PM Test Center

What is the typical duration of a milestone?

A. 0
B. 1
C. Milestone durations depend on the total duration of the project
D. Milestone durations depend on each predecessor

Answer: A. 0
Milestones typically have a duration of 0 since they do not require effort to complete. Effort is usually spent on work leading up to them. They are usually used to track time and cost targets. Milestones may also have durations other than zero but it is not the norm.

When developing a project schedule, you should have completed all of the following except:

A. Define Activities
B. Develop Project Team
C. Sequence Activities
D. Estimate Activity Resources

Answer: B. Develop Project Team
The Develop Project Team process actually involves improving team members in the Executing process group. The other choices on this list are all in the Planning process group under the Time knowledge area.

Julie is scheduling a project to develop a new feature for her company’s website. Since she works in a functional organization, her team has other assigned projects and therefore, have limited availability for her project. What type of scheduling technique should Julie use to get the best estimate for her project?

A. Resource leveling
B. Schedule compression
C. Critical chain method
D. Critical path method

Answer: C. Critical chain method
Critical chain is scheduling method that not only requires network analysis but also factors in limited resources. Basically, once a network diagram is created and resources are assigned, their availability is then accounted for and schedule adjustments are made.

Joan has been assigned to manage a project to recondition ten school buses. Although her company has never reconditioned more than a single bus at a time, Joan feels she can still give somewhat accurate estimates by using:

A. Bottom-up estimating
B. Analogous estimating
C. Parametric estimating
D. Engineering estimating

Answer: C. Parametric estimating
Parametric estimating takes historical information available and scales it provide time and cost estimates. In this example, if a typical school bus reconditioning project takes twenty days and costs $10,000, then reconditioning ten of them will simply take 200 days at $100,000. The project manager may then use expert judgment to fine-tune the estimate for learning curves, overlapping tasks, etc.

Which of the following progressive elaboration planning techniques are you using if you are planning details for short term work while only providing high level plans for the long term?

A. Top down estimating
B. Rolling wave planning
C. Decomposition
D. Parametric estimating

Answer: B. Rolling wave planning
Rolling wave planning allows work to be planned at various levels; more defined for short term and less defined for long term. When more information is available, the latter is better defined.

You just inherited a project from Laura, who is on maternity leave. The project schedule includes a task that was estimated for 10 days but after speaking to the person assigned to it, you learn that the task will likely increase to a total of 15 days. You decide that you only need to notify the sponsor if this change will delay the project end date. Which of the following indicators should you use to determine whether or not you need to notify the sponsor?

A. Free float
B. Lag
C. Total float
D. Lead

Answer: C. Total float
Total float, aka total slack, is the amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying the project end date. Each task has its own total float. Tasks with a total float of zero are critical tasks, which means they cannot be delayed at all. The string of critical tasks make the the critical path on the project. In this example, as long as the total float is 5 or more (5 more days than the original 10 days), then you do not need to notify the sponsor. Free float, aka free slack, on the other hand, is the amount of time a task can be delayed without delaying and of its successors. Lag and lead are manually entered to adjust relationships.

One of the reports you are asked to produce is an S-curve diagram. Through your experience, you know that S-curve data is based on earned value. Therefore, you must __________ at the start of the project in order to have accurate S-curve reports.

A. Set a baseline
B. Use project management software
C. Create a contingency plan
D. Perform a variance analysis

Answer: A. Set a baseline
In order to provide earned value, a baseline must be set, usually at the beginning of the project. This will allow project managers to measure the original snapshot against actual performance.

During a simple home repair project, Eva is planning on putting two coats of paint on her dining room. After the second coat of paint dries, she intends to hang up a picture of her family in the room. The activity relationships described in this example are known as:

A. Soft logic
B. Lag
C. Mandatory dependencies
D. Critical path

Answer: C. Mandatory dependencies
When you have activities that inherently require other activities to be completed, they are called mandatory dependencies, or hard logic. Discretionary dependencies, or soft logic, allow some flexibility and is based on preference. In this example, Eva must finish her first coat of paint before applying the second coat of paint. Then she must wait for the second coat of paint to dry before she can hang up her picture; she does not have any flexibility on the dependencies.

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.

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.