PMP Questions and Answers #1

A manager and the head of engineering discuss a change to a major work package. After the meeting, the
manager contacts you and tells you to complete the paperwork to make the change. This is an example of:
A-) Management attention to scope management. B-) Management planning. C-) A project expediter position.
D-) A change control system.
The answer is C. In this situation, the project manager acts as the secretary of the project and does the
paperwork. So this is an example of a project expediter position where the project manager does not have any
authority and power. The project manager only does paperwork.

PMP Questions and Answers #2

During a team meeting, a team member asks about the measurements that will be used on the project to judge
performance. The team member feels that some of the measures related to the activities assigned to him are not
valid measurements. The project is BEST considered in what part of the project management process?
A-) Initiating B-) Executing C-) Monitoring & Controlling D-) Closing
The answer is B. Executing. The question states that team member feels some of the measures on his activities
are not valid. Therefore, he must be working during the executing phase of the project where project
deliverables are produced and project members perform most of their assigned work.

PMP Questions and Answers #3

Your company just won a major new project. It will begin in three months and is valued at $2m USD. You are
the project manager for an existing project. What is the FIRST thing you should do once you hear of the new
project? A-) Ask management how the new project will use resources B-) Resource level your project C-) Crash
your project D-) Ask management how the new project will affect your project
The answer is D. Ask management how the new project will affect your project. Since this is another project
that your company is going to execute, you need to determine whether it will impact your project.

PMP Questions and Answers #4

You are a new project manager who has never managed a project before. It would be BEST in this situation to
rely on _____ during planning in order to improve your chance of success.
A-) Your intuition and training B-) Stakeholder analysis C-) Historical information D-) Configuration
management
The answer is C. Historical information. The first thing to explore before starting a new project is the historical
information about similar projects in the organizational process assets library of the organization.

PMP Questions and Answers #5

During project executing, a team member comes to the project manager because he is not sure of what work he
needs to accomplish on the project. Which of the following documents contain detailed descriptions of work
packages?
A-) WBS Dictionary B-) Activity List C-) Project scope statement D-) Scope management plan
The answer is A. WBS Dictionary. Work packages in a Work Breakdown Structure contain only nouns or a
couple of words regarding a work or deliverable. Detailed information on what needs to be done, responsible,
prerequisites, successors, due date, etc. are included in the Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary.

PMP Questions and Answers #6

During a meeting with some of the project stakeholders, the project manager is asked to add work to the project
scope. The project manager has access to correspondence about the project before the project charter was signed
and remembers that the project sponsor specifically denied funding for the scope mentioned by these
stakeholders. The BEST thing for the project manager to do is to:
A-) Let the sponsor know of the stakeholders’ request. B-) Evaluate the impact of adding the scope. C-) Tell the
stakeholders the scope cannot be added. D-) Add the work if there is time available in the project schedule
The answer is C. Tell the stakeholders the scope cannot be added. After the scope of a project is finalized and
the scope baseline is determined, it can be changed only with approved changed requests. If there is not an
approved change request, the existing scope baseline must be valid and the project team must work on
delivering that scope only. In this scenario, the scope is defined already but some stakeholders ask to add new
work to the scope. This cannot be done unless there is an approved change request. Therefore, stakeholders must
be informed that this new work cannot be added.

PMP Questions and Answers #7

Your project management plan results in a project schedule that is too long; if the project network diagram
cannot change but you have extra personnel resources, what is the BEST thing to do?
A-) Fast track the project. B-) Level the resources. C-) Crash the project. D-) Monte Carlo analysis.
The answer is C, crash the project. Because, in the first sentence, it is mentioned that the schedule is too long,
therefore the aim is to make a shorter schedule. And in the second sentence, it is mentioned that you have extra
personnel resources. If you have resources, you can put more resources into an activity to complete it in a
shorter time. And this is actually a description of crashing an activity or crashing the project. If you look at the
other options, fast tracking is performing activities in parallel instead of series, therefore it is irrelevant.
Leveling the resources was for fixing the over-allocation of resources and distributing the tasks to all your
resources uniformly. And Monte Carlo analysis is another estimating tool that is an irrelevant choice as well.
Therefore, the best answer is C.

PMP Questions and Answers #8

An activity has an early start (ES) on day 3, a late start (LS) on day 13, an early finish (EF) on day 9, and a late
finish (LF) on day 19. The activity:
A-) Is on the critical path. B-) Has a lag. C-) Is progressing well. D-) Is not on the critical path.
The answer is D. Is not on the critical path. Because if you look at the early start and late start values of the
activity, you can find the float or the slack of activity’s time by subtracting the early start, 3 days, from the late
start, 13 days. And it gives 10 days of float for this activity. You will find the same result if you subtract the
early finish, 9 days, from the late finish, 19 days. Since the float of activity or the slack of the activity is greater
than zero, it’s not on the critical path. Remember critical path activities have zero float, therefore the answer is
D.

PMP Questions and Answers #9

Early in the life of your project, you are having a discussion with the sponsor about what estimating techniques
should be used. You want a form of expert judgment, but the sponsor argues for analogous estimating. It would
be BEST to: A-) Agree to analogous estimating, as it is a form of expert judgment B-) Suggest life cycle costing
C-) Determine why the sponsor wants such an accurate estimate D-) Try to convince the sponsor to allow expert
judgment because it is typically more accurate.
The answer is A. Agree to analogous estimating, as it is a form of expert judgment. Since analogous estimating
is a type of expert judgment you can accept it. This is a tricky question.

PMP Questions and Answers #10

Sue is working as a Scrum Master in a Scrum Team. There are five developers on the team. Rick is one of the
developers on the team and Sue noticed that Rick is applying a different approach to complete Sprint tasks
faster. Which one is the best course of action for Sue?
A-) Call the entire team immediately for a meeting and tell them that Rick has a new approach to completing
tasks faster.
B-) Ask Rick to stop his task, and prepare a detailed guide regarding how to apply this approach. Then,
distribute to the team.
C-) During the retrospective, ask Rick to share his approach with the team and ask the team if it is applicable to
every developer.
D-) Ask Rick in the next daily standup meeting why he did not share this approach with the team.
Answer: C. The Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect its performance and
create a plan for improvements for the next Sprint. The goal of this activity is to inspect and improve the
process. First, the team goes over what they have done well. Then, they focus on what they did wrong, slow, or
how they could have done it better. Based on the discussions, improvement areas and actions are planned for the
next Sprints.

PMP Questions and Answers #11

You are the program-level manager with several project activities underway. In the executing process group,
you begin to become concerned about the accuracy of progress reports from the projects. What would BEST
support your opinion that there is a problem?
A-) Quality Audits B-) Risk Quantification Reports C-) Regression Analysis D-) Monte Carlo Analysis
The answer is A. quality audits. If you read the second sentence again, it says that you are concerned about the
accuracy of progress reports from the project. In order to check whether the standards of your organization have
been applied in projects under your responsibility, you can conduct a quality audit and determine whether there
is a problem. Therefore, the best answer is A, Quality Audits.

PMP Questions and Answers #12

You are a project manager for a major cloud project. Someone from the quality department contacts you about
initiating a quality audit of your project. The team, already under pressure to complete the project as soon as
possible, objects to the audit. You should explain to the team that the purpose of a quality audit is: A-) Part of an
ISO 9000 investigation B-) To check if the customer is following its quality process C-) To identify inefficient
and ineffective policies D-) To check the accuracy of costs submitted by the team
How would you explain to your team if you were in this scenario? The best answer is C, to identify inefficient
and ineffective policies. B and D are irrelevant options because the quality audit is done in order to check
whether you are meeting the quality standards and whether you are following the quality procedures of your
company. Therefore, it’s not related to whether the customer is following its quality processes. Or it is not
related to the accuracy of costs submitted by the team.

PMP Questions and Answers #13

During every project team meeting, the project manager asks each team member to describe the work he or she
is doing, and the project manager assigns new activities to team members. The length of these meetings has
increased because there are many different activities to assign. This could be happening for all the following
reasons EXCEPT: A-) Lack of a WBS B-) Lack of a responsibility assignment matrix C-) Lack of resource
leveling D-) Lack of team involvement in project planning
The answer is C, lack of resource-leveling. If you read the clauses again, here the problem is the activities or
the tasks that need to be performed in the project are not clear. So, the reasons for these ambiguities, or these
unclear points about the tasks that will be performed can be the lack of a WBS. If the project activities are not
decomposed and a WBS created, then this might be causing ambiguities in your project tasks. Also, if you do
not have a clear and concise responsibility assignment matrix, then the resources of your project will have
unclarity about who will do what in the project. Also, if the team was not involved in project planning, then the
required steps, tasks, and activities that need to be performed in the project may not have been identified. So,
options A, B, and D are the possible reasons for this case mentioned in the question. However, lack of resource
leveling might be the cause of the scheduling problem. Resource leveling is a technique used in the schedule
management knowledge area, which enables the uniform distribution of tasks and activities in a project.