KPIT PM Competency Assessment

Question

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A project is being executed under a contract which has an incentive clause for early completion. Which of the following will be most helpful in realizing this opportunity?

Ask the team members to provide an optimistic and pessimistic estimate for each task.
Get more experienced team members to work on the project even if they cost more.
Analyze resource availability along with logical dependencies of the tasks to get a more reliable schedule.
Negotiate with the client to reduce the scope.

Question

2 of 58

An NGO is conceptualizing a project to improve availability of potable water in a remote region. Currently the local population has to suffer water shortages during the summer months. Under what circumstances should the project be accepted?

If the financial benefit of the water saved matches the investment required.
If the project is instrumental in saving the environment.
If it benefits the local population and is aligned with the NGO's mission.
If the cost of construction is less than the cost of scarcity.

Question

3 of 58

During a Sprint review meeting, one of the end user observes that a certain feature is implemented correctly, but if it is changed slightly, it would be far more useful to them. What should be done with this kind of feedback?

The feedback should be rejected because the feature is implemented correctly as per the original requirements.
Ask the end user to submit a change request and do an impact analysis.
Product owner should note the feedback and turn it into a user story to be prioritized.
The Sprint should be extended to accommodate the change, so that the feature is more useful to the customer.

Question

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As a best practice the Business Case needs to be evaluated using 1) Do Something 2) Do Minimum 3) Do Nothing options. Which option should be baselined to arrive at best decision?

Do Minimum.
Do Something.
Do Nothing.
It is up to the Decision Maker to choose.

Question

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A project had an initial investment of $100,000 and a forecast benefit of $20,000 in the first year, $30,000 in the second year and $60,000 in the third year. What is the payback period?

More than 3 years.
3 years.
Less than 3 years
2 years.

Question

6 of 58

During Earned Value Analysis the project Schedule Performance Index(SPI) is calculated as 0.78 and the CPI as 0.89. What is the best explanation for this result?

The critical path took longer and more hours to complete.
The project is in control.
There were more resources applied to complete the activities.
Schedule compression techniques were used.

Question

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An engineering company had a policy of creating annual maintenance contracts for all the critical equipment to prevent down time during critical phases of the project. How should it decide the maximum amount it should pay for these contracts?

By calling for competitive bids so that the lowest bidder can be selected.
By comparing with the expected cost of down time after analyzing the probability and impact.
It should be less than the purchase price of the equipment amortized over the useful life.
By assessing the risk tolerance level of the stakeholders.

Question

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Your customer’s IT process is experiencing substantial errors in dispatch and billing of finish goods. Your project provides input to customer’s billing process. Customer has not provisioned for revamping his dispatch and billing process. What should you do to convince the customer to provide budget for seamless performance of the entire system?

Provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis considering the benefits expected over system's useful life.
Consider the other activities planned during the year and balance the priorities.
Negotiate with the seller for extended credits to accommodate in the budget.
Perform a series of tests to make sure the system will deliver the results expected.

Question

9 of 58

An insurance company is initiating a project to develop a system for audits to meet a regulatory mandate that will come into force in the next financial year. Which of the following is the best set of methods to apply in order to secure authorization for the project?

Cost-benefit analysis, Feasibility studies.
Feasibility studies, Stakeholder buy-in.
Calculation of operational efficiency, Analysis of Regulatory needs.
Analysis of regulatory needs, Alternatives analysis.

Question

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Your project is ahead of schedule but overrunning the cost. What would be an appropriate action in such a scenario?

Continue as it indicates good performance.
Reduce the resources to balance cost and time.
Create a change request to modify the cost baseline.
Escalate this to senior management.

Question

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Having categorized stakeholders according to their power and interest, you wondered about how to engage stakeholders having low power and high interest. Which of the following could be the best approach?

No active engagement – but monitor their involvement.
Engage with them on a need basis and try to keep them satisfied.
Share information, seek their advice and try to engage them in the project activities.
Manage them very closely, setting up regular meetings to manage their expectations and keep them happy.

Question

12 of 58

Your customer has directly informed the team member to begin the work on new deliverables of next phase. He is a high value customer from organization’s perspective. As a project manager …

You will tell your team members that they should not talk to him directly in future.
Inform the customer that he should not directly talk to your team member.
Talk to the stakeholder and team member in private, and emphasize gently that the Integrated Change Control process should be followed.
Pretend to not know about the change and let it happen.

Question

13 of 58

The project manager has completed the project network diagrams and critical path analysis. He is reviewing the calculations again before starting the schedule network analysis. An activity in the network diagram has an Early Start = 4, Late Start = 14 and Early Finish = 12 , Late Finish = 22. What is true regarding this activity?

It is on the critical path.
The activity is progressing well.
The activity has a lag.
The activity is not on the critical path.

Question

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You have closed a project with a delay of 4 months. What would be the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) after the project is closed?

0.25
1
-0.25
The data is insufficient.

Question

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Your project is in Execution phase. Your project sponsor (from customer organization) is from Manufacturing department. Due to restructuring initiative in customer organization, your new sponsor will be from IT department. What should you do?

Organize a meeting with the Sponsor to check if he has any queries or asks for changes.
Do nothing. Since project governance is a role based approach and not an individual driven approach.
Organize a meeting to assess whether project mission/objectives are changed by the customer.
Revise requirements by mapping new sponsor's expectations etc.

Question

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A team member is assigned to a project by a Resource Manager. It is observed that the resource has the necessary skills and knowledge but not performing upto the standard. What can be done in this situation?

Send the team member for soft skills training.
Replace the team member with a more motivated individual.
Check if the project job descriptions provide enough clarity to the team members.
Ask line manager to counsel the team member about her performance.

Question

17 of 58

Which of the following BEST explains how can you improve the value delivered to the customer?

By offering more features that deliver maximum benefits to the customer.
By reducing the cost of quality.
By offering higher benefits or by reducing the cost of delivering them.
By maximizing benefits and reducing risk.

Question

18 of 58

A Scrum team has failed to meet its Sprint commitments. The primary cause was a wrong design decision taken by two of the members assigned to a core story. As a Scrum Master, what should be your approach during the Sprint retrospective?

Bring up the topic for discussion and ensure that the accountability is assigned.
Suggest to the team that a design review process is needed to ensure this does not happen in future.
Entrust the team to discuss the issue and come up with suitable improvement actions.
Ensure that burn-down chart is reviewed during the Stand-up meeting and corrective actions taken.

Question

19 of 58

A project is behind schedule and under budget. Which of the following scenarios might cause this to happen?

The team used more experienced team members hoping to finish tasks early.
The team over invested in tools resulting in a schedule slippage.
The team overlapped the activities to gain time, but this resulted in increased cost.
There was a delay in assigning and deploying some of the resources on the project.

Question

20 of 58

Due to financial constraints your management has requested that you reduce the budget for the project by 5%.What will this probably mean for your project?

If the budget is cut by 5%, then the project will have an accompanying degradation of quality by 5%.
Reduction in budget must be accompanied by a trade-off in either time or quality.
A 5% reduction in budget will be accompanied by trade-off in scope and time.
Most projects have "padded" estimates, and the budgetary reduction will force out the padding.

Question

21 of 58

An organization is working on Project A for 2 years. With the change in technology recently a new project B is being evaluated to deliver a similar solution. A sum of $500,000 has been invested in Project A already and another $390,000 are needed to complete it. Project B needs $450,000. Only one project can be chosen. How should the decision be made?

Compare future pay-off of Project A against total investment of $890,000 and Project B's $500,000.
Compare future pay-off for Project A and Project B's for the additional $390,000 that is demanded.
Choose Project A since the organization is already invested in it.
Try both for some time before making a decision.

Question

22 of 58

A project manager is wondering what is the best way to report on the project status. Some of the options being considered are: Emailed documents, Web based dashboard with link circulated to all, Formal meeting to share information, etc. How should the decision be made?

Depending upon the Communication management strategy.
Depending upon the technical expertise of the team.
Depending upon the ease of compilation of the information.
Based on the project manager's past experience.

Question

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Midway through the project during analysis you find that schedule needs to be compressed. Which activity can you consider crashing?

Activity 'A' on critical path that costs $3000.
Activity 'B' on critical path that costs $700.
Activity 'D' which is closer to end date and on critical path and costs $1500.
Activity 'J' which is closer to end date but not on critical path and costs $300.

Question

24 of 58

During product development, one of the team members suggested an idea that would improve ease of use of the application. The cost of development would be negligible. What should be the next step?

Raise a change request after quick analysis to ensure there are no adverse impacts.
Go ahead with the change and document the change with instructions.
Avoid doing anything at this point as it might affect project time line.
Since cost impact is negligible , go ahead and incorporate the idea.

Question

25 of 58

Stories A and B both deliver similar value but A is a bit more risky to implement than B. Stories C and D have lower value than A and B but C is low risk whereas D is high risk. Which story should be implemented first in a time-boxed release?

Story-A
Story-B
Story-C
Story-D

Question

26 of 58

A product created by the project is ready for deployment. During the transition process, the Manager of the operations team suggested some extra expenditure that would greatly improve the service experience and drive future sales. What should be the approach?

Grant the request only if the project or Program level contingency reserve can cover the additional spend.
Create a change request and work with the project and operations manager to quickly put together a business case.
Close the project that created a product, but raise a request for a new project.
Pass on the suggestion to the operations team which is taking over the product and let them decide.

Question

27 of 58

A project is highly research oriented and there is no clarity about the goal or the proposed solution. What is the best approach for the project manager?

Consult the experts who have worked in similar projects before.
Adopt rapid prototyping or iterative methods to gain clarity through progressive elaboration.
Avoid working on the project and pick something with greater clarity.
Ask the customer to provide detailed requirements before starting work.

Question

28 of 58

Your project operates within cross-organizational reporting framework. Since resources are from different verticals and have no direct reporting relationship with you. What would be the biggest challenge for you in this situation?

Getting a clear scope definition for the project, working with the respective functions.
Getting executive buy-in for the Project.
Getting the necessary resources assigned to the project.
Managing integration and interfaces to create project organization.

Question

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A project has well defined scope with a minimum risk of major changes from the customer. Which type of contract is most preferred in this scenario?

Fixed Price.
Cost Reimbursable.
Time and Material.
Whatever customer suggests.

Question

30 of 58

The team member knows that one milestone has been delayed, but the monthly report to the customer shows zero schedule variance. Which one of the following is not being reported correctly?

Cost overrun.
Critical path analysis and status.
Risk status.
Trend analysis.

Question

31 of 58

According to you which of the following would help your organization to get repeat business after closing the project?

Low price of the project and low operational cost.
Good relations with customer and happy customer staff who would recommend to work with your company.
The project's fitness for use with its product confirming to meet agreed requirements.
Efficiency of the project and effective after project service.

Question

32 of 58

There is a high degree of risk in your project about the customer’s approach. His influence is likely to be very high throughout the project. In order to manage this risk, you will …

Highlight the assumptions to the customer.
Highlight the constraints to the customer.
Highlight the project exclusions to the customer.
Highlight the assumptions and constraints to the customer.

Question

33 of 58

Your customer is always keen on driving his point of view during project meetings. The project needs a change and there is a disagreement about the solution between you and the customer. You would resolve this conflict in favor of…

Customer.
Your organization.
Project objectives.
Sponsor.

Question

34 of 58

During project execution it is advisable that…

All team members should communicate with each other for better planning.
Only those who are concerned with deliverables should communicate with each other.
Only Project Manager should communicate with team to issue directions.
Communication Plan should be tailored according to type of project and the phase.

Question

35 of 58

Administrative closure of project is complete and it is handed over to operations. The customer has suggested some minor changes to improve the efficiency in operations. This will be treated as…

A new project.
A change request.
An operational correction.
No formal process required since it is a minor change.

Question

36 of 58

During project execution, you see an opportunity of saving 80,000 USD by using different technology which is not mentioned in project scope. This is…

A risk.
An issue.
A workaround.
Profit.

Question

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A team is trying to define the scope of Value Stream Analysis (A value stream is the set of actions that take palce to add value to a customer from initial request through realization of value). The most appropriate approach would be to consider it…

From requirements definition to release.
From vision to release.
From vision to customer deployment.
From design to test complete.

Question

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Review of any of the following could trigger a need for resource leveling, EXCEPT…

Resource calendar.
Fast Tracking.
RAM.
Resource breakdown structure.

Question

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Project scope means …

Same as statement of work (SOW).
Contract SOW.
Requirement document.
None of the given options.

Question

40 of 58

A project team is tasked to develop an innovative design using multiple technology platforms. The team is in brainstorming session to come up with a candidate list of features. Which of the following would NOT be a good idea during this meeting?

The facilitator should steer the conversation towards the topic when it tends to go off-track.
The team should analyze each idea and weigh the pros and cons to come up with a shortlist.
The facilitator should encourage lateral thinking, often throwing wild ideas just to trigger thought.
The team should build on each other's ideas and not criticize any idea.

Question

41 of 58

During penultimate review of the project, your team leader reports that the project is well ahead of schedule and there is some costs saving. This is…

A risk.
An issue.
This is a good performance, hence nothing to worry.
Can't say.

Question

42 of 58

You are in the midst of planning the project. You have tasked one of the team members to provide duration and dependencies of activities related to his deliverables. The team member has promptly submitted the bar chart with all details. This is…

This is incorrect application of Bar Charts.
This is correct application of Bar Charts.
Team members are less experienced to provide accurate duration and dependencies.
None of the above.

Question

43 of 58

As a project manager, you manage multiple projects. One of your projects is over budget while the other is under budget. You decide to transfer money from the latter to the former and report both projects as within budget. This is called…

Cost leveling.
Cost balancing.
Cost budgeting.
This is not a correct practice.

Question

44 of 58

During project review meetings you observed that your stakeholders tend to deviate the discussions from agreed agenda. In order to keep focus on the meeting agenda, you would…

Do proactive talking.
Do Active listening.
Use power point presentations to maintain their focus.
Circulate meeting agenda before the meeting.

Question

45 of 58

Your project site is located in a politically sensitive area where local population is a negative stakeholder to the project. In order to handle this risk you will…

Plan for contingencies.
Plan for mitigation.
Accept the risk.
Leave it to senior management to handle.

Question

46 of 58

During execution of the project, your customer points a mistake in execution which will lead to rework. The cost baseline is agreed between your company and customer’s company. In order to execute the rework you would …

Update the cost baseline.
Since it is a mistake, absorb the cost.
Create a change request to modify the cost baseline.
Use contingency reserves to cover the rework expenses.

Question

47 of 58

During execution you realize that a minor modification in scope in your project will save good amount of money for your company. This modification is not affecting the customer’s expectation. As a project manager you would…

Modify the scope since it is an opportunity to increase profitability.
Modify the scope since it is not affecting customer expectations.
Follow the scope document as agreed in the contract.
Follow the change control process to modify the scope.

Question

48 of 58

Influencing ability of the stakeholders on a project is…

Lowest in the beginning.
Highest in the middle of project.
Lowest at the end.
Always high throughout the project.

Question

49 of 58

During the final stages of IT product development, one of the Steering Committee members suggested that the test and pre-launch marketing should also be managed under the Program. The marketing project is outsourced under different budget. As a Program Manager how should you respond?

Do not merge the activities with the Program as it will dilute focus on core activities.
It would be logical to include Marketing as one of the projects within the Program.
Merge only if all the activities can be centralized under one organization.
Leave the decision with the Program Steering Committee.

Question

50 of 58

The most beneficial role for the Program Manager in Change Management activities at Program level is:

To initiate changes that enhance the ability to achieve the overall Program goal.
To ensure that the process is defined and followed.
To escalate the change requests to the Program Steering Committee.
To prevent changes as far as possible to avoid disruption to the Plan.

Question

51 of 58

All the components of the Program have been closed, the lessons learned were documented and formal sign-offs on the deliverables were received. Which of the following is the most important additional step that needs to be performed for the Program to be formally closed?

Formal acceptance is required not just on the deliverables, but also the benefits delivered.
Provision has to be made/advised to the end users for the transition and sustenance of the benefits.
The skill sets of the team members need to be updated in the resource database.
The payments for the vendors need to be released.

Question

52 of 58

Project A is part of a Program. During risk identification and response planning, the Project Manager had identified a risk, for which the response plan was identified as “Accept”. The risk event has actually occurred, causing a cost increase of 300,000 USD. How should this be handled within the Program?

The contingency reserves of Project A should be used.
The contingency reserves of the overall Program should be used.
The management reserves of project A should be used.
The Project Manager and Program Manager should approach the Sponsor for additional funding.

Question

53 of 58

The most important reason of higher level of uncertainty within a Program as compared to project is…..

Because the duration of a Program is typically longer than individual projects.
Due to the greater number of stakeholders and their differing expectations.
Because uncertainty in a Program is the sum total of the uncertainty of all its component projects.
That the Program's approach needs to be flexible to optimize its pursuit of overall Program goals.

Question

54 of 58

The CIO of a large finance organization recommended CMMi practices for their IT support. The board has approved this recommendation but remains skeptical about the business value of this exercise. Which of the following would BEST help you as a Program Manager and the CIO (who is also the Program Sponsor) keep the Board members engaged in the Program?

Send them regular updates about the processes put in place, tools implemented and how it has helped to streamline the operations of the Internal IT.
Track and report on the percent of outsourcing used by the IT organization before and after the Program was put in place.
Achieve early wins and report on accrual of benefits to the business as a result of increased process compliance.
Invite the Board to a gala event every quarter where the achievements of the Program are showcased.

Question

55 of 58

One of the projects in your Program may undergo a drastic change in scope and cost due to change in regulations. In order to make a Go/ No Go decision for this project you would…

Refer the project specific business case to make the decisions.
Refer the Program Benefits Realization Plan to make the decisions.
Go ahead with the change since it is mandated by regulation.
Call the meeting of the Sponsor along with Project Manager to help you arrive at the decision.

Question

56 of 58

You are appointed as a Program Manager to oversee an ambitious product development initiative in an organization. The products envisaged and the technology as well as domain is new to the organization. In the initiation of the Program, what should be the most important concern for you?

Finding the right team for the Program office to help it manage the Program.
Developing a water tight business case considering the market space and the benefits forecast.
Developing an elevating and purposeful mission statement for the Program.
Establishing the feasibility, Developing Future State and assessing the capability of the organization to execute it.

Question

57 of 58

Which of the following is a good practice regarding resource management for a Program and its components?

Human resources should ideally be managed by the projects, whereas other resources like budgets and finances should be managed by the Program.
The Program should own all the resources and merely allocated to the projects for specific periods.
Resource management is based on the expense thresholds.Cheaper resources should be managed by projects and more expensive ones at the Program level.
Shared resources should belong to a central resource pool and are better managed at the Program level whereas dedicated resources can be managed by projects.

Question

58 of 58

At a Program review, many Project Managers pointed out that it is very difficult to coordinate work because of strong functional loyalties which cause friction between the teams. For instance, the engineering and the testing teams are constantly at loggerheads because of conflicting goals. What would you do as Program Manager?

Ask the Project Managers to use techniques like influencing without authority – as the organizational structure cannot be altered very easily.
Define the Program organization in order to override functional policies.
Make a proposal that the organization be changed to a projectized structure to better align the resources along project and Program work.
Ask for an increase in the contingency buffers on cost and time to account for delays and escalations due to the conflicts.