relevant information, serving as a comprehensive record for product development and management.

The transition approach includes a readiness assessment plan, transition strategy, and transition plan (Business Analysis For Practitioners, page 82).

Readiness Assessment Plan: This plan evaluates the organization’s preparedness for transitioning to a new state by assessing its capability and willingness. It typically includes a readiness checklist and answers key questions such as:

What aspects of organizational readiness will be measured?

How will readiness be assessed?

What are the roles and responsibilities involved in readiness assessment?

Transition Plan: This document outlines the tasks needed to achieve a successful transition, including their deadlines, required resources, and the sequence of activities. It ensures that all necessary steps are completed in an organized manner.

Transition Strategy: A well-defined transition strategy is crucial for a successful transition. It includes various approaches like:

Massive, one-time cutover

Segmented cutover

Timeboxed coexistence

Permanent coexistence

Options B & E: Transition matrix and Transition impact analysis are made-up terms.

The project manager’s decision to stop construction work during July means that they’re trying to avoid the risk rather than accept it. The project manager made the safe decision to stop all construction work during hurricane season to avoid the risk of financial loss or putting the project staff in danger. This risk response is suitable for threats of high priority, high probability of occurrence, and a considerable negative impact.

Option C: The decision can not be to mitigate because mitigation implies that the project manager would attempt to reduce the threat’s probability of occurrence and/or impact, which can’t be done since they have no control over river floods, nor did they take any prior action to mitigate its damage if it does occur (PMBOK 7th edition, page 123).

The situation describes a schedule constraint: the project needs to be completed within deadlines or else the company will be obliged to pay a daily fine.

The process of breaking down project deliverables means the creation of the project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

Focus groups gather prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs) to discuss their expectations and attitudes toward a proposed solution. They offer valuable feedback directly from customers and end users, providing insights into their perspectives and needs. A survey is a structured set of questions aimed at efficiently gathering information from a large group of respondents.

Option B: Document analysis is an elicitation technique that involves reviewing and examining existing documentation to extract and identify information about the product. When using this technique, it’s important to assess the accuracy and relevance of the information, as outdated or current documents might reflect constraints that no longer apply.

After elicitation, a business analyst should confirm the gathered elicitation results with stakeholders, ensuring they accurately reflect stakeholder needs and expectations.

Options A, B, D: After confirming elicitation results, requirements will be verified, validated, then selected and approved (PMI guide to business analysis, page 24).

The project manager should immediately inform the project sponsor of their findings. The PMI’s Code of Ethics requires project managers to comply with all laws and regulations. Concealing such information can lead the organization to face legal issues. In the case of a predictive project, change requests can be only issued after setting the project baseline. In the described scenario, the project is neither authorized nor baselined since it’s still in the project charter development phase.

Developing an overall model involves creating a high-level model of the system to guide the development process and ensure that all stakeholders have a common understanding of the system architecture. Building a feature list involves identifying and listing all the features to be developed. Each feature represents a small, valuable piece of functionality from the user’s perspective. Each feature is designed, built, and tested in its own iteration, ensuring that the development process is manageable and structured.

Option B: Visualizing and limiting work in progress is a practice associated with Kanban, focusing on managing workflow and work-in-progress limits.

Option E: While cadence (regular, predictable intervals) is important in many Agile methodologies, it is more closely associated with Scrum, where sprints or iterations have a consistent duration.

Passive risk acceptance is an appropriate approach for low-impact risks. No proactive action is needed for passive acceptance other than periodically reviewing the threat to ensure that it is not significantly changing. On the other hand, active risk acceptance entails developing a detailed risk response or a contingency plan that would be implemented if the event occurred (PMBOK 7th edition, page 123).

A portfolio manager coordinates and manages a group of related or non-related projects and programs.

Information radiators, such as the Kanban board, are a visible display of up-to-date information concerning the team’s work status.

Leadership skills involve the ability to guide, motivate, and direct a team. This skill set may also include negotiation, assertiveness, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills (PMBOK 7th edition, pages 23-25).

Options B, C, D: Improving the project’s performance, learning more about the specific domain of the project, and obtaining a PMP certification can make the project manager a better manager rather than a better leader.

RACI charts are a type of RAM chart, which show the project resources assigned to each work package and illustrate the connections between work packages or activities, and project team members. RACI stands for the different responsibility types: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. A RACI chart is used to ensure the clear assignment of roles and responsibilities within the team.

On a critical path, the float of activities is zero. Float, often known as slack, is how long an activity can be delayed without causing the whole project to be delayed.

A Business Requirements Document (BRD) focuses on capturing the business requirements, objectives, and the reasons behind the project. (Business analysis for practitioners, page 73)

Options A & B & D: The Business Requirements Document (BRD) does not detail technical specifications, budget, timeline, or a work breakdown structure.

Developing a product roadmap involves creating a high-level plan that outlines the key features of a product that are scheduled for delivery over multiple iterations/releases. Product visioning is a technique that facilitates the development of the roadmap as it establishes the overall direction. Story mapping is another technique used to organize user stories based on their business value and the typical order in which users interact with them. This helps teams achieve a shared understanding of what needs to be built and the sequence in which it should be developed (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 95).

Options B, D, E: Interviews, Market analysis, and Competitive analysis are not techniques used for the facilitation of the product roadmap.

Osmotic communication is when team members are in the same room and one person asks a question, others in the room can either contribute to the discussion or continue working (PMBOK 7th edition, page 243).

Since they completed their project, which clearly consists of only designing, producing, and delivering the sign, and after getting the client’s official approval of the project’s deliverables, the project manager’s mission is done. They’re not part of the signs installation process therefore no further steps are required.

Option A: The signs production project is completed therefore submitting a change request doesn’t make sense.

Option C: A company is already assigned to install the signs so there is no need to create a new project charter.

The cost variance is the difference between the earned value (EV), i.e., the budgeted cost of work performed, and actual costs (AC).

CV = EV – AC

If the variance is negative, the project is over budget and if the variance is positive, it is under budget. In the question, the cost variance is barely above 0, so the project is under budget. Since the variance is very close to 0 (90 cents), we can also consider the project to be on budget, but this was not included as an option. Cost variance helps to determine the project’s current status, but it cannot determine or predict if the project will end up costing less or more than anticipated. For instance, when the CV is negative, the project manager could take preventive or corrective actions in order to steer the project back on track within the defined budget.

A project management plan is a formal document that defines how a project is going to be carried out (PMBOK 7th edition, page 186). The project plan is created during the planning phase of the project life cycle, and it must be approved by stakeholders before the project can move on to execution.

Option A: The project charter is a document that is meant to identify and authorize the Project Manager to start the project.

Option D: The project management plan is created as part of the planning process group.

Since it’s based on short development iterations, Agile approaches allow for early and frequent feedback by delivering a working piece of the product at the end of each iteration to the customer. Since traditional projects can only obtain customer feedback at the end, it is often too late to incorporate the feedback or fix any issues at that stage, unlike Agile projects where new changes are welcomed and integrated into the product development process.

The DoD is a set of criteria that must be met for a product or feature to be considered complete, ensuring it meets the agreed-upon standards for quality and functionality.

Schedule variance (SV) measures whether your project is on track by calculating its actual progress against expected progress to determine how ahead of or behind schedule the project work is. SV equals the difference between your project’s earned value and planned value: SV = EV – PV. Therefore, an SV of $0.00 means that the project’s EV equals its PV.

The project team is responsible for carrying out the process of creating the project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Involving all stakeholders in the creation of the WBS can be both unrealistic and impractical since certain projects can include hundreds and even thousands of stakeholders. Plus, even if they were included, they would most likely lack the necessary skills to contribute to the creation of the WBS.

Option B: The project manager is partially involved in the process and not responsible for performing it: they can only facilitate the WBS creation and provide the team with the needed help and direction.

The typical size of an agile team ranges from three to nine members.

Options B, D: Agile teams should be multidisciplinary (not necessarily have a technical background) and self-organizing (not dependent on the scrum master).

Option C: Successful agile teams are made up of generalizing specialists/T-shaped members who have deep knowledge in one area and a broad ability in other areas. I-shaped, on the other hand, refers to a person with a profound knowledge of one area but has no interest or skill in other areas (Agile Practice Guide, page 42).

Kano analysis is designed to model and analyze product features from the customer’s perspective. It helps product teams understand how different features are valued by customers, which aids in prioritizing them. During Kano analysis, features are categorized and plotted on a grid to determine their importance and impact on customer satisfaction. This method allows teams to focus on features that will have the most significant effect on customer satisfaction and prioritize development accordingly (PMI guide to business analysis, page 79).

The best thing to do in this situation is to reject the candidate’s job application. Apart from being unethical, offering or accepting a bribe is a huge violation of the PMI Code of Ethics. Even if the candidate was joking, this type of joke is inappropriate and an indication of his lack of professionalism. The project manager should avoid the fuss of ending the job interview straightaway and just reject the application later on.

All identified risks should be added to the risk register. The risk register includes identified project risks, risk owners, agreed-upon risk responses, and specific implementation actions, as well as other details including control actions for assessing the effectiveness of response plans, signs of risk, residual and secondary risks, and a watch list of low-priority risks. Risk responses include: Avoid, Escalate, Transfer, Mitigate, and Accept (PMBOK 7th edition, page 123).

Options C, D: A risk that cannot be mitigated or avoided could be escalated, transferred, or accepted.

Technical is not an organizational structure. There are multiple types of organizational structures including functional or centralized, matrix, and projectized or project-oriented.

Product vision is the description of the product’s long term objectives. The product roadmap should include the identification of the key features that will be developed for the product. Typically the features are grouped by release or a development approach. The timeline provides a detailed schedule for the product’s development, highlighting key milestones and deadlines for feature releases.

A. Focus groups involve an interactive group discussion facilitated by a moderator

B. Brainstorming is a group discussion to quickly generate a large number of ideas

C: Nominal group is a group discussion to produce ideas and prioritize them through voting

D: Benchmarking involves a comparison of ideas, products, processes, practices, etc. (PMI process groups guide page 83).

The described situation depicts Risk Mitigation. The project manager did not cancel the contract because the contractor might go bankrupt. They did not breach the contract either by getting in touch with another supplier. They contacted a different vendor in order to keep their options open and have other alternatives in case the risk occurs. By doing this, the possibility of the project’s delay is reduced.

Subject matter experts (SMEs) are a valuable source for product-related information, providing insights and expectations of the future state. Subject matter experts (SMEs) can be long-time members of the product development team

Conflict resolution techniques include withdrawal/avoiding, smoothing/accommodating, compromising, forcing, collaborating, and problem-solving/confronting (PMBOK 7th edition, page 169).

Option C: Adjourning is one of the five stages of team development according to the Tuckman ladder.

Acceptance criteria specify the conditions that a product or feature must meet to be considered complete and acceptable. They are integral to writing user stories in an adaptive or Agile approach, as they provide clear and testable requirements that guide the development process and ensure that user stories are correctly implemented (PMI Guide to business analysis, page 227).