PMP Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield PMP facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. What is the primary output of a Sprint Planning event? → A sprint backlog with a sprint goal
2. An agile team's product owner is frequently unavailable for backlog refinement and sprint reviews. What is the LIKELY impact? → The team will struggle with unclear priorities and misaligned deliverables
3. A project manager is creating the Resource Management Plan. Which of the following is a key component that should be included in this plan? → Defined roles and responsibilities for the project team.
4. A development team is practicing continuous integration (CI). What is the MOST important discipline supporting CI? → Committing code to the main branch at least once per day
5. Which process involves developing an appropriate approach and plan for project communication activities based on stakeholder information needs? → Plan Communications Management
6. A project team implements a workaround. This means they are: → Responding to a risk that has no pre-planned response
7. A project manager is reviewing risk responses and finds that after mitigation, some risk still remains. This remaining risk is called: → Residual risk
8. During Control Quality, the team discovers that five deliverables have defects that can be repaired. These items are logged as: → Validated defects requiring defect repair
9. During cost control, a project manager identifies a significant variance. At what threshold should variances typically trigger corrective action? → Variances beyond defined thresholds established in the cost management plan
10. What does 'privity of contract' mean in project procurement? → The direct legal relationship between the contracting parties, excluding third parties
11. A project team is using statistical sampling to inspect deliverables. What is the PRIMARY benefit of this approach over 100% inspection? → It reduces inspection cost and time while providing statistical confidence
12. Which of the following is an example of using 'recognition and rewards' effectively to motivate project team members? → Publicly recognizing a team member for solving a critical technical problem
13. Which Develop Schedule output formally records when each activity is planned to start and finish and serves as a communication tool for stakeholders? → Project schedule
14. A project team uses Design of Experiments (DOE) to optimize a manufacturing process. What is the PRIMARY purpose of this technique? → To statistically identify which variables most influence process outcomes
15. Which process group involves defining project scope, creating the WBS, and establishing the project baseline? → Planning
16. What is the PRIMARY purpose of a team charter in project management? → To define team values, agreements, and operating guidelines
17. During which process is the scope baseline created? → Create WBS
18. An approved change request that impacts the project schedule should be reflected in which document? → The schedule baseline
19. A project manager is asked to provide a rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate. What is the typical accuracy range for a ROM estimate? → -25% to +75%
20. What is the PRIMARY purpose of the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix? → To compare current versus desired engagement levels
21. A risk probability and impact matrix is used primarily to: → Prioritize risks for further analysis and response planning
22. Which agile estimation technique uses relative sizing by comparing stories to reference stories rather than estimating in absolute time? → Story point estimation with planning poker
23. What is the MAIN purpose of a procurement audit in the Close Procurements process? → To identify successes and failures for lessons learned on future contracts
24. Which type of cost is directly attributable to a specific project and would not exist if the project did not exist? → Direct cost
25. A project manager is reviewing whether the project is following its defined quality processes. This activity is BEST described as: → Quality audit
26. A project manager notices conflict between two senior engineers over technical approach. What is the MOST effective conflict resolution technique? → Collaborating/problem solving
27. A project manager notices that a key stakeholder has shifted from 'supportive' to 'resistant' after a recent scope change. What should the PM do FIRST? → Schedule a meeting to understand the stakeholder's concerns
28. In Lean thinking, which concept focuses on eliminating activities that consume resources without delivering customer value? → Muda
29. A tornado diagram is used in which type of risk analysis? → Sensitivity analysis
30. A project manager discovers that a team member implemented an unapproved change. What should the project manager do FIRST? → Assess the impact of the unauthorized change and submit a retrospective change request