together.
signing the charter. A project charter is typically approved and signed by the sponsor. Some projects are approved by key stakeholders, but they are never approved by project managers (since the project manager is only granted authority once the project is signed) or team members.
125. Answer: B
Contract Administration is the Monitoring & Controlling process for Procurement Management. It’s when you run into a change that has to be made to a specific contract. The key here is that it’s only about one specific contract - every contract has its own way of dealing with changes, which is why you consult the Contract Management Plan (which deals with just that one contract), and not the Procurement Management Plan (which deals with the entire Procurement Management area.)
126. Answer: A
If you discover that someone claims to have the PMP credential but is not actually certified, you must contact PMI immediately so that they can take action.
127. Answer: B
You may get a question on the exam that asks what to do when you encounter a change. You always begin dealing with change by consulting the project management plan.
128. Answer: B
Sometimes you’ll find that some risks have obviously low probability and impact, so you won’t put them in your register. Instead, you can add them to a watchlist, which is just a list of risks that you don’t want to forget about, but you don’t need to track as closely. You’ll check your watchlist from time to time to keep an eye on things.
129. Answer: C
Every project, regardless of what is being produced or who is doing the work, is affected by the triple constraint of time, scope, and cost. Any time you make a change to one or more of these constraints, it can also affect the other two - and the change can also affect quality, which is NOT one of the constraints. That’s why you need to pay attention to all three constraints if you want your project to do well.
Chapter 15 130. Answer: C
When you’re looking at CPI and SPI numbers, remember: lower = loser. If your CPI is below 1.0, then your project is over its budget. If the SPI is below 1.0, then the project is behind schedule.
In this case, the project is ahead of schedule, since its SPI is above 1.0. But it’s over its budget, because it’s got a CPI that’s below 1.0.
131. Answer: B
The key to a good bonus system is that it must be achievable and motivate everyone in the team to work toward it. If you are only rewarding one team member or a few people in the group, the rest of the team will not be motivated. Also, making the goals too aggressive can actually de-motivate people.
132. Answer: A
The formula for lines of communication is n x (n-1) / 2. So the answer to this one is (17 x 16) / 2
= 136
133. Answer: A
There are two kinds of project selection methods. Benefit measurement models, or comparative methods, are used to compare the benefits and features of projects. Mathematical models use complex formulas to determine which project has the most value to the company. You should get familiar with some of the more common comparative approaches to project selection, like murder boards, benefit-to-cost ratios and peer reviews.
134. Answer: D
If you find out that someone is cheating on the PMP exam by distributing questions that are on it, you must report that person to PMI immediately. If that person is a PMP certified project manager, he or she will be stripped of his certification.
135. Answer: B
The project sponsor is the person (or people) that pays for the project. Sometimes this means the sponsor directly provides funding; other times, it means the sponsor is the person who signs
the organizational approval to assign resources. Either way, you can usually tell who the sponsor is by finding the person who can approve or deny the budget.
136. Answer: C
An important part of any project manager’s career is enhancing personal professional competence.
This means increasing your knowledge and applying it so that you can improve your ability to manage projects.
137. Answer: A
The configuration management system is there to be sure that everybody on the team has the most updated version of all of the project documents. Whenever a project document is changed, it is checked into the Configuration Management System so that everyone knows where to go to get the right one.
138. Answer: C
Project managers must have a “zero tolerance” policy on racist remarks, or any other cultural insensitivity. If there is an incident involving racism, sexism or any other kind of discrimination, your top priority is to correct that. Every company has a policy that guides how you handle this kind of situation, so a question involving racism will usually involve the company’s policy or HR department.
139. Answer: B
An important part of making sure that your project goes well is keeping an eye on the work, and that’s what the Monitor & Control Project work process is for. It’s where you constantly evaluate the work being done, and any time you see a problem you recommend changes, defect repairs and preventive and corrective actions.
140. Answer: D
Pareto charts plot out the frequency of defects and sort them in descending order. The right axis on the chart shows the cumulative percentage. This helps you figure out which root cause is responsible for the largest number of defects. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of defects are caused by 20% of the root causes you can identify. So if you do something about that small number of causes, you can have a big impact on your project.