Deck 9: Project Management

Question 1

Asian cultures tend to embrace project management's methodical approach more than western cultures.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

A unique, one-time operational activity or effort is referred to as a process.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Issues of cultural diversity in project management should only be addressed if and when they arise.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Management and control of a companywide portfolio of projects is known as enterprise project management.

Question 5

The three primary elements of project management include planning, scheduling, and costing.

Question 6

Global projects are rarely concerned with cultural differences among team members because English is the universal business language.

Question 7

Control, one of the basic elements of a project plan, involves a set of procedures for monitoring and evaluating progress and performance.

Question 8

Project scheduling is recognized as the most critical element in the project management process.

Question 9

A work breakdown structure provides a common understanding of and justification for a project.

Question 10

In general, projects are subject to less uncertainty than other types of processes.

Question 11

Enterprise project management refers to the management and control of a large, complex project.

Question 12

Earned value analysis reports a project's performance by tracking its forecasted completion date and anticipated budget variations.

Question 13

A typical project team is cross-functional consisting of members throughout an organization.

Question 14

Project control involves monitoring a project and measuring its progress toward a successful completion.

Question 15

Managing quality is not an important part of project management.

Question 16

The upper level of a work breakdown structure for a project highlights summary activities and/or major components.

Question 17

The principles of total quality management (TQM) cannot be applied to project management.

Question 18

Project scope, one of the basic elements of a project plan, involves a set of procedures for anticipating and assessing uncertainties that might increase the risk of delaying the project.

Question 19

A Gantt chart provides a visual display of the project schedule that includes scheduled start times, finish times, and available slack.

Question 20

Two key elements of project control are time management and cost management.

Question 21

The critical path is the longest path through the project's network.

Question 22

The project management process encompasses

A) planning.
B) scheduling.
C) control.
D) All of these answer choices are correct.

Question 23

Unlike PERT, CPM incorporates probabilistic time estimates into the project management process.

Question 24

With an activity-on-node (AON) network diagram, the nodes indicate the precedence relationships and the arrows represent the project's activities.

Question 25

The _______________ is a document that provides a common understanding, justification, and expected result for a project.

A) statement of work
B) work breakdown structure
C) scope statement
D) responsibility assignment matrix

Question 26

A dummy variable is an activity inserted into the AOA network diagram to show a precedence relationship, but does not represent any passage of time.

Question 27

A project's duration can be reduced by crashing activities on the critical path.

Question 28

Microsoft Project is a software package that supports CPM/PERT analysis.

Question 29

Which of the following is not a basic element in a project plan?

A) Objectives
B) Personnel
C) Contract requirements
D) All of these answer choices are correct.

Question 30

Indirect costs always increase as a project's duration increases.

Question 31

PERT stands for program enterprise and resource technique.

Question 32

The earliest start time for the first activity in a project is generally at time zero.

Question 33

In general, crashing costs decrease as a project's duration is systematically reduced to a target value.

Question 34

A(n) ______________ breaks down a project into components, subcomponents, activities, and tasks.

A) work breakdown structure (WBS)
B) scope statement
C) responsibility assignment matrix (RAM)
D) organizational breakdown structure (OBS)

Question 35

Because the critical path is the shortest path through a network it defines the project completion time.

Question 36

Crashing activates with positive slack reduces a project's duration.

Question 37

Which of the following is not a general characteristic of a project?

A) a project has a unique purpose
B) a project has more certainty
C) a project has more uncertainty
D) a project often draws resources from various areas in the organization

Question 38

Slack represents the amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project completion time.

Question 39

Activities that are not on a project's critical path have zero slack.

Question 40

A(n) _______________ is a project team structure that includes members from different functional areas.

A) matrix organization
B) project network
C) organizational breakdown structure
D) work breakdown structure

Question 41

The single most important criterion for the success of many projects is that

A) it be finished on time.
B) the quality meet minimum standards.
C) the costs are minimized.
D) None of these answer choices is correct.

Question 42

Which of the following is one of the oldest and most widely used scheduling technique?

A) PERT
B) CPM
C) Gannt
D) Microsoft Project

Question 43

Which of the following is not one of the basic steps involved in developing a schedule?

A) define the activities
B) sequence the activities
C) estimate the time required to complete each activity
D) identify the project cost

Question 44

A bar graph displaying when activities are scheduled to start, when they will be finished, and where extra time is available is known as a

A) PERT chart.
B) work breakdown structure (WBS).
C) Gantt chart.
D) responsibility assignment matrix (RAM).

Question 45

The longest path through a project network is referred to as the

A) activity-on-node path.
B) path of greatest slack.
C) critical path.
D) noncritical path.

Question 46

________________ is the process of making sure a project progresses to a successful completion.

A) Project planning
B) Project scheduling
C) Project control
D) None of these answer choices is correct.

Question 47

Which area of the world takes a lot of holidays potentially impacting project schedules?

A) Asia.
B) Southern Europe
C) North America
D) None of these answer choices is correct.

Question 48

In general, the earliest finish time for an activity is equal to

A) earliest start time + activity time estimate.
B) earliest start time - activity time estimate.
C) earliest start time - slack time.
D) earliest start time + slack time.

Question 49

In general, the latest finish time for an activity is equal to

A) latest finish time minus the activity time estimate.
B) the minimum of the latest start times for the activities that immediately follow.
C) the maximum of the latest start times for the activities that immediately follow.
D) the average of the latest start times for the activities that immediately follow.

Question 50

One disadvantage of Gantt charts, especially for large projects, is that it does not

A) clearly show precedence relationships.
B) indicate activity start times.
C) indicate activity finish times.
D) use bars to represent activities.

Question 51

_______________ relationship is the sequential relationship of project activities to each other.

A) Precedence
B) Scheduling
C) Slack
D) Prior

Question 52

Which of the following is the universal business language most often utilized when managing global projects?

A) French
B) Spanish
C) English
D) Chinese

Question 53

Which of the following is not used to calculate probabilistic time estimates? a) optimistic
B) most likely
C) least likely
D) pessimistic

Question 54

Which area of the world employs a more methodically approach to business that values patience and relationship building?

A) Asia.
B) Southern Europe
C) North America
D) None of these answer choices is correct.

Question 55

Diversity among project team members brings different

A) views.
B) experiences.
C) values.
D) All of these answer choices are correct.

Question 56

In project management the term slack refers to the amount of time

A) to complete an activity without delaying the project.
B) an activity can be delayed without delaying the project.
C) needed to complete the entire project.
D) required to complete the project's critical activities.

Question 57

The key elements of project control includes all the following except

A) time management.
B) cost management.
C) material management.
D) communication.

Question 58

For an activity-on-node (AON) network,

A) arrows represent activities and nodes represent events.
B) nodes represent activities and arrows indicate precedence relationships.
C) arrows represent events and nodes indicate precedence relationships.
D) nodes indicate precedence relationships and arrows indicates the length of the activity time.

Question 59

A standard procedure for numerically measuring a project's progress is referred to as

A) program evaluation and review technique (PERT).
B) critical path method (CPM).
C) Gantt chart.
D) earned value analysis.

Question 60

Project managers must address cultural diversity in

A) project planning
B) project scheduling.
C) project control.
D) None of these answer choices is correct.

Question 61

A project consists of the following activities:
Table XX
Using Table XX, the amount of slack associated with activity C is

A) 0 weeks.
B) 3 weeks.
C) 6 weeks.
D) None of these answer choices is correct.

Question 62

The _______________ probability distribution is typically used to describe uncertain activity times in a project.

A) beta
B) normal
C) binomial
D) exponential

Question 63

The estimated mean time for an activity with a most likely time (m) equal to 12 weeks, an optimistic time (a) equal to 9 weeks, and a pessimistic time (b) equal to 18 weeks is

A) 13.0 weeks.
B) 12.75 weeks.
C) 12.5 weeks.
D) 9.0 weeks.

Question 64

A project consists of the following activities:
Table XX
Using Table XX, the earliest start time for activity F is

A) 30 weeks.
B) 20 weeks.
C) 14 weeks.
D) 13 weeks.

Question 65

The estimated mean time for an activity with a most likely time (m) equal to 11 days, the optimistic time (a) equal to 6 days, and the pessimistic time (b) equal to 18 days is

A) 9.67 days.
B) 11 days.
C) 11.33 days.
D) 11.67 days.

Question 66

A project consists of the following activities:
Table XX
Using Table XX, the earliest finish (EF) time for activity D is

A) 7 weeks.
B) 13 weeks.
C) 20 weeks.
D) 30 weeks.

Question 67

The estimated variance for an activity with a most likely time (m) equal to 11 days, the optimistic time (a) equal to 6 days , and the pessimistic time (b) equal to 18 days is

A) 2 days.
B) 4 days.
C) 6 days.
D) 11 days.

Question 68

For activities on a project's critical path,

A) earliest start time (ES) equals latest start time (LS).
B) earliest start time (ES)is greater than latest start time (LS).
C) earliest start time (ES) is less than latest start time (LS).
D) earliest start time (ES) equals latest finish time (LF).

Question 69

A project consists of the following four activities with activity times in days:
Table YY
Using Table YY, the earliest finish (EF) time for activity C is

A) 4 days.
B) 6 days.
C) 10 days.
D) 11 days.

Question 70

A project consists of the following activities:
Table XX
Using Table XX, the latest start (LS) time for activity B is

A) 5 weeks.
B) 8 weeks.
C) 13 weeks.
D) 14 weeks.

Question 71

The slack time for an activity can be computed as

A) latest start time (LS) - latest finish time (LF).
B) earliest start time (ES) + earliest finish time (EF).
C) latest start time (LS) - earliest start time (ES).
D) latest finish time (LF) + earliest finish time (EF).

Question 72

A project consists of the following four activities with activity times in days:
Table YY
Using Table YY, the latest start (LS) time for activity D is

A) 8 days.
B) 11 days.
C) 19 days.
D) 12 days.

Question 73

The estimated variance for an activity with a most likely time (m) equal to 12 weeks, an optimistic time (a) equal to 9 weeks, and a pessimistic time (b) equal to 18 weeks is

A) 3.75 weeks.
B) 1.50 weeks.
C) 5.25 weeks.
D) 0.25 weeks.

Question 74

A project consists of the following activities:
Table XX
Using Table XX, the time complete the entire project is

A) 20 weeks.
B) 30 weeks.
C) 36 weeks.
D) 39 weeks.

Question 75

A project consists of the following four activities with activity times in days:
Table YY
Using Table YY, the earliest start (ES) time for activity B is

A) 5 days.
B) 6 days.
C) 11 days.
D) 14 days.

Question 76

The following table of probabilistic time estimates (in weeks) and activity predecessors are provided for a project.
Table ZZ
Using Table ZZ, the expected time to complete activity A is

A) 5.00 weeks.
B) 7.33 weeks.
C) 7.67 weeks.
D) 8.00 weeks.

Question 77

A project consists of the following four activities with activity times in days:
Table YY
Using Table YY, the critical path for this project is

A) A-B-C.
B) A-C-D.
C) A-B-D.
D) A-B-C-D.

Question 78

A project consists of the following activities:
Table XX
Using Table XX, the critical path for this project consists of activities

A) A-B-C-D-E-F.
B) A-C-E-F.
C) A-B-C-F.
D) A-B-D-F.

Question 79

A project consists of the following four activities with activity times in days:
Table YY
Using Table YY, the amount of slack associated with activity C is

A) 4 days.
B) 3 days.
C) 2 days.
D) 1 day.

Question 80

A project consists of the following four activities with activity times in days:
Table YY
Using Table YY, the time to complete the entire project would be

A) 23 days.
B) 19 days.
C) 17 days.
D) 11 days.