FPE Project Planning & Scheduling 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Earned Value Management (EVM) for a fire sprinkler project, if EV = $80,000 and PV = $100,000, what does this indicate?
- The project is ahead of schedule
- The project is behind schedule (Correct answer)
- The project is under budget
- The project has positive cost variance
Correct answer: The project is behind schedule
When EV < PV, the Schedule Variance (SV = EV - PV) is negative, indicating the project is behind schedule.
Question 2: A fire protection contractor uses a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) on a large hospital project. The primary purpose of a RAM is to:
- Document the project budget by work package
- Link project work packages to project team members or organizations (Correct answer)
- Track schedule milestones against actual completion dates
- Define quality standards for each deliverable
Correct answer: Link project work packages to project team members or organizations
A RAM (often implemented as a RACI chart) maps work packages or activities to the responsible parties, clarifying accountability.
Question 3: During the planning of a complex fire protection system for a high-rise, the project team identifies that elevator shaft pressurization work must be completed before stairwell pressurization testing. This is an example of what type of dependency?
- Discretionary dependency
- External dependency
- Mandatory dependency (Correct answer)
- Preferential dependency
Correct answer: Mandatory dependency
Mandatory dependencies (also called hard logic) are inherent in the nature of the work and cannot be changed without affecting technical validity.
Question 4: A Schedule Performance Index (SPI) of 0.85 on a fire alarm installation project means:
- The project is 15% over budget
- The project is earning only $0.85 for every $1.00 of planned work (Correct answer)
- The project has 15% more resources than planned
- The project will finish 15 days early
Correct answer: The project is earning only $0.85 for every $1.00 of planned work
SPI = EV/PV; an SPI of 0.85 indicates the project is completing only 85% of the planned work per time period, signifying schedule inefficiency.
Question 5: When developing a fire protection project schedule, analogous estimating would be MOST appropriate when:
- Detailed design drawings are complete and quantities are known
- Historical data from similar past projects is available but current project details are limited (Correct answer)
- The project team has never installed this type of system before
- The owner requires a fully resource-loaded schedule at project initiation
Correct answer: Historical data from similar past projects is available but current project details are limited
Analogous estimating uses historical data from similar projects when current project details are insufficient for bottom-up estimation.
Question 6: A fire protection project's critical path runs through activities: Design → Procurement → Fabrication → Installation → Testing. If Testing is delayed by 3 days due to weather, the impact on project completion is:
- Zero, because weather delays are excluded from critical path
- 3 days, because Testing is on the critical path (Correct answer)
- Unknown without knowing the total float of Testing
- 1.5 days, because delay impact is split equally
Correct answer: 3 days, because Testing is on the critical path
Any delay to an activity on the critical path directly extends the project completion date by the same duration.
Question 7: Which contract type places the GREATEST financial risk on the fire protection contractor for cost overruns?
- Cost plus fixed fee (CPFF)
- Cost plus incentive fee (CPIF)
- Firm fixed price (FFP) (Correct answer)
- Time and materials (T&M)
Correct answer: Firm fixed price (FFP)
Under a firm fixed price contract, the contractor bears all cost overrun risk because the price is set regardless of actual costs incurred.
FPE Project Planning & Scheduling 3
In Earned Value Management (EVM) for a fire sprinkler project, if EV = $80,000 and PV = $100,000, what does this indicate?