Knowledge Area Test: Project Resource Management

Question 1

1. While preparing a resource management plan, a project manager designated one of the senior programmers on the team to make decisions on whether the quality of deliverables met the project’s documented standards. Which of the following aspects of a resource management plan does this address?

Answer 1

Authority

Authority is the best choice. Authority is the right to apply project resources and make decisions within the project. These decisions could include quality acceptance, selection of the method for completing an activity, and how to respond to project variances. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 318]

Question 2

2. Rina and Gimo are the senior developers in a website development project. They have argued about the best web design product to use in developing the new website. As the project manager, you use a forcing approach to make a decision and reduce the conflict. What is the main characteristic of this approach?

Answer 2

Asserting one‘s viewpoint at the expense of others

Project managers must resolve conflicts as early as possible to improve productivity and generate positive working relationships. Forcing is a conflict resolution technique in which one’s viewpoint is asserted at the expense of others. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 349]

Question 3

3. A critical resource is on another project team. It is essential that you get his time for your project. You have contacted the resource’s team manager several times but have received a poor response. What should you consider doing next?

Answer 3

Try to use management influence to obtain the resource’s time

Contacting the manager once again will not help since you have already had a poor response. The best option is to try using management influence to obtain the resource’s time for your project. Should all efforts to obtain the resource prove unsuccessful, alternatives include planning for an alternate resource or training another resource. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 330]

Question 4

4. You have recently been hired into an organization that is heavily unionized. Some of your project’s resourcing decisions have been strongly objected by the unions. You have some collective bargaining agreements with the union that restrict certain role assignments or reporting relationships. This is an example of:

Answer 4

A constraint that limits the resource planning process

Constraints can limit the flexibility of the resource planning process. Collective bargaining agreements—contractual agreements with unions or other employee groups—can require certain roles or reporting relationships. The project team may not have direct control over collective bargaining agreements. [PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition, Page 329]

Question 5

5. Lesley is managing a software development project for the World Climate Control Organization. Since her team members are dispersed across the globe, she would like to set up online conferences in the next two months to let everyone in her project know what is going on and what their roles are within the project. She wants to use these conferences as team development activities to learn and exchange information in the project. To schedule such activities, which of the following should she use to keep track of the availability of team members?

Answer 5

Resource calendars

Resource calendars track the availability of team members for team development activities. The responsibility assignment matrix describes the responsibilities assigned to various team members. Project staff assignments give details of individual assignments, and project organization charts display team members and their reporting relationships. The project charter does not supply any of that information. Hence, Lesley must use resource calendars to know that information. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 323]

Question 6

6. You are preparing a presentation for your project team on soft skills. The goal is to increase the team’s awareness in this discipline. You are now shortlisting the topics you want to discuss during the presentation. Which of the following is not an example of soft skills?

Answer 6

Intelligence quotient

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is an assessment of an individual’s intelligence. This is not a soft skill. Soft skills are an individual’s interpersonal skills. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 357]

Question 7

7. You are leading a complex financial system upgrade project. The project is very critical for the business and must go live by a certain date in order to meet a government regulation. Any implementation delay might trigger significant penalties imposed on the organization. Your lead developer is delivering late and at low quality. You have noticed that he has often disregarded communications such as emails and skipped meetings in the past. So far this was all under control, but now it is affecting other team members. You are concerned that this could delay the project. What should you do?

Answer 7

Talk to the lead developer in private and try to understand the reasons causing this behavior.

The scenario doesn’t tell us the actual reason behind the resource’s behavior. As the project manager it is your responsibility to uncover the reason before taking any action. As the first step, you need to talk to the resource in person and try to understand the reasons causing this behavior. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, page 348]

Question 8

8. Your company is chosen to develop a new line of business for a large insurance company. This is a large and prestigious project for the company, and you have told senior management you will create a team meeting room for this project. This is one of the strategies for:

Answer 8

Co-location

In collocation, all the team members are brought together physically, such as in a team meeting room. Collocation is a highly recommended project management practice. [PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition, Page 340]

Question 9

9. Dave, a first-time project manager, was of the opinion that all training activities need to be planned. He discussed this with an experienced project manager who understood that some training was necessarily unplanned. Which of the following are good candidates for unplanned training?

Answer 9

Training by observation, conversation, and project management appraisals

Unplanned training takes place in a number of ways that include observation, conversation, and project management appraisals conducted during the controlling process of managing the project’s team. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 342]

Question 10

10. You have recently been awarded a grant to conduct a research project. The grant payments are tied to milestones which have a strict schedule. In order to deliver this project, you need to recruit multiple resources at various stages of the project on short-term contracts. Due to cost limitations you cannot hire these resources any earlier or longer than necessary. There is a risk that if the required resources are not available on time, the milestones will slip target dates and the project will risk losing the funding. What should you do?

Answer 10

Analyze the variability of the hiring process and recruit the resources just in time.

If the required resources are not hired in time, neither fast-tracking nor crashing will help the project. If the hiring process is time-consuming and highly variable, you need to carefully analyze this and initiate the hiring process just in time based on this analysis. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, pages 215, 328]