Scope

1. The project team has largely completed the creation of the WBS. However some
deliverables have not been decomposed because clarity is lacking. The team decides to
leave these and wait until more details are available. What is this an example of?
a. Poor project management planning
b. Progressive decision making
c. Iterative expectation management
d. Rolling wave planning

D: The project planning is iterative and subject to progressive elaboration – known as rolling wave
planning

2. Your team is receiving a large number of small change requests and some are being
adopted without being fully documented and assessed. These uncontrolled scope changes
are often referred to as:
a. Scope change
b. Scope variance
c. Scope creep
d. Scope amendment

C: Scope creep. Uncontrolled change is not acceptable. Any approved change should be reflected in
updated baseline.

3. You are the project manager in-charge of delivering a new payroll system to your client
organisation. When the project is in the execution phase, a stakeholder raises a concern
that a requirement he had asked for has not been included in the deliverables. Which
document should the project manager refer in order to check the approved list of
deliverables?
a. Risk Management Plan.
b. Project Charter.
c. Project Scope Statement.
d. Scope Management Plan.

Answer C. The Project Scope Statement captures the list of agreed deliverables (and also what is not
part of the project).

4. As the project manager of a high-stakes project in your organisation, you need to finalise
the solution approach to be adopted for your project. For this, you collated various
solution ideas from individual stakeholders using brainstorming sessions and then in a
meeting involving all stakeholders, you presented each of these ideas in detail and then
lead the stakeholders through a voting process to discuss and rank each idea. What is this
technique you have used called?
a. Benchmarking.
b. Affinity Diagrams.
c. Mind Mapping.
d. Nominal group technique

Answer D. This is an example of the nominal-group technique in which you ask for as many ideas and
solutions possible and then rank them to help guide requirements development.
 5. A new software developer has joined your project and he wants a detailed description of
the work that needs to be done on the project. Which of the following documents is LEAST
likely to help him?
a. Project Scope Statement.
b. WBS.
c. Business Case Document.
d. Requirements Traceability Matrix.

Answer C. The Project Business Case Document is a preliminary high-level document that is an input
to the project charter (in the initiating phase) and has the least level of detail in comparison with the
other documents. All the other documents are prepared during the planning phase and contain far
more details.

6. Your project team is working on a complex project involving some technology they have
not worked on before. The team realises that in order to execute the project successfully,
they will need to group the various requirements and then analyse them in the most
effective means possible. Which of the following techniques would be the most useful for
your team in this situation?
a. Mind Mapping.
b. Brainstorming.
c. Affinity Diagrams.
d. Nominal group technique.

Answer C. In Affinity diagrams, ideas and requirements are grouped and organised on similarities,
and therefore, it is the most useful technique in this situation.

7. The project you are managing is 50% complete and at this stage is due for a review by
senior management. During a review such as this one, a variance analysis is usually
conducted. What is the purpose of a variance analysis?
a. It is used to evaluate any cost variances on the project.
b. It is used to measure the deviation from the Project Management Plan.
c. It is used to measure the project variances against the scope baseline.
d. It is used to measure schedule variances on the project.

Answer C. Variance analysis is used to specifically measure the project variances against the scope
baseline.

8. Which of the following provides a way to manage and control costs, schedule and scope at
a level above the work package?
a. Cost breakdown package.
b. Control account.
c. Work account.
d. Component level.

Answer B. A control account helps aggregate and analyse work performance data regarding cost,
schedule and scope and is a way to manage and control costs, schedule and scope at a level above
the work package.

9. What does decomposition mean in the context of the Scope Management processes?
a. The breaking down of customer requirements into manageable units.
 b. The breaking down of project scope and project deliverables into smaller, more manageable
parts.
c. The splitting of activities into smaller units.
d. The removal of unnecessary project scope from delivery.

Answer B. Decomposition is a technique used for dividing and subdividing the project scope and
project deliverables into smaller, more manageable parts.

10. A project team has just completed some work and submitted it to the customer for
verification. The team will commence the planning for the next phase once the customer
finishes verification. The work product is found satisfactory by the customer who
acknowledges that it meets the project requirement. What is this work product now
called?
a. An accepted deliverable that requires further approval from the project sponsor.
b. An accepted deliverable that is an output of the control scope process.
c. An accepted deliverable that requires a formal sign off from the customer.
d. None of the above.

Answer C. This work product is now an acceptable deliverable which requires a formal sign-off from
the customer.

11. You are the project manager of a software company. For your latest project, you will be
doing a complete installation of a network monitoring software on 500 new user desktops
for your customer. You have, in your project cost and time estimates, informed the
customer that the estimates provided will be accurate if the desktops meet the hardware
requirements specified for the software. This is an example of which of the following?
a. A risk.
b. A constraint.
c. An assumption.
d. An issue.

Answer C. This is an example of an assumption as the desktops must meet the hardware
requirements.

12. Identify the key output of the Validate Scope process from the following.
a. Verified deliverables.
b. Work performance data.
c. Quality reports.
d. Accepted deliverables.

Answer D. The only output of the Validate Scope process among the given options is ‘accepted
deliverables’. All the other options provided are inputs to the mentioned process.

13. You are a project manager who is managing a telecommunications project. One of the new
hires in your team comes to you asking for complete details of the work package he is
supposed to deliver. Which of the following documents would have the details the team
member is seeking?
a. WBS dictionary.
b. Activity List.
c. Project Scope Statement.
d. Requirement Traceability matrix.
Answer A. The WBS dictionary defines each element in the WBS and also provides detailed
descriptions of the work packages in the WBS. None of the other documents provide a detailed
description of the work packages - which is what the team member needs.

14. Dmitry is running a 1-year project that is on track for completion within scheduled time
and within budget. Nevertheless, a month before completion, he gets to know the
stakeholders are dissatisfied with the deliverables and this situation is now likely to add a
month’s delay to the project. Which of the following processes could have prevented the
situation Dmitry is now facing?
a. Control Scope.
b. Define Scope.
c. Control Schedule.
d. Monitor Risks.

Answer B. This question asks which process could have ‘prevented’ the situation. Therefore, options
A, C and D are incorrect – they are all from the Monitoring and Controlling process group and can
only address a problem and not prevent it. The situation described could have been prevented by
proper planning and by clearly defining the project deliverables in the ‘Define Scope’ process which is
part of the planning phase.

15. Before preparing the weekly project report that he needs to submit to stakeholders, a
project manager goes around asking team members what amount of their work is
complete. An experienced team member, who has a reputation for being difficult to
manage, retaliates asking “Completion status of what work?” when asked how much of his
work was complete. The project manager, exasperated with the team-member’s
behaviour, complains to the team member’s boss about his lack of co-operation. However,
which of the following is MOST likely to be the real problem here?
a. The project manager does not have authority over the team-member.
b. Work packages were not assigned by the project manager.
c. There is no adequate reward system in place to motivate the team members.
d. The team member lacks the skill to carry out his work.

Answer B. The problem in this scenario can be understood from the team-member’s question which
indicates he does not seem to know what work he was supposed to do. If there was a clear WBS and
if work packages had been correctly assigned to team members, then this team member would have
had clarity on what his work was. The description of him being difficult is simply meant to distract
one from the actual problem. There is no evidence to suggest that the project manager lacks
authority or that the team member lacks skill. While reward systems will help motivate the team, the
problem here is not a lack of motivation, but a lack of understanding on what the team-member’s
work is.

16. Who is responsible for the development of the scope baseline? Choose the BEST option from
the below:

a. The project sponsor.

b. The project manager
c. All stakeholders.
d. The project team.

Answer D. The project team is responsible for the development of the scope baseline (which includes
the WBS, WBS dictionary and project scope statement) after taking inputs from all the stakeholders.
17. At what stage of a project should the Validate Scope process be carried out?

a. At the beginning of the project.

b. At the very end of the project.
c. At the end of every phase of the project.
d. During the planning phase of the project.

Answer C. The Validate Scope process is part of Monitoring and Controlling and should be carried out
at the end of every phase of the project to get sign-off from the customer for the deliverables
completed in that phase.

18. A project manager who has been newly assigned to a project receives a request from a
stakeholder to add new scope to the project. After going through some of the older
correspondence emails, the project manager gets to know this same request had been raised
earlier when the project charter was being prepared and the project sponsor had declined to fund
this request and therefore it was not included in the project scope at that time. What should the
project manager do in this situation?

a. Inform the stakeholder the scope cannot be added.

b. Go back to the project sponsor and inform him/her about the request.
c. Check the project schedule and accommodate it in the scope if there is no impact on the
schedule.
d. Evaluate the scope impact.

Answer A. Since this same request was previously evaluated and rejected by the sponsor, the
stakeholder needs to be informed the scope cannot be added. There is no point in further evaluation
or in going back to the sponsor again for the same request since it was already considered and
rejected once.

19. A new project manager is struggling to manage his project when the project scope is being
progressively elaborated. His more experienced PMP certified colleague advises him that tools
such as the WBS could immensely help him at this point. Which of the following statements
regarding the WBS is true?

a. It defines the business justification for the project.

b. It can be used for communicating with the customer.
c. It shows high-level details of the various project risks.
d. It shows the dates against each work package.

Answer B. The WBS does not show dates against work packages, it does not provide business
justification (this is provided in the project charter) and it doesn’t provide details of project risks (this
is captured in the risk register). However, the WBS could be used as an effective communication tool,
at the time of progressive elaboration, to communicate with stakeholders and to let them
understand the project scope.

20. A software project is running 6 days ahead of schedule and is within budget. It is currently in the
development phase which is almost complete. This will be followed by the testing and
implementation phases. Which of the below processes should the project manager be MOST
concerned about before the project moves into the final phase?

a. Control Costs.
b. Control Schedule.
c. Control Quality.
d. Validate Scope.

Answer C. The Validate Scope process is closely related to the Control Quality process. While Control
quality is used to check the correctness of a deliverable, Validate Scope is used to check for
acceptance of a deliverable.

21. Decomposition is a process that is carried out to ensure the work on a project gets managed
efficiently. Which of the following statements does NOT state how to decompose work?

a. It should be done till the work can be carried out by just one person.
b. It should be done till it reaches the level of work packages.
c. It should be done till the level at which it can be realistically estimated.
d. It can be done till the level at which work can be outsourced or contracted out.

Answer A. The lowest level of decomposition is the work package level and hence, statement B is
true. Statements C and D are both characteristics of a work package and therefore true. However, a
work package may be worked upon by more than one person depending on the activities that
emanate from it and therefore statement A is false.