PMP - Project Management Professional Project Schedule Management Questions and Answers — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A project manager is analyzing the project schedule and identifies a series of activities with zero total float. Any delay to one of these activities will cause a delay to the project completion date. What does this series of activities represent?
- The critical path (Correct answer)
- A near-critical path
- The baseline schedule
- A schedule buffer
Correct answer: The critical path
The critical path is the sequence of activities that represents the longest path through a project, which determines the shortest possible project duration. By definition, activities on the critical path have zero total float (or slack), meaning any delay in these activities will directly impact the project's end date. [21, 25, 28]
Question 2: A project is behind schedule. The project manager decides to have the development team start coding activities before the design phase is 100% complete. This involves overlapping activities that were originally planned to be performed in sequence. Which schedule compression technique is being utilized?
- Resource leveling
- Crashing
- Fast tracking (Correct answer)
- Schedule buffering
Correct answer: Fast tracking
Fast tracking is a schedule compression technique where activities or phases normally done in sequence are performed in parallel for at least a portion of their duration. [2, 7, 19] This approach can increase risk and potentially cause rework. Crashing, another compression technique, involves adding resources to shorten activity durations, which typically increases cost. [2, 7, 13]
Question 3: To manage uncertainty in a highly innovative project, the project manager asks the team to provide three duration estimates for a key activity: Optimistic (O), Pessimistic (P), and Most Likely (M). Using the PERT formula (O + 4M + P) / 6, the project manager calculates the expected duration. What is this estimation technique called?
- Analogous estimating
- Parametric estimating
- Bottom-up estimating
- Three-point estimating (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Three-point estimating
Three-point estimating uses three estimates to define an approximate range for an activity's duration. This method is used when there is uncertainty. The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a specific form of three-point estimating that uses a weighted average, giving more weight to the most likely estimate. [1, 14, 17]
Question 4: A project manager is leading a construction project. To accelerate the timeline, the schedule indicates that the landscaping team can begin their work five days before the exterior painting is fully completed. This intentional overlap between a predecessor (painting) and a successor (landscaping) is an example of what?
- A lag
- A lead (Correct answer)
- A mandatory dependency
- A finish-to-finish relationship
Correct answer: A lead
A lead is the amount of time a successor activity can be advanced with respect to a predecessor activity. In this scenario, landscaping is advanced, allowing it to start before its predecessor is finished. A lag, conversely, is a required delay between activities. [8, 9, 10]
Question 5: A project manager reviews the initial schedule and discovers that a key engineer is over-allocated, scheduled for 12 hours a day for two straight weeks. To fix this, the manager delays some of the engineer's non-critical tasks to a later time. This adjustment resolves the over-allocation but pushes out the project's final completion date. Which resource optimization technique was used?
- Crashing
- Resource leveling (Correct answer)
- Fast tracking
- Resource smoothing
Correct answer: Resource leveling
Resource leveling is a technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing demand for resources with the available supply. Resource leveling can often cause the original critical path to change and the project duration to increase. [20, 23, 26] Resource smoothing adjusts activities within their float, so it does not change the critical path. [23, 26, 27]
Question 6: When a project manager is in the Develop Schedule process, which of the following serves as a primary input, providing the logical sequence and dependencies of project activities?
- Schedule baseline
- Work performance data
- Project schedule network diagram (Correct answer)
- Change requests
Correct answer: Project schedule network diagram
The project schedule network diagram is a key input to the Develop Schedule process. It is an output of the Sequence Activities process and illustrates the dependencies among project activities, which is essential for creating the final schedule model. [4, 6, 15] The schedule baseline is an output of this process, while work performance data and change requests are inputs to the Control Schedule process.
PMP - Project Management Professional Project Schedule Management Questions and Answers
A project manager is analyzing the project schedule and identifies a series of activities with zero total float.
Any delay to one of these activities will cause a delay to the project completion date.
What does this series of activities represent?