PMP - Project Management Professional Project Schedule Management Questions and Answers

Question 1

A project manager is analyzing the project schedule and identifies a series of activities with zero total float. Any delay to one of these activities will cause a delay to the project completion date. What does this series of activities represent?

Accepted Answer

The critical path

Answer

The critical path is the sequence of activities that represents the longest path through a project, which determines the shortest possible project duration. By definition, activities on the critical path have zero total float (or slack), meaning any delay in these activities will directly impact the project's end date. [21, 25, 28]

Question 2

A project is behind schedule. The project manager decides to have the development team start coding activities before the design phase is 100% complete. This involves overlapping activities that were originally planned to be performed in sequence. Which schedule compression technique is being utilized?

Accepted Answer

Fast tracking

Answer

Fast tracking is a schedule compression technique where activities or phases normally done in sequence are performed in parallel for at least a portion of their duration. [2, 7, 19] This approach can increase risk and potentially cause rework. Crashing, another compression technique, involves adding resources to shorten activity durations, which typically increases cost. [2, 7, 13]

Question 3

To manage uncertainty in a highly innovative project, the project manager asks the team to provide three duration estimates for a key activity: Optimistic (O), Pessimistic (P), and Most Likely (M). Using the PERT formula (O + 4M + P) / 6, the project manager calculates the expected duration. What is this estimation technique called?

Accepted Answer

Three-point estimating

Answer

Three-point estimating uses three estimates to define an approximate range for an activity's duration. This method is used when there is uncertainty. The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a specific form of three-point estimating that uses a weighted average, giving more weight to the most likely estimate. [1, 14, 17]

Question 4

A project manager is leading a construction project. To accelerate the timeline, the schedule indicates that the landscaping team can begin their work five days before the exterior painting is fully completed. This intentional overlap between a predecessor (painting) and a successor (landscaping) is an example of what?

Accepted Answer

A lead

Answer

A lead is the amount of time a successor activity can be advanced with respect to a predecessor activity. In this scenario, landscaping is advanced, allowing it to start before its predecessor is finished. A lag, conversely, is a required delay between activities. [8, 9, 10]

Question 5

A project manager reviews the initial schedule and discovers that a key engineer is over-allocated, scheduled for 12 hours a day for two straight weeks. To fix this, the manager delays some of the engineer's non-critical tasks to a later time. This adjustment resolves the over-allocation but pushes out the project's final completion date. Which resource optimization technique was used?

Accepted Answer

Resource leveling

Answer

Resource leveling is a technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource constraints with the goal of balancing demand for resources with the available supply. Resource leveling can often cause the original critical path to change and the project duration to increase. [20, 23, 26] Resource smoothing adjusts activities within their float, so it does not change the critical path. [23, 26, 27]

PMP - Project Management Professional Practice Test

PMP - Project Management Professional Practice Test

PMP - Project Management Professional Project Schedule Management Questions and Answers