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Resource buffer
Free buffer
Feeding buffer
Project buffer
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2. A company has to make a choice between two projects, because the available resources in money
and kind are not sufficient to run both at the same time. Each project would take 9 months and
would cost $250,000.
1. The first project is a process optimization which would result in a cost reduction of $120,000 per year.
This benefit would be achieved immediately after the end of the project.
2. The second project would be the development of a new product which could produce the following net
profits after the end of the project:
1. year: $ 15,000
2. year: $ 125,000
3. year: $ 220,000
Assumed is a discount rate of 5% per year. Looking at the present values of the benefits of these
projects in the first 3 years, what is true?
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3. A production process has been defined as part of an industrial equipment manufacturing project. The
process is intended to produce steel bolts with a length of 20 cm. The control limits are 19.955cm
and 20.045cm.
The measurements made at the end of the process yielded the following results:
20.033cm, 19.982cm, 19,995cm, 20.006cm, 19.970cm, 19.968cm, 19.963cm, 19.958cm,
19.962cm, 19.979cm, 19.959cm.
What should be done?
4. Your project management team includes two external consultants each from a different company.
You found that repeated conflicts between the two consultants already slow down project progress
and jeopardize achievement of objectives.
5. During a project Earned Value Analysis is performed and gives the following numbers:
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6. A project manager spent some days to create a multi-page document which he called Project
charter. The document should have been issued by the project sponsor. The sponsor found the
document outsized and asked for a condensed document.
High-level risks
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7. A document called ____________ is created by decomposing the project scope into smaller, more
manageable elements.
Scope Statement
Requested Change
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Documentation reviews
Diagramming techniques
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9. In order to speed up a project, you made a decision to fast-track a phase currently performed with
five team members and another one which was planned to begin in four weeks time with another
five team members.
Make sure that all exit criteria of the consecutive phase have been met to ensure the flow of
communications in a team situation which is more complex by a factor of 2.
Make sure that all entry criteria of the previous phase have been met by planning and
performing a phase gate meeting to assess technical aptness.
Make sure that all exit criteria of the previous phase have been met by planning and
performing a phase gate meeting to assess technical performance.
Restructure your team and delegate tasks in order to ensure the flow of communications in a
team with the number of communication channels increased by a factor of 4.5.
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10. A project manager needs a certain number of identical valve housings for a power station project.
He starts with 100 raw items which are made as metal castings. Out of this batch, 15 are found
leaking from micro-porosities in a subsequent pressure test. 6 of these housings can be recovered
by a special sealing process for raw castings.
The 91 housings are then being machined. After this process step 10 machined castings are found
leaking. 3 of these items can also be saved using another sealing process for machined castings.
The remaining 84 housings are getting mounted to the power plant pipe work. During a pressure
test after this process step it is found that 12 valves are leaking. Out of these a number of 6 valves
can be saved by replacing the sealing rings used.
Finally the project manager has 78 valves which he can use. What is true?
RTY = 0.84
RTY = 0.78
RTY = 0.91
RTY = 0.65
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You found the following Earned Value Analysis information for a recently closed out project:
11. SPI = 0.7, CPI = 1.0
The project has been cancelled while it was executed. At that time the project was behind
schedule and on budget.
The project's deliverables have all been finished. The project came in behind schedule but on
budget.
The project's deliverables have all been finished. The project came in ahead of schedule but
on budget.
The project's deliverables have all been finished. The project came in on schedule but over
budget.
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It should describe how requirements activities will be planned, tracked, and reported.
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a decision to which no Expected Monetary Value can be assigned so that a likely pay-off can
not be shown.
a chance to which an Expected Monetary Value may be assigned to calculate the most likely
pay-off.
a decision to which an Expected Monetary Value may be assigned to calculate the most likely
pay-off.
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A project management team has subcontracted work to a service company. Which of the following
tools is the best choice to assure that this company will be able to meet the quality requirements of
14. the project?
Quality audit
Deliverable inspection
Fixed price contract
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15. With your team you are using judgment from subject matter experts to identify and analyze project
risks. There is a small number of experts available, but some of them have long been in a teacher-
student or manager-assistant relationship.
Which of the following techniques can ensure best that there is no dominating opinion during an
expert review?
Peer review
SWOT analysis
Delphi technique
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Marked for review
16. You are running a project for a customer based on a cost reimbursable contract with the following
terms:
1,000,00
Target costs: $
0
Fixed fee: $ 100,000
Benefit/cost sharing: 80% / 20%
1,200,00
Price ceiling: $
0
Which is the PTA (= Point of total assumption, Break point) of the project?
$1,300,000
$1,500,000
$80,000
$1,125,000
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17. During execution of a project which is performed for a customer on a T&M (Time and Material)
contract base, a new project manager is taking over the assignment.
He discovers that two members assigned to the project have charged time without performing any
work for the project customer. Upon further investigation, he determines that this occurred because
there have been no other project assignments open for these employees. The customer is unaware
of these facts.
What should the project manager do?
Try to find some productive work for these staff members in the project and leave them on
the team.
The best thing is to do nothing. The customer will not realize the problem anyway.
Try to find a responsible person for the over-assignment who can be made accountable.
Take the two people off the team immediately and arrange for the refund of the excess
charges to the customer.
See references
18. Start dates in the following network logic diagram are defined as early morning, finish dates are
evening.
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19. Your project is executed with a globally spread virtual team. The project progress has been found to
be too slow. Which measure is most likely to immediately speed up the project?
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A project management team wants to procure some customized products which are available in
identical grade and quality from many vendors. What should be included in the procurement
20. package to ensure that their offers will be comparable?
A statement of work describing the needs of the project in sufficient detail to enable vendors
to make suitable proposals
A statement of work specifying attributes and metrics of the requested deliverables in detail to
allow vendors submission of bids
The approved project scope statement, the WBS which should be broken down to Work
Package level and the WBS dictionary
The risk management plan and the reports from those risk management reviews which have
been made so far
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21. Which of the following becomes increasingly important in a virtual team environment?
Requirements engineering
Communication planning
Network diagramming
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Marked for review
22. You are assigned as the project manager to a project which is executed for a customer under FP
contract. Your customer informed you this morning that they insist on certain "refinements" of the
project scope.
You agree that the requested actions make really sense to the project, but believe that they
constitute a major change increasing the project scope. What should you do next?
Accept the request of the customer. Diligently document the additional costs and working
hours spent by yourself and the team on the implementation of the change and invoice these
to the customer at appropriate rates.
Perform Earned Value Analysis to assess the current status of the project and get all the
numbers you need to communicate the case to the Change Control Board which then will have
to make the best decision regarding the customer request.
Check the contract, the project charter, the scope statement and other documents related to
the project and the contract. Implement ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) procedures if
the conflict cannot be resolved otherwise.
Talk to the project sales department and find a joint solution with them how to best reject the
request considering the commercial and strategic value of the customer to the organization
you are working for.
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Marked for review
23. A prime contractor in a customer project under CPFF contract has run into unexpected technical
problems. Fixing them will require a lot of additional work to be done.
The company made a decision to book more staff and equipment from their subcontractors in order
to adhere to the agreed timeline. The customer agreed to this decision. What will most likely
happen?
The contractor‘s indirect costs will increase and the customer‘s payment for them will
increase, too.
The contractor‘s indirect costs will increase but the customer‘s payment for them will not
increase.
The contractor‘s indirect costs will not increase but the customer‘s payment for them will.
Neither the contractor's indirect costs nor the customer‘s payment for them will increase.
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Marked for review
24. A project management team is evaluating the causes that might contribute to unsatisfactory
performance and quality. Which of the following statements is not true?
Normal process variation is attributable to random causes and sometimes also called "white
noise".
Special causes are easier to predict and handle than random causes (also called common
causes).
Special causes are unusual events which are difficult to foresee and often produce outliers.
A process can be optimized to limit the bandwidth of variations due to random causes.
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Marked for review
25. You are performing a project management audit in your company and find that most of the project
plans are neither consistent nor up-to-date.
Projects should never be executed without a valid, updated and working project management
plan.
The consistency of the project management plan is secondary because it is only the results
that matter.
A great deal of effort is required to develop and update a project plan, but the benefits include
less pressure on all stakeholders and a resulting product that will satisfy the requirements.
Poor planning and insufficient updating of project management plans are common reasons for
cost and time overruns.
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26. You want to perform active risk acceptance. What should you do?
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27. A project manager made 3-point estimates on a critical path and found the following results:
Assuming ±3 Sigma precision level for each estimate, what is the standard deviation of the allover
path?
You can not derive the path standard deviation from the information given.
See references
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A measuring instrument solely used to describe process capability. The process is found
capable if the ±3 Sigma range is exceeded by not more than 0.3% of a tested sample lot.
The limits of the six Sigma area on either side of a control chart to plot measured values; data
found outside the area are out of specification and can lead to rejection of an entire batch.
The area consisting of typically three standard deviations on either side of a mean value of a
control chart to plot measured values found in statistical quality control
The area consisting of typically three standard deviations on either side of a mean value of a
control chart to plot measured values found in quality assurance
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31. Activity 1 has a duration of 20 days, Activity 2 of 10 days, Activity 3 of 5 days and Activity 4 of 6
days.
What is the minimum total duration between the Milestones A and B?
36 days
37 days
39 days
42 days
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Which tool and technique is used to Create WBS and Define activities?
32.
Decomposition
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33. Which of the following statement(s) regarding whistle-blowing is/are not true?
a. It is a term used to define an employee’s decision to disclose information on unethical, immoral or illegal actions
at work to an authority figure.
b. An employee should always discuss the matter with people external to the company before following the "chain
of command" and discuss it with the immediate superior.
c. The consequences of whistle-blowing are often extreme and include possible being branded as having bad
judgment, firing, civil action and imprisonment.
d. Carefully considered whistle-blowing can lead to the end of unethical business practices.
b, c
c, d
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Marked for review
Attribute sampling is the process of assessing whether results conform to specifications or not.
Prevention means keeping errors out of the process by applying actions before the process
starts changing its input.
Variables sampling means that the result is classified into one of the 3 categories:
Inspection is often mainly done to keep errors out of the hands of the customer instead of as
a means of process control.
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Marked for review
35. Which statement describes best why you should document assumptions?
Assumptions might prove to be wrong. Knowing which assumptions were incorrect allows
baseline adjustments in case of project crisis.
Assumption analysis is a valuable tool and technique to explore the validity of assumptions
during risk identification.
Assumptions limit the project management team's options for decision making because they
can not be controlled by the team.
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Prevention costs
Maintenance cost
Appraisal costs
Failure costs
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37. You have recently been assigned as a project manager to a new B-O-T (Build, Operate, Transfer)
capital project. Reviewing the initial documentation you found out that it has been calculated with a
very small margin during operations of its product for the shareholders. What should you do?
As you are not responsible for lifecycle costing, you don't have to worry about operation
profits. Focus on project costs from initiation through handover.
Ensure maximum profits by buying the best and cheapest items, components and modules -
potentially from a big number of different suppliers - and integrating them.
Create a realistic plan broken down to a sufficient level of detail. Perform all risk management
processes. Ensure real-time communications with all stakeholders.
Try to get a second project manager assigned to share decision making and accountability to
shareholders with the person.
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39. You are project manager in a global project with a team consisting of people from various countries.
What can you try to prevent misunderstandings due to cross-cultural differences?
Use all communication methods available that are suitable for the team and follow up in
writing when communicating verbally. Remember that cultural and individual diversity may
help project teams solving unforeseen problems during the course of the project.
When you are about to form a team for your project, keep in mind that some cultures are
developed, others are more primitive. Some have values, some not. You should consequently
avoid choosing members from countries with cultures that are not similar to your own.
Cultural dilemmas can prevent any project from being successful. They should therefore be
smoothed or suppressed so as to make sure that they cannot disrupt project work. Your effort
should concentrate on communication that can help reach that goal.
See references
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41. A change request in a project has been rejected some weeks ago. Yesterday, the project manager
found out that it nevertheless has been implemented by the team members, who knew of the
change request, but not of the rejection.
In order to avoid such a situation, Rejected change requests should be consistently communicated
to stakeholders through which process?
Report performance
Verify scope
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A warning sign that a previously identified risk might be occurring or has occurred
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43. According to the project plan, a contractor is scheduled to deliver some software components today
afternoon. A regular payment is due to be made to this contractor tomorrow.
You and your project team received a note this morning informing you that the software delivery
will be delayed by 2 weeks.
What should you do right now?
You should conduct a meeting with the contractor to resolve the delivery issues before making
the payment.
You should make the payment and reschedule the project plan.
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Marked for review
44. In a software company a large number of simultaneously performed projects utilize the same
groups of human and other resources.
Concurrent engineering
Resource over-allocation
Resource pooling
Program management
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46. You have used estimates made by your team members and applied the Critical path method to
compute a Network logic diagram for your project. Then you found out that it cannot be sufficiently
optimized for scarce resources and fast progress towards a given deadline. What should you do
next?
Apply resource leveling heuristics to uncritical activities only.
Remove physical constraints and replace hard logic with soft logic.
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47. Liquidated damages (LDs) are contractually agreed payments in order to...
...give the contractor an incentive to meet an aggressive schedule or challenging quality
objectives.
...penalize the contractor for late completion of a project or failure to meet specifications.
...cover the customer's costs caused by late completion or failure to meet specifications by the
contractor.
...make a bid or proposal binding for the offerer while the customer has time to select among
various bidders.
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49. You are assigned as the project manager to a project which had a one-time cost variance in the past
caused by unexpected rework which has meanwhile been finished.
You perform Earned Value Analysis and find the following results:
EAC = 550,000
EAC = 525,000
EAC = 500,000
EAC = 425,000
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50. An estimation has been made that the construction of a residential home will cost a certain amount
per square foot of living area. This is an example of what type of estimating?
Analogous estimating
Bottom-up estimating
Top-down estimating
Parametric modeling
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They are tangible and allow for early feedback on requirements by stakeholders.
Prototypes are mostly developed toward the end of a design or build phase.
A change request that helps improving the project and its product, service or result and is
discussed generally in a friendly style.
A direction by the buyer or an action taken by the seller that the other party considers an
undocumented change to the contract.
A field change or ad-hoc change mandated by the project customer in a public construction
project.
A change request which will lead to the re-construction of an older version of the project
performance baseline by the contractor.
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Marked for review
53. Which of the following is generally not regarded to be a motivator according to Frederick Herzberg?
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55. You are the project manager in an engineering project and have recently signed a contract with a
software vendor for the development of a complicated control solution. The software will be used to
control machinery equipment which your project team is currently developing. The contract is a
lump-sum contract. The contractor has target cost estimated which seem rather low to you. Which
of the following statements is not true for this situation?
It is the contractor's risk in this type of contract that their profit may vanish if costs have been
underestimated.
This form of contract should only be chosen when all the requirements for the building of the
product are well-known by all parties involved.
In a fixed-price contract, change requests can cause issues regarding additional time and
extra costs for the changes to be applied.
It is likely that your organization may have to assume any unexpected additional costs for the
software development.
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A review to determine whether of project activities comply with organizational and project policies,
processes, and procedures is commonly called
56.
Quality auditing
Inspection
Quality testing
Reject screening
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It allows one to easily identify the breakdown level of the item in the resource structure.
It describes the coding structure used by the performing organization to report financial
information in its general ledger.
See references
58. You are the manager of your company's project management office. The company is running many
concurrent projects; most of them share a resource pool of technical staff. Understanding how
resources are utilized across projects has been found essential to overall project performance,
including cost effectiveness and profitability.
This morning you received a message that the resource pool members will be unable to perform as
planned for the next months because the overall work load has grown too high and while delays are
adding up, the morale of the staff is going down.
What should you do next?
Ensure that quantitative information for all projects is being made available in a uniform and
reliable fashion and verify that the project management methodology is adhered to. Then
consolidate the information to get an understanding of the problems related with the use of
shared resources.
Implement an enterprise project management software solution which is able to level the
human resources across the various projects and which has the capability to model resource
assignment on a percentage level thus optimizing resource utilization for the overall
organization.
Do nothing related to the described problem unless you are explicitly requested by the
organizations upper management. Supporting decision making on the level on which project
portfolio management is done, is not the project management office's business.
Evaluate project management software which supports planning and scheduling across
enterprise-wide project portfolios. Avoid managing the availability of shared enterprise
resources for the projects run by an organization because this is not the business of a project
management office.
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You have been criticized that certain specifications in your Scope Statement do not pass the test for
SMART objectives. What are SMART objectives?
59.
Objectives specified in far more detail than necessary for a execution of a successful project.
Easily achievable objectives which help you reducing the pressure on yourself and the team.
Objectives that should be achieved in order to attain formal recognition by both the customer
and the project sponsor.
Objectives that are described using specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related
specifications.
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60. You have been assigned as a project manager to a software project. While you and your team are
working on a WBS (Work breakdown structure), estimations for activity durations based on the
activity list vary significantly. Which additional documents may help you clarify this situation?
Milestone list and scope baseline.
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After budget approval, an additional and unexpected cost item has been identified, which made the
project more expensive some weeks ago. The item has meanwhile been paid by the project team,
and it is expected that for the remaining duration of the project, costs will be as budgeted.
In this case, which is the best formula to calculate EaC (Estimate at Completion)?
EaC = BaC - CV
EaC = AC + BtC / CV
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62. During a company event, you had the opportunity to talk to a colleague project manager. He told
you that in his current project actual costs are 15% under cumulated costs budgeted for today.
The information given to you by the colleague is not sufficient to assess project performance.
The project will probably be completed with total costs remaining under budget until the end.
A significant cost increase during the further course of the project will probably bring the costs
back to baseline level.
Original cost forecasting and budgeting for the project must have been poor to allow this
variance.
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Marked for review
Project managers should visit their customers far more often than what is usual in order to
avoid misunderstandings and bad emotions.
International projects may have an increased need for traveling which can lead to additional
costs and troubles with time zones.
Committee decisions can have the paradox outcome, that a jointly made or approved decision
is not desired by any individual group member.
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The Project life cycle includes the time when the project is performed and the expected
product lifespan after that.
In project management, the sequence of project phases and phase gates is often referred to
as Project life cycle.
The Project life cycle is regarded as a sequence of project activities while phases are defined
to control overlapping activities.
The Project life cycle describes how iterations of project management processes are used
when a project schedule is developed.
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Which is an appropriate order in most project situations for the development of scope-related
documents?
65.
1. Project SOW (Statement of work),
2. Project charter, 3. Project scope management plan, 4. Project scope statement, 5. WBS
(Work breakdown structure) and WBS dictionary.
1. Feasibility study
3. Contract, 4. CWBS (Contractual work breakdown structure), 5. Scope of work descriptions,
6. PID (Project initiation document).
See references
A metaphoric description of the short term uncertainties that are present in every project.
The graph that describes the typical growth of earned value during the course of the project.
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An output of the Estimate activity resources process is a document called "Activity resource
requirements". It identifies the types and quantities of resources...
67.
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Marked for review
What is not the purpose of Configuration control when Configuration management is applied in a
project?
68.
Verification that the configuration identification for a configuration item is accurate, complete,
and will meet specified program needs.
Ensuring that proposed and approved changes to configuration items are fully analyzed.
Ensuring that proposed and approved changes to configuration items are fully documented.
Managing and controlling the frequently requested changes to a project by applying agreed
rules.
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Which statement describes best the meaning of the term Cost baseline?
69.
A cost baseline is always created by translating time-phased cost information into cost data on
activity or work-package level.
A cost baseline is an approved time-phased budget that will be used to measure and monitor
cost performance on the project.
Data to draw a cost baseline can be easily generated and updated as necessary from
information related to actual project cost.
A cost baseline is usually displayed in the form of an inverse S-curve drawn from the
beginning of the project until data date.
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70. Which is not true in regard of RoI (Return on Investment) for a project?
It defines the cumulated net income from an investment at a given point in time or during a
defined period.
It includes investment, direct and indirect costs and may include allowances for capital cost,
depreciation, risk of loss, and/or inflation.
A project sponsor requested Earned Value Data on two concurrent projects from the project
managers. Both projects are regarded as equally important and strategically beneficial and have
71. been finished by over 80%. He received the following information:
Project A: PV: $1,800,000 EV: $2,300,000 AC: $2,100,000Project B: PV: $2,000,000 EV:
$1,500,000 AC: $1,600,000The sponsor considers to shift some resources from Project A to
Project B to speed up the second project which is currently behind schedule. What is the most likely
outcome of such a measure?
Changing team assignments during late course of a project typically increases cost efficiency.
Changing team assignments during late course of a project typically increases time efficiency.
According to the Law of diminishing returns, the consolidated Cost variance of the two projects
will decrease.
According to the Law of diminishing returns, the consolidated Cost variance of the two projects
will increase.
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72. Which of the following statements describes best the relationship of quality and grade?
Low grade is always a problem; low quality may be overcome by a good rework and repair
process.
Grade is a category or rank given to entities having different functional requirements but the
same need for quality.
Both quality and grade can often be improved through intelligent measuring, testing and
examining.
Low quality is always a problem as it bears on the ability of an item to meet requirements; low
grade may sometimes be acceptable.
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Network templates which contain only portions of a network are often referred to as
73.
Subprojects
Programs
WBS items
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The time period needed to pay back the investment from a project when future income is
discounted.
The inherent discount rate or investment yield rate produced by the project over a pre-defined
period of time.
The rate of negative risk that can be accepted for a project without turning the Expected net
present value negative.
The expected benefit from a project’s deliverable calculated as a percentage of the original
investment over a specified time period.
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You just created the following network logic diagram to describe the planned flow of activities for
your project which will start tomorrow:
75.
Which potential inconsistency in the diagram should you solve right now?
Activity E is a logical dangle in relation to the sink before the finish milestone.
Activity F is a logical dangle in relation to the burst point after the start milestone.
You cannot calculate a critical path when lags and/or leads are calculated in percent.