CPL Budget & Resource Management Flashcards

Which of the following best describes a management reserve in program budgeting?

Answer: An amount withheld for unknown unknowns outside the current scope

Management reserve is budget held for unknown risks (unknown unknowns) that fall outside the current authorized scope and requires executive approval to access.

Earned Value Management (EVM) integrates three key data points. Which combination is correct?

Answer: Planned Value, Actual Cost, and Earned Value

EVM uses Planned Value (PV), Actual Cost (AC), and Earned Value (EV) together to measure both cost and schedule performance objectively.

A program's Estimate at Completion (EAC) is significantly higher than the original Budget at Completion (BAC). The MOST appropriate immediate action for the program manager is to:

Answer: Report the variance to the program sponsor and governance board

When EAC significantly exceeds BAC, transparent reporting to sponsors and governance is mandatory so informed decisions about funding, scope, or schedule can be made.

During resource planning, which technique involves identifying all deliverables and then working backwards to determine the resources needed?

Answer: Bottom-up estimating

Bottom-up estimating decomposes work packages into their smallest components and aggregates the resource requirements upward to get a total estimate.

Which program financial metric measures the monetary value of work performed relative to the budget allocated for that work?

Answer: Earned Value (EV)

Earned Value (EV) is the budgeted value of work actually completed, representing the monetary worth of progress made on the program.

A program manager needs to formally track which team members are responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for each deliverable. Which tool is most appropriate?

Answer: RACI matrix

A RACI matrix assigns Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed roles to every team member for each task or deliverable.