PM Test Center

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.

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.

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.

You are planning a series of programming tasks and you know that your quality engineers will be testing the code after the programmers have completed the code. This is an example of:

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

Answer: A. Finish-to-start
In this example, programmers must complete the code before the testing begins. As a result, there is a finish-to-start relationship. The predecessor determines when the successor can begin, in other words, the testing cannot start until the programmers have finished the code.