CAPM Exam Prep, PMI, PMBOK 6th Edition 1297 Questions with Verified Answers
360-degree appraisal - CORRECT ANSWER A performance review completed by a
... [Show More] person's peers, manager, and subordinates. It's called a 360-degree appraisal as it's a circle of reviews by people at different levels of an organization.
Acceptance - CORRECT ANSWER This is a response to a risk event, generally made when the probability of the event and/or impact are small. It is used when mitigation, transference, or avoidance are not selected.
Active listening - CORRECT ANSWER This occurs when the receiver confirms the message is being received by feedback, questions, prompts for clarity, and other signs of having received the message.
Activity attributes - CORRECT ANSWER Activities that special conditions, requirement, risks, and other conditions should be documented.
Activity cost estimates - CORRECT ANSWER The cost of resources including materials, services, and when warranted, labor should be estimated.
Activity list - CORRECT ANSWER A listing of all of the project activities required to complete each project phase or the entire project. This list is an input to the project network diagram.
Activity on node - CORRECT ANSWER A network diagramming approach that places the activities on a node in the project network diagram.
Activity sequencing - CORRECT ANSWER The process of mapping the project activities in the order in which the work should be completed.
Actual costs - CORRECT ANSWER The amount of funds the projects has spent to date. The difference between actual costs and earned value will reveal the cost variance.
Adjourning - CORRECT ANSWER The final stage of team development; once the project is done, the team moves onto other assignments either as a unit or the project team ream is disbanded and individual team members go onto other work.
Affinity diagram - CORRECT ANSWER Clusters like ideas together and allows for decomposition of ideas to compare and contrast project requirements.
Analogous estimating - CORRECT ANSWER This relies on historical information to predict estimates for current projects. Analogous estimating is also known as top=down estimating and is a form of expert judgment.
Application areas - CORRECT ANSWER The areas of discipline that a project may center upon. Consider technology, law, sales, marketing, and construction among many others.
Assumption log - CORRECT ANSWER A document that clearly identifies and tracks assumptions that are made in the project. All assumptions need to be tested for their validity and the outcome of the test should be recorded.
Autocratic - CORRECT ANSWER The project manager makes all of the decisions.
Avoidance - CORRECT ANSWER This is one response to a risk event. The risk is avoided by planning a different technique to remove the risk from the project.
Benchmarking - CORRECT ANSWER A process of using prior projects within or external to the performing organization to compare and set quality standards for processes and results.
Benefit measurement methods - CORRECT ANSWER Project selection methods that compare the benefits of projects to determine which project the organization should select for investment.
Benefit/cost analysis - CORRECT ANSWER The process of determining the pros and cons of any project, process, product, or activity.
Benefit/cost ratios - CORRECT ANSWER Shows the proportion of benefits to costs; for example 4:1 would equate to four benefits and just one cost.
Bid - CORRECT ANSWER A document from the seller to the buyer. Used when price is the determining factor in the decision-making process.
Bidder conferences - CORRECT ANSWER A meeting with prospective sellers to ensure all sellers have a clear understanding of the product or service to be procured. Bidder conferences allow sellers to query the buyer on the details of the product to help ensure that the proposal the seller creates is adequate and appropriate for the proposed agreement.
Bottom-up estimating - CORRECT ANSWER A technique where an estimate for each component in the WBS is developed and then totaled for an overall project budget. This is the longest method to complete, but it provides the most accurate estimate.
Brainstorming - CORRECT ANSWER The most common approach to risk identification; it is performed by a project team to identify the risks within the project. A multidisciplinary team, hosted by a project facilitator, can also perform brainstorming.
Budget at completion - CORRECT ANSWER The predicted budget for the project; what the project should cost when it is completed. Budget at completion represents 100 percent of the planned value for the project's completion.
Cause-and-effect diagrams - CORRECT ANSWER Used for root cause analysis of what factors are creating the risks within the project. The goal is to identify and treat the root of the problem, not the symptom.
Centralized contracting - CORRECT ANSWER All contracts for all projects need to be approved through a central contracting unit within the performing organization.
Change Control Board - CORRECT ANSWER A group of decision makers the review proposed project changes.
Change Control System - CORRECT ANSWER A predefined set of activities, forms, and procedures to entertain project change requests.
Change log - CORRECT ANSWER As changes to the project time, cost, or scope enter the project they should be recorded in the change log for future reference.
Change management plan - CORRECT ANSWER When changes are approved for a project, including time, cost, scope, or contract, then there needs to be a plan on how the project team will manage these new changes within the project.
Chart of accounts - CORRECT ANSWER A coding system used by the performing organization's accounting system to account for the project work.
Checklists - CORRECT ANSWER A listing of activities that workers check to ensure the work has been completed consistently; used in quality control.
Closing - CORRECT ANSWER The fifth of five project management process groups. It contains the processes responsible for closing a project, a project phase, or the procurement relationships.
Coercive power - CORRECT ANSWER The project manager uses fear and threats to manage the project team.
Collective bargaining agreements - CORRECT ANSWER These are contractual agreements initiated by employee groups, unions, or other labor organization; they may act as a constraint on the project.
Communications formula - CORRECT ANSWER The formula "N(N-1)/2" shows the number of communication channels in a project. N represents the total number of stakeholders.
Communications management plan - CORRECT ANSWER A plan that documents and organizes the stakeholder needs for communication. This plan covers the communications system, its documentation, the flow of communication, modalities of communication, schedules for communications, information retrieval, and any other stakeholder requirements for communications.
Composite structure - CORRECT ANSWER An organizational structure that uses a blend of the functional, matrix, or projectized organization to operate and manage projects.
Compromising - CORRECT ANSWER A conflict resolution method; this approach requires both parties to give up something. The decision ultimately made is a blend of both sides of the argument. Because neither party completely wins, it is considered a lose-lose solution.
Confidentiality - CORRECT ANSWER A project manager should keep certain aspects of a project confidential; consider contract negotiations, human resource issues, and trade secrets of the organization.
Configuration management - CORRECT ANSWER The control and documentation of the project's product features and functions.
Conflict of interest - CORRECT ANSWER A situation where the project manager could influence a decision for personal gain.
Constrained optimization methods - CORRECT ANSWER Complex mathematical models to determine the likelihood of a project's success. These models are used to determine which project an organization should choose for investment.
Constraints - CORRECT ANSWER Anything that limits the project manager's options; for example, time, cost, and scope are always project constraints.
Contingency reserve - CORRECT ANSWER A time or dollar amount allotted as a response to risk events that may occur within a project.
Continuous process improvement - CORRECT ANSWER A goal of quality assurance to improve the project's processes and deliverables; meshes with the project's Process Improvement Plan.
Contract - CORRECT ANSWER A legal, binding agreement, preferably written, between a buyer and seller detailing the requirements and obligations of both parties. Must include an offer, an acceptance, and a consideration.
Contract administration - CORRECT ANSWER The process of ensuring that the buyer and the seller both perform to the specifications within the contract.
Contract change control system - CORRECT ANSWER Defines the procedures for how contracts may be changed. Includes the paperwork, tracking, conditions, dispute resolution procedures, and the procedures for getting the changes approved within the performing organization.
Contract closeout - CORRECT ANSWER A process for confirming that the obligations of the contract were met as expected. The project manager, the customer, key stakeholder, and, in some instances, the seller complete the product verification together to confirm the contract has been completed.
Contract file - CORRECT ANSWER A complete indexed set of records of the procurement process incorporated into the administrative closure process. These records include financial information as well as information on the performance and acceptance of the procured work.
Control charts - CORRECT ANSWER These illustrate the performance of a project over time. They map the results of inspections against a chart. Control charts are typically used in projects or operations that have repetitive activities such as manufacturing, test series, or help desk functions. Upper and lower control limits indicate if values are within control or out of control.
Cost baseline - CORRECT ANSWER This shows what the project is expected to spend. It's usually shown in an S-curve and allows the project manager and management to predict when the project will be spending monies and over what duration. The purpose of the cost baseline is to measure and predict project performance.
Cost budgeting - CORRECT ANSWER A process of assigning a cost to an individual work package. This process shows costs over time. The cost budget results in an S-Curve that becomes the cost baseline for the project.
Coat change control - CORRECT ANSWER This is part of the Integrated Change Control System and documents the procedures to request, approve, and incorporate changes to project costs.
Cost control - CORRECT ANSWER An active process to control causes of cost change, to document cost changes, and to monitor cost fluctuations within the project. When changes occur, the cost baseline must be updated.
Cost estimating - CORRECT ANSWER The process of calculating the costs, by category, of the identified resources to complete the project work.
Cost management plan - CORRECT ANSWER Explains how variances to the costs of the project will be managed. The plan may be based on the range of acceptable variances and the expected response to variances over a given threshold.
Cost of conformance - CORRECT ANSWER The cost of completing the project work to satisfy the project scope and the expected level of quality. Examples include training, safety measures, and quality management activities. Also known as the cost of quality.
Cost of nonconformance - CORRECT ANSWER The cost of not completing the project with quality; includes wasted time for corrective actions, rework, wasted materials. This could mean loss of business, loss of sales, lawsuits. Also known as the cost of poor quality.
Cost performance index - CORRECT ANSWER The process of calculating the costs, by category, of the identified resources to complete the project work.
Cost plus award fee - CORRECT ANSWER The contract requires the buyer to pay for all the project costs and give the seller an award fee based on the project performance, meeting certain project criteria, or other goals established by the buyer. The award fee can be tied to any factor the buyer determines and the factor doesn't have to be exact.
Cost variance - CORRECT ANSWER The difference between the earned value and the actual costs.
Cost-reimbursable contracts - CORRECT ANSWER A contract that pays the seller for the product. In the payment to the seller, there is a profit margin the difference between the actual costs of the product and the sales amount.
Crashing - CORRECT ANSWER A duration compression technique that adds project resources to the project in an effort to reduce the amount of time allotted for effort-driven activities.
Critical chain method - CORRECT ANSWER A network diagramming approach that considers the availability or project resources and the project's promised end date to determine the critical path(s) in the project.
Critical path method - CORRECT ANSWER A network diagramming approach that identifies the project activities which cannot be delayed or the project completion date will be late.
Cultural norm - CORRECT ANSWER The accepted practices, culture, ideas, vision, and nature of an organization.
Culture shock - CORRECT ANSWER The initial reaction a person experiences when they're in a foreign environment.
Decision tree analysis - CORRECT ANSWER A type of analysis that determines which of two decisions is he best. The decision tree assists in calculating the value of the decision and determining which decision costs the least.
Decoder - CORRECT ANSWER The is a part of the communications model; it is the inverse of the encoder. If a message is encoded, a decoder translates it back to usable format.
Decomposition - CORRECT ANSWER The breakdown of the project scope statement into the project's work breakdown structure. The smallest item of the project's decomposition into the WBS is called the work package.
Deliverable - CORRECT ANSWER A thing that a project creates; projects generally create many deliverables as part of the project work.
Delphi techinque - CORRECT ANSWER A method to query experts anonymously on foreseeable risks within the project, phase, or component of the project. The results of the survey are analyzed and organized and then circulated to the experts. There can be several rounds of anonymous discussions with the Delphi technique. The goal is to gain consensus on project risks, and the anonymous nature of the process ensures that no one expert's advice overtly influences the opinion of another participant.
Democratic - CORRECT ANSWER The project team is involved in the decision-making process.
Design of experiments - CORRECT ANSWER This relies on statistical "what-if" scenarios to determine which variables within a project will results in the best outcome; it can also be used to eliminate a defect. The design of experiments approach is most often used on the product of the project, rather than the project itself.
Dictatorship - CORRECT ANSWER A group decision process where the person with the most power forced the decision even though the rest of the group may oppose the decision.
Direct costs - CORRECT ANSWER Costs incurred by the project in order for it to exist. Examples include equipment needed to complete the project work, salaries of the project team, and other expenses tied directly to the project's existence.
Discretionary dependencies - CORRECT ANSWER The order of the project activities do not have to completed in a particular order so they can be done in the order of the project manager or the project team's discretion.
Duration estimates - CORRECT ANSWER The prediction of how long the project work will take to complete.
Earned value - CORRECT ANSWER The value of the work that has been completed and the budget for that work: EV=%Complete X BAC.
Earned value management - CORRECT ANSWER Earned value management integrates scope, schedule, and cost to give an objective, scalable point-in-time assessment of the project. EVM calculates the performance of the project and compares current performance against plan. EVM can also be a harbinger of things to come. Results early in the project can predict the likelihood of the project's success or failure.
Effective listening - CORRECT ANSWER The receiver is involved in the listening experience by paying attention to visual clues by the speaker and to paralingual intentions and by asking relevant questions.
Encoder - CORRECT ANSWER Part of the communications model; the device or technology that packages the message to travel over the medium.
Enhance - CORRECT ANSWER To enhance a risk is to attempt to modify its probability to and/or its impacts to realize the most gains from the identified risk.
Estimate at completion - CORRECT ANSWER A hypothesis of what the total cost of the project will be. Before the project begins, the project manager completes an estimate for the project deliverables based on the WBS. As the project progresses, there will likely be some variances between what the cost estimate was and what the actual cost is. The EAC is calculated to predict what the new estimate at completion will be.
Estimate to complete - CORRECT ANSWER Represents how much more money is needed to complete the project work: ETC=EAC-AC
Estimating publications - CORRECT ANSWER Typically a commercial reference to help the project estimator confirm and predict the accuracy of estimates. If a project manager elects to use one of these commercial databases, the estimate should include a pointer to his document for future reference and verification.
Ethics - CORRECT ANSWER Describes the personal, cultural, and organizational interpretation of right and wrong; project managers are to operate ethically and fairly.
Ethnocentrism - CORRECT ANSWER Happens when individuals measure and compare a foreigner's actions against their own local culture. The locals typically believe their own culture is superior to the foreigner's culture.
Evaluation criteria - CORRECT ANSWER Use to rate and score proposals from sellers. In some instances, such as a bid or quote, the evaluation criterion is focused just on the price the seller offers. In other instances, such as a proposal, the evaluation criteria can be multiple values: experience, references, certifications, and more.
Exceptional - CORRECT ANSWER The project manager only pays attention to the top ten percent of the project performers and the bottom ten percent of the project team performers.
Executing - CORRECT ANSWER The project management process group that carries out the project management plan to create the project deliverables.
Expectancy theory - CORRECT ANSWER People will behave on the basis of what they expect as a result of their behavior. In other words, people will work in relation to the expected reward of the work.
Expert power - CORRECT ANSWER A type of power where the authority of the project manager comes from experience with the area that the project focuses on.
Exploit - CORRECT ANSWER The organization wants to ensure that the identified risk does happen to realize the positive impact associated with the risk event.
Facilitated workshops - CORRECT ANSWER A collection of stakeholders from around the organization that come together to analyze, discuss, and determine the project requirements.
Fast tracking - CORRECT ANSWER A schedule compression technique that allow phases to overlap in order to compress the schedule and finish the job faster. Fast tracking does increase project risk.
Feedback - CORRECT ANSWER Sender confirmation of the message by asking questions, requesting a response, or other confirmation signals.
Finish-to-finish - CORRECT ANSWER A relationship between project activities where the predecessor activities must finish before successor activities may finish.
Finish-to-start - CORRECT ANSWER A relationship between project activities where the predecessor activities must finish before the successor activities may start; this is the most common network diagramming relationship type.
Fixed costs - CORRECT ANSWER Costs that remain the same throughout the project.
Fixed price with economic price adjustment contracts - CORRECT ANSWER A contract for long-term projects that may span years to complete the project work. The contract does define a fixed price with caveats for special categories of price fluctuation.
Fixed-price contracts - CORRECT ANSWER Fixed-price contracts are also known as Firm-Fixed-Price and Lump-Sum contracts. These contracts have a pre-set price that the vendor is obligated to perform the work or provide materials for the agreed price.
Float - CORRECT ANSWER A generic term to describe the amount of time an activity may delay without delaying any successor activities start date.
Flowcharting - CORRECT ANSWER A chart that illustrates how the parts of a system occur in sequence.
FNET - CORRECT ANSWER A project constraint that requires an activity to finish no earlier than a specific date.
Focus groups - CORRECT ANSWER A conversation of stakeholders led by a moderator to elicit project requirements.
Force majeure - CORRECT ANSWER A powerful and unexpected event, such as a hurricane or other disaster.
Forcing - CORRECT ANSWER A conflict resolution method where one person dominates or forces their point of view or solution to a conflict.
Forecasting - CORRECT ANSWER An educated estimate of how long the project will take to complete. Can also refer to how much the project may cost to complete. [Show Less]