CSC Project Management & Execution 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A senior consultant discovers mid-project that the client has added significant scope without a formal change request. What is the BEST immediate action?
- Absorb the scope to maintain goodwill
- Document the additional scope and initiate a formal change control process (Correct answer)
- Stop all work until the original scope is restored
- Escalate directly to the client's CEO
Correct answer: Document the additional scope and initiate a formal change control process
Formal change control protects both parties by documenting scope changes and their impact on cost, schedule, and resources.
Question 2: Which scheduling technique calculates the earliest and latest start/finish dates for activities to identify float?
- Resource leveling
- Critical Path Method (CPM) (Correct answer)
- Monte Carlo simulation
- Agile sprint planning
Correct answer: Critical Path Method (CPM)
CPM identifies the longest path through the project network and calculates float for each activity.
Question 3: A project is running at a Cost Performance Index (CPI) of 0.82. What does this indicate?
- The project is 18% ahead of schedule
- The project is getting $0.82 of value for every $1 spent (Correct answer)
- The project will finish 18% early
- The project has 18% more budget remaining than planned
Correct answer: The project is getting $0.82 of value for every $1 spent
A CPI below 1.0 means the project is over budget, receiving less value than the money spent.
Question 4: During a steering committee meeting, a stakeholder demands a feature that conflicts with the project charter. The senior consultant should:
- Implement the feature to satisfy the stakeholder
- Acknowledge the request and route it through the formal change process (Correct answer)
- Reject the request outright and cite the charter
- Defer the decision to the project sponsor only after work begins
Correct answer: Acknowledge the request and route it through the formal change process
All change requests, regardless of source, must go through the formal change control process to evaluate impact.
Question 5: Which risk response strategy involves shifting the negative impact of a risk to a third party, such as through insurance?
- Avoid
- Mitigate
- Transfer (Correct answer)
- Accept
Correct answer: Transfer
Risk transfer moves the financial or operational consequence of a risk to another party without eliminating the risk itself.
Question 6: A senior consultant is facilitating a project retrospective. The MOST valuable outcome of this meeting is:
- Assigning blame for project failures
- Creating a lessons-learned register to improve future projects (Correct answer)
- Generating final project invoices
- Closing all open change requests
Correct answer: Creating a lessons-learned register to improve future projects
Retrospectives capture lessons learned that become organizational process assets for improving future project performance.
Question 7: When using a RACI matrix, what does the 'A' (Accountable) role signify?
- The person who performs the work
- The person who must sign off and is ultimately answerable for the task (Correct answer)
- The person who receives information about the task
- The person who provides input or expertise
Correct answer: The person who must sign off and is ultimately answerable for the task
The Accountable role is the single owner who has final authority and is answerable for the correct completion of a task.
CSC Project Management & Execution 2
A senior consultant discovers mid-project that the client has added significant scope without a formal change request.
What is the BEST immediate action?