You work as a lead project manager for a company that develops and produces healthcare devices. Recently, your team went through major organizational changes, which required resource shifts within project teams. One of your projects underwent a 50 percent change in team member assignments. June, a team member who remained on the project, seeks you out to show concerns regarding one of her new colleagues, who she feels does not have the technical aptitude to finish work assigned to him this iteration. You trust her judgment. What should you do regarding the new team member?

Which of the following measurements is the value of the work actually finished?

EV

Earned value (EV) is the value of the work that’s actually been completed. Planned value (PV) is the budgeted amount planned for work to be completed during a given time period, and actual cost (AC) is the cost of work completed during a given time period. EAC is a forecasting technique that is an estimate of the expected total cost of a work component.

Select the stage that A stakeholder’s influence is highest at what point of the project life cycle?

Initiating stages

Stakeholders have the greatest amount of influence during the early stages of a project’s life cycle.

To raise communication across ambiguous projects, a project manager approaching an Agile approach is likely to do what?

Communicate frequently

Projects that have high degrees of ambiguity and change require frequent and quick communication. Communicating frequently and transparently is a common characteristic of Agile approaches.

Which project should the selection committee pick and why?

Project A, because its IRR value is higher than Project B’s

Since payback period is the least precise cash flow analysis technique, IRR values have a higher priority in determining go or no-go project decisions.

Select the best description of the purpose of the change log?

It is used to document changes that occur during a project.

According to the PMBOK® Guide, the change log is a comprehensive list of changes submitted during the project and their current status. It captures corrective actions, preventive actions, or defect repair needed. The change log becomes a key document managed as part of the Perform Integrated Change Control process, where change requests are reviewed and a decision on the request is made.

You are instructing your organization through the adoption of an Agile approach and are also teaching project managers about servant leadership. A tenured project manager approaches you and requests how this will change his role and approach to operating the team. How should you react?

The emphasis will now be on coaching team members, distributing responsibility to the team, and fostering a collaborative environment.

When taking on a servant leadership approach, project managers shift to emphasize coaching those open to the help, fostering high collaboration across the team, aligning stakeholder needs, and encouraging the distribution of responsibility to the team.

Select the best descriptions of the role of a cross-functional team member within an Agile team?

Individuals who possess the skills necessary to produce a working product

There are three common roles used in Agile teams: cross-functional team member, product owner, and team facilitator.

During a conference with the team, you collaborate to prepare stories for the next iteration, with the intention of offering enough information about the stories for the team to understand what the stories are and determine sizing. In what activity are you involved?

Refining the backlog

The team is engaged in backlog refinement activities. This encompasses working with the team to prepare stories for the upcoming iteration. Stories should contain sufficient detail for the team to understand the scope of work and how large they are in relation to each other.

Select the output that isn’t belonging to the Manage Project Knowledge?

Deliverables

Deliverables are an input, not an output, of the Manage Project Knowledge process. The remaining options all represent outputs of the process.

Alyssa is a project manager tasked with managing an infrastructure project that will convene five call centers into one. To date, she has finished and received sign-off of the project charter and identified her stakeholders. Currently, she is in the process of defining and recording which processes and methodology she will practice to manage the project. What process is she displaying?

Develop Project Management Plan

Alyssa is performing the Develop Project Management Plan process. The purpose of this process is to define, prepare, and coordinate all plan components and consolidate them into an integrated project management plan. It is also at this critical point that a strategy for how the project will be managed is made.

This motivational theory claims that people will behave a certain way in case they think there will be a good reward for doing so.

Expectancy Theory

The Expectancy Theory was developed by Victor Vroom. He believed that the expectation of a positive outcome, in other words, individual values, drives motivation.

What technique are you practicing?

Life-cycle costing

The cost management technique used when evaluating various alternatives is called life-cycle costing. This technique considers acquisition, operating, and disposal costs.

Within Agile, an “I” shaped person reflect to what?

An individual who has deep specializations in one domain and rarely contributes outside of it

Within Agile there is a concept that describes the degree to which individuals can take on work, according to their depth and breadth. “I” shaped people are those who have deep specializations in one domain and rarely contribute to work outside of that domain; “T” shaped people are considered generalizing specialists who have expertise in an area but can also contribute to other areas.

You work as a project manager for SubZero Delights, a company that provides extraordinary experiences to travelers. Your latest project engaged the development of a smartphone app that automatically picks up a customer’s GPS coordinates to offer tailored resources and suggestions. You selected a hybrid approach with a goal of delivering results faster and maximizing the speed at which the team can produce. Which of the following technical practices can the team incorporate to acchieve this goal?

All of the above

There are several technical practices that can help teams deliver at maximum speed, several of which come from eXtreme Programming. Examples include continuous integration, test at all levels, acceptance test-driven development, test-driven development and behavior-driven development, and spikes.

Marysil recently accepted a new role as lead project manager within a well-established healthcare firm. Over the past three months she has worked hard to launch new concepts and styles into the environment. She approaches every situation by contemplating purpose, people, and process—in that order. What type of leadership style does Marysil obey?

Servant leadership

The servant leadership approach centers around empowering the team. A leader using this approach focuses on addressing the needs and development of team members to yield the greatest team performance possible. A servant leader approaches project work by clarifying or creating purpose (the “why”) for the project/work, focusing on people by encouraging an environment where all can be successful, and lastly, they focus on process by looking for results.