CAM Professional Standards & Ethics 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A CAM realizes a subordinate has been recording labor hours to the wrong charge number for three weeks. The ethical response is to:
- Correct the records through the formal timekeeping correction process and address the training gap (Correct answer)
- Leave the records as-is since the total cost is unchanged
- Delete the erroneous entries without documentation
- Instruct the employee to offset the error with future mischarges
Correct answer: Correct the records through the formal timekeeping correction process and address the training gap
Timekeeping errors must be corrected through documented formal processes, never offset or hidden.
Question 2: During an Integrated Baseline Review (IBR), a CAM is coached to give rehearsed answers that hide known baseline weaknesses. Ethically, the CAM should:
- Answer all review questions truthfully, including acknowledging known weaknesses (Correct answer)
- Follow the coaching since the IBR is only a formality
- Refuse to participate in the IBR entirely
- Answer truthfully only if directly asked under oath
Correct answer: Answer all review questions truthfully, including acknowledging known weaknesses
IBRs depend on candid disclosure, and concealing known weaknesses undermines the review's purpose.
Question 3: What is the primary ethical concern with a CAM using management reserve (MR) to mask a cost overrun?
- MR is for unforeseen in-scope work, not for hiding performance variances (Correct answer)
- MR can only be used in the final year of a contract
- MR usage always requires customer signature
- MR is funded by the customer's profit margin
Correct answer: MR is for unforeseen in-scope work, not for hiding performance variances
Using management reserve to erase visible variances conceals true performance from stakeholders.
Question 4: A CAM learns confidential proprietary data from a former employer would help win a current bid. Using that data would violate:
- Procurement integrity and confidentiality obligations (Correct answer)
- Only the former employer's internal policies
- Nothing, since the CAM no longer works there
- Only rules that apply to contracting officers
Correct answer: Procurement integrity and confidentiality obligations
Using a former employer's proprietary data breaches confidentiality duties and procurement integrity rules.
Question 5: Which behavior best reflects professional accountability for a CAM whose control account has a significant unfavorable cost variance?
- Owning the variance, analyzing root causes, and presenting a credible corrective action plan (Correct answer)
- Attributing the variance entirely to other departments
- Requesting the variance threshold be raised to avoid reporting
- Reclassifying discrete work as level-of-effort to hide the variance
Correct answer: Owning the variance, analyzing root causes, and presenting a credible corrective action plan
Professional accountability means owning results, diagnosing causes, and driving corrective action.
Question 6: A teammate asks a CAM to sign off on completed work the CAM has not verified. The CAM should:
- Verify the work personally or through objective evidence before signing (Correct answer)
- Sign since the teammate has always been reliable
- Sign but note verbal reservations to a supervisor
- Delegate the signature to an administrative assistant
Correct answer: Verify the work personally or through objective evidence before signing
A signature attests to verification, so signing unverified work misrepresents completion status.
Question 7: Why do ethical standards require CAMs to keep variance analysis narratives factual rather than speculative?
- Stakeholders make funding and management decisions based on those narratives (Correct answer)
- Speculative narratives take longer to write
- Factual narratives require fewer approvals
- Regulations prohibit narratives longer than one page
Correct answer: Stakeholders make funding and management decisions based on those narratives
Decision-makers rely on variance narratives, so speculation can lead to poor resource decisions.
CAM Professional Standards & Ethics 3
A CAM realizes a subordinate has been recording labor hours to the wrong charge number for three weeks.
The ethical response is to: