Sample Q2 2023

Kemil is a project manager for a civil construction project that aims at building a hostel block for Clarke's University Trust. The Trust does not have any on-campus hostels as of now and for this reason, students are forced to stay outside the campus at a much higher cost and less convenience. The aim of the Trust is to construct the first hostel building as fast as possible and start providing accommodation. Also, the trust wants the construction of the first building to get done ASAP. After that, the construction of the other building can happen at a reasonably planned rate. Which project management methodology is best prescribed for this scenario?

Rio is a project manager for developing an online recruitment portal for Alexos Inc. The base version of the product is already launched and he is currently developing the scope for a recent upgrade proposal for the portal by one of the key stakeholders. He is in the collect requirement phase of the project and he is using the tool below to visually depict a product scope by showing interactions between business and other systems. What is it called?

A project manager is preparing a charter for a project to automate a pick-and-place operation in an assembly line with COBOTs. The sponsor has told the PM that the charter should be aligned with the operations dept. manager who is responsible for the production of that line. The PM approaches the ops manager but he is totally non-cooperative since he believes that this automation will cause layoffs in his department. What should the PM do first?

Joe has joined an organization as a project manager. This organization is divided into departments and each department has a functional manager. As a project manager, Joe has to reach out to each functional manager to help allocate resources for a particular project. As a PM, he has very limited authority to choose the resources for a project. Even the members of the project team do not have any accountability or report to Joe directly. Which type of organization Joe is in?

Match the name of the following commonly used AGILE approaches (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) with their key characteristics/definitions (A, B ,C, D, E) Note: In your PMP Exam, you will be required to drag & drop boxes containing the options below to match them accordingly.

1. Scrum

2.  XP

3.  DSDM

4.  Kanban

5.  Disciplined Agile

___________________________________

A. It is known for its emphasis on constraint-driven delivery. It fixes cost, quality, and time at the outset and uses the MoSCoW prioritization of scope into musts, shoulds, coulds and won't haves to adjust the project deliverable to meet the stated time constraint.

B. It is a process decision framework that integrates several agile best practices into a comprehensive model. It was designed to offer a balance between popular agile methods deemed to be either too narrow in focus or too prescriptive in detail.

C. It is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing software projects and product or application development. Its focus is on "a flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal" as opposed to a "traditional, sequential approach"

D. It is a software development method based on frequent cycles to increase responsiveness towards customer’s changing requirements. It advocates frequent "releases" in short development cycles, which is intended to improve productivity and introduce checkpoints where new customer requirements can be adopted. ‘Programming in pairs’ is a key characteristic of this methodology.

E. It has been derived from the lean philosophy of JIT. Unlike most agile approaches, this does not prescribe the use of timeboxed iterations. It allows the continuous flow of work pulled from the changing customer needs thus focusing on continuous delivery.

Bradley is the product owner of developing an ERP solution for SynSys. Inc – A technology giant based out of Silicon Valley. The project is currently in the design & development stage. A lot of customer requirements are pouring in and the user-story priorities are changing every week. However, once the features & requirements get finalized & locked, it will be a defined and repeatable rollout process across SynSys offices in California, London, and New Delhi. What is the best project management methodology to apply here?

Laura is a project manager for a financial services project, and she is currently leading a $2Mn project of launching a new credit card for the client (NatWest Bank Plc.). She is in the schedule management process and currently defining the activities required to develop the schedule of the project. The project has a big scope that spans across 6 different countries. What is the technique used at this stage for dividing and subdividing the project scope and project deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts?

You are in the initiation phase of a project and you are developing an artifact that will be a primary input to your scope management plan. This artifact consists of the high-level project description, assumptions, constraints, and high-level requirements that the project is intended to satisfy. Which project artifact is being referred to here:

A construction project is nearing completion and as a PM you are in process of completing all the critical path activities with utmost vigilance. Suddenly, two resources from your team were called back by their functional manager to support another project. This is unacceptable to you and you set up a meeting with the functional manager. However, you get to know that those resources will necessarily be required now to support another project since that comes with legal risk. You go back to your team and after a long discussion, the team proposes to cut some scope in your project for now. This scope can be completed even after project delivery. You agree to this and now chose to communicate the same to the customer. What should be your next best step now to manage the situation?

A construction project is ready for closure but a vendor claims that they have not received the payment for a particular delivery yet. You check the invoice and find out that it was approved and sent for payment to the finance dept. You check with the finance dept. and they tell you that the vendor had made some mistake in calculating the tax in the invoice. You want to close the project quickly because your sponsor is pushing you to take up another project soon. What should you do?

You as the Scrum Master for an Agile-led project are facing difficulty to make your team members update the lessons learned register. Your team members are definitely busy at this stage of the project. They mention not having enough time as the key reason for not being able to update the lessons learned register. How should you respond?

Iterative life cycles improve the product or result through successive prototypes or proofs of concepts. Each new prototype yields new stakeholder insights and team feedback. The team incorporates new information by repeating one or more project activities in the next cycle. Teams may use ________ on a given iteration for a few weeks, gather insights, and then rework the activity based on those insights. Fill in the blanks:

Tony is a project manager for an R&D project that involves team members of different ethnicity. He is very keen on creating a closely-knit team. The first thing he should do as a part of the team-building activity within the members is to have a:

You are the project manager for an IT governance project and you are in the execution phase. Today, a request has come to you from one of your outsourcing vendors that they would like to revise their contract terms. You engaged with your Purchasing Department for the same and both of you now would like to discuss the new terms with the vendor. Which is the most preferred mode of communication here?

You are working in a project team where transparency is a major issue. Team members always tend to hide errors for the risk of receiving strong feedback and doing major rework. They also tend to hide their progress because they feel that if they finish a deliverable before time, they would be pushed to complete more deliverables out of their scope. What steps should you take as an effective project manager here? (Select THREE)

The Kanban method is a holistic framework for incremental, evolutionary processes and systems change for the organization. The method uses a ‘pull system’ to move the work through the process. Which of the following THREE CHOICES are the defining principles of the Kanban process?

You are a project manager involved in the very early stages of a project to help the team define the correct execution strategy. The project aims to build a multistory residential apartment on a plot as per the approved design by the municipality. The goal of the project is to deliver it on timekeeping costs within budget. Also, the expectation from the client is not to deviate at all from the approved design. Which project management methodology is best prescribed for this scenario?

You are in the direct & manage project work phase of a civil construction project and one evening you are having a team review w.r.t. the status of the project schedule. You want to help your team to understand what the risks in the schedule are and help them plan mitigation (crashing, fast-tracking accordingly). However, when you started the meeting, the team member who was about to present mentioned that the MS Project license for his system has expired and he cannot open the project schedule. Which project tool/technique should you refer to understand how project management software tools are licensed in your company and how to help your team member by directing him to the right person?

In an agile project environment, this person plays the role of a facilitator. They are responsible for capability building, coaching, and breaking barriers for the team in cases of bottlenecking. They have the advantage of experience but the disadvantage of weak relationships in the client organization. So, often they need to work very closely with the product owners. Which agile team role is being talked about here ?

Lisa is managing an Agile-based project as the Scrum Master. She is handling a very large project team that is cross-functional and sits across different locations within a single campus. What tailoring recommendations she can adopt for an effective delivery (select all that apply)

In this agile methodology, the work is organized into small sprints and leverages the use of Kanban boards to visualize and monitor the work. The stories are placed on the Kanban board and the team manages its work by using work-in-progress limits. Which approach is being talked about here?

A project manager is studying the types of leadership as a part of his project onboarding. What is the type of Leadership called that demonstrates a commitment to serve and put other people first; focuses on other people's growth, learning, development, autonomy, and well-being; concentrates on relationships, community, and collaboration?

In a civil construction project, the bar bending work is outsourced to a sub-contractor. You as a project manager often face issues with this sub-contractor for late deliveries. When you confront this contractor, he mentions that there is a lot of challenges w.r.t. long-term resources in his organization and hence this is the best he could offer as of now in terms of service level. He is ok to take a hit on his contract terms as a penalty for late deliveries. You align to this since it's too late now to find a qualified new contractor. This negotiation is an example of:

Timothy has recently joined as the scrum master for an agile-led project. The organization historically has been doing projects following the predictive model. Timothy is expected to bring the culture shift from predictive methodology to agile methodology within the organization. Servant leadership is one of the critical behaviors Timothy is expected to demonstrate to manage this change seamlessly. SELECT THREE situations from the list below which would result from a lack of servant leadership in an organization

Rachel is a project manager leading a data cabling upgrade project for a telecom company. She is developing the project charter and she needs to get approval from the Communications Manager, Finance Controller, and Cyber Security Manager. All 3 of them are key stakeholders in the project. However, each one of them has a different vision regarding the project vision & its end goal. How should Rachel go about getting the approval for all 3 of them for the project charter?

Agile project management methodology emphasizes early value creation. However, this accelerated delivery might not suit some organizations due to insufficient organizational structure and the inability to accommodate rapid delivery. If an organization is averse to early value creation, which of the following risks becomes more likely to occur?

Andrea is a project manager for an Agile-led project. As a part of the Direct & Manage Project Work process, he is conducting iteration planning meetings every week. Over the meetings, he has observed that the meeting is dominated by the most senior developer who likes to push his decision with the team without leaving the scope for a healthy exchange of ideas. This is causing a bit of unrest and dissatisfaction within the team. Andrea wants to ensure that in the next iteration meeting, all voices are heard. Arrange the choices below Andrea can take in the order of ‘best-preferred option’ to ‘least preferred option).  Note: In your PMP Exam, you will be required to drag & drop boxes containing the options below in the same order as asked (best preferred to least preferred).

A.  Discuss the issue with the senior developer and in the next meeting allocate equal time for each member to pitch their ideas/concerns

B.  Inform the senior developer’s functional manager about this unacceptable behavior and process disciplinary action against him

C.  Before the start of the meeting, align the team on meeting ground rules as defined in the team charter and make the same visual in the meeting room for the next meetings

D.  Invite the sponsor in the next iteration meeting so that the senior developer gets intimidated by the sponsor’s presence and decides to be more thoughtful

In a hybrid product design & manufacturing project, the waterfall team (production) enters a quality-check vision system malfunction resulting in high-value losses due to a scrap of products within specifications. When the production team tells the design (agile) team about the problem, it becomes clear that mistranslated product specification sheets created problems for both teams. However, the agile team identified and resolved the problem at their end weeks ago before the malfunction happened on the production floor. What could the agile team have done differently to prevent this loss?

Agile teams are mostly cross-functional. Some people in the team have specializations in one domain but rarely contribute beyond that domain. By contrast, another set of people supplement their expertise in one area with supporting but less developed skills in associated areas and good collaboration skills. As per the Agile Practice Guide, what are the two types of team members called (in order as mentioned in the question)?

A drug company is developing an inhaler for asthma patients. The product is very critical for patient safety and needs multiple testing phases, conformance checks, and legal approvals. The project calls for an early product delivery and feedback to design in line with all necessary conformance reviews, documentation, and certification. What project management methodology is most suitable here?

In the Earned Value Analysis Chart below, which measure among A, B, C or D signifies Cost Variance (CV)? For hotspot type questions in your PMP Exam, you would be expected to click on any one option from A, B, C, or D on the diagram below:

You are the Scrum Master for an agile-managed project. During a sprint review meeting, the product development team notifies you that this sprint delivery will be delayed since the product design team has not provided the required inputs till date. You know that there has always been an issue with the design team to delay communications and timely inputs. What is your best step as a servant leader here?

You are a project manager for an application development project for Medway Maritime Hospital that will help the management to improve 'patient flow' across departments. 'Patient flow' is a metric that is tracked in the performance improvement board of the hospital and is a measure of how efficiently the hospital systems are working to address patient issues. The management is not very clear on how the application will function, just that its end goal should be to track & improve 'patient flow'. They are also not very clear how the first draft of the application will look like, who will be the end-users, how the application will suggest improvements etc. The management is also in no hurry to close the project early. The focus here is more on customer value creation, problem-solving & user acceptance. Which project management methodology is best prescribed for this scenario?