PMP 2017 PEOPLE

The project team is working on an important and complex project that requires a lot of coordination. The organizational benefits must be tracked and measured during the project, and the business value delivered must be quantified at the end of each iteration. The risk reassessments have generated some change requests that have been approved. The quality control department has announced that all project teams that delivering product increments under the defect tolerance rates will be rewarded. There are also incentives for risk management on the project. Under these circumstances, the best strategy is to:

• Gain extra assistance from management

• Hold more meetings to get the word out

• Hire a contractor

• Colocate the team

Answer explanation

Due to the high need for coordination, it is beset to centralize the project management and control process

You are the project manager leading a cross-functional project team in a weak matrix environment. None of your project team members report to you functionally, and you do not have the ability to directly reward their performance. The project is difficult, involving tight schedule constraints and challenging quality standards. Which of the following types of project management power will likely be the most effective in this situation?

• Referent

• Expert

• Penalty

• Formal

Answer explanation

Reward and expert are the best types of power to use in such a circumstance. Reward is not listed as a choice, and the question says that the project manager has limited ability to reward team members. Therefore, expert power is the correct answer

The CIO has asked you to lead an agile project that will be updating an old system to decrease its maintenance costs. The business users agree that the update is needed but can't commit many resources to help. What must you get the ensure project success?

• Completion of a requirement document detailing all the business user's needs before the work starts

• Authority to hire contractor developers as needed to upgrade the technology

• Commitment for the full-time product owner to work with the team and represent the business users

• Participation by the business users in a series of requirements focus groups

Answer explanation

To deliver value, an agile team must work with a dedicated full-time business representative (product owner) through out the project.

You know that some groups within your organization are going to provide input to requirements that may impact your ability to develop a realistic schedule. Managing stakeholder's expectations is always important, but achieving stakeholders' satisfaction will be more critical with some groups than with others. All the following are parts of the teams stakeholder management effort except:

• Giving stakeholders added value

• Managing stakeholder's expectations

• Determining stakeholder's needs

• Identifying stakeholders

Answer explanation

Identifying all the stakeholders, determining their needs, and managing their expectations are all good stakeholder management. Giving stakeholders added value (including extras not documented in the requirements) is known as Gold Plating. This is not effective stakeholder or quality management.

You have managed to get the key stakeholder for your upcoming agile project together for a visioning session to reach agreement on what the project needs to accomplish. The participants might not have another chance to meet in person. How will you recommend that they spend their time?

• Explain their requirements and needs.

• Write an elevator statement

• Develop personas for the key user groups

• Decide who will make the key decisions for the project

Answer explanation

An elevator statement is a short description of a project's goals, benefits, and key attributes, such statements may be used as agile project charters, and they are a quick way to help stakeholders analyze and understand the project. Writing an elevator statement would be the best use of the stakeholder's time since this will provide clear direction for the project and the team, none of the other activities mentioned will lead to actionable results. Also, deciding "who will make the key decisions for the project" implies a top-down, directive approach that doesn't reflect agile collective, team based values.

In managing a change-driven project, which aspect of stakeholder management is most important?

• Ensuring a shared understanding of the project goals

• Leaving the team alone to solve their own problems

• Planning the team members interactions with other stakeholders

• Making sure the team members are fully occupied at all times

Answer explanation

A shared understanding of the project vision and goals is essential for a change-driven team to successfully deliver value.

Conflict resolution techniques that may be used on project include collaborating, smoothing, forcing and,

• Withdrawing

• Controlling

• Directing

• Organizing

Answer explanation

There is always the option to simplify postpone dealing with the issue until later. This is withdrawing. The other choices are not conflicted management techniques.

You have been assigned to a project that aims to develop an innovative digital device for a consumer products company. The company has asked you to use an agile approach to product development. The product owner has worked on agile projects before and is excited to work with you. What should you do first?

• Develop the budget for the project based on the project charter

• Ask for an existing cross-functional team to be dedicated 100% to the project

• Get specific product requirements from the customer focus group

• Lay out a product roadmap that shows the features and releases

Answer explanation

In agile, the team does the planning for product development, so your first step should be to get the team in place

A project manager is planning their first agile project. The team members have been assigned, but most of them aren't familiar with agile practices to the agile mindset. How should the project manager help them transition to agile?

• Ask that the team members be reassigned so that everyone will have agile experience

• Arrange for all the team members to attend a class on the agile principles mindset

• Ask for an agile coach to guide the team members for the fist few iterations

• Provide training for all team members on how to use agile practices

Answer explanation

The fundamental change when adopting agile is making a transition to a new mindset

You are in the process of planning a very complex project with the help of your project management team. The project is very large at the moment, you have identified well over 300 resources for the project. In order to review them, you ask to be provided with:

• A resource histogram

• A team directory

• An OBS

• An RBS

Answer explanation

An OBS (Organisational Breakdown Structure) shows responsibility by department. An RBS (Resource Breakdown Structure) breaks the work down by type of resources. A resource histogram shows resource usage by time unit. The team directory is a list of team members.