CAPM Practice Question: Project Management Fundamentals and Core Concepts
A project manager is leading a marketing campaign project for a regional retailer. The sponsor asks the project manager to classify the effort. The work involves producing a one-time series of promotional videos and launching them by a fixed holiday deadline, after which the team is released. Which characteristic best supports classifying this as a project rather than ongoing operations?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that any funded, cross-departmental effort must be a project, when budget and coordination also describe routine operations.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The work is temporary and produces a unique deliverable with a defined start and end.
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The campaign has a fixed holiday deadline, a unique set of promotional videos, and a team that is released afterward, satisfying both temporariness and uniqueness. Budgets, coordination, and cross-functional staffing exist in operations too, so they cannot by themselves justify the project classification.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The work is performed by a cross-functional team using established organizational processes.
Why it's wrong here
Cross-functional teams and established processes appear in both projects and operations, so this does not distinguish the effort. Operations routinely use standardized procedures executed by multiple departments. The presence of a cross-functional team alone does not create a temporary, unique endeavor. This scenario's defining feature is the fixed deadline and unique campaign output, not the team composition or the existence of processes.
- ✓
The work is temporary and produces a unique deliverable with a defined start and end.
Why this is correct
Temporariness and uniqueness are the defining characteristics of a project. The promotional video campaign has a clear beginning and end tied to the holiday launch, and the resulting campaign deliverable is unique rather than repetitive. Because the team is released after the deadline, the effort does not continue indefinitely, which is exactly what distinguishes a project from ongoing operational work.
- ✗
The work consumes a budget and requires coordination across several departments.
Why it's wrong here
Budget consumption and cross-department coordination are common to nearly all organizational work, including operations. They do not establish that an effort is a project. Operations also have budgets and require coordination. While these factors are present in projects, they are not the distinguishing characteristic here. The temporary, unique nature of the campaign is what makes it a project.
- ✗
The work is repeated annually for each seasonal promotion to sustain ongoing revenue.
Why it's wrong here
Repetition to sustain ongoing revenue describes operations, not a project. If the campaign were repeated identically every season as a continuing business function, it would be operational work. The scenario states the team is released after the launch, indicating a one-time effort. Choosing repetition contradicts the temporary nature described and would misclassify the effort.
About these practice questions
This CAPM question is part of Courseiva's 451-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official PMI exam blueprint
This CAPM practice question is part of Courseiva's free PMI certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CAPM exam.