PMP Sample Exam (200 Questions)

Conflicts distract the team and disrupt the work rhythm. You should always smooth them when they surface.

A conflict should be handled in a meeting so that the entire team can participate in solution finding.

Conflict should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach.

You should use your coercive power to quickly resolve conflicts and then focus on goal achievement.

To formally authorize a project or a phase and document initial requirements that satisfy the stakeholder’s needs and expectations.

To document how the project will be planned, executed, monitored/controlled, and closed.

To link the project, which is going to be planned, executed, and monitored/controlled to the ongoing work of the organization.

To describe the process of performing the work defined in the project management plan in order to achieve the project’s objectives.

Three-point estimation

Triple constraint

Three wise men

Three needs theory

The net present value is positive, which makes the project attractive.

The net present value is positive, which makes the project unattractive.

The net present value is negative, which makes the project attractive.

The net present value is negative, which makes the project unattractive.

A standardized set of deliverables, like plans, reports, and checklists.

A set of Tools and techniques that a project manager should master.

The concept of State of the art applied to project management.

A specific sequence of work, described in terms of Soft logic.

Project level performance reports

Activity level status reports

Stakeholder communication requirements

Responsibility assignments

Shared visions, values, norms, beliefs, and expectations

Individual traits and attitudes of co-workers

View of authority relationships

Policies, methods, and procedures

Making eye contact

Paraphrasing

Interpreting the information

Interrupting when appropriate

The process has high precision but low accuracy. It should be adjusted.

The process has high precision but low accuracy. It should be improved.

The process has high accuracy but low precision. It should be adjusted.

The process has high accuracy but low precision. It should be improved.

During the project lifecycle and at the end.

At the end of the project during closing.

After the end of the project at a project post-mortem meeting.

Lessons learned can be organized when there is time available.

The Project management plan, containing the scope baseline consisting of the project scope statement and its associated WBS and WBS dictionary.

The Validated deliverables, completed and checked for correctness by the Perform quality control process.

The Requirements traceability matrix, linking requirements to their origin and tracing them throughout the project lifecycle.

The RACI matrix, describing accountabilities in case of product rejection.

Changes are generally not predictable, therefore planning for change management cannot be sensible.

Planning for change management should be done while the various change control processes are being applied.

Change management can be planned in a set of management plans or a specific change management plan.

Changes are a sign of bad planning. One should avoid changes during a project thus eliminating the need to manage them.

Honeymoon, rejection, regression, acceptance, re-entry

Forming, storming, norming, performing

Tell, sell, consult, join

Direct, support, coach, delegate

Lessons learned databases are an essential element of the organizational process assets.

Lessons learned should focus on identifying those accountable for errors and failures.

Lessons learned sessions should bring about recommendations to improve future performance on projects.

Phase-end lessons learned sessions provide a good team building exercise for project staff members.

By observation and communication

Using closed questions during team meetings

Through third-party assessments

Through the team members’ functional managers

List of risk triggers

Risk register

Risk mitigation

Decision tree

A requested change is always an opportunity to get more money paid by the customer and to secretly solve schedule and quality problems. You should make some reasonable estimates on time, costs, risks etc. and then add a nice margin on top of that to calculate the new price.

Customer satisfaction is your top priority. The customer gives you an opportunity to increase their satisfaction, which you should use to the maximum benefit. Most project managers have contingencies to cover risks; these can be used to pay the additional costs.

Before making a decision you should have a look at the customer’s parking lot. If you find there many expensive, new models, it is likely that you can use the requested change to increase the profit from the contract. Otherwise you should reject the request.

Handle the request according to the integrated change control processes described in your management plans. Then make a decision together with the appropriate change control body, whether the increased customer satisfaction will be worth the extra costs, work, risks etc.

…be in full control of the discussion and its outcomes.

…always take notes by herself.

…avoid a flip chart Parking lot.

…give guidance as required without interfering.

Develop the Project charter and a Risk management plan to start identifying risks based on those and other documents.

Identify and analyze risk events using qualitative and quantitative techniques.

Develop contingency plans and fallback plans in case the original plan proves wrong.

Discuss the risks documented in your Risk register with the project key stakeholders.

Invitation to treat, offer, PO

Inquiry, bid, order

Offer, acceptance

MoU, LoI, final agreement

Which management fallacies can most easily be delegated to the worker?

How can discussion of the manager’s leadership style be avoided?

Has the employee been provided with sufficient instructions and work tools?

How can dispute related to unsatisfactory performance be avoided?

It is the responsibility of the sales person in charge to identify all risks related to a customer project.

Managing and organizing assumptions means avoiding risks right from the start of the project.

Organizational, environmental and external assumptions should be addressed by the project charter.

Risks are a sign of uncertainty. Avoiding all uncertainties means that a project should have no risks at all.

…describes technical terms used for scope management.

…describes the details for each component in the WBS.

…translates essential WBS terms for global project teams.

…helps translating functional into technical requirements.

Bidder conferences

Advertising

Qualified sellers list

Four-eyes meetings

When you break down scope to create a Work breakdown structure (WBS).

When you assign a human resources to do the work in a Schedule activity.

When you develop acceptance criteria for work results to be achieved by the team members.

When you decide upon recognition and awards during Team development

Give your team members some time to develop a common understanding of the project scope and product scope. Upcoming interface problems may be resolved later.

Use the Risk management processes to identify and assess risks caused by misunderstandings and develop a plan with measures in order to respond to them.

Organize meetings to identify and resolve misunderstandings between team members in order to avoid interface problems, disintegration and costly rework early in the project.

Use interviews in private with each individual team member to inform them of your expectations and your requirements in an atmosphere of confidence.

Develop a Responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) which clearly shows the responsibility of each stakeholder for the various project activities and who needs to be consulted and informed.

Develop an organization diagram, which places each of the stakeholders at an appropriate position inside the project and allows for certain lines of communication while disallowing others.

Schedule a meeting with these stakeholders to present the project, discuss and establish ground rules, ensure their involvement and identify initial personal and organizational issues.

Do not talk to these stakeholders too much at this time, instead create Faits accomplis, which will later force the stakeholders to support the project due to a lack of alternatives for them.

Ask the project stakeholders to build focus groups in order to discuss and remedy conflicting interests.

Create an exhaustive document describing your point of view and ask stakeholders to review it.

Let each stakeholder write a statement of work, merge the documents to a project scope statement.

Use your authorization as the project manager to clearly prioritize the different objectives.

Poor risk management by the contractor running the project

Poor technical ability of the contractor running the project for the customer

Technical inability and poor risk management by the contractor

Unclear Scope definition by the customer for whom the project is performed

Management of buffers

Management of total floats and free floats

Management of leads and lags

Management of resource over-allocations

Inspection

Quality audit

Impact analysis

Team review

Costs of good quality – costs of bad quality

Planning costs – assurance costs – control costs

Planning costs – doing costs – checking costs – acting costs

Prevention costs – appraisal costs – failure costs

Accompany your team members along a sequence of maturity levels from dependence through independence to interdependence.

Ignore the low-level issues and focus on achieving the overall requirements, details can be sorted out during test and handover.

If everybody simply does their jobs, then there should be no problem. Make sure that team members are fully aware of their accountability.

Problems of this dimension have their origin in fundamental personal incompatibilities between team members. You should replace them all.

$3,000,000

$3,500,000

$4,480,000

$5,650,000

Meticulously document the problem and the workaround to create a requested change to the project management plan, which will then be passed to the body responsible for the change control decision.

The workaround was performed on a technical level only. As long as it does not influence the function of the bridge or the organizational configuration of the project, a change request will not be necessary.

A formal change request from hind side is not sensible. Create some additional documents describing the workaround and sign them by yourself, you can present them during the next regular CCB meeting.

It is normal in projects that, during project execution, inconsistencies arise between planning documents and actual implementation. This is no problem as long as the functional status of the product is maintained.

Develop the risk register.

Develop the project milestone schedule.

Develop management plans.

Get approval for the project management plan.

The kick-off meeting is secondary, you are happy if the team members will do their jobs.

You should insist on the presence of the team members to the appointed date.

If you force team members’ presence, they would anyway be distracted by their current problems.

It is probably a good idea to reschedule the meeting to a day, when all team members can attend.

The processes are meant as rough guidelines to which a team should only adhere if there is enough consensus.

The more processes the project team follows, the better the project’s performance will be.

The project manager must follow all 42 processes for project management without alterations.

The project team must select appropriate processes required to meet the project requirements.

Project scope statement

Work breakdown structure

Resource assignments

Project scope management plan

Perform integrated change control

Estimate costs

Develop schedule

Determine budget

Organization chart

RACI matrix

Communications management plan

Work authorization system

If the budget is cut by 10%, then the project will have an accompanying degradation of quality by 10%.

If the project budget is an honest one, then a reduction in budget must be accompanied by a trade-off in either time or performance.

A 10% reduction in budget will be accompanied by a loss of performance much less than the target reduction in cost.

Most projects have "padded" estimates, and the budgetary reduction will force out the padding from the project.

Bidder conference

Weighting system

Oral contract

Letter of intent

…patterns and trends in a row of data points.

…behavior of data points against control criteria.

…behavior of data points against specifications.

…the error margin of a sample versus a whole population.

Baselines in system configurations are often also referred to as Deltas.

In configuration management, baselines are used to control change.

Project management baselines are used for performance measurement.

In project management, baselines help assessing variance and trends.

$1,000,000

$1,100,000

$1,125,000

$1,200,000

The various management plans of the project

Schedule baseline and Cost baseline

Product configuration ID and Statement of work

WBS dictionary, WBS, Scope statement

Reduce level of effort

Develop a training plan

Plan quality audits

Plan quality inspections

Technical means for communications can focus on transfer of spoken and written language.

Communication is preferred which avoids passing over a great deal of additional information.

A message has little meaning without an understanding of the surrounding context.

To understand a message, no information on history or personal opinions is needed.

…identification and documentation of system or item characteristics.

…controlling changes to these characteristics in an integrative fashion.

…documenting and auditing changes and the implementation status.

…assigning responsibilities for change control and documentation.