PMI-SP Online Practice Questions and Answers

Correct Answer: A

Conformance to schedule is a required adherence for the project's schedule. In this instance, the project manager must not allow the schedule to slip more than five percent. Answer option B is incorrect. This is the description of the schedule performance index. Answer option D is incorrect. This is the description of the cost performance index. Answer option C is incorrect. This is not a valid statement about the project performance.

Correct Answer: D

Forecasting method is a technique used in generating performance reports. Forecasting is the process of estimating or predicting in unknown situations. Forecasting is about predicting the future as accurately as possible with the help of all the information available, including historical data and knowledge of any future events that might impact forecasts. The forecasting methods are categorized as follows: Time series method: It uses historical data as the basis for estimating future outcomes. Causal/ econometric method: This forecasting method is based on the assumption that it is possible to identify some factors that might influence the variable that is being forecasted. If the causes are understood, projections of the influencing variables can be made and used in the forecast. Judgmental method: Judgmental forecasting methods incorporate intuitive judgments, opinions, and subjective probability estimates. Other methods: Other methods may include probabilistic forecasting, simulation, and ensemble forecasting. It is one of the tools and techniques of the report performance process. Answer option A is incorrect. Work performance information is the data gathered on the status of the project schedule activities that are performed to accomplish the project work. This data is collected as part of the Direct and Manage Project Execution processes. WPI includes the following: Deliverables status Schedule Progress Costs incurred It is used as an input in generating the report performance process. Answer option C is incorrect. Work performance measurements are created from the work performance information. WPMs are an output of Control schedule, Control cost, and Control scope processes, which are monitoring and controlling processes. WPMs consist of planned versus actual performance indicators with respect to scope, schedule, and cost. They are documented and communicated to the stakeholders and are used to make project activity metrics, such as the following: Planned vs. Actual Technical performance and Scope performance Planned vs. Actual Schedule performance Planned vs. Actual Cost performance They are used as an input in generating the report performance process. Answer option B is incorrect. Change requests are requests to expand or reduce the project scope, modify policies, processes, plans, or procedures, modify costs or budgets or revise schedules. These requests for a change can be direct or indirect, externally or internally initiated, and legally or contractually imposed or optional. A Project Manager needs to ensure that only formally documented requested changes are processed and only approved change requests are implemented. It is an output of the report performance process.

Correct Answer: C

Cost performance index (CPI) is used to calculate performance efficiencies. It is used in trend analysis to predict future performance. CPI is the ratio of earned value to actual cost. The CPI is calculated based on the following formula: CPI = Earned Value (EV) / Actual Cost (AC) If the CPI value is greater than 1, it indicates better than expected performance, whereas if the value is less than 1, it shows poor performance. The CPI value of 1 indicates that the project is right on target. In this instances it is $270,000 divided by $335,000 for a CPI of .81. Answer option B is incorrect. .67 is actually the schedule performance index. Answer option D is incorrect. -$65,000 is the cost variance for the project. Answer option A is incorrect. -$135,000 is the schedule variance of the project.

Correct Answer: B

An activity is the effort needed to complete a work package. The activities are linked to the work packages in the WBS. An activity is the element of work performed throughout the various stages of a project. It is a group of people, communications, processes, and work items that correspond to a joint effort to achieve a goal. An activity is a way to manage the work collectively with others in any organization. The create WBS process identifies the deliverables at the lowest level in the WBS, called the work package. Project work packages are divided into smaller elements known as activities, which correspond to the work required to complete the work package. Answer option D is incorrect. This is a definition of all the work that the project team and manager must complete in order to complete the total activity list. Answer options A and C are incorrect. These are not valid definitions of an activity.

Correct Answer: B

The schedule performance index is found by dividing the earned value by the planned value. In this instance, the planned value is ten percent more than where the project is forty percent of the budget at completion. Schedule performance index (SPI) is the measure of schedule efficiency on a project. It is used in trend analysis to predict future performance. SPI is the ratio of earned value to planned value. The SPI is calculated based on the following formula: SPI = Earned Value (EV) / Planned Value (PV) If the SPI value is greater than 1, it indicates better than expected performance, whereas if the value is less than 1, it shows poor performance. The SPI value of 1 indicates that the project is right on target. Answer option C is incorrect. 0.95 is the project's cost performance index. Answer options A and D are incorrect. An index is a decimal value.

Correct Answer: D

According to the question, you are required to find out the schedule variance (SV) of the project. Schedule variance (SV) is a measure of schedule performance on a project. The variance notifies that the schedule is ahead or behind what was planned for this period in time. The schedule variance is calculated based on the following formula: SV = Earned Value (EV) - Planned Value (PV) If the resulting schedule is negative, it indicates that the project is behind schedule. A value greater than 0 shows that the project is ahead of the planned schedule. A value of 0 indicates that the project is right on target. Now, putting the provided values on the formula: SV = EV - PV = 325 - 300 = 25 As the value of SV (which is 25) is a positive number, it means that the project is ahead of the planned schedule. What is BCWP (or EV)? Budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP) or Earned Value (EV) is the value of completed work. It is the budgeted amount for the work actually completed on the schedule activity during a given time period. What is BCWS (or PV)? Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS) or Planned Value (PV) is the authorized budget assigned to the scheduled work to be accomplished for a schedule activity or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) component. What is ACWP (or AC)? Actual cost of work performed (ACWP) or Actual Cost (AC) is the total costs actually incurred and recorded in accomplishing work performed during a given time period for a schedule activity. It is the cost of the work to date, including direct and indirect costs. AC is money that has actually been expended to date.

Correct Answer: D

The activity nodes of path ACFGJ equals 26 days and is the longest path to completion - it is the critical path. ACFGJ= A(4)+C(8)+F(4)+G(6)+J(4)=26 What is a critical path? A critical path is the sequence of project activities, which add up to the longest overall duration. This determines the shortest time possible to complete the project. Any delay of an activity on the critical path directly impacts the planned project completion date (i.e. there is no float on the critical path). A project can have several, parallel, near critical paths. An additional parallel path through the network with the total durations shorter than the critical path is called a sub-critical or noncritical path. These results allow managers to prioritize activities for the effective management of project completion, and to shorten the planned critical path of a project by pruning critical path activities, by "fast tracking" (i.e., performing more activities in parallel), and/or by "crashing the critical path" (i.e., shortening the durations of critical path activities by adding resources). Answer option A is incorrect. ABEHJ takes only 22 days to complete; it is not the critical path. ABEHJ=A(4)+B(5)+E(2)+H(7)+J(4)=22 Answer option C is incorrect. ADGJ takes only 15 days to complete; it is not the critical path. ADGJ=A(4)+D(1)+G(6)+J(4)=15 Answer option B is incorrect. ACFIJ takes only 23 days to complete; it is not the critical path. ACFIJ=A(4)+C(8)+F(4)+I(3)+J(4)=23

Correct Answer: C

The planned value is forty-five percent of the project's BAC, or $1,055,543. Planned value (PV) is the authorized budget assigned to the schedule work to be accomplished for a schedule activity or work breakdown structure component. It

serves as a baseline against which actual performance is measured. The theory of planned value is of vital importance to the project management team and it is important to keep careful track of this. The term planned value can also be in

some situations referred to by the project management team and the project management team leader as the budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS).

Answer option D is incorrect. $938,260 is the project's earned value. Answer option A is incorrect. $950,000 is the project's actual costs. Answer option B is incorrect. $2,375,000 is the project's estimate at completion.

Correct Answer: C

Of all the constraints listed only this is an external dependency, which can directly affect the project manager's control over the project work. If the BGH company is late delivering the software portion of the project, it will likely have an effect on the project's ability to complete the project on time. Answer option B is incorrect. While regulations may affect the project timing, this is not the best choice. Answer option D is incorrect. The $1,250,000 is an example of cost constraint. Answer option A is incorrect. This is only constraint if the project team members are not available, or do not have the required skills to complete the project work.

Correct Answer: B

The finish-to-start relationship type is the most common in a project network diagram. It means that the predecessor activity must finish before its successor activity can start. For example, the carpet must be installed before the painting activity can begin. What is precedence diagramming method (PDM) in sequence activities? Precedence diagramming method (PDM) is used in critical path methodology for building a project schedule network diagram that uses boxes or rectangles, referred to as nodes, to represent activities, and join each other with arrows that show the logical relationship that exists between them. This technique is also known as Activity-On-Node (AON).It includes four types of dependencies or logical relationships: Finish-to-start(FS): The initiation of the successor activity depends upon the completion of the predecessor activity. Finish-to-finish(FF): The completion of the successor activity depends upon the completion of the predecessor activity. Start-to-start(SS): The initiation of the successor activity depends upon the initiation of the predecessor activity. Start-to- finish(SF): The completion of the successor activity depends upon the initiation of the predecessor activity.

Correct Answer: C

Work performance measurements are metrics that are defined to collect performance and progress of the project. Typical metrics are deliverables, schedule, and costs, though additional metrics, such as quality, can be added. Work performance measurements are created from the work performance information. WPMs are an output of Control schedule, Control cost, and Control scope processes, which are monitoring and controlling processes. WPMs consist of planned versus actual performance indicators with respect to scope, schedule, and cost. They are documented and communicated to the stakeholders and are used to make project activity metrics, such as the following: Planned vs. Actual Technical performance and Scope performance Planned vs. Actual Schedule performance Planned vs. Actual Cost performance Answer option D is incorrect. The project management plan is too broad and is not the best choice. Answer option B is incorrect. The cost management plan and the project schedule would not provide all the information that management has requested. Answer option A is incorrect. The milestone list does not include performance metrics.

Correct Answer: C

The planned value is the percentage of where the project should be times the budget at completion. In this instance, it is 45 percent of the $950,000. Here, it can be calculated as follows: PV = 45% of BAC = 0.45 * 950,000 = 427,500 Planned value (PV) is the authorized budget assigned to the schedule work to be accomplished for a schedule activity or work breakdown structure component. It serves as a baseline against which actual performance is measured. The theory of planned value is of vital importance to the project management team and it is important to keep careful track of this. The term planned value can also be in some situations referred to by the project management team and the project management team leader as the budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS). Answer option A is incorrect. -$47,500 is the schedule variance (SV = EV-PV). Answer option B is incorrect. This is the schedule performance index (SPI = EV/PV). Answer option D is incorrect. This is the cost performance index (CPI = EV/AC).

Correct Answer: B

Crashing means that the project manager will add resources to the project to complete effort-driven activities in the project. This schedule compression technique adds costs to the project. What is crashing? Crashing is a schedule

compression technique to obtain the greatest amount of compression for the least incremental cost. Crashing works for activities where additional resources will shorten the duration. Approving overtime, bringing in additional resources,

paying to expedite delivery to activities on the critical path are examples of crashing.

Answer option C is incorrect. Crashing does generally add costs to the project because of the labor added, but this is not the best choice for the question. Answer options D and A are incorrect. These are not the valid definitions of crashing.

Correct Answer: A

This happens when most of the stakeholders are concerned about risks. Risk factors are determined for the scope of the project, requirements, design and strategy, technology, processes (for development, payment, change management,

risk management, and closing the project), and conditions of the project. Risk factors are high when most of the stakeholders have concerns. Even if one important feature of a project appears too difficult to execute, the risk is high. Issues like

acceptable type of bugs and number of bugs for user acceptance, terms for closing the project, payments not being clear or misunderstood, make the project highly risky.

Answer option B is incorrect. Risks are low when issues like the format of the forms are not finalized but the functionality is thoroughly understood and solutions are approved. Answer option D is incorrect. Risks are rated medium when a very

small number of stakeholders have a few concerns. For example, the development team may not have very advanced knowledge of the technology but could provide some work around. Another could be that the customer's people cannot

finalize a few unimportant workflows.

Answer option C is incorrect. It is an invalid answer.

Correct Answer: D

Fast tracking allows entire phases of the project to overlap and this action does increase risks. This is an approach that you would want to avoid in your project. Answer option B is incorrect. Crashing adds labor to the project and typically drives project costs. Answer option A is incorrect. The critical chain method considers the availability of project resources as part of its network diagramming technique. Answer option C is incorrect. Lead time allows project activities to overlap and may introduce project risks, but not to the extent of using fast tracking.