MGT 461 Exam 2 – Flashcards
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"Unknown unknowns" is a term used to describe events which occur that are totally unexpecteD) All of the following accurately describe an implication associated with unknown unknowns EXCEPT:
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They are usually discovered during risk identification
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There is often terrific pressure to complete a project as quickly as possible. To confront this pressure, a project manager should quickly promise to meet the deadlines requested by the sponsor and then assemble a team to create the corresponding schedule.
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FALSE
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Since activities represent work that needs to be performed, it doesn't matter how the verb-noun is listed.
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FALSE
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Faced with significant schedule challenges, the project manager has several responsibilities. All of the following are among the project manager's responsibilities EXCEPT:
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willingly accept end dates dictated by customers or sponsors
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While the lowest level of decomposition in a Work Breakdown Structure is the work package, work packages can still be decomposed further into project activities.
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TRUE
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For activities to be useful as schedule building blocks, they should have what characteristic(s)?
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All of these
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The critical path is the sequence of activities that form the shortest path through the project network and determine the duration of the project.
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FALSE
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Estimates of the likely amount a project will cost should always include an indication of accuracy.
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TRUE
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The length of time to perform an activity is often dependent upon who will do that work.
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TRUE
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Milestones are important points in a project schedule that can serve as check points for project managers and sponsors. All of the following reasons might justify the decision to establish a milestone EXCEPT:
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updating status reports
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Estimating the number of work periods that will be needed to complete individual schedule activities characterizes which of the following time management processes?
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Estimate activity duration
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A successor activity follows a predecessor activity based on their logical relationship.
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TRUE
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The process of estimating the types and quantities of resources required to perform each scheduled activity is called a "project staffing analysis."
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FALSE
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The staffing management plan addresses all of the following except:
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how to create project organization charts
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A milestone is a typical measuring point used when establishing cost control. Which of the following accurately describes the use of cost control milestones?
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all of these
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When estimating resource needs, project teams should consider all the following EXCEPT:
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scoring models
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When determining resource availability, project managers need only consider full-time, internal resources.
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FALSE
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When identifying people to work on the project, it is helpful to consider their professional disciplines, skill levels and their physical location.
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TRUE
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Project managers often confront the challenge of reducing excessive time commitments and overloads among project resources. All of the following methods represent a potentially viable strategy to reduce work overloads EXCEPT:
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Require all project resources to work overtime
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In order to avoid project delays, project managers confronted with resource overloads will naturally seek to exploit the slack associated with non-critical activities.
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TRUE
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Resource leveling is a network scheduling technique that seeks to assign nearly equivalent work units to each member of the project team.
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FALSE
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When resource overloads are extreme, project managers may need to consider the acquisition of additional resources, reductions in scope or extensions to the project schedule.
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TRUE
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The critical chain method is a schedule network analysis technique that modifies the project schedule to account for limited resources.
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TRUE
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There are many causes of variation in project costs. Which of the following accurately describes the nature of this variation?
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Variation occurs in all work processes and the novelty associated with most projects creates many opportunities for variation.
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The document that establishes the activities and criteria for planning, structuring and controlling the project costs is the project financial plan.
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FALSE
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Recurring costs tend to occur during project planning and closing while nonrecurring costs tend to occur during project execution.
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FALSE
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Project managers are encouraged to avoid overly conservative cost estimates because the resulting estimate may be too high to approve.
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TRUE
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The cost management plan establishes the format and criteria for planning and controlling the project costs.
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TRUE
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Fixed costs remain constant over time, whereas variable costs may change directly as a function of time.
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FALSE
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A project manager needs to ensure that the cumulative amount of cash coming into the project either from internal budgeting or from customer payments meets or exceeds the demands for paying cash out.
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TRUE
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Except in rare circumstances, project teams should not attempt to decompose work packages into project activities because work packages provide sufficient detail to develop a project schedule.
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False
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All of the following items describe an aspect of life cycle costing EXCEPT:
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Life cycle cost only includes the project cost from initiating through closing
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Cost estimating is linked very closely with scope, schedule and resource planning.
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True
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If a project manager delays the start of an activity on the critical path, than the expected completion date of the project will occur at a later date than originally planned.
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True
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While a "RACI"chart may be very useful for assigning activities to core team members and project managers, the sheer number of subject matter experts on many projects renders the RACI chart impractical for large projects.
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False
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Consider the programmers resource histogram presented in Figure 8-3. How many programmers are required during the fifth week of this project?
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7 programmers
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Activity based costing allocates indirect costs based on different types of cost drivers. Which of the following cost drivers serve as a basis of allocation when activity based costing is used?
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number of units produced
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One approach to identify which activities contribute to work overload for a particular resource is to compare the resource histogram to the Gantt chart.
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True
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Typically, expedited costs are preferred over regular costs.
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False
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The first process in developing a project schedule is to identify all the resources available to work on the project.
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False
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The sequencing of activities is often based upon dependencies between the activities. The dependencies that should guide activity sequencing can be either
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Mandatory or discretionary
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Even when a project team does not identify individual activities, it will still need to determine how many resources are needed to complete the project
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True
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When recruiting resources to support a project, it is always best to bring team members and experts on board as soon as possible.
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True
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On small projects, the cost management plan may simply address the accuracy of estimating, the source of funding and cost reporting procedures.
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True
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In order for activities to be useful as schedule building blocks, they should have tangible output that can be verified.
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True
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Creating a realistic schedule is often an iterative process because several factors can limit how fast a project can be completed. All of the following factors can limit how fast a project can be scheduled and completed EXCEPT
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quality control
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The first draft of the project schedule can be drafted once the WBS has been constructed.
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True
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Consider the time-phased budget presented in Figure 9-1. What is the cumulative project budget through the end of April?
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$46,000
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Monte Carlo Analysis is a technique that computes activity durations based on three time estimates: one optimistic, one pessimistic and one most likely.
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False
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One precondition that must be met for a project kick-off meeting is that the project manager needs to set clear directions during the planning phase and does not need to collaborate with the sponsor before doing so.
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FALSE
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Risk is often considered in terms of impact to project success. Which of the following is a valid measure of project success?
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all of these
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It is impossible to remove all sources of risk on a project.
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TRUE
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All of the following are benefits that can be attributed to the effective use of a risk management plan EXCEPT:
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It enables the project manager to identify and eliminate all risks
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The risk management plan is the document that describes how project risk management will be structured and performed on a project.
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TRUE
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All of the following items are valid reasons to conduct a project kick-off meeting EXCEPT:
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to emphasize that all decisions will be made exclusively by the project manager
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A risk is anything that may impact the project team's ability to achieve the general project success measures and the specific project stakeholder priorities.
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TRUE
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Which of the following describes the effective use of a risk register?
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Items such as the probability of occurrence and impact are typically added to the risk register subsequent to risk identification.
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Project teams can often identify risks by conducting any of several types of reviews. Which of the following illustrates a valuable type of risk review?
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review the communication plan to determine where poor communications could cause a problem
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The risk register is a living document and new risks can be added as they are identified.
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TRUE
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The formality of a kick-off meeting can vary considerably depending on the size and type of project.
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TRUE
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All of the following criteria can be used to categorize project risks EXCEPT:
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whether the risk is a known known
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All of the following methods have proven to be useful techniques to help project teams identify the risks that might impact the project EXCEPT:
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deriving lessons learned
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Generally, once risks have been identified and analyzed, the project team decides how to handle each risk.
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TRUE
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All of the following are among the classic risk response strategies EXCEPT:
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share a threat
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When an overall plan becomes or appears impractical, the key stakeholders often will determine their priorities and tradeoffs prior to proceeding.
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TRUE
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In some cases, project teams will elect to reduce a threat rather than eliminate it because the effort to completely eliminate a threat is unjustified.
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TRUE
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Sometimes the risks posed by a project are so great that an appropriate risk response is to not perform the project at all.
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TRUE
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Which of the following describes the appropriate use of a cause and effect diagram to support project risk analysis?
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It is often easier to alter the effect by changing the underlying cause.
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Project stakeholders will judge the quality of project work processes as well as project deliverables.
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TRUE
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It is important that there is an atmosphere of trust and relationship building prior to kicking off the project amongst all parties involved.
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TRUE
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All of the following reasons explain why it is better to design quality into processes than to find problems through inspections EXCEPT:
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The best inspectors should find every variation and defect
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DMAIC is typically used as a method of implementing continuous improvement and can thus be practiced repeatedly within a single process to further improve process performance.
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TRUE
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The decision process for developing relevant quality standards on a project includes all of the following activities EXCEPT:
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design work systems
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The four core project quality concepts include which of the following?
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stakeholder satisfaction
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The quality policy on a specific project should defer the quality policies of the parent organization when major customer needs and policies create a conflict
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FALSE
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Which of the following documents describes how the project management team will implement the performing organization's quality policy?
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the quality management plan
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The project manager is responsible for selecting appropriate quality standards for the project. Typically, these standards apply to all of the following EXCEPT:
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team selection criteria
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Project quality tools such as a histogram, Pareto chart, and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) are generally used in support of which of the following DMAIC phases?
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Analyze
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The quality management plan describes how the project management team will implement the performing organization's quality policy.
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TRUE
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Which of the following activities illustrates a risk response strategy designed to mitigate a threat?
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train a team member to cover for a potentially unavailable key resource.
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The International Organization for Standardization developed a quality management standard that relies upon several quality management areas including management, resources and realization.
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True
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The primary questions project teams use in qualitative risk analysis are "What is the nature of this risk?" and "Who will be responsible for addressing it?"
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False
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The cost per risk for risks discovered early in the project is often more than the cost per risk for risks discovered late because there is more opportunity for the risk to impact several dimensions of the project.
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False
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All of the following activities are appropriate upon completion of risk response planning EXCEPT:
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The risk register should be baselined after planning is completed, and should not be updated once the project is in flight.
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A risk management plan should define who has responsibility for causing each risk and hold the responsible party directly accountable for developing an appropriate solution.
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False
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Project managers can identify risks by learning and understanding the cause and effect relationships that bear on risk events. All of the following approaches rely upon an understanding of cause and effect relationships to identify risks EXCEPT:
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list all in a risk register
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Identifying risk involves a process of determining which risk might affect the project without having to having to document the nature or characteristics of the risk.
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False
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On many small, simple projects the quality planning is performed concurrently with other planning and the quality plan is seamlessly incorporated into the project plan.
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True
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All of the following describe the appropriate application of Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis in project management EXCEPT:
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Brainstorming techniques are used by the team and other stakeholders to identify as many project risks as possible.
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After completing detailed planning for a project, it is often helpful for the project manager and team to apply a sanity test to the project plan. Which of the following accurately describes the application of a sanity test?
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It should include questions to ensure budgets, schedules and resource plans are reasonable and achievable.
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All of the following actions play constructive roles in an organization when project managers are considering process improvements EXCEPT:
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Organizations focus exclusively on short term results.
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Which of the following activities are typically included in a project kick-off meeting?
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The project manager outlines the project goals.
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The process of deciding how to approach, plan and execute risk management activities for a project is known as Project Risk Absorption Methodology (PRAM).
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False
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When the impact of an event is negative, it is considered a risk; when the impact is positive, the event is considered an opportunity.
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True
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Risk response strategies such as acceptance and conducting further research apply to both threats and opportunities.
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True
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The primary output of risk identification is the Risk Identification Matrix (RIM)
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False
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The primary output of risk identification is the Risk Identification Matrix (RIM)
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False
