PMI PMI-SP Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

PMI PMI-SP Online Questions & Answers

• Question 131:

  Amy is working on a project which is forty percent complete though it was scheduled to be fifty percent complete as of today. Management has asked Amy to report on the schedule variance for her project. If Amy's project has a BAC of $750,000 and she has spent $485,000 to date, what is the schedule variance value?

  A. -$75,000
  B. -$42,000
  C. -$45,000
  D. -$65,000
  A. -$75,000

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  The schedule variance is found by subtracting the planned value from the earned value. The earned value is the percentage of the project completeness multiplied by the BAC. Planned value is the percetage of where the project should be at this time multiplied by the BAC. Schedule variance (SV) is a measure of schedule performance on a project. The variance notifies that the schedule is ahead or behind what was planned for this period in time. The schedule variance is calculated based on the following formula: SV = Earned Value (EV) - Planned Value (PV) If the resulting schedule is negative, it indicates that the project is behind schedule. A value greater than 0 shows that the project is ahead of the planned schedule. A value of 0 indicates that the project is right on target. In this example, EV = 40% of BAC = 300,000, and PV = 50% of BAC = 375,000 SV = 300,000 - 375,000 = -75,000 Answer options C, B, and D are incorrect. These are not the correct values for the schedule variance.

• Question 132:

  You are the project manager of the NHQ project. Your project has a budget of $1,258,456, and is scheduled to last for three years. Your project is currently forty percent complete though it should be forty- five percent complete. In order to reach this point of the project, you have spent $525,000. Management needs a performance report regarding the NHQ project. Management is concerned that this project will be over budget upon completion. Management would like to create a report telling them how much more the project will need to complete. What value should you tell management?

  A. $566,305
  B. $787,504
  C. $1,312,504
  D. $733,456
  B. $787,504

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  The project will need $787,504 more to complete. This formula, the estimate to complete, is estimate at completion minus the actual costs. Here, CPI = EV/AC =(0.40*1,258,456)/525000= 0.95882, and ETC = EAC - AC = (BAC/CPI) - AC =(1,258,456/0.95882) - 525000 = 1,312,504- 525000 = 787,504 The estimate to complete (ETC) is the expected cost needed to complete all the remaining work for a scheduled activity, a group of activities, or the project. ETC helps project managers predict what the final cost of the project will be upon completion. The formula for the ETC is EAC- AC. The EAC is BAC/CPI. Answer option C is incorrect. This is the estimate at completion. Answer option A is incorrect. This is the planned value. Answer option D is incorrect. This is not a valid value based on the current project performance.

• Question 133:

  Fred is the project manager of a hotel restoration project. The hotel has 456 rooms. All rooms need to be primed and painted. Before each room can be painted, the primer must cure for twenty-four hours. Fred has arranged these tasks with a finish to start relationship between the priming and the painting. What else should Fred do to account for the twenty-four hours of cure time?

  A. Fred should add twenty-four hours of lead time to each of the 456 rooms painting activity to account for the primer's curing time.
  B. Fred should add twenty-four hours of lag time to each of the 456 rooms painting activity to account for the primer's curing time.
  C. Fred should add an intermediary task with a duration of twenty-four hours.
  D. Fred should schedule all 456 hotels rooms to be primed first and then schedule all 456 rooms to be painted to ensure time for the curing.
  B. Fred should add twenty-four hours of lag time to each of the 456 rooms painting activity to account for the primer's curing time.

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  Fred should add lag time to each painting activity. Since lag time is waiting time, Fred will have to wait twenty-four hours after the priming is finished before he can start painting. What is a lag? A lag directs a delay in the successor activity. Lags require the dependent activity to have added either to the start date or to the finish date of the activity. For example, in a project of making radio-controlled airplanes, after applying glue and pasting stickers, it requires twenty-four hours to dry the glue. Any activity can be started after that only. This period, of twenty-four hours, is a lag. Answer option C is incorrect. There is no reason to add an intermediary task as waiting. Adding lag time is the most appropriate as there are fewer activities to manage. Answer option D is incorrect. Priming all of the room first and then painting all of the rooms would cause Fred to readjust the entire sequencing of activities. In addition, we do not know the reason why Fred has scheduled all the rooms to be primed and then painted. There may be successor activities in the project that need to enter each room, such as carpeting, as soon as a room has been painted. If that were the case the additional activities would have to wait for all of the priming to be completed and then the sequential rooms to be painted before they could start. Answer option A is incorrect. Lead time actually moves activities closer together rather than farther apart. Lead time would cause the painting and priming activities to overlap, something that Fred does not want to happen. What is a lead? A lead allows an acceleration of the successor activity. It works just the opposite of lag. For example, in a software application project, before designing is fully completed for first phase, a program development group can start this phase programming. This overlapping of timing is a lead.

• Question 134:

  Which of the following is an output of the Develop Project Charter process?

  A. Enterprise environmental factors
  B. Contract
  C. Business case
  D. Project charter
  D. Project charter

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  The Develop Project Charter process documents the formal authorization of a project or a phase. It also documents initial requirements that satisfy the stakeholder's needs and expectations. It is used to validate the decisions made during the previous iteration of the Develop Project Charter process. The various inputs of this process are as follows:

  Project statement of work

  Business case

  Contract

  Enterprise environmental factors

  Organizational process assets

  The output of the Develop project Charter process is as follows:

  Project charter

• Question 135:

  You are the project manager of the NHQ Project and are trying to determine which seller you should choose for the project. You have received proposals from six vendors and they are all very good proposal, qualified to complete the project work, and the prices are close to the same. You would like to create method of ranking each vendor based and assign a score value to several different categories. Because the project is a high-profile project, you have assigned 25 points to experience and 10 points for all of the other categories to judge the vendors. This is considered what type of source selection process?

  A. Screening system
  B. Preferred vendor list
  C. Benefits-cost analysis
  D. Weighting system
  D. Weighting system

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  This is an example of a weighting system as the values you're measuring are weighted towards experience.

  Answer option B is incorrect. A preferred vendors list describes the vendors you're allowed to choose from in the organization.

  Answer option A is incorrect. A screening system sets qualifiers in place, such as the vendor must have a PMP on staff, in order to qualify for the project.

  Answer option C is incorrect. The benefits-cost analysis defines the total number of benefits to the number of costs the project requires.

• Question 136:

  Your project team has identified a project risk that must be responded to. The risk has been recorded in the risk register and the project team has been discussing potential risk responses for the risk event. The event is not likely to happen for several months but the probability of the event is high. Which one of the following is a valid response to the identified risk event?

  A. Risk audit
  B. Technical performance measurement
  C. Earned value management
  D. Corrective action
  D. Corrective action

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  Corrective actions include contingency plans and workaround plans, which are valid risk responses. Answer option B is incorrect. The technical performance measurement may be part of the analysis of the risk, but not part of the response.

  Answer option A is incorrect. A risk audit may be appropriate once the risk event and response has been identified.

  Answer option C is incorrect. The impact of the risk event may affect earned value management calculations, but EVM in and of itself is not a valid risk response.

• Question 137:

  You work as a project manager for BlueWell Inc. You would like to crash your project to help the project schedule to get back on track. What is the primary danger of crashing?

  A. Crashing increases project costs.
  B. Crashing is a top-down approach to project completion.
  C. Crashing restricts resource utilization.
  D. Crashing always increases project risks.
  A. Crashing increases project costs.

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  Crashing adds project resources and usually increases costs - though it may also increase some project risks. Crashing is a schedule compression technique to obtain the greatest amount of compression for the least incremental cost.

  Crashing works for activities where additional resources will shorten the duration. Approving overtime, bringing in additional resources, paying to expedite delivery to activities on the critical path are examples of crashing.

  Answer option D is incorrect. Crashing does not always increase project risks. Answer option C is incorrect. Crashing does not restrict resource utilization - that is resource leveling. Answer option B is incorrect. This is not a valid definition or

  description to crashing the project.

• Question 138:

  You are the project manager of the NHT Project. This project has 12,345 office doors to install throughout a campus. Each of the doors costs the project $456 and requires special hardware to electronically lock and open the doors. You've gathered the project team before they begin the installation for a hands-on training. As a group you and the project team install 50 doors following a checklist of instructions so that every door will be installed exactly the same throughout the campus and with minimal waste. This is an example of what project execution technique?

  A. Preventive action
  B. Defect repair validation
  C. Implemented corrective action
  D. Quality control
  A. Preventive action

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  This is an example of a preventive action as you're working with the team before they install the doors to train them on the installation. The checklist is a quality control tool but the question was asking for a project execution activity. Preventive and corrective actions are part of project execution. Answer option D is incorrect. Quality control is a controlling and monitoring process, not an executing process. Answer option B is incorrect. The defect repair validation comes after the project team has corrected an error - something that has not occurred in this instance. Answer option C is incorrect. Corrective action is a response to something that needs to be corrected in the project.

• Question 139:

  You are the project manager of the NHQ project. This project is scheduled to last for six months and will require $345,000 to complete. If the project completes earlier than scheduled, your organization will receive a bonus of $5,000 per day for the early completion. Management has asked you to develop an aggressive schedule to realize as much of the bonus as possible, but you must be careful not to increase project risk beyond an acceptable level of risk exposure. Which of the following approaches is most likely to increase project risk?

  A. Using the critical chain method
  B. Crashing
  C. Adding leads to the project work
  D. Fast tracking
  D. Fast tracking

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  Fast tracking allows entire phases of the project to overlap and this action does increase risks. This is an approach that you would want to avoid in your project. Answer option B is incorrect. Crashing adds labor to the project and typically drives project costs. Answer option A is incorrect. The critical chain method considers the availability of project resources as part of its network diagramming technique. Answer option C is incorrect. Lead time allows project activities to overlap and may introduce project risks, but not to the extent of using fast tracking.

• Question 140:

  Sam is the project manager of the NQQ project. He and the project team have completed the stakeholder identification process for his project. What is the main output of the identify stakeholders process?

  A. Communications management plan
  B. Stakeholder register
  C. Requirements
  D. Stakeholder management strategy
  B. Stakeholder register

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  According to the PMBOK, the main output of the identify stakeholders process is the stakeholder register. The stakeholder register is a project management document that contains a list of the stakeholders associated with the project. It

  assesses how they are involved in the project and identifies what role they play in the organization. The information in this document can be very perceptive and is meant for limited exchange only. It also contains relevant information about

  the stakeholders, such as their requirements, expectations, and influence on the project. Answer option A is incorrect. The communications management plan is an output of communications planning.

  Answer option D is incorrect. The stakeholder management strategy is an output of stakeholder identification, but it is not the main output.

  Answer option C is incorrect. Requirements are not an output of the stakeholder identification process.