CST Project Management & Planning 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which scheduling technique uses probabilistic time estimates (optimistic, most likely, pessimistic) to calculate expected activity durations?
- CPM
- PERT (Correct answer)
- Gantt
- PDM
Correct answer: PERT
PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) uses three-point estimates to account for uncertainty in activity durations.
Question 2: In project scheduling, what does 'total float' represent?
- The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish (Correct answer)
- The difference between early start and late start of the first activity
- The total duration of all non-critical activities
- The buffer added to each activity to account for risk
Correct answer: The amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish
Total float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed from its early start without delaying the project completion date.
Question 3: A project manager needs to compress the schedule by overlapping activities that were originally planned sequentially. This technique is called:
- Crashing
- Fast tracking (Correct answer)
- Resource leveling
- Schedule compression
Correct answer: Fast tracking
Fast tracking involves performing activities in parallel that would normally be done sequentially, accepting increased risk.
Question 4: Which WBS element represents the lowest level of the Work Breakdown Structure where cost and schedule can be monitored?
- Work package (Correct answer)
- Control account
- Summary task
- Milestone
Correct answer: Work package
A work package is the lowest WBS level at which cost and schedule are tracked and managed.
Question 5: When a project schedule shows a Scheduled Performance Index (SPI) of 0.85, this means the project is:
- 15% over budget
- Ahead of schedule by 15%
- Behind schedule, accomplishing only 85 cents of work for every dollar planned (Correct answer)
- 15% under budget
Correct answer: Behind schedule, accomplishing only 85 cents of work for every dollar planned
An SPI below 1.0 indicates the project is behind schedule; 0.85 means only 85% of planned work has been accomplished.
Question 6: The process of identifying and documenting relationships among project activities is known as:
- Activity definition
- Activity sequencing (Correct answer)
- Activity duration estimating
- Activity resource estimating
Correct answer: Activity sequencing
Activity sequencing identifies logical dependencies between activities and documents them to create a network diagram.
Question 7: Which type of dependency between activities is MOST commonly used in project scheduling and represents that one activity must finish before the next can start?
- Start-to-Start (SS)
- Finish-to-Start (FS) (Correct answer)
- Finish-to-Finish (FF)
- Start-to-Finish (SF)
Correct answer: Finish-to-Start (FS)
Finish-to-Start is the most common dependency, requiring the predecessor to finish before the successor can begin.
CST Project Management & Planning 2
Which scheduling technique uses probabilistic time estimates (optimistic, most likely, pessimistic) to calculate expected activity durations?