Project Management Question Bank
for Exam preparation

Q2. You take over a project that is in a lot of trouble. There are apparently problems with the team dynamics, project scope, sponsor, and timeline. The project has a cost performance index (CPI) of 0.75 and schedule performance index (SPI) of 1.2. The FIRST action you should take is to:

1. Meet with the project sponsor
2. Review all the project deliverables
3. Meet with the team
4. Meet with each team member individually

Q3. Breaking down project activities into smaller components in order to obtain a more accurate cost estimate and then aggregating the estimates of the lower-level components is:

1. Work breakdown structure
2. Analogous estimating
3. Decomposition
4. Bottom-up estimating

Q4. A project manager estimates the work to be accomplished in the near term in detail at a low level of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). He estimates work far in the future as WBS components that are at a relatively high level of the WBS. What is this technique called?

1. Decomposition
2. Rolling wave planning
3. Scope Creep
4. Earned value planning

Q5. A project manager has completed a detailed WBS and cost estimates for each work package. To create a cost baseline from this data, the project manager would:

1. Use the highest level of the WBS to estimate analogously
2. Sum up the work package and risk contingency reserve estimates
3. Roll up work package estimates into a project total and add management reserves.
4. Gain expert opinions of the project total costs.

Q6. The MOST common source of conflict on projects is:

1. Personality
2. Cost
3. Priorities
4. Schedules

Q7. The project for the accounting department has been going well when the company says that it must reduce the cost of the project without changing the quality requirements. The project manager has looked to trim any resources, paid more attention to risk on upcoming activities, and even has reduced product scope, but the project remains over the new budget limit. Which of the following should the project manager do NEXT?

1. Get an extension of time
2. Review expensive customer requirements that add the least benefit
3. Suggest the project be terminated
4. Cut 10 percent off the cost estimate of each remaining activity.

Q8. A manager has responsibility for a project that has the support of a senior manager. From the beginning, you have disagreed with the manager as to how the project should proceed and what the deliverables should be. You and she have disagreed over many issues in the past. Your department has been tasked with providing some key work packages for the project. What should you do?

1. Provide the manager with what she needs
2. Inform your manager of your concerns to get her support
3. Sit down with the manager at the beginning of the project, attempt to describe why you object to the project, and discover a way to solve the problem
4. Ask to be removed from the project.

Q9. Another project manager has a family emergency and must leave. He has asked you to fill in for him during a team meeting to discuss a minor problem with the project. He has already distributed a detailed agenda and provided with a copy. When you attend the meeting, several members of the team are making fun of the absent project manager’s ethnic heritage. Your company does not have a formal diversity policy covering such behavior. What should you do?

1. Because your company does not have a written diversity policy, there is nothing you can do.
2. Report the incident to the other project manager
3. Hold the meeting as if nothing happened
4. Begin the meeting with a discussion of diversity and professional behavior.

Q10. A project manager has been working on a project for six months with the same team, yet the team still shows a lack of support for the project. The BEST thing the project manager can do to obtain the team’s support for the project is to:

1. Re-evaluate the effectiveness of the reward system in place.
2. Talk to each team member’s boss with the team member present.
3. Find someone else to be project manager.
4. Tell the team members he needs their support, and ask the team members why they do not support the project.