A project may end on time but over budget or under budget but of lower quality than planned.
8. What does project failure mean? What are some examples? (Objective #4, Understanding, p. 16)
Project failure is not meeting all of the agreed-upon success criteria in the project plan. Serious project failure is when some of the success criteria are missed by a large amount and/or when several of the success criteria are missed by even a small margin. An example could be a project that is has to end prematurely due to being severely over budget or an IS project whose deliverable is unhelpful to the client.
9.Compare and contrast advantages and disadvantages of predictive/plan-driven and adaptive/change-driven project life cycle approaches. (Objective #5, Creating, pp. 7-10)
Predictive—more time spent upfront on planning; clear idea of scope early in project, more likely to change plan at later stages
Adaptive—allows for greater flexibility on unknown projects, may be harder for team to have common understanding of project early in life cycle, more easily changed.
10. You are given a project to manage. How do you decide whether to use a predictive or adaptive approach? (Objective #5, Applying, pp. 7-10)
First you need to get an idea of what the project requires. Is the deliverable(s) and process needed to achieve it/them easy or difficult to understand? In other words, how much certainty is there about your project scope? If its certainty is high because it is a small and/or routine project, predictive planning is probably the way to go. If there are lots of variables outside your control and/or a great deal of uncertainty, perhaps an adaptive approach is favorable.
11. Contrast project managers and functional managers. (Objective #6, Understanding, p. 7)
The project manager is normally directly accountable for the project results, schedule, and budget. This is the person who is the main communicator, who is responsible for the planning and execution of the project, and who has to be working on the project from start to finish. The project manager often must get things done through the power of influence since his or her formal power may be limited
Functional managers are the department heads – the ongoing managers of the organization. They will normally determine how the work of the project gets accomplished; often directly supervising that work and they are likely to negotiate with the project manager regarding which workers are assigned to the project.
12. List as many project roles as you can, and identify what each one is responsible for in terms of the project. (Objective #6, Remembering, pp. 17-20)
Core team members are ideally assigned to the project for its entire duration. They work with the project manager to make decisions, perform hands-on work, and sometimes supervise the work of subject matter experts.
Subject matter experts are brought onto the project when needed to perform specific activities. They are not normally involved in making project-wide decisions or in supervising the work of others.
A steering or leadership team for an organization is often the top leader (CEO or other) and his or her direct reports. The chief projects officer is the keeper, facilitator, and improver of the project management system. The sponsor has a financial stake in the project, charters the project, reviews project progress, is often part of the steering team, and often mentors the project manager.
The four project managerial level roles are the project manager, functional manager, facilitator, and senior customer representative. The project manager: is directly accountable for the project results, schedule, and budget; is the main communicator; and often must get things done through the power of influence since his or her formal power may be limited. The functional managers are department heads that determine how the work of the project gets accomplished; often supervise that work and often negotiate with the project manager regarding which workers are assigned to the project. A facilitator is sometimes assigned to complex or controversial projects to assist the project manager with the process of running meetings and making decisions. The senior customer representative ensures that the needs and wants of the various constituents in the customer’s organization are identified and prioritized and that project progress and decisions continually support the customer’s desires.
PMBOK ® Guide Questions
The purpose of these questions is to help visualize the type of questions on PMP and CAPM exams. The correct answer is shown and the page references from this book are shown below each question. Remember, this text is designed to help teach students how to plan and manage projects and it complements the PMBOK ® Guide which is designed to define the “what” of project management. Therefore, some of the questions have rather full answers in the text, others have rather full answers in the PMBOK ® Guide, and some have rather full answers in both. Each source has something useful for the student to understand about each question, but by design they are not identical.