Breakthrough (2)

PMP Exam Preparation

1. If the project results have been delivered and accepted, can they still be changed?

The project results have been delivered for acceptance. As long as the customer signs the acceptance document, it means that the customer has accepted all the project deliverables, and no changes will be accepted at this time. If there is a quality problem, according to the contract, if Party B has warranty responsibility, it still needs to perform the warranty responsibility, but this is not a change.

However, we need to pay attention to the following two situations: First, although the phased deliverables have been confirmed by the customer, this is not the final acceptance of the project, but scope confirmation, which does not affect the proposed change; second, in agile development , the team’s goal is to create a product that is valuable to users. Even if the product has been released, functions that do not meet user needs still need to be improved iteratively. Therefore, agile development is more friendly to changes, and the change process is relatively simple.

2. What is the relationship between plans and benchmarks?

In the classic project scenario, there is an emphasis on plan benchmarking. That is to say, the scope, schedule, and cost plans prepared in the first version need to be confirmed and approved by all major stakeholders. After approval, three benchmarks of scope, schedule, and cost are formed for the overall control of project performance. Under the premise of not affecting the baseline, the project manager and project team have greater autonomy and management control; and once the baseline is to be modified, it must be approved by the Change Control Board (CCB).

3. What is the difference between schedule reserve and float time?

Floating time usually refers to the maneuvering time of activities on the non-critical path, because the duration of the activities on the critical path together determines the total duration of the project, and the activities on the non-critical path do not need such a long time, so the extra It is floating time.

Schedule reserves are usually added to the critical path in order to increase the probability of project completion.

Float time and schedule reserve are concepts in two different categories. Floating time exists objectively in the schedule, and it is subdivided into free floating time and total floating time; schedule reserve is the safety time reserved by project managers to deal with risks, and schedule reserve is further subdivided into emergency reserve and management reserve.

4. Which of the cost of quality (COQ) should be strictly controlled, the cost of consistency or the cost of non-conformity?

The cost of consistency is the cost of preventing the occurrence of quality defects, and the cost of non-conformity is the cost of remediating the defects that have occurred. From the perspective of the development trend of the quality management concept, the occurrence of defects should be avoided or reduced as much as possible, so the necessary consistency costs must be invested; however, the defects must also be corrected in time to avoid more serious negative effects. Therefore, the cost of consistency and the cost of non-conformity are not comparable. Only by strengthening prevention can the generation of defects and defect remediation be reduced.

5. What is the difference between communications management and stakeholder management?

There is a strong correlation between communication management and stakeholder management. Management of stakeholder needs to be through communication, and the object of communication is stakeholder. The focus of communication management is to formulate a communication plan for the entire project (such as defining the communication method, communication frequency, communication language, etc.), and execute it according to the plan.

The focus of stakeholder management is to identify each stakeholder and formulate management plans based on their different characteristics and demands, including how to communicate effectively with each stakeholder.

6. Are the contents of the change log and the lessons learned register an organizational process asset?

Not all of the content in the change log and lessons learned register becomes an organizational process asset, and some are unique to the project and do not have universal applicability. Only the content that has been verified by the organization (such as the review of the PMP organization) and can be referenced by other projects in the organization will be included in the organizational process assets, and will be continuously shared and promoted.

7. What is the difference between a strong matrix, a weak matrix, and a balanced matrix?

The core difference between strong, weak, and balanced matrices is the authority of project managers relative to the level of functional managers in the organization. If the project manager has a higher level and greater authority than the functional manager, then the resources and budget are mainly controlled by the project manager, which is a strong matrix; otherwise, it is a weak matrix; if their levels and authorities are the same, it is a balanced matrix.

8. Why does the project only have three benchmarks of scope, schedule and cost, but no quality benchmark?

The absence of quality benchmarks in project benchmarks does not mean that quality is not important, but it is precisely because quality is so important that quality standards are usually not determined by a single project, but have risen to corporate standards, even industry standards, and national standards.

9. What is the purpose and difference between resource balancing and resource smoothing?

The purpose of Resource Leveling is to eliminate or alleviate the problem of resource overload. Resource overload is when the resources needed at the same time exceed the resource limit. The way to balance is to move concurrent activities forward or backward to stagger the demand for resources. If activities on the critical path are moved backward, the duration will be extended.

Resource smoothing is to use the floating time of activities on non-critical paths to move activities on non-critical paths, cut peaks and fill valleys, so that the number of resources decreases with time fluctuations. Resource smoothing is also often used to mobilize resources on the non-critical path to the critical path to ensure that the project is completed on schedule.

10. What is the difference between Crashing and Fast Tracking?

Crashing is to increase activity resources to shorten activity duration. Fast Tracking is to advance the subsequent activities, overlap with the previous activities, and carry out in parallel to achieve the purpose of shortening the construction period.

Crashing work is directly exchanging money for time. Although fast follow-up does not directly increase costs, it increases the risk of being forced to rework subsequent activities due to being implicated.