PMP Practice Test 16 — 15 Questions

Question 1

The sponsor asks you to skip the final round of user acceptance testing (UAT) to meet the deadline, stating that earlier tests were sufficient. What should the project manager do first?

Accepted Answer

Explain the risks of skipping UAT and propose alternatives, such as reducing test scope or compressing the schedule. The project manager must first address the sponsor's request by explaining the risks of skipping UAT, which validates that the system meets user requirements and functions correctly in a production-like environment. Proposing alternatives like reducing test scope or compressing the schedule demonstrates proactive risk management while keeping the project aligned with quality standards. Skipping UAT entirely could lead to undetected defects, user dissatisfaction, and costly rework post-deployment.

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Direct the team to proceed without UAT because the sponsor has authority

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Agree to skip UAT to accommodate the sponsor's request

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Escalate to the PMO or senior management that the sponsor is compromising quality

Question 2

A project is running 15% over budget at the midpoint. The sponsor is concerned and asks the PM to reduce costs by cutting team training and team-building activities. What should the PM do?

Accepted Answer

Explain the importance of these activities and propose other cost-saving measures. The PM should protect the project's long-term success by explaining the critical role of team training and team-building in maintaining performance and morale, especially when the project is under budget pressure. Cutting these activities can lead to decreased productivity, higher turnover, and ultimately greater cost overruns. The PM should propose alternative cost-saving measures that do not compromise the team's capability or the project's quality.

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Agree to cut training and team-building to meet the sponsor's request

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Reduce the project scope to cut costs

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Escalate to the PMO for a decision

Question 3

Your agile team's velocity has dropped for the third consecutive sprint. The team members report feeling burned out and demotivated due to excessive overtime. What should the project manager do first?

Accepted Answer

Hold a retrospective focused on identifying the causes of overtime and discuss ways to improve sustainable pace. The first step when facing burnout and overtime is to hold a retrospective to identify root causes and discuss sustainable pace improvements. This aligns with the agile principle of continuous improvement and the PMP People domain focus on team motivation and well-being. Addressing the underlying issues before taking corrective actions ensures long-term productivity rather than temporary fixes.

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Increase the team size by adding new members to distribute the workload

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Reduce the scope of the next sprint to give the team a break

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Inform the product owner that the team cannot commit to any new features until morale improves

Question 4

Your project team has been working remotely for the past six months. You notice that collaboration has decreased, and team members seem isolated. What is the BEST action to improve team cohesion?

Accepted Answer

Schedule weekly virtual coffee chats and informal team events. It directly addresses the root cause of decreased collaboration and isolation by creating informal, low-pressure opportunities for team members to connect socially. In a remote environment, formal meetings often fail to build the interpersonal bonds necessary for team cohesion, so virtual coffee chats and informal events are a proven technique from the PMBOK Guide's 'Team Building' and 'Virtual Team Management' practices. This action fosters trust and communication without imposing additional work-related pressure, which is essential for remote teams.

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Send a survey to ask team members what they want, then decide later

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Require all team members to work from the office two days a week

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Increase the frequency of status meetings to ensure accountability

Question 5

You are managing a software development project using a hybrid approach. Midway through the project, the product owner requests a new feature that requires changing the scope and schedule. The team is currently working on a critical path activity. What should you do first?

Accepted Answer

Submit a change request and evaluate the impact on scope, schedule, cost, and quality. In a hybrid project, any change that impacts scope, schedule, cost, or quality must follow the formal change control process. Submitting a change request allows the project manager to evaluate the impact on the critical path, resource allocation, and overall project constraints before any work begins. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's guidance on integrated change control, ensuring that the change is assessed against the project management plan and baselines.

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Tell the product owner the request cannot be considered because the project is already underway

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Add the new feature to the sprint backlog without formal approval

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Ask the team to start working on the feature immediately to save time

Question 6

Your agile team's velocity has dropped for the past three sprints. During the retrospective, team members mention they are overburdened with work from other departments. The project manager is not the team's direct manager. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Work with the functional managers to reduce the team's external workload. The correct first step is to address the root cause of the velocity drop—the team's overburden from external work. As the project manager lacks direct authority, you must collaborate with the functional managers who control the team members' assignments to negotiate a reduction in external workload. This aligns with the PMI principle of servant leadership and removing impediments, which is the immediate priority before adjusting plans or escalating.

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Re-estimate the backlog to reflect the lower velocity

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Ask the team to work faster and increase their hours

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Report the velocity drop to the project sponsor

Question 7

During project execution, a key stakeholder requests a change that will increase project scope by 15% but will also reduce operational costs by 20% after deployment. The project is currently on schedule and under budget. The project manager should FIRST:

Accepted Answer

Document the change request and analyze its impact on the project constraints.. Per the PMBOK Guide, the project manager must first document any change request and analyze its impact on the project constraints (scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, and risk) before any decision is made. Even though the change appears beneficial, the formal change control process requires a documented impact analysis to ensure the trade-offs are fully understood and the change is properly evaluated against the project's baselines.

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Implement the change as it provides clear business value.

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Reject the change because it increases scope beyond the approved baseline.

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Present the change to the Change Control Board (CCB) for approval.

Question 8

You are managing an agile software development team. In the last three sprints, the team's velocity has dropped from 30 to 22 story points. The team members are experienced but seem demotivated. What is the BEST action to take?

Accepted Answer

Conduct a retrospective to identify and address the root causes of the drop. The team's velocity drop and demotivation are symptoms of underlying issues that need to be uncovered through a retrospective. In agile, the retrospective is the primary mechanism for continuous improvement, allowing the team to inspect its processes, identify root causes (e.g., technical debt, unclear requirements, or interpersonal friction), and adapt. Reassigning work or replacing team members would bypass the team's self-organization and likely worsen morale, while increasing sprint length treats a symptom without addressing the cause.

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Reassign work to individual contributors to increase accountability

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Increase the sprint length to give the team more time

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Replace two team members with more productive resources

Question 9

An organization is transitioning from a traditional waterfall approach to agile. The project manager is tasked with leading a pilot agile project. During sprint planning, the product owner prioritizes features based on stakeholder feedback. However, the team is concerned that the prioritized features do not align with the organization's strategic goals. What should the project manager do?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a meeting with the product owner and key stakeholders to realign priorities. The project manager's role in an agile transition includes ensuring alignment between the sprint backlog and the organization's strategic goals. By facilitating a meeting with the product owner and key stakeholders, the PM enables a collaborative re-prioritization that respects both stakeholder feedback and strategic objectives, which is a core agile principle of continuous stakeholder engagement.

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Request a change to the project charter

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Tell the team to trust the product owner's decisions

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Escalate the issue to the project sponsor

Question 10

During project closure, what is the most important activity the project manager should perform?

Accepted Answer

Conduct a lessons learned session and document findings for future projects. The most important activity during project closure is to capture lessons learned and document them for future projects. This ensures that knowledge gained from the project's technical execution, such as challenges with specific technologies or processes, is preserved and can improve future project performance. Without this, the organization loses valuable insights that could prevent repeating mistakes or enhance efficiency.

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Archive all project documents without review

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Release all project resources immediately

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Celebrate the team's success with a party

Question 11

During a sprint review, the product owner requests a significant change to a feature that was just completed. The change would improve user experience but would require reworking two sprints' worth of work. The project is already behind schedule. What should the project manager do first?

Accepted Answer

Document the change request and assess its impact on the project constraints before submitting for approval. The project manager must first follow the formal change control process by documenting the change request and assessing its impact on the triple constraints (scope, schedule, cost) before any approval or rejection. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's Integrated Change Control process, which ensures that changes are evaluated systematically to avoid uncontrolled scope creep, especially when the project is already behind schedule.

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Agree to the change since it improves user experience and ask the team to start rework

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Reject the change because the project is already behind schedule

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Add the change to the product backlog for a future release without adjusting the current sprint

Question 12

Your project sponsor asks you to skip the testing phase to save time and meet the deadline, arguing that the team is experienced and the product is simple. What should you do?

Accepted Answer

Explain the risks of skipping testing and suggest alternatives such as reducing test scope or increasing resources. Skipping testing violates quality management principles and introduces significant risk of defects reaching production, which can cause rework, cost overruns, and reputational damage. As a project manager, you must protect the project's quality baseline and stakeholder confidence. Option A correctly addresses this by explaining the risks and proposing viable alternatives like reducing test scope or adding resources, which aligns with the PMI's focus on proactive risk management and stakeholder negotiation.

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Skip testing but document the decision in the lessons learned

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Agree to skip testing to maintain a good relationship with the sponsor

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Escalate the issue to the PMO or steering committee

Question 13

A team member has informed you that they are feeling burnt out due to the high pace of the project. The project is on schedule and within budget. What should the project manager do?

Accepted Answer

Discuss workload distribution with the team and consider adjusting assignments.. The project manager should first assess and address the workload imbalance that is causing burnout, which is a key responsibility under the 'Manage Team' process. By discussing workload distribution with the team and considering adjustments, the PM uses a collaborative approach to optimize resource utilization without compromising the project's schedule or budget. This aligns with the PMBOK Guide's emphasis on servant leadership and proactive team management.

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Tell the team member to take a short vacation and return refreshed.

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Remove the team member from the project to protect their health.

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Reduce the project scope to lower the pace.

Question 14

Your project is using a predictive approach. A key vendor notifies you that they will be unable to deliver a critical component for another four weeks. This component is on the critical path, and you have no schedule reserve left. You have identified that a different vendor can deliver in two weeks at a 20% higher cost. What should you do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Perform a quantitative analysis comparing the cost of the alternative vendor versus the cost of delay, then submit a change request. In a predictive (waterfall) project with no schedule reserve and a critical path delay, the first step is to perform a quantitative analysis to compare the cost of the alternative vendor (20% higher) against the cost of schedule delay (e.g., liquidated damages, lost revenue, or penalties). This analysis provides objective data to support a change request, which is the formal process to alter the project baselines. Option B aligns with the PMBOK Guide's emphasis on data-driven decision-making before taking corrective action.

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Immediately contract the alternative vendor to avoid further delay

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Ask the original vendor to expedite delivery at no extra cost

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Update the risk register and accept the four-week delay

Question 15

In your agile project, the team's velocity has been declining over the past three sprints from 30 to 25 to 20 story points. The team members report feeling overworked and demotivated. The daily standup meetings are running long, and the product owner is adding too many stories each sprint. What should the project manager do FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a retrospective to identify root causes and collaboratively develop improvement actions. The correct first step is to facilitate a retrospective (Option B) because the team's declining velocity, overwork, and demotivation indicate systemic issues that require collaborative root-cause analysis. In agile, the retrospective is the primary mechanism for inspecting and adapting processes; jumping to solutions without understanding the underlying technical and workflow problems would violate the empirical process control principles of Scrum. The project manager must empower the team to identify impediments—such as excessive story churn from the product owner or inefficient standups—and co-create actionable improvements.

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Ask the product owner to reduce the number of stories per sprint

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Reduce the sprint length to create urgency and improve focus

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Mandate that the team must increase velocity to 30 story points next sprint