Q.

1 You have been assigned to a new project, where the work is behind schedule and the team are
not working together well. The team is relatively new, and conflicts are arising. Team members are
blaming each other for work not done, and some people are not showing up to work on the project
at all. What will you do next?

A. Meet with the functional manager to agree on the team members’ time requirements.
B. Meet with your team to set a team charter and define roles & responsibilities.
C. Meet with the project sponsor to gain additional funding for resources who can work
together.
D. Escalate the issue to the steering committee as soon as possible as a project risk.

Answer: B

The Standard for Project Management asks that we create a collaborative team environment,
including team agreements, definitions of roles & responsibilities, formal committees tasked with
specific objectives, and standing meetings that regularly review a given topic.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p28, p29, “Create a Collaborative Team Environment”
Q.2 You have recently completed a project for a new product and have been asked to manage it after
its release to keep it relevant in today’s marketplace. Half of your existing project team are rolling off
to other projects soon, and your project budget is nearly depleted. What will you do next?

A. Create a business case and project charter for your project sponsor to approve.
B. Retain as many of your current project staff to continue work on the product.
C. Raise a change request for your current project to add scope and continue making changes.
D. Secure funding for a stable team, then use current research to form a suite of projects to
improve the product.

Answer: D

This question is referring to product management. Product management involves the integration of
people, data, processes and business systems to develop or maintain a product or service
throughout its lifecycle.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p17-19, “ Product Management Considerations”

Q.3 You are delivering a critical change and several key stakeholders in your organisation have added
seemingly unnecessary steps for you to take, with extra approvals, reports and meetings. They are
also restricting the people you need from working on your project in a larger capacity. What will you
do next?

A. Go directly to the people you need to avoid extra back-and-forth with the stakeholders.
B. Raise a risk in the risk register on the lack of access to sufficient resources.
C. Communicate more often with the stakeholders and gain a deeper awareness of their ideas
and situation.
D. Show your stakeholders the Resource Assignment Matrix and project roles & responsibilities.

Answer: C

This question refers to the principle of Effectively Engaging with Stakeholders. Stakeholders may add
steps or requirements, or restrict team members if not engaged appropriately. Communication and
awareness of their ideas, through knowledge sharing and regular meetings (ideally face to face)
help. |

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p32, 33, “Effectively Engage with Stakeholders”
Q.4 You are managing a project team mostly made up of men. Recently Jane was hired for her high
expertise in the brands that make up your industl;y. You notice she has been left out of some key
meetings, and others are overlooking her opinions. You also notice she is paid significantly less than
her male colleagues. What will you do next?

A. Make steps to update her pay to the same range as the others on your project, and ask her
opinion and advice specifically during each meeting (along with others in your team).
B. Take the lower pay as a win for your project, as it will help keep costs low and her colleagues
don’t need to know.
C. Ask Jane to write down her knowledge of the industry, just in case she leaves.
D. No need to rock the boat — this is just how people work in this industry.

Answer: A

This question is on Integrity and Stewardship. We should have respectful engagement of project
team members, including their compensation, access to opportunity and fair treatment. ;

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p25, “Be a diligent, respectful and caring steward”.
Q.5 During one of your working group meetings, a stakeholder raises the concern that the product
you are working on will be discontinued in the next five months. You were not aware of this, and
your project budget has already been approved until the scheduled delivery, which is in five months
also. What will you do next?

A. Keep the project going as it is — the discontinued product isn’t your responsibility.
B. Set a meeting with your project sponsor to share the information and a recommendation to
terminate the project.
C. Change the scope of the project to meet a different product so your project can remain
relevant.
D. Ask for additional funding to see if you can improve the product instead of discontinuing it.

Answer: B

This question is about delivering value — the primary motivator for a project. If the project is no
longer aligned with the business need or it seems unlikely to provide value, the organisation may
choose to terminate the effort.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p35, “Focus on Value”

Q.6 You have collected the requirements for your project and are creating the scope statement and
work breakdown structure. During this process you notice some functionality in your database
system that will help a different project you are aware of within your Project Management Office
(PMO). What will you do next?

A. Place the feature in the other project’s backlog, and ask them to prioritise it as soon as possible.

B. Raise the functionality in your risk register as a threat, with the response to “mitigate”.

C. Add the scope to your project and complete it as soon as possible. ;

D. Raise the functionality in your risk register as an opportunity with the response to “exploit”, and
meet with the other project team and sponsor to discuss.

Answer: D

Systems thinking involves taking a holistic view of how project parts interact with each Gather, and
external systems. Projects operate within programs, and small systems affect larger ones. Finding a
previously unknown opportunity, the next best step is to make it known and exploit the opportunity.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p39, “Respond to System Interactions: Systems Thinking”
p125, “Opportunities”
Q.7 You are working on a high profile project. Several high-ranking senior executives want to take the
credit for this initiative, while limiting the impact to their own resources. This has led to several
conflicts and a scope statement that is unclear, leading to a risk of project failure. What will you do
next?

A. Create a scope statement yourself to avoid further conflict.

B. Facilitate a discussion with the executives as a neutral third party, focusing on agreed project
goals.
C. Limit your project resources to the executives until they can agree on a way forward.
D. Escalate the issue to the project steering committee and ask them to resolve the problem.

Answer: B

Leadership is not the same as authority. When senior managers suffer conflict over priorities, neutral
facilitation helps more than detailed recommendations. Leadership acumen involves focusing a team
around agreed goals, generating consensus on the way forward, negotiating and resolving conflict,
and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p42, “Demonstrate leadership behaviours”

Q.8 You are managing a project where the majority of the product has been planned up-front, but an
external system is needed from a vendor in partial pieces where the requirements are unclear. Half
of your stakeholders want to use a waterfall approach, and the other half are advocating for an Agile
approach. What will you do next?

A. Use an Agile methodology. The fixed scope is low risk, and you can capture changes using
Agile.
B. Use a Waterfall methodology and ask the team to plan the uncertain scope better.
C. Proceed with a hybrid method to start, with pre-planned scope but Agile ceremonies that
promote feedback.
D. Use a combination of Waterfall and Agile to capture all the requirements and keep
stakeholders happy.

Answer: C

Each project is unique, and success is based on adapting to the unigue context of the project to
determine the most appropriate methods. The tailoring approach is iterative in nature and refined
during the project cycle. This project requires a hybrid of waterfall and agile, with the option to
improve it over time.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p44-46, “Tailoring”

Q.9 You are working on a project where senior users have been testing the product as parts are
released. They have found some missing requirements and defects. Their manager is worried that
the project won’t deliver a product that is fit for purpose, without defects and within the timeframe
needed. What will you do next?

A. Perform some of the testing yourself to ensure a quality product.

B. Help every team member to focus on quality, from correct acceptance criteria to a
developed and tested product.
C. Limit testing until the very end of the project so you can do it all in one go when the product
is completely ready.
D. Increase the testing on your project and add more testing resources so no defect goes
unnoticed.

Answer: B

Quality focuses on meeting acceptance criteria for deliverables, and satisfying stakeholders’
expectations on product requirements. Quality is everyone’s responsibility in an Adaptive (Agile)
project.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p47-49, “Build quality into processes and deliverables.”
Q.10 You are working through the risk assessment with your team, who are having trouble coming
up with ideas for risks. You decide to give them some guidance on types of complexity that might
affect your new product. What will you do next? ’

A. Ask them to brainstorm Qualitative and Quantitative risks.

B. Ask them to perform the Five Whys and Ishikawa analysis.
C. Ask them to brainstorm around possible unwanted human behaviour, system behaviour,
ambiguity and technical innovation impacts.
D. Ask them to perform a retrospective to discover what isn’t working well, and what still
puzzles us.

Answer: C

Complexity is often the result of human behaviour, system interactions, technical innovation,
uncertainty and ambiguity. Complexity can be introduced by events or conditions that affect value,
scope, stakeholders, risk and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Sixth Edition, 2021, p50, 51, “Navigate complexity"

Q.11 You are working on a project where you discover a certain negative risk with a potential impact
of $2,000,000. You meet with your project stakeholders who determine that this is within their risk
appetite, provided you meet a risk threshold of 10%. What will you do next?

A. Note the acceptable risk level as a threat of $200,000 (10%).

B. Note the acceptable risk level as a threat of $1,800,000 to $2,200,00 (10% variance).

C. Note the impact as outside the acceptable risk level of $2,000,000. ;

D. Note the impact as an opportunity of $200,000 (10%).

Answer: B

Risk appetite describes the level of uncertainty o risk your stakeholders are willing to accept. Risk
threshold is the measure of acceptable variation around an objective that reflects the risk appetite.
In this scenario a 10% variation around $2m is $1.8m to $2.2m.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, “Risk”

Q.12 A risk has been raised in your project around insufficient building materials. One risk response
assigned to the functional manager suggests to use a brand new material, which has not been fully
tested in a building project. Half of your stakeholdér group are happy with this risk response, but the
other half are not, and refuse to sign off on it. What will you do next?

A. Suggest a quantitative risk approach to give a more accurate financial impact.

B. Suggest they proceed with the proposed risk response, and ensure it is followed through.
C. Suggest a different risk owner, as an executive may have more power to respond to the risk.
D. Suggest a different risk response, as they should be timely, cost effective, realistic, and
agreed to by relevant stakeholders.

Answer: D

This question refers to risk responses. Risk responses should be appropriate and timely to the
significance of the risk, cost effective, realistic within the project context, agreed to by relevant
stakeholders, and owned by a responsible gzrson. D is the best answer.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, “Risk”

Q.13 Your project is starting to go off track due to a large amount of uncertainty in the requirements
and resources. At a significant cost, you have managed to reign in these issues, however your project
management office would like you to brainstorm ways to improve with your team so that they do not
happen again. What will you do next?

A. Ask your team to increase the project Contingency Reserve, to allow for these impacts.
B. Ask your team to change the project methodology from Waterfall to Agile.
C. Ask your team to use short feedback loops, continuous improvement, and transparent
planning.
D. Ask your team to check their work twice before sending it to the next part of the process.

Answer: C

A project team needs to embrace adaptability and resiliency with methods such as using short
feedback loops, continuous learning and improvement, regular inspection and adaptation of project
work, diverse project teams, transparent planning, using prototypes and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p56, “Embrace adaptability and resiliency.”
Q.14 As your project progresses, many of the business stakeholders are starting to voice their
concerns, to question some of the changes, and even miss key meetings while trying to sabotage
your efforts. What will you do next?

A. Communicate the vision and benefits for the change clearly, along with the impact to their
work.
B. Create an impact over influence chart to determine who should be engaged appropriately.
C. Escalate the matter with your project sponsor, and arrange for different stakeholders.
D. Map the current state and the proposed future state of the change for the stakeholders.

Answer: A

This question is on change management, which is a structured approach to transitioning groups to a

future state. Too much change or lack of understanding can lead to resistance and change fatigue.
Methods include communicating the vision, goals and benefits of the change early, along with the
impact to work processes.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p59, “Enable change to achieve the envisioned future
state”.
Q.15 You are analysing your stakeholders through an impact over influence chart and have found
more than 100 different groups of people, and over 3000 impacted stakeholders. Other parts of your
project are starting to fall behind as you try to keep up with the large amount of people. What will
you do next?

A. Ask your project team to engage different groups of stakeholders so everyone is covered.
B. Clearly prioritise the stakeholders then engage and communicate with the highly impacted
and influential groups early and often.
C. Monitor the stakeholders for signs of stress and respond to groups most stressed about the
project.
D. Create a SharePoint page for changes that any stakeholder can gather information from
anytime.

Answer: B

This question is about engaging stakeholders. The process includes: Identify, Understand and
Analyse, Prioritise, Engage and Monitor your stakeholders. Where you have too many to engage
effectively, prioritisation is the key. Impact and influence are two ways, as well as Power, Beliefs,
Expectations, proximity to the project, interest and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p11, 12, “Stakeholder Engagement: Prioritise and Engage”
Q.16 You are managing a project which communicates to the customer using mostly pull
communication so far. When monitoring the engagement of your stakeholders, you notice a trend
that they are not clear on the impacts or benefits of the project. You decide to add push
communication to your communication plan. What will you do next?

A. Create a webpage using SharePoint with all the project information, that your stakeholders
can see.
B. Push for more funding on your project, and communicate this to your project sponsor.
C. Push your stakeholders to engage in more two-way communication.
D. Send a weekly email to stakeholders with a project update, including the impacts and
benefits.

Answer: D

Push communication is sent to stakeholders, using memos, emails, status reports, voice mail and
more. Pull communication is something a customer can pull at any time — from a bulletin, a web
page, a white board, etc.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p13, “Types of Communication”

Q.17 You have taken over on a project with a vendor where scope and requirements have been
missed. You notice that miscommunication and mixed messages are common. You set a meeting with
your team and the vendor’s team. The meeting is extremely important to get right. What will you do
next?

A. Speak slowly and clearly with the vendor’s team, at a louder volume if necessary.
B. Confirm they hear your message, determine if they agree, and identify nuanced or
unintended messages they may have received.
C. Only communicate with the vendor in writing, so you have a trail of proof if anything goes
wrong in the future.
D. Prepare a claim for the mishandled scope of your project through your procurement team.

Answer: B

This question is asking about communication. With all forms of communication, quick feedback loops
provide the information you need by confirming they heard the message, determining if they agree,
and identifying any nuances or additions to the message they may have added or heard.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p13, “Stakeholder Engagement: Engage”

Q.18 Your stakeholders seem to be engaged, however there are frequent changes to scope and
requirements, causing delays. Issues are often raised and result in multiple rounds of feedback.You
are not sure who or what could be the cause. What will you do next?

A. Perform root cause analysis with your project team on the problem to brainstorm ideas.

B. Raise a risk in the risk register for the project delay, and review responses with your team.

C. Review the issue log, risk register and change log for the most frequent requestors, then update
your stakeholder engagement approach for those people. ‘

D. Ensure your project budget has enough contingency reserves to meet the multiple reviews and
delays.

Answer: C

A significant number of changes or modifications to the project requirements or scope may indicate
stakeholders are not engaged or aligned with the project objectives. A review of the project issue
register or risk register can identify challenges associated with individual stakeholders.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p15, “Checking outcomes — Stakeholder Performance”
Q.19 You have been working on a project where the manager leads in a dictatorship style. Over time,
the team have stopped making suggestions, sick days and mental health days have become more
frequent, and the pace of work has slowed. The manager comes to you for help. You suggest a
servant leadership style instead. What will they do next?

A. Serve the team as much as they can, ensuring their every need is met.
B. Focus on obstacle removal, encouragement and development opportunities.
C. Ensure their team are serving other team members and helping each other succeed.
D. Serve the team new ways to do the work and engage them through additional variety.

Answer: B

Servant leaders allow project teams to self-organise when possible, and increase levels of autonomy
by passing appropriate decision making opportunities to project team members. Servant leadership
behaviours also include obstacle removal, being a diversion shield, and development opportunities.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p18, “Distributed management and leadership”
Q.20 You have been allocated to a new project team with members from different parts of the
functional business area. It soon becomes clear that very few of them have worked on a project
before. There is also a lot of miscommunication and re-work occurring amongst the team, which is
starting to cause delays. What will you do next?

A. Set a daily stand-up with your team to ensure they update what they completed.
B. Review the Resource Assignment Matrix with your team and ensure they are doing their job.
C. Help the team set their vision and objectives, roles and responsibilities, and team operations.
D. Send your team members on training in their roles to increase their capability.

Answer: C

When project teams form across different organisations, more work may be required up front to
establish a “one-team” mindset, ensuring everyone understands how they contribute. Team
development such as establishing a vision, clear roles & responsibilities, and a way of working are
key.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p18, “Common aspects of Team Development”
Q .21 You have collected the requirements for your project, matched them to project scope, and
broken them down into smaller parts and the activities required. In doing this, you notice that the
manager of the marketing department has added extra scope that is unrelated to your current
project. What will you do next?

A. Start an open dialogue with the functional manager, raise the incorrect scope items and their
impacts.
B. Override the marketing manager’s decision on scope as you are the senior project manager.
C. Raise a change request for the additional scope and let the Change Control Board decide.
D. Place the additional scope into the product backlog for the product owner to prioritise it.

Answer: A

Without an open dialogue, you may not know if the scope was a mistake, previously approved, or
any other reason for it being there. Positive discourse and courage are key aspects of a winning
project team culture. Others include support, respect, celebrating success, and transparency.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p21, “Project Team Culture”

Q.22 Your project team are protected by a union agreement. You notice that they don’t know how to
use the product you are improving, are slow to respond and regularly complain about the work. Your
project sponsor has had enough and threatens to shut the project down if improvements can’t be
made. What will you do next?

A. Set up a new project with different team members and transfer the project work to that
team.
B. Set a clear project purpose and vision and pair your team with the customer to show them
how they are making a positive difference. 1
C. Tell your project team that they will lose their jobs in they don’t improve the speed of their
work.
D. Create a project Gantt Chart schedule and burndown chart so the project work is transparent
to all.

Answer: B

This question calls for leadership skills, where setting a vision and purpose and showing your team
how they are making a difference can increase their intrinsic motivation. Transferring to another
team in the same company may risk the same result, and threatening your team may embed their
behaviour further.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p24,25, “Leadership Skills: Establishing a Vision; Motivation”
Q.23 During a key scope meeting, an argument arises. The business manager accuses the technology
manager of not delivering to their needs on past projects, and the technology manager accuses the
business manager of changing requirements that impact the delivery schedule. The meeting is at
risk, with the stakeholders being closed off to any further discussion. What will you do next?

A. Take the side of the technology manager, as scope that impacts delivery should be
controlled.
B. Take the side of the business manager, as we should always deliver to the customer’s
specification.
C. Facilitate to keep communication respectful, focus on the issue in the present and search for
alternatives together.
D. Ensure they both agree to the change control process to avoid disagreements in the future.

Answer: C

Not all conflict is negative. How conflict is handled can either lead to more conflict or to better
decision making and stronger solutions. The PMBOK Guide notes open and respectful
communication, focusing on the issue not the person, the present not the past, and searching for
alternatives together.

(PMBOK Guide) ~ Seventh Edition, 2021, p29, “Conflict Management”

Q.24 You are working on a project where the project team is completely distributed around the
country in multiple sites, including working from home. Some of the project team members have not
been able to contribute to the project, and there are concerns from the program that the project will
fall behind. What will you do next?

A. Raise a request to the program to co-locate all your project team members as soon as
possible.
B. Proceed with daily stand-ups and working group meetings with any team members in your
area.
C. Set team leaders for each area around the country, to report back to you as the centralised
project leader.
D. Use technology to maintain ongoing contact with audio and video for meetings, with a team
web site to keep all project information available.

Answer: D

This question is on distributed project teams. To improve you can use audio; and video capabilities
for meetings, use technology (including messaging) for ongoing contact, build in time to get to know
remote team members, and have an open project site for information.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p30, “Distributed project teams”.

Q.25 You are initiating a project to a sales team where the process will change significantly, even
though the outcome of a completed sale will remain the same. The functional manager is concerned
about the change and any disruption it might bring. What will you do next?

A. Kick of the project with multiple deliveries to deliver small parts and reduce the change
impact.
B. Kick off the project work with a single delivery at the end of the project when the process
change is complete.
C. Kick off the project with continuous delivery in mind, to ensure fast value to the business.
D. Kick off the project using periodic deliveries, delivering value as it is ready.

Answer: B

This question covers delivery cadence and their various benefits. A process re-engineering project
may not have any deliveries until near the end of the project when the new process is rolled out and
ready.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p34, “Delivery Cadence”

Q.26 You are working on a project where the requirements are clear but the solution ideas are
uncertain. The product owner and the technical experts can’t be sure which ideas will work in
practice, and which ones won’t. The organisation cannot afford to get this project wrong, as they
have previously made mistakes and customers are starting to leave. What will you do next?

A. Use an Incremental development approach for the project.

B. Use an Iterative development approach for the project.
C. Use a Predictive development approach for the project.
D. Use a hybrid development approach for the project.

Answer: B

For development approaches, an terative approach is used when you need to capture ideas that
might change, while still delivered in one release. Incremental progressively delivers features (or
increments), Predictive plans everything up-front, and hybrid is a combination of predictive and
adaptive.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p37, “Development approaches.” Agile Practice Guide,
2017, p18, “Characteristics of project lifecycles.”
Q.27 You are working on a new product for your organisation where the requirements are complex
and are likely to change a few times as the project progresses. The organisation also needs usable
parts of the product to be released as soon as possible to try and capture some of the market they
are aiming for, away from their competitors. What will you do next?

A. Recommend an Iterative development approach.

B. Recommend a Predictive development approach.
C. Recommend an Adaptive development approach.
D. Recommend a Hybrid development approach.

Answer: C

Adaptive approaches are useful when requirements are subject to uncertainty and change. A clear
vision is established at the start of the project, and initial known requirements are refined or replace
din accordance with user feedback or unexpected events.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p38, “Adaptive approach”

Q. 28 A new project has been kicked off in your organisation due to a recent government inquiry into
your industry, which found multiple processes with significant regulatory oversight that need to
change. The inquiry ordering these changes has given you a due date of 10 months’ time before you
start incurring penalties. What will you do next?

A. Proceed, with an Agile development approach to deliver change as quickly as possible.

B. Proceed, with a Hybrid development approach to respond to changes while planning up
front.
C. Proceed, with a Predictive methodology to ensure quality control.
D. Proceed, with an Iterative methodology to improve using feedback.

Answer: C

In considerations for selecting a development approach, environments that have significant

regulatory oversight may need to use a predictive approach due to the required process,
documentation and demonstration needs.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p40, “Considerations for selecting a development
approach.”
Q. 29 Your organisation is moving to an Agile way of work. Your project team are strongly opposed to
using Agile as they have been burned using iterations, when executives used the team velocity to try
and force the team to work faster instead of keeping a sustainable pace. What will you do next?

A. Add extra resources to your team to deliver faster and avoid executives getting involved.
B. Proceed with a predictive development approach, and deal with the consequences later.
C. Ask your team to work with Agile, velocity and iterations despite their hesitations. ‘
D. Suggest the team uses flow-based scheduling, with a Kanban board for visual work.

Answer: D

Kanban is one of the largest parts of Agile approaches, aside from other major parts such as Lean, XP
and Scrum. A flow-based scheduling approach does not use sprints, lifecycles or velocity but
optimises deliveries based on resource capacity, and minimises waste such as context-switching and
hands off.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p45, “Flow-based scheduling”

Q.30 Your team have not worked on projects before, and don’t know about waterfall, agile, or any of
the different models. You project may also have requirements that are certain or uncertain, with
varying levels of risk, so are not sure which approach to use as you begin this new project. What will
you do next?

A. Use Waterfall and plan everything up front, so the team have more stability.
B. Use general phase definitions such as Feasibility, Design, Build, Test, Deploy and Close.
C. Use Agile to ensure you can respond to change while your team’s capability increases.
D. Don’t use any project approach — it doesn’t matter as long as the work is getting done.

Answer: B

All projects will go through the general phases of Feasibility, Design, Build, Test, Deploy and Close.
Waterfall projects will do these in sequence once, while Agile projects will do these multiple times,
for each feature or increment. The underlying principle remains the same, so it is a good place to
start.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p42, “Lifecycle and phase definitions"
Q.31 You a project manager in an organisation with a directive Project Management Office, and are
currently in between projects. The PMO asks you to prepare for an upcoming project in the
accounting area by meeting with the functional manager there. You have no team, no scope or
requirements and not timeline as yet. What will you do next?

A. Ask the functional manager for their wish-list of improvements, so you can take these to
your PMO.
B. Create a project management plan so the project, scope, budget and schedule are more
clear.
C. Create a small backlog of work and start your first sprint, then progressively update the
backlog as the project progresses.
D. Progressively elaborate the vision statement and project charter to define a coordinated
approach.

Answer: D

Before initiating a project of any sort, we start with a vision statement, project charter or business
case in order to identify a co-ordinated path to achieve the desired outcomes.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p52, “Planning Overview”

Q.32 You are working on a project where part of the project delivers a high value, high risk
component. Another part of the project delivers a routine change to the system. Your project
sponsor wants to gain the business value as quickly as possible, but your project team want to start
with the work they are familiar with first. What will you do next?

A. Prioritise the high risk items at the end of the project.

B. Prioritise the high risk items at the start of the project.
C. Use an incremental approach and deliver part of the routine and high risk work in each
sprint.
D. Plan out the work in detail and secure a scope baseline, with formal change controls to
reduce uncertainty.

Answer: B

This question refers to the concept of the last responsible moment. Work that is novel or risky can be
prioritised at the start of the project to reduce uncertainty with the project scope before a large
investment has been made. Routine work can be delayed until the cost of further delay would
exceed the benefit.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, “Delivery”, paragraph

Q.33 You are working on an agile project where the functional area you are delivering to only has a
high level idea of the system requirements they will need. The functional manager suggests a Work
Breakdown Structure, however your team feel that is more for a predictive (waterfall) delivery
approach. What will you do next?

A. Use and create a WBS anyway, as it is just a tool.

B. Use rolling wave planning, and keep the work at a high level until you are ready to work on it,
when you can plan in detail.
C. Note the high level themes or epics, decompose them into features, and again into user
stories.
D. Ask the functional area for more detailed requirements before the project begins.

Answer: C

This question refers to “decomposition” or breaking down the work. We could use a WBS, or rolling
wave planning, but for an incremental approach breaking down the work from 5 epics to features to
user stories is a form of decomposition that fits the delivery approach.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, “Delivery”, paragraph 3

Q.34 You are at the beginning of planning a new project, and have researched and gathered the
requirements from the area, broken them down into deliverables and activities, which you believe
could take 26 weeks to deliver. The project sponsor is asking you for an estimate on how long the
project will take. What will you do next?

A. Tell the project sponsor 26 weeks.

B. Tell the project sponsor that you will use an iterative approach, where value is delivered until the
project stops.

C. Tell the project sponsor approximately 24 to 28 weeks.

D. Tell the project sponsor approximately 20 to 45 weeks.

Answer: D

This question is related to estimation and range. Estimates should have a broad range at the start of
the project, starting at -25% to +75% when there is not much information. Once the project team has
a smooth delivery cadence and experience in the product, a smaller range such as -5% to +10% can
be used. A 0% range is when everything is known — and the product has been delivered.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p55, “Estimating, Range”.

Q.35 After gathering your project requirements, project scope, and breaking it down into activities,
you need to estimate the project schedule with your team. After some analysis and discussion, your
team come up with a range of 53 to 75 days assigned across all tasks. What will you do next?

A. The estimate is high accuracy but low precision — ask the team to come back with a more precise
estimate.

B. The estimate is low accuracy but high precision — ensure the estimates become more accurate as
the project unfolds.

C. The estimate is in high confidence but low precision — proceed as is and adjust using an
incremental approach.

D. The estimate is in low confidence but high accuracy — allow the team to become more confident
as the project unfolds.

Answer: B

This question is on estimates and their accuracy. The lower the accuracy, the larger the potential
range in values. Precision is different from accuracy, as it refers to the exactness of the estimate, for
example “2 days” is more precise than “sometime this week”.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p54, “Estimating: accuracy, precision, confidence"
Q.36 You are working on a business case where you know that the industry is undergoing a
significant change at the moment, and there could be many different impacts to your project
benefits before it is delivered completely. The project sponsor asks you for the best estimate of
benefits you can give under the circumstances. What will you do next?

A. Ask your team for a probabilistic estimate.

B. Ask your team for a deterministic estimate.
C. Ask your team for an absolute estimate.
D. Ask your team for a relative estimate.

Answer: A

Probabilistic estimates include a range of estimates, along with the associated probabilities within
the range such as a confidence level or a probability distribution. If the estimate is uncertain, this is
the best approach. Deterministic is a number, absolute is specific, actual numbers and relative
estimates are shown in comparison to other estimates. |

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p57, “Presenting estimates.”

Q.37 You have noted nine epics for delivery as part of your most recent project. Your team have
broken down these epics into user stories, and would like to see the effort involved for these
deliverables. You ask your team to find the smallest user story, size it with a “1”, and then determine
the size of the other cards based on how they compare to the original card. What approach are you
taking?

A. Relative estimating with your team.

B. Deterministic estimating to determine the effort.
C. Absolute estimating to get an estimate with absolute certainty.
D. Probabilistic estimating with the highest probability items.

Answer: A

This question is about estimating, and making an estimate in comparison to other estimates is
relative estimating.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p57, “Relative Estimating”

Q.38 You are working on a project where a competitor is also working on a similar feature, and being
first to the market will have a significant impact on this year’s profit. Your product owner would like
to measure how quickly story cards are being completed, once they start being developed. What will
you do next?

A. Check the Lead time of the story cards.

B. Check the Gantt chart with assigned schedule activities.
C. Check the Cycle time of the story cards.
D. Check the schedule network and precedence diagram.

Answer: C

Cycle time is the total elapsed time it takes one unit to get through a process. Lead time is the time
from when the customer makes the order (or the requirement is noted) to the time the item is
delivered or released. Schedule network diagram is useful for finding the Critical Path, and
precedence diagramming is used to find what deliverable or activity relies on others.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p58, “Flow-based estimating”

Q.39 You are working on a project that has recently moved to a more agile way of work. The team
have not completely taken on the Scrum approach however, and are comfortable working with a
more flow-based approach moving user stories across a Kanban board. You are wanting to get an
estimate on how much work can be completed in the next three months, based on the team’s
existing progress. What will you do next?

A. Multiply the velocity by the number of remaining user stories.

B. Multiply the cycle time by the throughput.
C. Multiply the lead time by the schedule performance index.
D. Multiply the planned value by the actual value.

Answer: B

Scrum uses velocity ~ Kanban or Flow-based estimates are developed by determining the cycle time
and throughput. Cycle time is the total elapsed time it takes one unit to get through a process.
Throughput is the number of items that can complete a process in a given amount of time.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, pS8, “Flow-based estimating.”

Q.40 Your product owner wants to bring the next feature forward so that it is done in parallel to the
current feature, but is still released in the existing feature order. You make the necessary adjustments
to the product backlog, and decide to adjust the product roadmap, which you have visualised as a
Gantt chart. What will you do next?

A. Use a schedule lead on the feature, and change the feature to finish-to-start
B. Use a schedule lag on the feature, and change the feature to start-to-start
C. Use a schedule lead on the feature, and change the feature to finish-to-finish
D. Use a schedule lag on the feature, and change the feature to start-to-finish

Answer: C

A schedule lag is moving an item back, a schedule lead is bringing an item forward. Precedence
diagramming method states for Finish-to-Finish items, the next item cannot finish until the previous
item has finished. This allows the items to be worked on in parallel, while still keeping the same
delivery order.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p59, “Schedules; Lead, Lag.”

(PMBOK Guide) — Sixth Edition, 2017, p180, “Precedence diagramming method”

Q.41 You are working on a project where you have been completing the deliverables in sequence,
and the project work is starting to fall behind. The project sponsor asks you to speed up the work
and reduce the time for the project to be delivered, but also makes it very clear that there is no more
money to use when speeding up the work. What will you do next?

A. Apply leads and lags to your project schedule.

B. Apply fast tracking to your project schedule.
C. Apply schedule crashing to your project.
D. Apply resource levelling to your project.

Answer: B

Project fast tracking is a schedule compression method in which activities or tasks that are normally
done in sequence are performed in parallel. Schedule crashing includes adding people to activities,
working overtime, or paying to expedite deliveries.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p59, “Schedules; Fast tracking, crashing.”
Q.42 After reviewing your project schedule you notice you are behind by three weeks and the
schedule will need to be compressed. Your project does not have enough budget to crash the
schedule. You check with the lead for each area and review the schedule as to whether they can fast
track their deliverables. What will you do next?

A. Fast track team items with discretionary dependencies.

B. Fast track team items with mandatory dependencies.
C. Fast track team items with external dependencies.
D. Fast track team items based on industry regulation.

Answer: A

When compressing the schedule, some activities cannot be fast-tracked because of the - nature of
the work, others can. A discretionary dependency is based on project ; preferences, and may be
madifiable. External and Mandatory dependencies usually cannot be modified. Internal
dependencies may be modifiable, except when based on specific regulatory needs.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p60, “Four types of dependencies.”

Q: 43 Your team are new to agile, and had previously been working with Waterfall. Your key
customer asks you for a project schedule. The project team believes using a project schedule is from
the old waterfall way of working and they shouldn't have to create one. What will you do next?

A. Create a project Gantt chart to visualise the activities within the project.
B. Determine the project’s planned versus actual value, instead of working with a schedule
directly.
C. Advise the customer that we don’t need to plan ahead in an adaptive way of work.
D. Ask your team to develop a high level release plan like a product roadmap, showing the
features to be included in each release.

Answer: D

Adaptive schedule planning uses incremental planning. A high level release plan is developed that
indicates basic features and functionality to be included in each release.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p61, “Adaptive schedule planning.”

Q:44 You are working in a project team that has recently moved to an Agile way of work. Your
business analysts want to gather the requirements, solutions, match them to the scope and do a
WBS for the whole deliverable. Your product owner says this will take too long, and is not agile
enough for their needs. What will you do next?

A. Ask your team to review the scope management plan for the proper process.
B. Break the deliverable down into smaller pieces so you can deliver those faster.
C. Ask your team to timebox work on the highest priority items in the backlog, update the
estimates then reprioritise as necessary.
D. Review the project charter for the high level scope, and use this to begin delivery quickly.

Answer: C

Adaptive approaches often use timeboxes. The work is based on a prioritised backlog. The project
team determines the amount of work they can do in each timebox, estimates the work and self-
manages to accomplish the work. At this point, the backlog may be reprioritised for the next
timebox.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p62, “Timeboxes”

Q: 45 When reviewing the current progress with your project sponsor, they notice that the system
solution is missing a critical piece that will impact the benefit of the project. The project sponsor
approves this scope. Your project has a Planned Value of $520,000 and an Actual Cost - of $535,000.
What will you do next?

A. Work with the PMO to unlock the project management reserves for the extra work.
B. Ask the Product Owner to reprioritise the backlog and see if the new work will fit.
C. Perform the work within your normal budget as your project is on track.
D. Raise a change request for the changes and gain approval from the Change Control Board.

Answer: A

Management reserves are set aside for unexpected activities related to in-scope work. Depending
on the organisation’s policies, management reserves may be managed by the PMO at the program
or portfolio level.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p62, “Budget”

Q:46 You are in the planning stages of an Agile project where the functional manager and senior
users have provided the high level requirements and scope. You have been asked to put together a
project team that will be able to deliver quickly. What will you do next?

A. Select project members from each city to ensure diversity of knowledge within the team.
B. Put together a resource management plan outlining the resources required.
C. Ask your PMO for current available resources and assign them to the work.
D. Select a small team that can work in the same area so they can solve problems as they arise.

Answer: D

When planning for the team, the project manager considers the ability and necessity for them to
work in the same location. Small project teams that can work in the same room are able to take
advantage of osmotic communication and can solve problems as they arise.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p64, “Project Team Composition and Structure”
Q:47 You are putting together a project team to deliver an accounting system to offices around the
country. The accounting system you are moving to has not been used by anyone in your organisation
before. The project is quite high risk, and the delivery needs to be right the first time. What will you
do next? d

A. Select a small team that can work in the same area so they can solve problems as they arise.
B. Use a predictive project approach and source part of your team externally if they have
skillsets in the new system.
C. Train existing internal staff in the new system then have them work on the project.
D. Perform a make or buy analysis on the different software options.

Answer: B

The benefit that outside skills bring to the project are weighed against the costs that will be incurred.
With higher risk and a single delivery, a waterfall or predictive project delivery approach is best.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p63, “Project Team Composition and Structure”
Q:48 You are putting together a project plan for a change that affects nearly ten thousand
stakeholders in your organisation. You have identified the affected stakeholders, analysed and
prioritised them, and are putting together a communication plan to ensure the right engagement is
made. What will you NOT include in your plan?

A. Why should information be shared with stakeholders?

B. What is the best way to provide information?
C. How can they make changes to the communication plan?
D. When and how often is information needed?

Answer: C

Planning communication for the project entails considering the following: Who needs information?
Who has the information needed? Why should information be shared with stakeholders? When and
how often is information needed? What is the best way to provide information? What ; information
does each stakeholder need? (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p64, “Communication”
Q:49 You put together a resource plan for a large amount of physical inventory to be purchased from
overseas. You ordered the inventory during project execution, however global supply chains were
impacted and the shipment was delayed by three months, significantly impacting your project. What
should you have done differently?

A. Hired a resource manager to take care of the resource tasks on your project.
B. Planned strategically about the timing from order to delivery to usage, managing resource
risks and their responses.
C. Ensured a means to track the inventory from arrival on site to the delivery of an integrated
product.
D. Sourced the inventory locally to reduce the impact of global supply chains.

Answer: B

Project teams whose projects require significant physical materials think and plan strategically about
the timing from order, to delivery, to usage. This can include evaluation of bulk ordering versus the
cost of storage, global logistics and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p65, “Physical resources”"

Q.50 You are half way through your agile project when there is a significant change to the project
scope, after it was found that the project would not be able to deliver the benefits it had promised.
You check your project budget and there are contingency and management reserves available. What
will you do next?

A. Take the project scope change to the change control board for approval.
B. Use the available contingency reserves to make the appropriate change to project scope.
C. Review the change management plan for the change control process. ‘
D. Reprioritise the product backlog, including the new scope and begin work on the highest
priority straight away.

Answer: D

Changes may occur as a result of a risk event, environment change, a deeper understanding of
requirements, customer requests and more. Project teams should prepare a process for adapting
plans throughout the project. In an Agile team, this may take the form of ; reprioritising the backlog
instead of a change control process with project baselines.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p66, “Changes"

Q.51 You have recently taken over on a project that is behind schedule, and slightly over budget. You
raise an issue at the steering committee meeting, where they advise that there is no additional
funding available and the project must finish on time. You believe you can optimize the project
process to try and bring the project back on track. What will you do next?

A. Add additional people and resources to the project to speed it up.

B. Utilise the project’s contingency reserve to source the resources you need.
C. Perform project activities in parallel, completing multiple items at once instead of one at a
time.
D. Use Lean production methods to reduce non-value add activities, and retrospectives for the
team to suggest improvements.

Answer: D

Ways of optimising the project processes for the environment include Lean production methods,
retrospectives or lessons learned, and finding where the next best funding is spent. Adding people
and resources may not always improve things — it can also increase the complexity and
communication channels.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p71, “Project Processes”

Q:52 Your Project Management Office (PMO) is optimising all the projects within their portfolio. They
ask for your advice in tracking the type of work each team member is doing and how long it takes,
suggesting that they categorise and record their work in addition to the work itself. What will you do
next?

A. Ask your team to record and categorise their work, as gathering project data is important.
B. Recommend an automated reporting tool where possible, as categorising their work is NVA.
C. Recommend an automated reporting tool where possible, as recording their work is VA.
D. Ask your team to ignore the request and focus on delivering customer value only.

Answer: B

The time taken to track or record time can be viewed as “non-value added” work, that does not
directly benefit the output or the receiving customer.

We should respect the PMO request, but in addition to being efficient, processes should be
effective.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p72, “Project Processes”

Q:53 You are working on an agile project as a scrum master, where the functional manager has
worked with some people in your development team before. She approaches them directly to see if
they can add a feature to the product in the current sprint. What will you do next?

A. Adjust the sprint backlog to allow for the additional feature.

B. Adjust the product backlog to add the customer requirement.
C. Ask the manager to speak with the Product Owner for product priorities, then protect the
team from direct requests in the future.
D. Ask the manager to create a change request so it can go through the proper process.

Answer: C

Project Managers have a responsibility for assessing and balancing project team focus and attention.
This may involve protecting the team’s production capability — their team health and satisfaction. In
Agile, this also means being a diversion shield for the team and removing blockers that get in the way
of them making progress in their work.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p73, “Maintaining Project Team Focus”
Q:54 Part of your project management plan is a detailed communications plan, which has the
stakeholders on the project, their communication needs, and how information will be
communicated. While this is being signed off by the project sponsor, you receive many ad-hoc
requests for information from new stakeholders. What will you do next?

A. Review the communications management plan to include the stakeholders, the information
they need and their communication preferences.
B. Create an information radiator and ask the stakeholders to pull the information they need
C. Ignore the new requests, as you have captured all the stakeholders you need to in your plan.
D. Ask the new stakeholders to review your communications management plan to see how you
are distributing information.

Answer: A

Once collected, information is distributed as indicated in the project management communications

plan. An abundance of ad-hoc communication requests may indicate that the communication
planning was not sufficient to meet stakeholder needs - it is a good idea to review it.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p72, “Project Communications and Engagement” A ‘
Q:55 You are working on a high value construction project to include smart-home components within
multi-million dollar buildings. After completing a make-or-buy analysis, you find that it will cost
$700,000 to make the new system, or $500,000 to buy it from a vendor. You prepare a procurement
management plan to purchase it. What will you do before conducting a procurement?

A. Work with your project team to complete as much of the system in-house as possible.
B. Work with contracting professionals to develop and terms and conditions.
C. Adjust your stakeholder register to include the new vendor, and add the scope to your work
breakdown dictionary.
D. Work with your project team to develop an RMP, §MP, and list of resources,

Answer: B

Prior to conducting a procurement, the project manager and technically qualified project team
members work with contracting professionals to develop the Request for proposals (RFP), Statement
of Work (SOW), terms and conditions, and other necessary documents to go out to bid.

~ (PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p74, “Working with Procurements” 7 .

Q:56 A missing item has been uncovered in the project scope that your project team cannot deliver.
The item is not complex and seems to be fairly readily available from various sources. You are ready
to move to source selection and choose a vendor that will meet their needs. What will you do before
sending out bid documents to vendors?

A. Prepare a Request for Proposal for vendors to provide a solution to your needs.
B. Prepare a Request for Quote to determine the best price from the vendors.
C. Prepare a Request for Information to gather more information and viable sources from the
market.
D. Review the procurement management plan for your project’s procurement process.

Answer: C

A Request for Information is used to gather more information from the market prior to sending out
bid documents to a set of selected vendors. A Request for Proposal is used where scope is complex
or the buyer is looking for the vendor to provide a solution. Request for Quote is when price is the
deciding factor.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p75, “The Bid Process”.

Q:57 You are working on a project where part of the work is planned carefully upfront, and another
part is subject to change. You negotiate terms and conditions, including cost, delivery and payment
dates. The vendor is concerned about confusion that might occur between the pre- planned and
changeable work. What will you do next?

A. Use a Firm Fixed Price contract, to ensure cost is fixed but scope can remain flexible.
B. Use a time and materials contract, to ensure only the time and materials used are paid for.
C. Adjust your project plan to suit either a predictive or adaptive approach to reduce the
confusion.
D. Use a master agreement for the overall contract, with adaptive work placed in an appendix.

Answer: D

For projects that use an adaptive approach for some deliverables and a predictive approach for
others, a master agreement is used and the adaptive work may be placed in an appendix or
supplement. This allows the changes to occur on the adaptive scope without impacting the overall
contract.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p76, “The Bid Process: Contracting” 5 ‘
Q:58 You are working on an agile project where there are vastly differing levels of product knowledge
within your team. The scrum master suggests that you try to gain knowledge by osmosis, because
the project information may be lost when only communicating by email. What will you do next?

A. Co-locate the team to capture the benefit of each person’s tacit knowledge.
B. Refer to the organisational process assets to capture the team’s explicit knowledge.
C. Refer to the project’s knowledge management system to capture the project’s explicit
knowledge
D. Create a process to capture the team’s tacit knowledge.

Answer: A

Learning by Osmosis is capturing information from the immediate surroundings, such as co-locating
the team. Tacit knowledge is information that is not straight forward, such as experience, insights,
and practical knowledge or skill. Explicit knowledge can be readily codified using words, a process,
pictures.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p77, “Explicit and tacit knowledge” W,
Q:59 You are working as a Product Owner, and have placed high level information about the product
in the product backlog, and the highest priority feature at the top. Senior users informing the project
are unable to clearly articulate their requirements, and are concerned that the product will not truly
meet their needs. What will you do next?

A. Proceed with the highest priority item during the first sprint.
B. Work with the customer to create mock-ups and prototypes to discover what works for
them.
C. Ask your stakeholders to submit a change request and update the project scope accordingly.
D. Begin breaking the work down into user stories to place in the sprint.

Answer: B

On projects that do not have clearly defined requirements prototypes, demonstrations, storyboards
and mock-ups can be used to evolve the requirements. In these situations, Stakeholders are more
likely to take an “I’ll know it when I see it” approach.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p83, “Evolving and discovering requirements”
Q.60 You are gathering requirements for a new feature in a customer management system. The
product owner has given a user interface feature as the next highest priority, and you are co-located
with the team receiving the benefits. What will you do next?

A. Show the customer team how the new user interface will look, as they will be using it.
B. Communicate the requirements to developers with a coherent, logical flow of ideas.
C. Elicit requirements into user stories using acceptance criteria that is clear, verifiable and
traceable.
D. Show the mock up or prototype to the developers and ask them to develop based on that.

Answer: C

Elicitation means to draw out. Well-documented requirements are Clear, Concise, Verifiable,
Consistent, Complete and Traceable. A prototype useful but may need more information for
developers to turn into product. Clear purpose, coherent ideas, controlling flow, concise expression
and correct grammar are part of the Five C’s of communication.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p83, “Requirements Elicitation"

Q: 61 You are working in an agile team who are trying to break down the project requirements and
scope. They have created a scope statement and work breakdown structure, but are not sure how it
will work now that they are using sprints and user stories. What will you do next?

A. Assign activities to each of the scope items in the WBS, and place them on a Gantt Chart.
B. Create a product roadmap with the team, using the lowest, most detailed part of the WBS.
C. Group the work by large themes of customer value, shown as Epics, then break them down
into smaller user stories to complete in each sprint.
D. Ask the team to trace the requirements properly using a Requirements traceability Matrix.

Answer: C

One way to identify scope is identifying the themes of customer value, associated by a common
factor such as functionality, data source or security level. These are shown as Epics, which are too big
to complete in a sprint, and have smaller user stories within them.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p84, “Scope decomposition.”

Q:62 Your project team are trialling an agile way of work. The Product Owner has a clear vision for
the product. There is confusion in the team as to how much work should be done on a user story
before it is taken to the sprint review, and how they will know a story is complete. What will you do
next?

A. Refer to the user story acceptance criteria and your team's Definition of Done.
B. Review the user story with multiple customers and senior users to ensure it is correct.
C. Ask the product owner to sign off on the completed user story.
D. Ensure quality testing on the user story is completed and passed.

Answer: A

Different ways to describe component completion include acceptance or completion criteria,

technical performance measures, and Definition of Done. Quality testing will be done to the
acceptance criteria, as will; Product Owner sign off.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p8S, “Completion of deliverables”

Q:63 You have been working closely with the quality manager of your project, planning the budget
for the project phase that is due to begin in the next two months. They mention the need to budget
for appraisal costs, to avoid quality issues in the future. What will you do next?

A. Ensure there is enough for training the staff to reduce the number of errors.
B. Ensure there is enough for a quality tester to verify the deliverables against agreed
specifications.
C. Ensure there is enough to create a quality assurance plan.
D. Ensure there is enough to allow for rework or rectification when defects are found.

Answer: B

This question is on the Cost of Quality. Prevention costs are training or quality planning. Appraisal
costs are verification or audits. Internal failure is waste, defects, rework. External failure is customer
complaints, repairs and servicing, warranty claims. ;

- (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p89, “Cost of Quality”

Q: 64 Your agile project has recently had multiple quality issues. Project features have been
prioritised by the Product Owner, and broken down into user stories. What will you do to help reduce
the cost of quality issues the most?

A. Quality test each user story according to its acceptance criteria before release.
B. Advise the team that any quality defects will come out of their bonus.
C. Perform testing all in one go at the end, to reduce the cost of testing resources.
D. Ensure a “triad” of developer, tester and customer is involved during requirements and
design.

Answer: D

This question is about the Cost of Change. The cost is least during requirements and design, is 20x
during build, 50x during test, and 150x if a defect has to be rectified in production. If the
requirements, design, and acceptance criteria is incorrect, extra quality testing will not help.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p90, “Cost of Change”

Q:65 You are working in an agile team where executives in the team you are delivering to are asking
for a large display of reports to be created every two weeks, showing how the project is tracking and
updating them on the cost and benefits. What will you do next?

A. Collect the planned value versus earned value to show the executives any variance in the
plan.
B. Co-locate the team with the executives so they can answer any questions as they arise.
C. Suggest a demonstration of the feature developed during each sprint instead, and a
burndown chart of future product features.
D. Create the desired reports for the executives to keep them happy.

Answer: C

The value of measurements is not in the collection and dissemination of the data, but is in how to
use the data to take appropriate action. Agile projects ; demonstrate usable value and features
delivered and use live information radiators instead of large reports to stakeholders.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p94, “Measurement Performance Domain”

Q:66 Multiple features have been released, but they are not having the effect the product owner
believes they should. Your team are using some Key Performance Indicators to track performance,
an?:l-you agree to move to more Leading indicators. What could you use as examples of Leading
indicators for your project?

A. An increase in customer usage once the feature is released, such as sales and repeat
purchasing.
B. Stakeholders who are not engaged and lack of a risk management process.
C. Velocity of the work completed each sprint and cycle time of user stories.
D. Variance in the schedule between planned and actual time taken.

Answer: B

There are two types of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Leading and Lagging. Leading predict
changes or trends in the project, and include Lack of a risk management process, stakeholders who
are not engaged, poorly defined project success criteria. Lagging indicators include work completed
or schedule variance.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p96, “Leading Indicators”

Q:67 You are working in an agile project team that has increased in size and complexity since the
project began. In reviewing the throughput of work with your team, you notice fewer and fewer user
stories being completed, and the roadmap of features scheduled to go live is being pushed out. What
will you do next?

A. Place a limit on the work in progress and work with the team to reduce the cycle time.
B. Increase meetings with the team so everyone can collaborate together.
C. Ask the team to work overtime until the number of features reduces.
D. Put a Pull system in place, where the team can pull work only when they are ready.

Answer: A

With more work, different tasks and increased complexity, the team are likely context switching
between too many different things. Kanban aims to limit the work in progress to avoid multi-tasking.
Other things we can use are reducing queue size and batch sizes, and reviewing process efficiency.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p99, “What to measure: Delivery”

Q:68 You are working on an agile project where the project customer wants a reliable way to
measure the project performance, and you know you first need a baseline. What measures will you
show to your customer as part of your agile project?

A. Start and finish dates.

B. Project team velocity.
C. Rate of Features completed.
D. Schedule and Cost variance.

Answer: C

An agile project tracks and demonstrates actual features delivered. With a stable team, cost is most
often fixed. The schedule is also fixed, and the scope is variable depending on what the customer
wants to prioritise in the given time.

- (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p100, “Baseline performance”

Q:69 The product owner has worked with a team of senior users to gather feature ideas. They now
have a list of more than fifty ideas for your team to develop, which is far too many to complete in the
timeframe you have. What will you do next?

A. Ask the new product owner to return to the senior users and ask for a shortened list.
B. Start work on the smallest features first, to ensure you are delivering value quickly.
C. Workshop the features with a wider audience to get a completely diverse view on their
priority.
D. Ask the new product owner to prioritise the features using cost to benefit, then deliver in
priority order until time or money runs out.

Answer: D

Product Owners prioritise features based on business value. Metrics that measure business value
include Cost-benefit ratio, planned to actual benefits delivery, return on investment, and Net Present
Value.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p102, “Business value.”

Q.70 Your agile project team has only recently formed. The product is still unclear, and there have
been disagreements and minor conflicts over the past two weeks as the team find their rhythm. You
would like things to improve, but can’t quite pinpoint or address the problem. What will you do
next?

A. Hold a workshop with your team to ask them why they are unhappy.
B. Have the team complete a Net Promoter Score with comments, and ask for improvement
ideas at the next retrospective.
C. Raise the issue with their line managers, to ensure all levels are aware of and working on the
issue.
D. Have the team pair up together for their tasks, so they can learn from each other.

Answer: B

Measuring stakeholders can be done with a Net Promoter Score or satisfaction score, especially with
a comment, or a mood chart. Improvement ideas are captured during retrospectives for most agile
teams. Pairing is another agile; practice, but is not as relevant here.

" (PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p103, “Measuring: Stakeholders”

Q:71 The project has faced serious impacts in getting materials, with supply chains being disrupted
and a global pandemic, and is currently three weeks behind schedule. You take this information to
the next project steering committee meeting, where they advise they need more information on how
much the project will end up costing. What will you do next?

A. Use the current project budget with no deviations until it runs out.
B. Use the project burndown chart to see the burn-rate of accounting funds.
C. Use a regression analysis on the current rate of spending to see where the final cost will end
up.
D. Use the project’s estimate at completion to show the steering committee the most likely final
cost.

Answer: D

This question is talking about budget forecasts. Regression analysis may work but the best answer is
the Estimate at Completion, which is the (BAC / (EV / AC).

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p104, “Forecasts”

Q:72 You are working on an agile project where the project sponsor and executive managers require
lengthy reports about the project work each week. This takes you and the project team a
considerable amount of time to do, and reduces time spent creating the actual product. What will
you do next?

A. Reuse most of the information each week so your time spent on them is reduced.
B. Suggest the leaders come to the sprint review and gather what they need from the
information radiator.
C. Ask your project sponsor to wait until a steering committee meeting for the information.
D. Share your working project schedule and budget with the executives instead of creating the
reports.

Answer: B

Agile teams showcase actual work completed at the sprint review. Information radiators, also known
as big visible charts, are visible displays that allow anyone to “pull” the information from. They are
often “low tech and high touch” and; contain information on work completed or remaining, risks,
and things like a Kanban board and burndown chart.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p108, “Information Radiators”

Q:73 You are working on a project that has planned as much as they can up-front. You would like
them to move to a more agile way of work. Currently, the work is hidden, the team catches up only
once A week in a working group, and it is hard to see what each person is working on and keep track
of it. What will you do next?

A. Ask your team to report on their work in a written status update each day so you can keep
track.
B. Have more working group meetings so you are always up to date on what your team is
working on.
C. Ask the team to move their work to a central, visible task board, then have a short meeting
each day to discuss progress on the cards.
D. Remove the team meetings altogether and trust your team to get the work done.

Answer: C

This question is talking about stand-ups and a Kanban board. “Task boards” are part of the visual
controls used, where an increment of work moves from To Do to In Progress to Done. The team
meets for 15 minutes each day to discuss progress and raise any impediments.

- (PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p109, “Visual Controls: Task boards”
Q:74 You are working on a hybrid project, where the majority of the work has been planned up front.
The team manages their work via a Kanban board, and report on progress and blockers each day. As
the project evolves, stakeholders have added more and more scope to the product, with one
executive raising an urgent feature that needs to be added. What will you do next?

A. Limit the number of cards in the “Ready” or “To Do” column, and ask the Product Owner to
work with stakeholder requests, noting the need to swap the new item for an existing item.
B. Match the number of user stories to the team’s velocity, to ensure a sustainable pace.
C. Work with the stakeholder to raise a change request, and note the outcome in the change
log.
D. Review the impact of the scope change with the stakeholder using the WBS dictionary.

Answer: A

As a hybrid project using Kanban and some Agile ceremonies, the most appropriate way to manage
the work and scope is by using a WIP Limiton the board. The Product Owner has the final say on
prioritising features and scope, so works with stakeholders to ensure they understand something
may be de prioritised by adding a new feature.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p110, “Kanban Board”

Q:75 You are working as a product owner in an agile team, where the main measure of project
success is the number of features delivered into production. Over the past six months, the team have
delivered the highest number of features your organisation has ever seen, however customers are
starting to complain about issues and bugs in the product. What will you do next?

A. Ask the team to work harder in delivering more features, to fix the product issues.
B. Adjust the product metrics to include customer satisfaction and quality measures.
C. Add a slack card of 5 points into the sprint backlog, to deal with the technical debt.
D. Remove customer comments and feedback until you have finished delivering all the features.

Answer: B

This question is about the Hawthorne Effect, where what we measure influences the behaviour of
our team. In this case, we measured the number of features only, and the team delivered, but at the
cost of quality and customer satisfaction. Adding measures for those two things will balance the
team’s behaviour.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p112, “Measurement pitfalls: Hawthorn Effect”
Q:76 You have been working on a project for the past eight months. Your project team have been
approached by multiple stakeholders for reporting on various performance measures about the
project and the product area. Now, a large amount of their time is spent on creating these reports for
others. They have escalated this issue to you. What will you do next?

A. Ask the project stakeholders to stop interacting with your project team.
B. Spend a portion of your project budget to automate the reports for your stakeholders.
C. Work with the team, including the stakeholders, to only measure things that will facilitate a
decision, help avoid an issue or increase project performance.
D. Invite your stakeholders to your sprint reviews, so they can see a working feature in practice.

Answer: C

The intent in measuring and displaying data is to learn and improve. To optimize project performance
and efficiency, only measure and report information that will allow the project team to learn,
facilitate a decision, improve some aspect of performance, help avoid an issue, or help prevent
performance deterioration.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p114, “Growing and Improving”

Q:77 You are working on a project where there is a significant amount of uncertainty about the
requirements. There is also a legislative change coming, and no one knows what it will mean for your
industry. As a project manager, how will you deal with this uncertainty?

A. Perform additional planning for your project to improve your view on scope management.
B. Hold additional retrospectives, to capture challenges and improvements from your team.
C. Create a risk assessment of all possible project risks, with their risk ratings and owners.
D. Gather information and prepare for multiple outcomes, and build team resilience through
processes and training.

Answer: D

This question is about general uncertainty and risk. Uncertainty cannot be predicted precisely, and
methods for responding to uncertainty include; gathering information, preparing for multiple
outcomes, using set-based design, and building in resilience.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p118, “General Uncertainty”

Q:78 You are working on a project with a vendor where there is significant ambiguity involved and
multiple options the team could go with. Many outcomes are possible that have varying degrees of
impact to improve the situation. What will you do next?

A. Use experiments and prototypes, and progressive elaboration to work your way through it.
B. Ask your team for additional reporting around the different options so you can make an
informed decision.
C. Add all the different options into your project scope, so all your bases are covered.
D. Work more closely with your senior users so they can inform you of the product
requirements.

Answer: A

This question is on Ambiguity. There are two types of ambiguity: Conceptual (where itis hard to
understand) and situational (where there - are multiple options and outcomes). Use progressive
elaboration, experiments and prototypes to work through this ambiguity.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p120, “Ambiguity”

Q:79 You are working on a project to improve some software that has been in production for over 17
years, and has been modified extensively over that time. It also integrates with many other systems
within your organisation. You cannot decide which features to deliver first. How will you deal with
the complexity?

A. List out the possible features you can deliver and prioritise them by cost over benefit.
B. Simulate decoupling connecting parts to simplify the number of variables, then reframe your
view by brainstorming with a diverse set of stakeholders.
C. Provide an incentive for your project team for whoever can solve this complex problem.
D. Form a business-case for a third party system to replace the existing, complex system, to
transfer the risk of delivery.

Answer: B

This question is about Complexity. Methods for dealing with complexity include Systems based—
decoupling and simulation; Reframing — Diversity and balanced views; Process based — Iterating,
engaging. stakeholders and using a fail safe or error proofing.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p121, “Complexity.”

Q.80 You are working on a project that requires a very particular programming skillset that is not
very common. It is also the hottest job-market the industry has seen in two decades, people are hard
to come by and leave often. The programming language is also evolving at a quick pace. What will
you do next?

A. Develop the product from scratch in a more common programming language.

B. Ask your whole team to learn the programming skillset, to cover the risk.
C. Use alternatives analysis to gather different options, and ensure a sufficient cost reserve to
help complete your project.
D. Raise a risk to your project completion, with the threat of project team member skillsets.

Answer: C

This question is referring to Volatility, which is an environment that is subject to rapid and
unpredictable change, including ongoing fluctuations in available skillsets or materials. Alternatives
analysis and cost reserves are ways to deal with volatility.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p122, “Volatility"

Q:81 Your project team have found a significant data vulnerability in one of the features planned in
your product backlog, where customer data is exposed without password access. This feature is
partially made by a third party vendor, and the relationship is owned by a functional manager in your
organisation. What will you do next?

A. Avoid the risk and wait for the third party vendor to fix the vulnerability.
B. Transfer the risk by asking a different vendor to create a feature with no vulnerability in their
design.
C. Escalate the threat to the manager with appropriate authority to act on the response.
D. Accept the risk and move on the other features so the work continues to get done.

Answer: C

With project risks and responses to threats, there are five main types: Avoid, Escalate, Transfer,
Mitigate and Accept. Escalation is appropriate when the project team agrees that a threat is outside
the scope of the project, or exceeds the project manager’s authority.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p123, “Overall Project Risk: Threats”
Q:82 You brainstorm risk responses with your project team and project sponsor, and decide you
cannot transfer a certain high impact risk. You also cannot avoid the risk, and there is no one in the
organisation to escalate it to. Your project sponsor agrees that you should actively accept the risk.
What will you do next?

A. Develop a contingency plan that would be triggered if the event occurred.

B. Shift the ownership to a third party to manage the risk and bear the impact if it does occur.
C. Act to eliminate the threat or protect the project from its impact only.
D. Take action to reduce the probability of its occurrence, and the impact of the threat.

Answer: A

This question is describing the various risk responses to threats. Actively accepting risk can include
developing a contingency plan that would be triggered if the event occurred. Passive acceptance
means doing nothing. Acting to eliminate the threat is avoiding it, escalating requires an outside
manager’s authority, shifting the ownership is transferring the risk, and mitigating the risk is taking
action to reduce the probability of occurrence or impact.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p123, “Risk: Threats”

Q:83 You are working on a project to build a new customer database system for an engineering team.
In working with the requirements, you realise that this system can also work with other teams within
your organisation, and the effort to add those teams is quite small. What will you do next?

A. Work with the other teams and their managers to escalate the opportunity.
B. Work with those other teams and their managers to exploit the opportunity.
C. Work with those other teams and their managers to enhance the opportunity.
D. Work with the other teams and their managers to accept the opportunity.

Answer: B

When dealing with opportunities in your project there are five main responses: Exploit s acting to
ensure an opportunity occurs, Escalating is when it is outside the authority of the project manager,
sharing allocates ownership to a third party who is best able to capture its benefit, enhancing is
increasing the probability of occurrence, and accepting merely acknowledges its existence without
doing anything further.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p125, “Risks: Opportunities”

Q:84 You are working as a product owner in an agile team, and during a recent risk review the team
have uncovered various risks that will impact your project. You brainstorm risk responses with your
team. The project customer would like them to be mitigated as soon as possible. What will you do
next?

A. Ask your team to work on the risk responses and get them done as soon as possible.
B. Ignore the risks initially, some may dissipate over time and only the important ones will be
left.
C. Assign the risk responses to all stakeholders around your project team to share the load.
D. Prioritise the risks by comparing the expected monetary value of the risk to the anticipated
return on investment of upcoming deliverables.

Answer: D

Prioritising risk responses in a risk adjusted backlog is just as importantas prioritising features, to
avoid negative risk impacts and technical debt. Comparing the EMV of a risk to the anticipated ROI of
a deliverable allows product owners to incorporate risk responses into the planned work.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p15, “Checking outcomes - Stakeholder Performance”
Q:85 You are planning a project where supply chains have been impacted, and the requirements are
complex and intertwined with other areas of the business. Your project sponsor asks you to manage
these risks before the project moves to execution. What will you do next?

A. Move to project execution, so you can work through risks as they happen.
B. Move to an agile way of work so you can deliver faster and also deal with the complexity.
C. Note the risks with appropriate controls, and add a contingency reserve in the project
budget.
D. Assign a management reserve to your project budget and deal with the risks before moving
to project execution.

Answer: C

Reserves are an amount of time or budget set aside to account for handling risks. Contingency
reserve is for identified risks, should they occur. Management reserve is for unknown events such as
un-planned, in-scope work.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p127, “Management and contingency reserve”
Q:86 You are working on an agile project and delivering a usable feature every few weeks. The
project sponsor is from a waterfall background and is concerned that there is not enough focus on
risk. They would like to hold a regular risk review with a wide group of stakeholders. What will you
suggest instead?

A. There is no need for a separate meeting as risk is everyone's responsibility in an agile team.
B. Use daily stand-ups to report blockers early, and fortnightly demonstrations of the product to
catch any stakeholder dissatisfaction.
C. Use the Kanban board to see the work and how it flows from the backlog to "done".
D. Hold the risk meeting, but only with the immediate project team to avoid unnecessary
participants.

Answer: B

In agile teams the risk review can take the form of the daily stand-up, reporting blockers that could
become threats if they continue to delay progress. Frequent demonstrations of the product can also
surface threats and opportunities, as can retrospectives. While quality is everyone's responsibility,
and the Kanban board does visualise the work, B is the best answer.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p127, “Risk Review”

Q:87 Your Project Management Office has no prescribed way of work, so are working with a vendor
who supplies an eXtreme Programming framework at a significant cost. Your organisation is using it,
but projects are still running behind schedule, over budget, and with low customer satisfaction. What
will you do next?

A. Tailor the approach to suit the organisation, operating environment and project needs.
B. Use a waterfall approach instead, to ensure the proper planning is completed for every
project.
C. Switch to Scrum instead, as it is a more popular framework and has been tested in the
market.
D. Tighten the controls around the project environment with a more directive PMO approach.

Answer: A

Projects operate in complex environments that need to balance competing demands. Tailoring is
performed to better suit the organisation, operating environment and project needs.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p132, “Tailoring Overview”

Q:88 Your Project Management Office is in the middle of a company-wide "ways of working"
transformation. They have taken a popular project framework and are tailoring it to the organisation
with branded templates and processes that meet their existing governance requirements. You have
been asked to help finalise the process. What will you do next?

A. Gather feedback from the functional business areas to ensure the process meets their needs.
B. Roll out the new way of working to the PMO as a pilot first, then to the rest of the
organisation.
C. Enable a process for tailoring based on size and complexity, and implement ongoing
improvement.
D. Form a working group comprised of executives and project professionals.

Answer: C

This question is referring to the tailoring process, which is: Select the initial development approach,
tailor for the organisation, tailor for the project, and implement ongoing improvement.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p137, “The Tailoring Process”

Q:89 You are a manager of a PMO in a large organisation, which has recently undertaken a company-
wide way of working transformation. You need to select an initial development approach for your
projects, which you will then tailor to suit them further. What will you do next?

A. Use the framework that best engages your executive team through easy-to-use graphics and
presentations.
B. Select the most popular current framework to keep up with what other organisations are
doing.
C. Select multiple development approaches as a baseline for your organisation.
D. Use a suitability filter to assess the most appropriate development approach.

Answer: D

A suitability filter tool helps project teams consider whether a project has characteristics that lend
themselves toward a predictive, hybrid, or adaptive approach. Select one as a base, then enable the
ability to tailor to your project or organisation's circumstances.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p138, “Select Initial Development Approach”
Q.90 Your organisation is starting to move to an agile way of work and they are setting up a Value
Delivery Office (VDO) to complement the existing PMO. The executives in the area have begun
working through what the function looks like and the roles and responsibilities that might exist. They
approach you for help. What will you tell them?

A. The VDO is responsible for the value delivered, and owns the programs within the
organisation.
B. The VDO focuses on coaching project teams, building adaptive skills and capabilities and
mentoring sponsors and product owners to be more effective.
C. The VDO is responsible for agile resources such as scrum masters and product owners to be
allocated effectively to project teams.
D. The VDO creates the organisational framework to be used on each project throughout the
company.

Answer: B

A VDO serves an enabling role, rather than a management or oversight function. It focuses on
coaching project teams, building adaptive skills and capabilities throughout the organisation, and
mentoring sponsors. and product owners.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p141, “Tailor for the organisation: VDO"
Q:91 You have been planning a project for the last two months, gathering requirements and scope
and assigning tasks to a schedule. As you get closer to the execution phase of your project you need
to decide what delivery approach you will use. The requirements are likely to change, require a
medium amount of compliance, but can be released in one go. What will you do next?

A. Set up a Predictive delivery approach with your team.

B. Set up an Incremental delivery approach with your team.
C. Set up an Agile or adaptive delivery approach with your team.
D. Set up an Iterative delivery approach with your team.

Answer: D

Gathering feedback and improving over time, while delivering in one release is an iterative delivery
approach. Incremental releases increments of value (like features), Predictive plans everything up
front once then delivers in one go, and; Agile gathers feedback and releases incrementally.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p141, “Tailor for the project: Product /Deliverable”
Q:92 You have been asked to make a process improvement in the accounting area of your
organisation. You have been assigned a small team of nine people, each with all the skills you need to
complete the project. The team is co-located, and have unlimited access to the project customer.
How will you tailor your delivery approach?

A. Use a predictive / waterfall delivery approach.

B. Use an agile / adaptive delivery approach.
C. Use an incremental delivery approach.
D. Use a hybrid delivery approach.

Answer: B

An agile / adaptive delivery approach works best when the team is small (fewer than 9-12 people),
has close access to the customer, is cross-functional and is co-located.

Predictive is best when lots of planning is needed, Hybrid is best when there are two different
approaches needed. Incremental delivers features over time.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p142, “Tailor for the project: Project team.”
Q:93 You have been working as a project manager in an organisation for some time, where an agile-
centric delivery approach and way of work has been selected and tailored for the organisation. Over
the past few months, you notice several things that are not working and could be improved as you
begin new projects. What will you do next?

A. Review the product backlog to see the flow of features going through project teams.
B. Look into issues, threats and quality assurance statistics.
C. Suggest a retrospective with PMO leaders to determine ongoing improvement opportunities.
D. Review a control chart and value stream map to see non-value-added activities and remove
waste in the process.

Answer: C

In an agile environment, holding a retrospective to gather what is working well and what is
challenging us or could be improved is the best way to find ongoing improvements.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p151, “Tailoring: Diagnostics”

Q:94 You have been working on a project to deliver a new customer data system, and have noticed
that the work is starting to slow down. Fewer user stories are appearing in your sprint backlog, as
they are not ready. You hold a retrospective with your team and discover that there are long delays
waiting for requirements and acceptance criteria approvals. What will you do next?

A. Streamline approval decisions through fewer people (such as a Product Owner) authorised to
make decisions up to certain value thresholds.
B. Ask your team to place the user stories in the sprint backlog, reducing the need for customer
approval.
C. Note the long delays as a risk to your project, with a high likelihood as it is currently
happening.
D. Escalate the issue to the functional manager to ensure approvals are happening quickly.

Answer: A

Where there are long delays or waiting for approvals, the tailoring suggestion is to streamline
decisions through fewer people authorised to make decisions up to certain value thresholds.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p151, “Common situations and tailoring suggestions”
Q:95 You have been assigned to take over an existing project as the previous project manager leaves
for another opportunity. In working with your team you notice there is a Iarge amount of work
currently in progress all at once, with team members working on multiple items at a time and
constantly context-switching between tasks. What will you do next?

A. Add more people to your project to get the work done at a faster rate.
B. Use value stream mapping and Kanban boards to visualise the work and brainstorm solutions
with your team.
C. Ask your team to work overtime to cover the extra work and bring it back into line.
D. Review the scope of the project and reduce items with a low impact to customer satisfaction.

Answer: B

Where there is too much Work In Progress (WIP) or high rates of scrap, it is recommended to use
techniques like value Stream Mapping and Kanban Boards to visualise the work, identify the issues,
and propose solutions. Adding more people can also complicate communication and processes.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p151, “Common situations and tailoring suggestions”
Q:96 The product owner has prioritised the product backlog of features, and the team creates user
stories with estimates and places enough to fill a two week sprint. You notice that the pieces being
completed are being rejected by the customer for defects and missed requirements. What will you
do next?

A. Create the project scope from scratch with the project team and customers so it is correct.
B. Have an “Iteration zero” planning sprint with your project team to set it up for success.
C. Add more feedback loops such as shoulder checks, peer review, unit and system testing.
D. Have less frequent customer demonstrations, so they only see the product when it is correct.

Answer: C

When a product s facing poor quality deliverables, the tailoring suggestion is toad more feedback
verification loops and quality assurance steps, including things such as demonstrations and reviews,
peer review, shoulder checks, pair programming, quality audits or testing (unit, system, user,
regression, and automated).(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p151, “Common situations and
tailoring suggestions”
Q:97 Your project team has started to find their rhythm, yet you notice that they seem disengaged in
their work and are dragging their feet on normal tasks. You check your project budget and note that
the team are all paid fairly for the market and within the same range for the role. What will you do
next?

A. Look for ways to reward team members with bonuses above their normal pay rate.
B. Move team members around to different roles frequently, so they experience job variety.
C. Give the team a paid day off to show how much you appreciate their work.
D. Establish ways for the team to grow and advance, such as career paths or learning pathways.

Answer: D

Frederick Herzberg conducted a study of motivational factors in working life, and found hygiene
factors (company policies, salary and the physical environment) and motivational factors
(achievement, growth and advancement). If hygiene factors are insufficient, they cause
dissatisfaction. If they are sufficient, then use motivational factors to provide satisfaction. Paying
bonuses or a paid day off may seem like a good idea, but will fade and not address the root cause of
engagement.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p158, “Hygiene and motivational Factors”
Q:98 You are working as a project manager on a regulatory change for your organisation. You notice
that the team are not communicating as well as they could be. You put together a plan to improve
team communication by increasing its effectiveness and richness. What will you do?

A. Include methods that will handle multiple information cues, facilitate rapid feedback, and
utilize natural language.
B. Include methods to escalate issues easily, with executives being open for anything the team
needs.
C. Include ways to get sign off in writing, so it can be recorded and reviewed later when
needed.
D. Include communication that ensures everyone gets a voice and input into decisions.

Answer: A

Alistair Cockburn developed a model that describes communication channels along the axes of
effectiveness and richness. Media richness includes the ability to handle multiple information cues,
facilitate rapid feedback, establish a personal focus and utilise natural language — for example face
to face communication, or co-located teams.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p157, “Effectiveness of communication channels”

Q:99 Your deliverables have been signed off by the Product Owner and are ready to be released to
the customer, which is the financial analytics team of your organisation. The new system will be quite
a change from their normal day-to-day work. The team already have the desire to use the new
system. What will you do next?

A. Tell them the vision and why the change is necessary.

B. Use training and education to show them the new processes and systems.
C. Give them unlimited hands-on practice so they can get used to the new system.
D. Include rewards, recognition, feedback and measurement.

Answer: B

The ADKAR model for change management has five steps: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and
Reinforcement. Once people have the desire for the change, the next step is knowledge which
includes training and education for the new processes and systems.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p161, “ADKAR Model.”

Q.100 You are leading a large organisational change that affects more than a thousand people across
multiple teams. You have engaged with the senior managers of that area, created a brief vision
statement that summarises the change, and created a strategy to realise the vision. You
communicate the vision throughout the change process. What will you do next?

A. Release multiple usable features to the affected teams so they can get used to it gradually.
B. Anchor the changes into corporate culture by telling success stories and recognising people
who embody the change.
C. Address the obstacles to change, including outdated processes and people resistance.
D. Set goals for continued improvement on the change throughout the organisation.

Answer: C

John Kotter’s 8-step process for leading change is a top down approach: 1: Create urgency, 2: Form a
powerful coalition, 3: Create a vision for change, 4: Communicate the I vision, 5: Remove obstacles,
6: Create short term wins, 7: Build on the change, 8: Anchor the changes in corporate culture. After
communicating the vision comes removing obstacles.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p162, “The 8-Step Process for Leading Change"
Q.101 You are a project manager assessing the risk of future releases with your team. You have a
clear set of requirements from your customer, however there are a range of possible correct
solutions, that may or may not get the outcome the customer needs. There are a range of known
unknowns. How will you approach this situation?

A. Use current best practices to make decisions.

B. Use emergent practices that allow you to probe the environment, sense the situation, and
respond with action.
C. Assess the facts, analyse the situation and apply known good practices.
D. Sense where there is some stability then take steps to try and stabilise the situation.

Answer: C

In the Cynefin Framework, complicated relationships exist when there is a set of known unknowns,
or a range of correct answers. In these situations it is best to assess the facts, analyse the situation,
and apply good practices. Answer B is for complex (unknown unknowns), D is chaotic (no clear cause
or effect), A is for obvious cause and effect.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p 164, "Cynefin Framework"

Q: 102 You have been asked to initiate a project to deliver a new system. The requirements are not
clear, and it will take some work to uncover them. The system has been used by some team
members but not all and has a medium level of uncertainty around it. How will you approach this
project?

A. Release small usable features and improve your approach based on feedback.
B. Do additional planning up-front to ensure every component is thought of.
C. Split the team into two and work on different parts of the system to simplify it.
D. Form a business case for starting from scratch with new, easier to use technology.

Answer: A

The Stacey Matrix looks at two dimensions to determine complexity: uncertainty of the
requirements, and uncertainty of or within the technology. This labels a project simple, complicated,
complex or chaotic. Agile methodologies work best in complicated and complex environments.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p165, "Stacey Matrix”

Q: 103 Your project team came together from different parts of the organisation, and were
introduced formally to each other. Now you notice there is some:conflict within the team. Some
people don’t respect others’ decisions, are not working together well, and there are some
personality clashes within the team. What will you do next?

A. Help team members get to know each other, their names, position on the team, and other
background information.
B. Help the team understand their roles and responsibilities and form a regular rhythm of
meetings, collaboration and work.
C. Help the team jockey for position within the team, and foster healthy conflict.
D. Help the team complete the project work and disperse to work on other things

Answer: B

This scenario describes the five stages of team development — the Tuckman Ladder. When there is
conflict and difficulty working together, the team s in the. Storming stage — we should help them
understand their roles, responsibilities and find a regular rhythm so they can move to the Norming
stage.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p166, “Tuckman Ladder”

Q: 104 You have formed a new project team and have worked through the purpose and mission of
the project with them. You expanded on who is on the project team and the skills and abilities each
person brings. You would like to foster a high performing culture and ensure the team is able to
deliver as soon as possible. What will you do next?

A. Work through changes on the project team and the project such as deliverables and
stakeholders.
B. Decompose the high level plan into greater detail, including a detailed schedule or backlog. ‘
C. Define a plan to achieve the project goals, including milestone schedules, release plans and
high- level budgets.
D. Clarify the goals of the team and what you are here to deliver.

Answer: D

This question refers to the Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance model. The steps include: Orientation,
Trust Building, Goal Clarification, Commitment, Implementation, High performance and Renewal.
After Trust building, comes goal clarification.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p167, "Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance Model"
Q: 105 Your team members have raised an issue as they believe the current project scope will not
reach the intended project goal of increasing customer retention. You take their concerns to the
Project Sponsor who controls the funding and resources. The sponsor dismisses them and directs
you to proceed with the scope currently set. What will you do next?

A. Problem solve with the sponsor and find a resolution.

B. Compromise with the sponsor so each party gets what a part of what they want.
C. Accommodate the sponsor to maintain harmony and good will.
D. Force the issue so the sponsor accepts the change in requirements from the team.

Answer: C

Ken Thomas and Ralph Kilmann describe six ways to address conflict, depending on the relative
power between the individuals. There is confronting/problem solving, collaborating, compromising,
accommodating, forcing and withdrawing. Since; there is a desire to maintain a good relationship
with the sponsor, adopting an accommodating posture may be appropriate.

~ (PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p168, 169, "Conflict Model"

Q: 106 The functional manager raises a concern that they have not been engaged correctly and the
program is missing some key requirements as a result. You believe you have captured all the items
required. Your program manager asks you to handle the situation and approach it from a win-win
perspective. What will you do next?

A. Escalate the decision to the steering committee to ensure your point of view is heard.
B. Demonstrate integrity, find mutual trust, and look at the situation from their point of view.
C. Choose to give some lee-way in your approach so the functional manager can add their
requirements.
D. Get your requirements baselined first then compete with the manager to ensure a win.

Answer: B

Steven Covey's principle of "Think Win-Win" shows different possible outcomes: Win-Win, Win-Lose,
Lose-Lose. A win-win approachis found when there is mature character, trust, and the ability to
approach from the other's point of view.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p169, "Negotiation"

Q: 107 You have been planning a project to deliver a process change for the past four weeks. The
requirements and scope have been signed off by the business owner, and the team are moving into
delivery and execution. The work begins in line with the project plan and scope. What will you do
next?

A. Monitor and control the work being done to ensure it meets its goals.
B. Execute the project work to complete the work defined in the project plan.
C. Plan the project work to ensure sufficient understanding.
D. Formally sign off and complete the project phase.

Answer: A

The project management process groups are Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and
Controlling, and Closing. They may be performed in sequence, o iteratively and ongoing. As project
work is’ executed, it then needs to be monitored and controlled.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p170, "Process groups"

Q: 108 You are working as a Product Owner. While your sales and revenue have been increasing over
the past eight months, the overall profit for your product has decreased by 17%. Your executive
manager asks you to address the situation. What will you do next?

A. Stop the current work and set a planning session with your team to address the situation.
B. Ask your team to work overtime on the current features in your backlog and get the work
done.
C. Perform benchmarking with a similar yet non-competitive company, and add any process
improvements to your product backlog.
D. Look for opportunities to partner with other products in your organisation and increase your
sales further.

Answer: C

As a product owner, your responsibility is to increase users, sales revenue and profit for your
product. If profit is decreasing while sales revenue is increasing, the product is costing more to
produce or sell. Performing benchmarking to find gaps in your process then executing them with
your team will help.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p175, "Data gathering and analysis: Benchmarking"
Q: 109 You have been given authority to manage the up coming features your team will release. You
do not have a high enough level of expertise in the product, so you gather senior users from the
product's area to create a features list. Each stakeholder wants their feature to be delivered first.
How will you prioritise them and move forward?

A. Go with the features wanted by the top level executives first, to avoid issues later on.
B. Perform a MoSCoW analysis with the stakeholders.
C. Perform a root cause analysis and go with features that address the root cause.
D. Use a cost benefit analysis and compare the time needed to recover the project cost.

Answer: D

Cost to benefit, and the payback period (time to recover an investment) are the - best accepted ways
to prioritise business value. Root cause analysis is better for specific problems. Performing MoSCoW
with the stakeholders may result in each of them wanting their feature to be "Must Have".

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p175,"Business justification analysis methods"

Q.110 You are creating a business case and project charter with a small initial project team. You have
a high level feature, decomposed into smaller release milestones, and you would like to note a high-
level schedule using wideband delphi or a high-level version of planning poker. What will you do
next?

A. Hold a round of cards with points on them, where each team member places their cards in
the centre for the total estimate.
B. Ask subject matter experts to complete multiple rounds of estimates individually, compare,
and explain the highest and lowest estimates for each round.
C. Show the wideband high level range from lowest to highest for each feature.
D. Find the business functionality for each feature and estimate the effort based on that.

Answer: B

The Wideband Delphi technique asks subject matter experts to complete multiple rounds of
estimates individually, compare, and explain the highest and lowest estimates for each round.
Planning poker is a variation of wideband Delphi.

PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p178, "Estimating: Wideband Delphi"

Q.111 You have been asked to help facilitate a senior planning meeting in your organisation. High
level executives have made a presentation on the strengths and opportunities of the organisation,
painting a rosy picture. Revenue has fallen recently, and the chief executive asks you to level out their
analysis a more complete view. What will you do next?

A. Add your organisation's competitors and compare their products.

B. Showcase the pipeline of upcoming work to be delivered in the next quarter.
C. Add in the background and abilities of the executive team, that will allow the organisation to
deliver.
D. Brainstorm and capture the weaknesses of the organisation and threats to the organisation.

Answer: D

This question is referring to SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Once
strengths and opportunities have been captured, a complete picture also involves the weaknesses
and threats.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p175, "SWOT analysis"

Q: 112 You are adding an essential feature to your product roadmap. Your team believe they can
complete the feature in six weeks, however the feature is quite large and a bit more complicated
than normal. One of your lead developers says they worked on a similar feature in another company,
and it took around four months to complete. What will you do next?

A. Use relative estimating, assigning the amount of points your team agree on to the product
roadmap.
B. Use analogous estimating, and place the feature with around four months to complete.
C. Use parametric estimating, and place the feature with around four months to complete.
D. Use function point estimating to show the amount of business functionality in the feature.

Answer: B

When the effort on a feature or deliverable needs to be estimated, and there are people who have
experience delivering a similar item, you can use analogous estimating to estimate the initial effort
quickly and with a medium-level of accuracy.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p178, "Estimating: Analogous estimating"

Q: 113 You have a prioritised product backlog of features, and have decomposed the next feature to
be delivered into user stories, small enough to complete in one sprint of two weeks. The team would
like to estimate the effort involved on those user stories, but are unsure on how to proceed. What
will you do next?

A. Ask each team member to add their own estimates as they complete the acceptance criteria.
B. Estimate the effort for the overall feature to reduce the need for individual story estimates.
C. Help the team perform relative estimating together, where the stories are sized in points
relative to the smallest piece.
D. Base the estimates on cost per hour, and add them after the work is done to ensure it is
correct.

Answer: C

Relative estimating is the most common method for user stories, where they: are sized in
comparison to the smallest piece - often in story points and often on a Fibonacci scale of 1, 2, 3,5, 8,
13.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p178, "Relative estimating”

Q: 114 You are half way through your current sprint of two weeks. The work is progressing well,
however you notice that there is not enough work ready and elaborated for when the next sprint
begins. What will you do next?

A. Hold a backlog refinement meeting and work with the team to identify the work that could
be accomplished.
B. Raise the issue as a blocker in the daily stand-up and ask your team to swarm around the
problem.
C. Raise the issue in the next retrospective and take an action for the team.
D. Place the cards on the Kanban board so the team can see the work and get started.

Answer: A

At a backlog refinement meeting, the backlog is progressively elaborated and (re)prioritised to

identify the work that can be accomplished in an upcoming iteration.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p179, "Meetings and Events: Backlog
Q: 115 You have completed a make-or-buy analysis in your project and found that part of your
deliverable is best created by an external vendor. You work with your project team to create the
procurement strategy, source selection criteria and statement of work. What will you do next?

A. Gather seller proposals, including technical details and price (separately).

B. Meet with prospective sellers to ensure all vendors have a common understanding of the
procurement.
C. Perform source selection analysis on what you want from prospective vendors.
D. Create the procurement agreement for the third party vendor to provide their specified
services.

Answer: B

These are outputs of Plan Procurement Management. A bidder conference is meeting with
prospective sellers prior to the preparation of a bid or proposal, to ensure all prospective bidders
have a clear and common understanding of the procurement. This meeting may also be known as
contractor conferences, vendor conferences, or pre-bid conferences.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p179, "Bidder conference"

Q: 116 One of the stakeholders in your project has raised a change request, after some of the
deliverables contained defects and a missed requirement. Your project has a formal change control
process, as opposed to a more agile prioritised product backlog. What will you do next?

A. Gather feedback from other stakeholders to see if they also need the change.
B. Note the change in the change log, then place the requested item in the next sprint.
C. Take the change to the CCB, then communicate the decision to approve or reject the change.
D. Raise the request as an issue that will affect your project schedule and budget.

Answer: C

Where a formal change control process is in place, a Change Control Board includes the people who
are accountable for reviewing, approving or; rejecting changes to the project. The decisions made at
this meeting are recorded and communicated to the appropriate stakeholders.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p179, "Change Control Board"

Q: 117 Your agile project has recently gained some new stakeholders after a department restructure.
They complain to you that they are not seeing enough traction of work delivered through the
project, and are worried it will not meet their requirements. What will you do next?

A. Invite them to the daily stand up, so they can see the work that happens on a daily basis.
B. Invite them to iteration planning, so they can choose what the team works on.
C. Invite them to the retrospective, so they can raise their issue there and come up with a
solution.
D. Invite them to the Iteration Review, so they can see the usable increment the team delivers.

Answer: D

The iteration or sprint review is held at the end of an iteration (usually of two weeks) to demonstrate
the work that was accomplished during the iteration to the project customers and stakeholders.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p179, "lteration Review"

Q: 118 You have recently taken over a project. Your project team approach you to say there is a
regulatory approval that has not been granted yet, and it may block development of your project in
the next five months. You check your project documentation but cannot see any mention of this.
What will you do next?

A. Hold a risk review meeting, capture it as a risk, and ensure an adequate risk response.
B. Hold a retrospective with your team to capture what challenges the team are facing.
C. Adjust your product roadmap to reflect the changes to the timeframe of that deliverable.
D. Escalate the regulatory approval to the project steering committee.

Answer: A

The risk review is a meeting to analyse the status of existing risks and to identify new risks. This
includes changes to probability, impact or urgency, and determining if responses are adequate.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p180, "Risk Review"

Q: 119 You are an agile project manager, and holding daily stand-ups with your team. You notice
people accusing other team members of not doing their job and there are some tasks that are not
mentioned anywhere and no one is responsible for. The team velocity has slowed in the last three
sprints. What will you do next?

A. Refer to the team charter, and the team roles and agreed ways of managing conflict.
B. Raise it as an issue in the next retrospective and come to a solution with the team.
C. Assign team roles to those you think are best suited.
D. Work with your team to size user stories correctly, so velocity improves.

Answer: B

The agile approach is to problem solve with the team. A retrospective is a regularly occurring
workshop, similar to a lessons learned meeting, where the team explore their work in order to
improve their process and the product.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p180, "Retrospective”

Q.120 You are managing a large construction project. Due to some delays, the project schedule has
been pushed back by one week. As a result, one of the project risks has increased slightly, but is still
within the acceptable limits. What will you do next?

A. Hold a risk review to update the risk response and owners.

B. Raise a change request for the change to the project schedule.
C. Capture the change in your project reporting and take it to the next status meeting.
D. Update the sprint backlog to reflect the delayed work.

Answer: C

A status meeting is a regularly scheduled event to exchange and analyse information about the
current progress of the project and its performance

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p180, "Status meeting"

Q.121 You are an agile project manager and your team have delivered three features to improve a
customer app over the last three months. Your product owner needs to know if the features are
having the desired effect. It is a large organisation and there are multiple measures available. What
will you do next?

A. Ask them to gather the team velocity and throughput over the past three months.
B. Ask them to gather the Cost Benefit ratio over the past six months.
C. Ask them to gather the NPS over the past six months.
D. Ask them to gather the average app availability and uptime.

Answer: C

A product owner prioritises features to improve usability and profitability of a product. The Net
Promoter Score (NPS) measures the willingness of customers to recommend a product or service to
others, and is used to gauge overall customer satisfaction and loyalty to the brand or product.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p181, "Net promoter score"

Q: 122 You are a project manager in an agile team developing new features for an app. An executive
stakeholder with a high influence in the organisation approaches you and asks youto adda feature
that they like. They asked their friends, who think it is a good idea too. What will you do next?

A. Place the feature in the product backlog and prioritise it, using cost-versus-benefit.
B. Raise a change request to add the new feature into the scope baseline.
C. Gather the requirements for the new feature and ask your team to elaborate on it.
D. Analyse the impact to your project schedule and cost, the add the feature to your project
scope.

Answer: A

In agile, we have a product backlog that we prioritise. Prioritisation schema are methods used to
prioritise portfolio, program or project components such as features, requirements or risks. Examples
include

Multi criteria decision matrices, MoSCoW, cost to benefit and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p181, "Prioritisation Schema"

Q: 123 Your project team are gathering solution ideas for a particular customer requirement, which is
prioritised to be worked on next. The item is complicated and they have been trying to find a way
forward for the past three weeks. There is not enough work for the upcoming sprint. What will you
do next?

A. Start work on the item in the next sprint anyway and elaborate as the sprint begins.
B. Arrange the right people to elaborate the issue with a spike, and timebox it to two days.
C. Deprioritise the item until the team can figure out the issue.
D. Adjust the project schedule to reflect the extra time taken on elaboration.

Answer: B

A spike is a short, dedicated user story to research or analyse something. A timebox is a short, fixed
period of time in which work is to be completed, often a few days to a few weeks.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p181, "Timebox"

Q: 124 Your project team have planned the requirements, scope, schedule and cost for constructing
a new building in your rfigjnisation. An executive from another area approaches you, as your project
is funded and about to begin execution, and asks if you can help them deliver a website - as part of
your work. What will you do next?

A. Raise the request as an issue in your project’s issue log.

B. Add the website to your project scope and adjust your project scope, schedule and cost.
C. Raise a change request for the added scope and review the impact to your project schedule
and cost.
D. Offer to help them create a business case for the new idea and get funding for a new project.

Answer: D

The scope and team required to build a website is very different from a physical building — a new
project with its own funding is the best option. A business case is a value proposition for a proposed
project that may include financial and non-financial benefits. It typically precedes a project charter
and a formal project approval and kick-off.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p184, "Business case"

Q: 125 You are working on an agile project and are planning your product backlog for the next three
to six months. You have some high level feature ideas from various parts of your organisation, - from
front-line staff to executives, to direct customer research as well. What will you do next?

A. Break down each feature into Epics and user stories, then size the work with your team.
B. Add all of the items into your product backlog and work on the ones from managers first.
C. Work with the requestors and your technical experts to create a business model canvas for
each feature.
D. Perform precedence diagramming on each feature to determine their dependencies.

Answer: C

The business model canvas is a one-page visual summary that describes the value proposition,
infrastructure, customers and finances. They are often used in lean start- up situations.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p184, "Business model canvas"

Q: 126 You are working in a new agile team, where the work has started to slow and there is
uncertainty and low team engagement. You set time to create a team charter with your team, agree
on roles and responsibilities and team cadence. What will you do next?

A. Set a team goal for them to be more engaged in the work over the next three months.
B. Create a product vision statement, showing the value you are bringing and the “why” behind
the work.
C. Ask the team to contribute more to all pieces of work during each team meeting.
D. Raise it as a people issue for your project and manage it with the project steering committee.

Answer: B

The project vision statement is a concise, high-level description of the project that states the
purpose, and inspires the team to contribute to the project.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p184, "Project Vision Statement"

Q: 127 You are integrating a third party system as part of your project. The developers in your project
team have not worked with this system before, but they believe the language and layout is the same
and they should be able to implement it, adding a bit of time for the uncertainty. They give a high-
level estimate of five weeks. What will you do next?

A. Note the estimate of five weeks and update the assumption log with the technical
assumption.
B. Don’t add the estimate, break down the integration into user stories and use a bottom-up
approach.
C. Check the estimate using parametric estimating, to increase its accuracy.
D. Gather your whole team and customers together, and estimate using wideband delphi
(planning poker).

Answer: A

An assumption is a factor that is considered to be true, real or certain, without proof or

demonstration. A constraint is a factor that limits the options for managing a project, program,
portfolio or process. An assumption log records all assumptions and constraints throughout the
project.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Assumption log"

Q: 128 Your agile project has delivered three features so far and is halfway through delivering the
latest improvement. During a brainstorming session, one of your customers comes up with a new
feature idea. You check the benefit it could have, and it is high. The complexity is low. What will you
do next?

A. Add money to your budget to accommodate the additional feature as soon as possible.
B. Elaborate on the feature, break it down into user stories, and estimate them.
C. Place the item in the backlog and reprioritise it to be next.
D. Create a business case for the new feature outlining the benefit and costs involved.

Answer: C

A backlog is an ordered list of work to be done. Projects may have a product backlog, a requirements
backlog, impediments backlog, etc. Items in a backlog are prioritised. The prioritised work is then
scheduled for upcoming iterations.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Logs and Registers: Backlog"
Q: 129 One of the senior users testing your product found is was missing a key requirement that he
had assumed would be there. It was not noted in the project scope, which has been baselined. You
check the impact to cost and schedule, raise a change request on his behalf, and take it to the change
control board where it is approved. What will you do next?

A. Ask your team to elaborate and turn the requirement into user stories.
B. Place the new requirement into the sprint backlog for the next sprint.
C. Add the missed requirement to the issue log and problem solve with your team to ensure it
does not happen again in the future.
D. Note the outcome in the change log and communicate it to your stakeholders.

Answer: D

A change log is a comprehensive list of changes submitted during the project and their current
status. A change can be a modification to any formally controlled deliverable, project management
plan component, or project document.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Logs and Registers: Change log"
Q.130 You are working on a hybrid project to replace an aging customer system that has just had a
feature upgrade release. The senior developer raises a concern during the daily stand-up that the -
system doesn’t seem to be able to connect to some parts of the organisation after the upgrade.
What will you do next?

A. Re-plan the project to ensure the correct scope is worked on that will connect to the
organisation.
B. Raise it in the issue log, assign it to a responsible party and work with them to find a
resolution.
C. Raise the concern as a risk and brainstorm risk responses with your team.
D. Escalate the issue to the technical manager so they can resolve it.

Answer: B

An issue log is a current condition or situation that may have an impact on the project objectives. An
issue log is used to record and monitor information on active issues. Issues are assigned to a
responsible party for follow up and resolution.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Logs and Registers: Issue log"
Q.131 You are working on an agile project, where your project team have raised multiple risks to
project delivery. Some of the risks may impact your cost and schedule significantly. Your program
manager asks you to manage them using a risk adjusted backlog. What will you do next?

A. Adjust your risk register to include the work not completed if the risks are triggered.
B. Adjust your backlog velocity so your end date is not impacted by the raised risks.
C. Gather risk mitigation responses from your retrospectives and assign them to an owner.
D. Place at least one risk response in each sprint to manage and close.

Answer: D

A risk adjusted backlog is a backlog that includes work and actions to address threats and
opportunities.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Risk adjusted backlog"

Q: 132 You are delivering a project to a functional area in your organisation. The project is highly
complex and there are many risks to project delivery. The functional manager would like to see the
biggest risks that are assigned to her. What will you do next?

A. Show her the risk adjusted backlog.

B. Show her the risk register.
C. Show her the risk management plan.
D. Show her the qualitative risk assessment.

Answer: B

A risk register is a repository in which outputs of risk management processes are recorded.
Information can include the person responsible for managing the risk, the probability and impact,
planned risk responses, and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Risk register"

Q: 133 Your project has been in progress for the past six months. Someone you have not met before
approaches you and says they have not been engaged sufficiently, even though he believes his team
is highly impacted by the change. He advises he may block the project as a result. What will you do
next?

A. Perform stakeholder engagement assessment with the stakeholder.

B. Add him to the stakeholder register, including his salary and interests information.
C. Add him to the stakeholder register, including his impact and influence information.
D. Raise a risk to project delivery due to the nature of his actions.

Answer: C

A stakeholder register records information about project stakeholders, which includes an assessment
and classification of project stakeholders. We need to know our stakeholder, ensure his details are
recorded, and where he fits before we take further action.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p185, "Stakeholder register”

Q: 134 You are a product owner on an agile project and have created a product backlog of features in
a prioritised order for delivery. You ask the team to break down the first feature into user stories, and
estimate their effort. What will you do next?

A. Create an iteration plan with your team.

B. Create the product roadmap with your team.
C. Perform a sprint review with your team.
D. Begin daily stand-ups with your team.

Answer: A

An iteration plan is a detailed plan for the current iteration. It usually matches the estimated work for
the sprint to the average sprint velocity (or how many points are usually completed). Items from the
product backlog are broken down into user stories and placed into upcoming sprints.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p186, "Plans: Iteration plan"

Q:135 You have worked with your project customer to create a list of features that will bring the
most value to them. They would like to see when some of this value will be delivered and the
expected outcomes of each. What will you do next?

A. Show the features at the next sprint review so the customer can see what they look like.
B. Place the features on a release plan and show this to the customer.
C. Check the features against the velocity chart to see when they might be delivered.
D. Place the features into the next sprint plan and show this to your customer.

Answer: B

The release plan sets expectations for the dates, features and outcomes expected to be delivered
over the course of multiple iterations.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p186, "Plans: Release plan"

Q: 136 You are in the planning stages of you project, where you need to find out exactly what the
project customer needs so you can find a solution and make it happen. Your business analysts | are
new to their roles and are not sure on what their process will be. What will you do next?

A. Ask the business analysts to begin writing user stories to place in a sprint.
B. Create the project management plan to outline how the project will be delivered.
C. Work with the business analysts to create a requirements management plan.
D. Create a work breakdown structure on the project scope.

Answer: C

The requirements management plan is a component of the project management plan that describes
how requirements will be analysed, documented and managed.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p186, "Requirements management plan"

Q: 137 You are working on a new software application with a lot of complex interdependencies. The
senior user providing and testing most of the requirements is concerned that some of those
dependencies will cause errors upon release, if they are not checked thoroughly. What will you do
next?

A. Ask the senior user for a written list of all his requirements, then check they are included in
the project scope.
B. Raise a risk on the software complexity with the project team.
C. Create an affinity diagram with the senior user.
D. Review the test plan with the senior user.

Answer: D

A test plan is a document that describes the deliverables that will be tested, tests that will be
conducted, and the processes that will be used in testing. It forms the basis for formally testing the
components and deliverables

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p186, "Plans: Test plan"

Q: 138 You are planning your project and have captured the requirements from the project customer.
You ask your team to plan the project scope, but they need to see exactly what needs to be delivered
and how each part relates to each other. What will you do next?

A. Create a product breakdown structure with your project team.

B. Create the requirements traceability matrix with your project team.
C. Create the risk breakdown structure with your project team.
D. Create the scope management plan with your project team.

Answer: A

A product breakdown structure is a hierarchical structure reflecting a product’s components and

deliverables. It provides an exhaustive, hierarchical tree structure of deliverables that make up the
project, arranged in whole-part relationship. :

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p187, "Product Breakdown structure"

Q:139 You have just finished breaking down the scope with your project team, that will meet your
customer’s requirements. Your program manager wishes to control the project scope so any changes
go through the proper process. What will you do next?

A. Create the change management plan, to note how changes will be managed.
B. Baseline the project scope and note it in the configuration management plan.
C. Create the scope management plan, with a management rule minimising changes.
D. Create the resource assignment matrix, limiting roles who can approve scope changes.

Answer: B

A baseline is the approved version of a work product or plan, where actual performance is compared
to the baseline to identify variances. Baselined items are noted in the configuration management
plan.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p188, "Baselines"

Q: 140 You have planned and begun the current sprint, where the project team have committed to
delivering and releasing a particular feature. You need to see how the team are tracking towards
their sprint goal. What will you do next?

A. Review the team Kanban board.

B. Review the team velocity chart.
C. Review the sprint burndown chart.
D. Perform a sprint review with the team.

Answer: C

A burndown chart is a graphical representation of the work remaining in a timebox (i.e. an iteration
or sprint). It compares the ideal trend with the items actually completed. A sprint review
demonstrates what was created during the sprint once the sprint is complete.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p188, "Burndown chart"

Q: 141 Your agile project has recently been merged into a larger program, and the program manager
is reviewing how the project is tracking. She asks you how much has been completed in design, but
also how much has been completed in development, testing and sign-off. What will you do next?

A. Show her the sprint Kanban board.

B. Take her through the team product backlog.
C. Show her the team cumulative flow diagram.
D. Show her the team velocity chart.

Answer: C

A Cumulative Flow Diagram indicates features completed over time, separated at each stage such as
features in the backlog, then design, development, testing, and more.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p188, "Cumulative Flow diagram"

Q.142 The features developed by your agile team have added some complexity to your website,
delivered quickly with no time to refactor the code. You believe the user stories are moving slower as
a result, but you can’t be sure. What will you do next?

A. Check the cycle time chart of the team.

B. Shadow the developers to overview the work they are doing.
C. View the product roadmap for proposed release dates.
D. Review the points in sprint backlog versus the last three sprints’ velocity.

Answer: A

A cycle time chart shows the average cycle time of the work items completed over time. It can be a
scatter diagram or a bar chart.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p189, "Cycle time chart”

Q: 143 You are working on an agile project with a full product roadmap for the next six months. Your
project team are not sure what the next feature does or how they should turn it into user stories.
What will you do next?

A. Review the scope baseline with your team.

B. Perform story mapping with your team.
C. Perform sprint planning with your team.
D. Perform a retrospective with your team.

Answer: B

A story map is a visual model of all the features and functionality desired for a given product, created
to give the project team a holistic view of what they are building and why. It can also break the
feature down into user stories based on functionality.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p190, "Story map”

Q:144 You are a program manager on a large scale agile program, where each project team has its
own scrum master. You need to know the rate at which work is flowing through each team, | so you
can see if there are any blockers or issues and whether they will remain on track. What will you do
next?

A. Raise your query at scrum of scrums, so each team knows what they need to do.
B. Attend the sprint review of each team at the end of the sprint.
C. Review the schedule management plan for managing the schedule.
D. Review the team velocity charts, and what was committed versus completed.

Answer: D

The velocity chart tracks the rate at which the deliverables are produced, validated, and accepted
within a predefined interval.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p190, "Velocity Chart”

Q: 145 Your project has been executing for the past five months, and due to an organisational change
a new project sponsor has come on board. He asks where the project is up to and whether it is on
track. You tell him, but he wants more information. What will you do next?
 A. How him the signed project charter, to ensure he honours the original project agreement.
B. Show him the project management plan, including the schedule management plan.
C. Review the status report and previous status report with the sponsor.
D. Invite him to the next sprint review so he can see the progress made.

Answer: C

The status report provides a report on the current status of the project. It may include information
on progress since the last report and forecasts for cost and schedule performance.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p190, "Reports: Status report"

Q:146 Your agile project needs a third party vendor to help complete the work. The product owner
has multiple features on their product roadmap which may change over time, making the scope of
your project uncertain. What will you do next?

A. Ask your product owner to fix the features and scope so the project is more certain.
 B. Create a cost plus incentive fee contract with your procurement team.
C. Create a firm fixed price contract with your procurement team.
D. Use the external vendor funding to create a project team in-house and complete the project.

Answer: B

Cost reimbursable contracts involve payments to the seller for actual costs incurred for completing
the work, plus a fee representing seller profit. They are used when the scope is not well defined or
subject to frequent change. Includes Cost plus Award fee, Fixed Fee or Incentive fee.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p191, "Cost-reimbursable contracts "

Q: 147 Your project is releasing a number of upgrades to a commercial building over the next 12
months. Material costs have changed a lot recently. You need to budget for the materials required,
however the volume of materials may change significantly as the project evolves. What will you do
next?

A. Create an IDIQ contract with your supplier.

B. Ensure multiple suppliers are on call to provide materials, when needed.
 C. Ensure a sole supplier for your materials, to guarantee the best price.
D. Create a firm fixed price contract for the materials.

Answer: A

Indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) provides for an indefinite quantity of goods or services,
with a stated lower and upper limit, and within a fixed time period. Fixed price will work better if the
quantities are known.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p191, "Agreements and Contracts”

Q: 148 You have completed a make-or-buy analysis and you agree to hire a third-party vendor to
complete part of your product. You create the statement of work and have a list of acceptable sellers
that meet the source selection criteria. The work is not complex and they understand the scope.
What will you do next?

A. Send a request for proposal to the sellers.

B. Send a request for information to the sellers.
C. Send a request for quotation to the sellers.
 D. Hold a bidders conference to ensure all sellers are on the same page.

Answer: C

Bid documents are used to request proposals from prospective sellers. The best answer here is
Request for Quote, as we have the requirements ready. RFP is used when the item is complex, RFl is
when more information is needed. Bidder conference is used to ensure all sellers have enough
information.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p192, "Bid Documents"

Q: 149 Your project is new and the team have just come on board. There have been multiple
disagreements and the work is slow as they try to understand where they fit in the project and the
team. What will you do next?

A. Create a definition of ready and definition of done with your team.

B. Create a project charter with your team.
C. Create a project management plan with your team.
D. Create a team charter with your team.
Answer: D

The project team charter records the team values, agreements and operating guidelines. It
establishes clear expectations regarding acceptable behaviour by project team members.

(PMBOK Guide) - Seventh Edition, 2021, p192, "Project team charter"

Q: 150 You have created a high level view of the features your project will deliver, and prioritised
them. The development team is ready to start work, but they don't know where to start as the
information is too high level. What will you do next?

A. Ask the team to begin with the highest priority item first.
B. Help the team break the features down into User Stories to place in a sprint.
C. Hold a retrospective with the team to understand what is blocking them.
D. Reprioritise the features into an order that makes sense for the developers.
Answer: B

A user story is a brief description of an outcome for a specific user. It has enough information at a
level which team members can work on an item.

(PMBOK Guide) — Seventh Edition, 2021, p192, "Other artifacts