CAPM Schedule Management 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A project manager adds extra time to individual activity estimates to handle schedule risks. What is this practice called?
- Management reserve
- Schedule baseline
- Padding or contingency reserve (Correct answer)
- Float
Correct answer: Padding or contingency reserve
Adding extra time to individual activity estimates is called padding or contingency reserve, used to handle identified schedule risks.
Question 2: Which method of estimating activity duration uses historical data from similar past projects?
- Parametric estimating
- Analogous estimating (Correct answer)
- Three-point estimating
- Bottom-up estimating
Correct answer: Analogous estimating
Analogous estimating uses historical information from similar past projects as the basis for estimating current project durations.
Question 3: A project's critical path passes through activities A→C→E→G. Activity D is not on the critical path and has 8 days of total float. What happens if Activity D is delayed by 10 days?
- Nothing; D is not on the critical path
- The project will be delayed by 2 days (Correct answer)
- The project will be delayed by 10 days
- Activity D becomes the new critical path
Correct answer: The project will be delayed by 2 days
Since Activity D has only 8 days of float but is delayed by 10 days, the project end date will be delayed by the excess (10−8 = 2 days).
Question 4: Which resource optimization technique adjusts start and finish dates to balance demand for resources with available supply, potentially changing the critical path?
- Resource smoothing
- Fast tracking
- Resource leveling (Correct answer)
- Crashing
Correct answer: Resource leveling
Resource leveling is used when resources are over-allocated and may change the critical path by delaying activities to resolve resource conflicts.
Question 5: What does the term 'schedule baseline' refer to?
- The initial rough estimate of the project timeline
- The approved version of the schedule used to measure performance (Correct answer)
- The earliest possible schedule based on all dependencies
- The schedule after all changes have been applied
Correct answer: The approved version of the schedule used to measure performance
The schedule baseline is the approved version of the schedule model that can only be changed through formal change control procedures.
Question 6: A project manager is using parametric estimating for a construction project. If historical data shows a rate of 100 sq ft per day and the project requires 5,000 sq ft, what is the estimated duration?
- 5 days
- 50 days (Correct answer)
- 500 days
- 5,000 days
Correct answer: 50 days
Parametric estimating uses the relationship between variables: 5,000 sq ft ÷ 100 sq ft/day = 50 days.
Question 7: Which output of the Control Schedule process documents what has changed from the schedule baseline?
- Schedule forecasts
- Work performance information (Correct answer)
- Change requests
- Schedule data
Correct answer: Work performance information
Work performance information contains the calculated SV and SPI values along with analysis of schedule variances documented during Control Schedule.
CAPM Schedule Management 4
A project manager adds extra time to individual activity estimates to handle schedule risks.
What is this practice called?