CAPM Practice Test 31 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You are the Scrum Master for a distributed team of 8 developers working on a mobile app. The team uses two-week Sprints and has a stable velocity of 20 story points. In the current Sprint, the team committed to 22 points. By Day 5 of the Sprint (out of 10), the team has completed only 6 points. During the Daily Scrum, several members mention they are blocked by missing API documentation from a third-party vendor. The Product Owner says the vendor promised the documentation by Day 3, but it has not arrived. The developers have started working on other tasks, but they are not well-defined and are causing confusion. What should the Scrum Master do?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a meeting with the vendor to escalate the issue, and work with the team to re-prioritize the Sprint Backlog, possibly removing low-priority items to achieve a realistic Sprint Goal.. The Scrum Master's primary responsibility is to remove impediments and facilitate the team's progress. By escalating the missing API documentation to the vendor and facilitating a re-prioritization of the Sprint Backlog, the Scrum Master directly addresses the blocker and ensures the team can focus on well-defined, achievable work. This aligns with the Scrum Guide's principle of transparency and adaptation within the Sprint, especially given the team's stable velocity of 20 points and the current 6-point completion rate.

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Tell the team to continue working on other tasks and hope the documentation arrives soon.

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Ask the Product Owner to remove the blocked stories from the Sprint Backlog without consulting the team.

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Extend the Sprint by 3 days to allow the vendor to deliver the documentation and the team to complete the work.

Question 2

Refer to the exhibit. A business analyst is reviewing the requirements specification for a web application. Which requirement has a missing acceptance criterion and is therefore incomplete?

Accepted Answer

REQ-003. REQ-003 is incomplete because it states 'The system shall load the homepage within 2 seconds' but fails to specify under which network conditions (e.g., 3G, 4G, or broadband), browser type, or concurrent user load this performance target must be met. Without these acceptance criteria, the requirement cannot be objectively verified or tested.

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REQ-001

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REQ-004

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REQ-002

Question 3

A project team is adopting Kanban. They currently have a cycle time of 10 days and a throughput of 5 items per week. The team wants to improve predictability. Which action would most directly help?

Accepted Answer

Make the work items smaller.. Making work items smaller directly reduces variability in cycle time and throughput, which improves predictability in Kanban. Smaller items are easier to estimate, flow more consistently through the system, and reduce the risk of large items blocking the workflow, leading to more reliable delivery forecasts.

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Add more team members.

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Decrease the WIP limits.

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Increase the WIP limits.

Question 4

Refer to the exhibit. A business analyst has documented the current and target states for invoice processing. What business analysis technique is being used?

Accepted Answer

Gap analysis. The business analyst is comparing the current state and target state of invoice processing to identify the differences or gaps that need to be addressed. This is the core definition of gap analysis, which is a technique used to determine the steps required to move from the current state to the desired future state. The exhibit explicitly shows a 'Current State' and 'Target State' for invoice processing, making gap analysis the correct technique.

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Feasibility study

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SWOT analysis

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Root cause analysis

Question 5

Refer to the exhibit. Based on the server health check, which requirement is most likely to be triggered?

Accepted Answer

Expand disk space on /var/log. The error message indicates a critical disk space issue on /var/log, so expanding disk space is the most likely requirement. CPU and memory are within normal ranges, and replacing the server is premature.

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Add more memory

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Replace the server

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Increase CPU capacity

Question 6

During a requirements validation session, the project sponsor questions whether a particular requirement aligns with the business case. The business analyst recalls that the requirement originated from a regulatory compliance need. What should the BA do to resolve the concern?

Accepted Answer

Show the sponsor the traceability link to the regulatory requirement.. The business analyst (BA) should use the traceability link to demonstrate how the requirement directly maps to a regulatory compliance need, which is a valid justification within the business case. Traceability ensures that every requirement is linked back to a business objective or external driver, such as a regulation, and provides objective evidence to resolve the sponsor's concern without subjective debate.

Answer

Ignore the sponsor's comment and proceed with the requirement as documented.

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Remove the requirement to address the sponsor's concern.

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Postpone the discussion until the next stakeholder meeting.

Question 7

A project manager is estimating the duration of an activity. The optimistic estimate is 4 days, the pessimistic is 12 days, and the most likely is 6 days. Using the PERT three-point estimate, what is the expected duration?

Accepted Answer

6.67 days. The PERT three-point estimate formula is (Optimistic + 4×Most Likely + Pessimistic) / 6. Plugging in the values: (4 + 4×6 + 12) / 6 = (4 + 24 + 12) / 6 = 40 / 6 = 6.67 days. This weighted average gives more influence to the most likely estimate, providing a realistic expected duration.

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12 days

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7.33 days

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6 days

Question 8

A financial services company is adopting Scrum for a critical compliance project. The team has six developers, one product owner, and one Scrum Master. After three sprints, the product owner is frustrated because the team has only delivered 40% of the planned features. The team says they are working full capacity but keep getting interrupted by urgent production support requests from the operations team. The Scrum Master notices that the team’s velocity is dropping each sprint. The product owner insists on increasing the sprint length from two weeks to four weeks to allow more time for delivery. However, the compliance deadline is fixed. The Scrum Master must recommend a course of action. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Ask the product owner to prioritize production support requests as part of the sprint backlog and limit work in progress. It addresses the root cause of the team's velocity drop: unplanned production support requests. By asking the Product Owner to prioritize these requests into the sprint backlog, the team can formally account for the work, limit work in progress (WIP), and maintain a sustainable pace. This aligns with Scrum's principle of transparency and allows the team to make realistic commitments while still protecting the fixed compliance deadline.

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Instruct the team to work overtime to meet the original sprint commitments

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Increase the sprint length to four weeks to give the team more time to complete work

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Remove the Scrum Master position to save costs and let the team self-manage

Question 9

In Kanban, the team is experiencing frequent bottlenecks at the testing stage. Which practice should they adopt to improve flow?

Accepted Answer

Limit the WIP at each stage, especially testing.. In Kanban, limiting Work in Progress (WIP) at each stage is a core practice to expose bottlenecks and improve flow. By capping the number of items allowed in testing, the team prevents work from piling up, forcing them to finish existing tasks before pulling new ones. This directly addresses the frequent bottlenecks by making the constraint visible and actionable, enabling the team to focus on completing testing rather than starting more work.

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Increase the batch size of work items.

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Conduct daily stand-up meetings.

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Add more testers to the testing phase.

Question 10

During a predictive project's execution phase, a key stakeholder requests a change that adds a minor feature. The project manager assesses the impact and determines the change will increase cost by 5% and extend the schedule by two days, which is within the contingency reserves. What should the project manager do first?

Accepted Answer

Submit a change request to the change control board (CCB).. The change control process requires submitting any change request to the Change Control Board (CCB) for evaluation and approval before implementation, even if the impact is within contingency reserves. Option B is incorrect because the project manager cannot unilaterally approve changes unless explicitly granted that authority. Option C is incorrect because the project charter is a high-level document and is not updated for minor feature changes; such updates are handled through integrated change control. Option D is incorrect because implementing the change without formal approval bypasses the established change control process.

Answer

Approve the change immediately and inform the team.

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Update the project charter to reflect the new feature.

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Implement the change since it is within the contingency reserves.

Question 11

A business analyst needs to understand how users currently perform a task before designing a new system. Which elicitation technique is best for capturing step-by-step processes in the actual work environment?

Accepted Answer

Observation. Observation is the correct elicitation technique because it allows the business analyst to witness the actual step-by-step process in the user's real work environment, capturing nuances and implicit steps that users may not articulate in interviews or surveys. This technique is ideal for understanding current workflows without relying on users' memory or interpretation, ensuring the new system design accurately reflects real-world constraints.

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Interviews

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Survey questionnaire

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Prototyping

Question 12

A software development project is using a predictive approach with a detailed project schedule based on the critical path method (CPM). The project is currently in the execution phase. The team reports that a critical task (Task X) is two weeks behind schedule. Task X has a total float of 0 and has two immediate successors: Task Y and Task Z, both of which are also on the critical path. The project manager has the ability to add resources to overlapping tasks. The project sponsor is concerned about the schedule delay and wants a recovery plan. The project manager needs to determine the best course of action to get the project back on track without impacting quality or budget excessively.

Accepted Answer

Crash Task X by adding more resources to complete it faster.. Crashing Task X by adding resources is the most effective way to compress the schedule of a critical path task with zero float, directly addressing the two-week delay without altering scope or re-baselining. Fast-tracking successors (option D) risks rework and does not reduce the duration of Task X itself. Reducing scope (option A) compromises requirements, and re-baselining (option B) accepts the delay rather than recovering it. Therefore, option C is correct.

Answer

Reduce the scope of Task X to meet the original deadline.

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Re-baseline the schedule to reflect the delay and inform the sponsor.

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Fast-track the successors by starting them as soon as possible even if the predecessor is incomplete.

Question 13

A manufacturing company is implementing a new ERP system. The project team includes members from IT, finance, and operations. The organization uses a strong matrix structure. Recently, the project has been missing milestones because the operations manager frequently assigns urgent operational tasks to the operations team members, who are also assigned part-time to the project. The project manager has discussed this with the operations manager, but the situation continues. The project sponsor is concerned about the delays and wants a solution within two days. What should the project manager do?

Accepted Answer

Request that the functional managers allocate dedicated resources to the project for its duration.. In a strong matrix organization, functional managers retain authority over their team members' assignments. Since the operations manager continues to pull operations staff for urgent tasks despite the project manager's discussion, the root cause is resource availability. The most effective solution is to request dedicated resources from the functional managers, ensuring the project has full-time commitment from key team members and eliminating the conflict that causes milestone delays.

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Compress the project schedule by fast-tracking remaining activities.

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Escalate the issue to the project sponsor and ask for intervention.

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Document the issue in the issue log and update the risk register.

Question 14

Refer to the exhibit. What is the total float of Task B?

Accepted Answer

1 day. Task B has a total float of 1 day because it lies on a non-critical path. The critical path (A-C-D) has a duration of 11 days, while the path containing Task B (A-B-D) has a duration of 10 days. Total float is calculated as the difference between the duration of the critical path and the duration of the path containing the task, which is 11 - 10 = 1 day.

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3 days

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2 days

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0 days

Question 15

A project manager is leading a requirements workshop for a new software system. The business analyst suggests using a technique that involves creating a visual representation of the sequence of steps in a business process. Which technique is being suggested?

Accepted Answer

Flow chart. A flowchart is the correct technique because it visually represents the sequence of steps in a business process, using standardized symbols (e.g., ovals for start/end, rectangles for tasks, diamonds for decisions) to map the flow of activities. This aligns directly with the scenario of creating a visual representation of process steps during a requirements workshop.

Answer

Use case diagram

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Mind map

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Data flow diagram