Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Project and Team Management 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Black Belt is managing a cross-functional team where members report to different department heads. This is an example of which organizational structure?
- Functional organization
- Matrix organization (Correct answer)
- Projectized organization
- Hierarchical organization
Correct answer: Matrix organization
A matrix organization has employees reporting to both functional managers and project managers simultaneously.
Question 2: Which stage of Tuckman's team development model is characterized by team members challenging roles, authority, and processes?
- Forming
- Storming (Correct answer)
- Norming
- Performing
Correct answer: Storming
During Storming, team members compete for positions, challenge processes, and interpersonal conflicts are most likely to surface.
Question 3: A project sponsor wants weekly status updates. Which information is MOST critical to include in these updates?
- Detailed technical findings from data analysis
- Progress against milestones, risks, and financial status (Correct answer)
- Team member performance evaluations
- Raw data from measurement system analysis
Correct answer: Progress against milestones, risks, and financial status
Sponsors need high-level visibility into schedule, risks, and costs to fulfill their governance and resource-allocation responsibilities.
Question 4: In risk management for Six Sigma projects, what does a risk priority number (RPN) in FMEA represent?
- The probability that a defect will occur in the next month
- The product of Severity, Occurrence, and Detection ratings (Correct answer)
- The financial impact of a failure mode
- The number of team members assigned to mitigate a risk
Correct answer: The product of Severity, Occurrence, and Detection ratings
RPN = Severity × Occurrence × Detection, used to prioritize which failure modes require the most urgent corrective action.
Question 5: When should a Black Belt escalate a project issue to the project sponsor?
- After every team meeting regardless of issue severity
- When the issue is outside the team's authority or threatens project success (Correct answer)
- Only when the project is completely off-track
- Never — the Black Belt should resolve all issues independently
Correct answer: When the issue is outside the team's authority or threatens project success
Escalation is appropriate when issues exceed the team's decision-making authority or pose significant risk to project objectives.
Question 6: A Black Belt needs to estimate project duration. She identifies that an optimistic estimate is 8 weeks, a most likely estimate is 12 weeks, and a pessimistic estimate is 22 weeks. What is the PERT estimate?
- 12 weeks
- 13 weeks (Correct answer)
- 14 weeks
- 15 weeks
Correct answer: 13 weeks
PERT = (Optimistic + 4×Most Likely + Pessimistic) / 6 = (8 + 48 + 22) / 6 = 78 / 6 = 13 weeks.
Question 7: Which type of project closure activity ensures lessons learned are captured and shared across the organization?
- Control plan handoff
- Post-project review or retrospective (Correct answer)
- Final DMAIC tollgate review
- Closing the project charter
Correct answer: Post-project review or retrospective
A post-project retrospective systematically captures what worked, what didn't, and best practices to benefit future projects organization-wide.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Project and Team Management 3
A Black Belt is managing a cross-functional team where members report to different department heads.
This is an example of which organizational structure?