SG20 Baseline Top60 -- The Hardest Questions Ever!

An urban hotel design project has an international, multidisciplinary, and cross-cultural team. The project manager is in the process of developing the first version of the project management plan. What should the project manager do?

• Allow sufficient time for the project team to prepare the project management plan before the project execution stage starts.
• Keep the project management plan summarized and at a high level to facilitate communication among the diverse team members.
• Separate the risk register from the project management plan, due to the project's complexity, making it a standalone document.
• Include the project budget and project cash flow scenarios as part of the project management plan.

An agile project is in its first of 12 iterations, and each iteration lasts two weeks. In the first iteration review, the stakeholders ask for a monthly report.What should the project manager do?

• Ask the team members to create a monthly report.
• Create a monthly report and send it to the stakeholders.
• Educate the stakeholders according to the agile approach being followed.
• Ask the stakeholders to participate in an iteration review once a month.

A company is expanding, and the project manager is contemplating whether to hire new resources or outsource resources from an approved vendor team. What should the project manager focus on regarding this decision?

• The cost of internal resources versus vendor resources.
• The organization's resource strengths and skills versus those of the vendor.
• The cost of outsourcing to a local vendor versus a global vendor.
• The procurement strategy of the company and procurement standards.

A team member is scheduled to visit an overseas client site next week. However, the project manager overheard the team member tell a project coordinator that their functional manager denied the team member's request for time off as compensation for the client visit. The project manager needs to ensure that the team member will visit the client site next week.What should the project manager do?

• Meet with the team member directly to tell them about what they overheard.
• Confirm with the team member that the client visit can take place.
• Confront the functional manager about the team member's time off.
• Log the issue as a risk in the risk log and assign another team member.

A vendor for a large and complex project has been performing more work than was originally anticipated. The original time and materials contract caused the project to be behind schedule and over budget. The contract is about to expire.What should the project manager do?

• Create a request for quotation (RFQ) to formulate a list of new vendors.
• Shift to a master services agreement with appendices for the additional work as required.
• Consult the lessons learned repository to formulate a list of potential new vendors.
• Try to negotiate a fixed-price contract with the current vendor.

A project manager was assigned to deliver new software for university students. In this project, the software is being delivered to a specific niche of people. To better understand this niche, the project manager needs to develop an archetype user.How should the project manager do that?

• Create a persona character.
• Contract with an architecture firm.
• Submit a public questionnaire.
• Publish a marketing plan.

A project manager is planning for a project team that will soon start work on a critical subsystem. There are two technical alternatives identified for the subsystem, but it is not clear if either alternative will perform satisfactorily. The project will be compromised if the performance of the critical subsystem falls short.What should the project manager do first?

• Direct the team to assess and evaluate the alternatives for the subsystem.
• Add subsystem performance to the issue log and assign an owner for that issue.
• Schedule work for the most promising alternative and add management reserve for the other alternative.
• Advise stakeholders of the major risk to the project posed by the subsystem's performance.

A project team is completing backlog items within a four-week sprint. One of the key team members will be away for one week and will be unable to complete the tasks in progress.What should the project manager do?

• Support a knowledge transfer between the team member who will be away and the other project team members.
• Add a temporary resource to the team to help increase velocity and complete the items for this sprint.
• Remove a few items from the current sprint with agreement from the product owner.
• Increase the sprint duration so the team can complete all the planned items and present them to the product owner.

A two-year project was awarded to a company six months ago, but the procurement process has not yet been initiated. What should the project manager do to get the project moving forward?

• Prepare the procurement management plan for the project.
• Bring the teams together to draft a procurement management plan.
• Track the procurement according to an existing procurement management plan.
• Escalate the situation to upper-level management.

A customer is upset because a critical issue for a project deliverable has not been resolved by the agile team, even though troubleshooting has been running for several weeks. During the daily meetings, the team complains about the technical challenge and their lack of knowledge to resolve the issue.Which two actions should the project manager take to resolve this situation? (Choose two)

• Escalate the case to a functional manager to bring a technical expert to the team.
• Explain the situation to the customer and include an action plan.
• Keep the team working on the sprint backlog in order to accomplish the next release milestone.
• Update the issue and risk logs, including the action plan to resolve the issue.
• Set up a new release date for this deliverable with the product owner.