PM Test Center

Projects and operations have similarities and differences. Which of following is true?

A. Projects are performed by teams, operations are performed by individuals
B. Projects are temporary, operations are ongoing
C. Projects are planned, operations are executed
D. Projects are limited by constraints, operations are not

Answer: B. Projects are temporary, operations are ongoing
Projects and operations are both performed by teams, are both planned, executed, and monitored and controlled, and are both limited by constraints. However, projects must have an end and operations will not.

You have just been hired as a project manager for a telecommunications company. You are tasked with managing a project that will create smaller cellular phones. The business case for this is based on:

A. Organizational need
B. Strategic offering
C. Social need
D. Technological advance

Answer: D. Technological advance
The business case, which helps determine whether a project is worth the investment, is an input to the Develop Project Charter process. Strategic offering is noise so of the three real choices (market demand, ecological impact and customer request are the other three possible business cases), technological advance is the most accurate.

Part of your project includes the construction of a new room and although it is not your company’s core competency, you decide to perform a make-or-buy analysis. After you conduct your due diligence and make your decision, you will be creating a request for proposal. Which process are you working on?

A. Plan Procurements
B. Select Sellers
C. Conduct Procurements
D. Plan Contracting

Answer: A. Plan Procurements
The four current processes in the procurement knowledge area are Plan Procurements, Conduct Procurements, Administer Procurements, and Close Procurements. Make-or-buy decisions and procurement documents, such as a request for proposal, are performed in the Plan Procurements process.

While monitoring and controlling risks on a project, one of the tools a project manager could use compares the amount of the contingency reserves remaining to the amount of risk remaining to determine if the remaining reserve is adequate. This is called:

A. Reserve analysis
B. Performance report
C. Risk audit
D. Variance and trend analysis

Answer: A. Reserve analysis
A reserve analysis is used in parallel to project execution since risks may have positive or negative impacts to the contingency reserve. This ensures that the reserve is neither too high nor too low throughout the project.

As a senior project manager, Jim is asked to review the work of other project managers in the organization. Wendy, a fairly new project manager, is working with her team to sequence activities. One thing Jim should ensure is that Wendy has already performed the __________ process.

A. Develop Schedule
B. Estimate Activity Resources
C. Define Activities
D. Estimate Activity Durations

Answer: C. Define Activities
Although all of the choices are time management processes, only the Define Activities process precedes the Sequence Activities process. The primary output of Define Activities is an activity list, which a project manager must obviously have in order to sequence activities.

Your project team currently consists of you and three others. If you add one more individual to the team, making a total of five people, how many more communication channels will you have?

A. 3
B. 4
C. 6
D. 10

Answer: B. 4
Communication channels are calculated by n(n-1)/2. That means, if you have four people (like the example), you have six channels [4(4-1)/2 = 4(3)/2 = 12/2 = 6]. Alternatively, you can simply draw four dots on a page and draw a line from each dot to every other dot. That may be a challenge if you have, say, a forty person team. Anyway, the question asks for how many more channels. Therefore, if four people have six channels and five people have ten channels, the difference is four.

Which of the following estimating types provides the most accuracy?

A. Parametric
B. Analogous
C. Bottom-up
D. Top-down

Answer: C. Bottom-up
Bottom-up estimating, which may also be called grass roots, engineering, or definitive estimating, will provide the most accuracy since activities are estimated with the greatest level of detail. However, that level of accuracy comes at a cost. In order to be more accurate than parametric and analogous, it will also take the longest amount of time to create.

A quality management tool used to determine show cause and effect is:

A. Decision tree
B. Pareto diagram
C. Control chart
D. Fishbone diagram

Answer: D. Fishbone diagram
A Fishbone diagram, also known as Ishikawa Diagram, uses cause and effect to determine how quality is defined on the project.

There are two projects being evaluated but only one can be undertaken. Your finance department decides to use Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) to help make the decision. Before they even perform the BCR, they inform you that a possible outcome is that neither is a good fit for the organization and you may have to find another solution. After completing their analysis they determine that Project A has a BCR of 0.8 and Project B has a BCR of 0.6. Based on their BCR scores, you should:

A. Choose Project A
B. Choose Project B
C. Choose neither and seek alternative projects
D. Ask for more information to make a decision

Answer: C. Choose neither and seek alternative projects
A Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) weighs benefits against costs. A BCR of 1.0 means that benefits equal costs. Anything over 1.0 represents that benefits outweigh the costs. For instance, a BCR of 3.5 means that benefits are 3.5 times the costs. Conversely, a BCR of under 1.0 shows that the costs outweigh the benefits. Unless the project must be completed, such as meeting a regulatory requirement, a BCR under one should not be started. In this example, both projects have a BCR of under 1.0.

The intern who will be verifying address labels will not be able to check them until they have obviously been printed. However, you recognize that she does not have to wait until all of the labels have been printed; rather she can begin shortly after the printing of the labels begin. This is an example of:

A. Finish-to-start
B. Finish-to-finish
C. Start-to-start
D. Start-to-finish

Answer: C. Start-to-start
The start of successor is determined by the start of the predecessor. Translation: when labels start printing out, the intern can start verifying them. You may even add a little lag (i.e. delay) if you wish.