You are the program manager responsible to manage a contract with ACME defense contractor. An ACME employee implies that they would like to offer you a job at ACME and you decline. Which of the following actions is correct?
- You must immediately report the details of the conversation you had with the ACME Project Manager in writing to your supervisor and to the ethics officer.
- Since there was no actual job offer, no further action is necessary.
- Since you rejected the employment offer, no further action is necessary.
- Even though you rejected the employment offer, there is now a conflict of interest and you must recuse yourself from further participation in this procurement.
You must immediately report the details of the conversation you had with the ACME Project Manager in writing to your supervisor and to the ethics officer.
Which of the following statements is correct?
- You do not have to accept a $20 gift if you think someone would question it.
- You may accept a single gift that is valued at $40.
- 5 CFR 2635.202 allows you to solicit a gift based on your official government position.
- You may never accept a birthday gift from a friend who is an employee of a government contractor.
You do not have to accept a $20 gift if you think someone would question it.
Two companies, Alpha and Beta, submitted proposals in response to a government Request for Proposal. During discussions, a government contracting officer told Alpha that its price was “too high” and that “the proposal needs to come down by about 20%.” In its final proposal, Alpha lowered its price by 25% and won the contract. Which of the following is true?
- Since the information passed by the Contracting Officer was tantamount to disclosure of Beta’s initial offer, the Act was violated, but the Contracting Officer is only subject to administrative disciplinary action for the violation.
- Since the Contracting Officer did not expressly disclose Beta’s initial price, he did not disclose a competitor’s cost and pricing data and no violation of the Procurement Integrity Act occurred.
- Since the contracting officer did not receive a bribe or illegal gratuity from Alpha, there is no criminal violation of the Procurement Integrity Act.
- The Procurement Integrity Act was violated, and the Contracting Officer is subject to both criminal sanctions and administrative action.
The Procurement Integrity Act was violated, and the Contracting Officer is subject to both criminal sanctions and administrative action.
You are the government Program Manager for the ACME Delta Weapon system. You are negotiating a contract modification. ACME has asked Sally to negotiate the contract modification as a contractor representative. Prior to working for ACME, Sally was an active-duty military contracting officer assigned to the government program ACME Delta Weapon System at the time of the initial contract award. You should:
- Not be concerned if she attempts to communicate with you on behalf of the ACME.
- Have an off-the-record talk with Sally’s boss. Tell her there are serious concerns about whether Sally should have anything to do with the upcoming new weapons procurement project.
- Raise your concern to your boss or the Contracting Officer, while on active duty Sally contributed substantially to the contract and may be permanently restricted from representing ACME to the government on the same contract effort.
- Not be concerned with Sally’s former role at ACME Corporation.
Raise your concern to your boss or the Contracting Officer, while on active duty Sally contributed substantially to the contract and may be permanently restricted from representing ACME to the government on the same contract effort.
You are a government Program Manager and you suspect the contractor’s test results stated in the new procurement proposal are inaccurate. You should:
- Do nothing until you have evidence of the veracity of the test results.
- Not report the test-data problem up the chain of command; but rather deal with it locally.
- Report up the chain of command the data which the contractor used in the proposal may be flawed.
- Report the problem to the DoD IG Fraud, Waste and Abuse hotline, citing the contractor for inaccurately touting performance in those tests.
Report up the chain of command the data which the contractor used in the proposal may be flawed.
Government and contractor personnel work closely together as an integrated team on the new Viper weapons system and want to celebrate their program’s success by hosting a picnic. Which of the following statements about their interaction is true?
- Government and contractor personnel may not be allowed to have any social interaction outside of work.
- If government employees are granted time-off, the government project manager may also give the contractor’s employees time-off and allow that “time off” to be charged to the government contract.
- Contractor personnel may attend a government office picnic, so long as the time spent attending the event is not charged to the government.
- Government employees and contractor employees should be treated identically.
Contractor personnel may attend a government office picnic, so long as the time spent attending the event is not charged to the government.
A member of the program team wants to take control and delegate tasks, even when they are not in a supervisory role, to position themselves for promotion. These actions represent a need for power based on which motivational theory?
- Reinforcement Theory
- Expectancy Theory
- Theory X
- McClelland’s Three-factor Theory
Theory X
Your team has successfully completed your program goals by designing and testing a new radar detection system. It is time to disband the team. In which stage of the team cycle process is your team?
- Adjourning
- Norming
- Storming
- Closing
Adjourning
You are leading a team to develop a new weapons system. Early in the program, you ensure combined team member knowledge includes technical, cost, manufacturing and support functions. This reflects which tenet of Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD)?
- Effective communication
- Empowerment
- Multidisciplinary teamwork
- Maximizing flexibility
Maximizing flexibility
If any task on a project’s critical path increases, this mean…?
- There has been a breach of the acquisition program baseline
- The Program Manager must re-baseline the whole program
- The total project will also increase in length
- Hardware risk has been mitigated
The total project will also increase in length
Team charters are likely to establish all of the following EXCEPT?
- Authority and accountability for the team
- The scope of the team’s responsibilities
- Mission and objectives for the team
- The initial budget estimate for the program
The initial budget estimate for the program
The government program manager (PM) wants to move the date for a major deliverable to one month earlier to satisfy a customer request and is willing to change the deliverable’s requirements from what is defined in the contract to help make this happen. What is an appropriate way to authorize and coordinate this change to the contract?
- By documenting the request in an email
- Through a formal contract modification
- Through a requirements modification meeting
- By submitting a change request form to the contractor
Through a formal contract modification
A program manager who is concerned with requirement creep holds a systems requirements review (SRR) with the contractor and decides not to invite the warfighter. Which step of the ethical decision making model does this most violate?
-Prioritize based on what will bring the most good and the least harm to others
- Ensure decisions apply acquisition ethics
- Consider the welfare of alI stakeholders
- Give precedence to ethical values over non-ethical values
Consider the welfare of all stakeholders
Carl and Sam work on the same integrated product team and have had multiple conflicts at work. A third party has been called to host a discussion and help Carl and Sam reach a resolution. This is an example of which conflict resolution technique?
- Collaboration
- Mediation
- Accommodation
- Bargaining
Mediation
You are the Program Manager and have a number of urgent tasks to complete. The only team member that is available to assist has limited experience with the issue at hand. Which is the appropriate leadership style to apply to this situation?
- Team
- Leader-focused
- Supervisory
- Participative
Supervisory
Your team is developing a security information management system that will be accessed 24 hours a day/7 days a week. You decided to include Mean Time Between Failure (MBTF) as one of the performance metrics for the system. What characteristics make this an effective metric?
- It is relevant to the basic requirements to the system, and the data is clear and unambiguous.
- The data indicates specific problem areas to fix.
- The metric is often used in software development projects.
- The precision of the data outweighs the cost of its collection.
It is relevant to the basic requirements to the system, and the data is clear and unambiguous.
You are putting together a meeting agenda for an annual program management review, with contractors, program team members, and customers. You are open to all topic suggestion, you’ve solicited opinions from your team members, and you want to gather the commitment of all team members to agree. Which decision-making method would be the best fit?
- Negotiated
- Majority
- Consensus
- Authoritative Unilateral
Consensus
Your team is tasked with mapping out and identifying major gaps and redundancies in the program’s process for managing the configuration review board. Which tool should you apply to analyze this issue?
- Deployment flowchart
- Pareto chart
- Prioritization matrix
- Scatter diagram
Deployment flowchart
Your team has received a set of 8 issues of varying degrees of importance and required effort that must be evaluated. You want to compare alternatives using weighted scores of the pre-selected issues. Which problem-solving too will help your team analyze these issues and make a decision?
- Force Field analysis
- Prioritization matrix
- “Fishbone” Cause and Effect Diagram
- Brainstorming
Prioritization matrix
Your team has been tasked to identify the root causes of a complicated issue. Which problem-solving tool will best help your team analyze the issue?
- “Fishbone” Cause and Effect Diagram
- Histogram
- Affinity diagram
- Nominal group technique
“Fishbone” Cause and Effect Diagram
For the following activity description, identify the problem-solving process step with which it is associated: gather data, impressions, feelings and observations that shed light on the problem or issue.
- Identify objectives
- Evaluate potential solutions and choose one
- Gather relevant data
- Precisely define the issue or opportunity
Gather relevant data
After conducting a root cause analysis brainstorming session, you ask your team for feedback on what about the process could be improved next time. This represents which phase of the Experiential Learning Cycle?
- Forming Abstract Concepts
- Testing in New Situations
- Concrete Experience
- Observation and Reflections
Observation and Reflections
Which of the following tools would best aid in identifying the number and type of program management office Integrated Product Teams (IPTs)?
- Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
- Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB)
- Critical Path Method (CPM)
- Acquisition Program Baseline (APB)
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
A system prototype that is demonstrated in an operational environment describes which one of the Technology Readiness Levels listed below?
- TRL 4
- TRL 7
- TRL 9
- TRL 3
TRL 7
