IST 302 – Flashcards
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These are different from operations in that they end when their objectives have been reached or the project has been terminated.
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Projects
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A ____________________ usually provides the direction and funding for a project.
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project sponsor
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Managing the __________________ involves making trade-offs between scope, time, and cost goals for a project. Experienced project managers know that one must decide which aspect of the triple constraint is most important.
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triple constraint
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______________ are the people involved in or affected by project activities, and include the project sponsor, project team, support staff, customers, users, suppliers, and even opponents of a project.
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Stakeholders
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When are stakeholders' needs and expectations important ?
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In the beginning and throughout the life of a project.
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Project management knowledge areas describe:
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the key competencies that project managers must develop.
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Project stakeholder management includes:
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identifying and analyzing stakeholder needs while managing and controlling their engagement throughout the life of the product.
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_________ ____________ work with the project sponsors, the project team, and other stakeholders to meet project goals. They also work with sponsors to define success for particular projects.
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Project managers
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IT project managers must be willing to develop more than their _________ __________ to be productive team members and successful project managers. Everyone, no matter how technical they are, should develop business and soft skills.
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technical skills
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Which of the following is true of projects?
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They have a unique purpose.Every project should have a well-defined objective.
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Project _____ management involves defining and managing all the work required to complete the project successfully.
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scope
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Which of the following project management knowledge areas primarily involve generating, collecting, disseminating, and storing project information?
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Project communications management
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Which of the following project management knowledge areas is an overarching function that affects and is affected by the different knowledge areas?
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Project integration management
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In which of the following areas of management is payback analysis most likely to be used?
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Cost
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Team building exercises and motivation techniques are tools used in _____ management.
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human resource
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Which of the following is true of program managers?
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They provide leadership and direction for project managers heading the projects within a program.
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Which of the following best defines the role of leaders?
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They inspire people to reach goals.
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A critical path:
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determines the earliest completion date of a project.
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Which of the following provides certification as a Project Management Professional?
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PMI
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Enterprise project management softwares are also known as _____ tools of project management software.
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high-end
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Which of the following is true of low-end tools of the project management software?
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They provide basic project management features.
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___________________ and their teams must keep in mind the effects of any project on the interests and needs of the entire system or organization instead of focusing on the immediate concerns of the project. and their teams must keep in mind the effects of any project on the interests and needs of the entire system or organization instead of focusing on the immediate concerns of the project.
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Project managers
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According to the _________ frame, the most important aspect of any event in an organization is not what actually happened, but what it means.
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symbolic
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An organization that uses this earns their revenue primarily from performing projects for other groups under contract.
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project organizational structure
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Most people believe that the underlying causes of many companies' problems can be traced to its organizational structure.
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FALSE
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___________________________is very powerful, and many people believe the underlying causes of many companies ' problems are not in the organizational structure or staff; they are in the culture.
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Organizational culture
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________________ project stakeholders include the project 's customers (if they are external to the organization), competitors, suppliers, and other external groups potentially involved in the project or affected by it, such as government officials or concerned citizens.
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External
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Standards and guidelines to follow when performing project management must be devised by _______ management.
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top
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A ________ team is a group of people who work together despite time and space boundaries using communication technologies.
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virtual
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_____ refers to a problem-solving approach that requires defining the scope of a system, dividing it into its components, and then identifying and evaluating its problems, opportunities, constraints, and needs
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Systems analysis
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The _____ perspective on organizations assumes that organizations are coalitions composed of varied individuals and interest groups.
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political frame
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In a _____ organizational structure, personnel often report to both a functional manager and one or more project managers.
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matrix
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Project managers have the least amount of authority in a pure _____ organizational structure.
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functional
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_____ refers to a set of shared assumptions, values, and behaviors that characterize the functioning of an organization.
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Organizational culture
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_____ refers to the degree to employees identify with the organization as a whole, rather than with their types of job or profession.
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Member identity
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_____ refers to the degree to which the organization monitors and responds to changes in the external environment.
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Open-system focus
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Using a systems approach is critical to successful project management.
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True
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_____ are an example of external stakeholders for an organization.
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Competitors
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What is true of the project life cycle ?
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In the early phases of a project life cycle, resource needs are usually lowest and the level of uncertainty is highest.
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In the _____ phase, the project team creates a definitive or very accurate cost estimate, delivers the required work, and provides performance reports to stakeholders.
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implementation
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The _____ model uses an approach in which developers work with an evolving prototype, using tools such as computer-aided software engineering, joint requirements planning, and joint application design to facilitate rapid prototyping and code generation.
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RAD life cycle
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Which of the following is a disadvantage of virtual teams as compared to traditional teams?
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Reduced opportunities for informal transfer of information. Virtual teams reduce the ability of team members to network and transfer information informally.
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The ___________________ _______ group takes the actions necessary to complete the work described in the planning activities. It should overlap the other process groups, and generally requires the most resources.
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executing process
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Key outcomes of the _______ process group are formal acceptance of the work and creation of closing documents, such as a final project report and lessons-learned report.
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closing
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You can tailor _____ to include the PMBOK process groups because several customers asked for that capability.
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RUP
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The output of the stakeholder management strategy results is a __________________________.
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stakeholder register
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___________ the project involves taking the actions necessary to ensure that activities in the project plan are completed. It also includes work required to introduce any new hardware, software, and procedures into normal operations.
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Executing
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A _________________ is a meeting in which the team demonstrates to the product owner what it has completed during the sprint.
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sprint review
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In this method , team members work as a self-directed group coached by the ScrumMaster.
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Scrum
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Kick-off meetings and stakeholder registers are normally recorded in the form of ___________________________.
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Word documents
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A common _____ process is reporting performance, where project stakeholders can identify any necessary changes that may be required to keep the project on track.
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monitoring and controlling
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The project scope management knowledge area maps to the _____ process group through the activities of scope validation and scope control.
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monitoring and controlling
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Developing a _____ is a planning process that occurs in the Project Integration Management knowledge area.
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project management plan
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The project cost management knowledge area maps to the _____ process group through the activities of estimating costs and budget determination.
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planning
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_____ is an iterative software development process that focuses on team productivity and delivers software best practices to all team members.
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Rational Unified Process
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One of the main outputs of the initiation process is _____.
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developing the project charter
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Which of the following is a planning process associated with project scope management?
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Collecting requirements
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_____ are an output of the executing process of project integration management.
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Deliverables
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The _____ process involves gaining stakeholder and customer acceptance of the final products and services and bringing the project, or project phase, to an orderly end.
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closing
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Which of the following is true about the agile method?
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It uses several iterations or deliveries of software instead of waiting until the end of the project to provide a product.
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Which of the following activities is a part of the planning process of the Scrum?
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Creating sprint backlog
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A _____ is usually not necessary to the Scrum method.
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team contract
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_________________ management involves identifying and managing the points of interaction between various elements of a project.
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Interface
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Project integration management must occur within the context of the _______ organization, not just within a particular project. The project manager must integrate the work of the project with the ongoing operations of the organization.
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entire
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Aligning IT projects with business strategy is consistently a top concern for CIOs. Most organizations face thousands of problems and opportunities for improvement. Therefore, an organization's _______________________ should guide the IT project selection process.
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strategic plan
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Projects that address ______ organizational needs are much more likely to be successful because they will be important to the organization.
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broad
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_______________________ are chances to improve the organization.
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Opportunities
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__________________are new requirements imposed by management, government, or some external influence.
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Directives
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An organization should always complete _____-priority projects first, even if a low- or medium-priority project could be finished in less time.
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high
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This is a method for making equal comparisons between cash flows for multi-year projects.
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NPV analysis
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Is a document that formally recognizes the existence of a project and provides direction on the project's objectives and management. It authorizes the project manager to use organizational resources to complete the project.
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project charter
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The first step in the planning process is _____.
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to tie the IT strategic plan to the organization's overall strategic plan.
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In the _____ stage of selecting information technology projects, organizations define project scope, benefits, and constraints.
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project planning
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Benefits minus costs is known as the _____.
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cash flow
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Which of the following is true of return on investment or ROI?
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The ROI is always a percentage. It can be positive or negative.
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Payback occurs when:
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the net cumulative benefits equal the net cumulative costs.
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In a weighted scoring model, the sum of the weights of all the criteria must total _____ percent.
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100
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The business case includes information on _____.
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the project objective, high-level requirements, and time and cost goals
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A _____ is a document used to coordinate all project planning documents and help guide a project's execution and control.
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project management plan
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The _____ section of the project management plan describes how to monitor project progress and handle changes.
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project controls
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The _____ section of the project management plan describes specific methodologies a project might use and explains how to document information.
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technical processes
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_____ should result in improvements in project performance.
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Corrective actions
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An IT company revises its process parameters in response to complaints from vendors that products were not ready on time. This would be an example of _____.
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a corrective action
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___________________can be product-related, such as a piece of hardware or software, or process-related, such as a planning document or meeting minutes.
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Deliverables
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The ____________________ plan can be informal and broad or formal and detailed, based on the needs of the project.
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scope management
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Information from the project charter provides a basis for further defining this:
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project scope
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The project scope ______________ should reference supporting documents, such as product specifications that will affect what products are produced or purchased, or corporate policies, which might affect how products or services are produced.
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statement
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A work package is a task at the ______ level of the WBS. It represents the level of work that the project manager monitors and controls.
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lowest
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A concern when creating a _______ is how to organize it to provide the basis for the project schedule. You should focus on what work needs to be done and how it will be done, not when it will be done. In other words, the tasks do not have to be developed as a sequential list of steps.
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WBS
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__________________ is a document that provides detailed information about each WBS item. The format of the WBS dictionary can vary based on project needs.
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WBS dictionary
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_____________________ if not managed well can lead to the failure of information technology projects.
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Scope creep
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Scope refers to:
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the work involved in creating the products and the processes used to create them.
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_____ involves reviewing the project charter, requirements documents, and organizational process assets to create a scope statement, adding more information as requirements are developed and change requests are approved.
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Defining scope
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Creating the WBS is a subprocess associated with the _____ process in project scope management.
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planning
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Generating ideas by comparing specific project practices or product characteristics to those of other projects or products inside or outside the performing organization is known as _____.
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benchmarking
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A(n) _____ is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project.
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work breakdown structure
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A(n) ____ is a task at the lowest level of the WBS.
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work package
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In the _____approach for constructing a WBS, you use a similar project's WBS as a starting point.
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analogy
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The _____ approach for constructing a WBS starts with the largest items of the project and breaks them into subordinate items.
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top-down
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The _____ technique for creating a WBS uses branches radiating from a core idea to structure thoughts and ideas instead of writing down tasks in a list or immediately trying to create a structure for tasks.
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mind mapping
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Scope creep refers to:
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the tendency for project scope to keep getting bigger and bigger.
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_____ refers to the difference between planned and actual performance.
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Variance
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_____ is a process for identifying and modeling business events, who initiated them, and how the system should respond to them.
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Use case modeling
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In project time management, the ______ output of defining activities are an activity list, activity attributes, a milestone list, and project management plan updates.
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main
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To _________ activities, the project team should start with reviewing the schedule management plan, scope baseline, enterprise environmental factors, and organizational processes.
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define
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A _______________ pertains to the sequencing of project activities or tasks.
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dependency
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A merge occurs when ___________________ nodes precede a single node. On the other hand, bursts occur when two or more activities follow a single node.
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two or more
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The precedence diagramming method offers a number of advantages over the AOA technique. One advantage is that using this method avoids the need to use_________________________.
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dummy activities.
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The main advantage of using __________ charts is that they provide a standard format for displaying planned and actual project schedule information.
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Gantt
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Knowing the amount of ______ allows project managers to know whether a project schedule is flexible.
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float
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The technique of __________________ can result in lengthening the project schedule.
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fast tracking
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Which of the following processes in project time management involves identifying the specific tasks that the project team members and stakeholders must perform to produce the project deliverables?
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Defining activities
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In project time management, which of the following processes primarily involve identifying and documenting the relationships between project activities?
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Sequencing activities
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In project time management, which of the following processes involve analyzing activity sequences, activity resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the project schedule?
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Developing the schedule
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In project time management, a(n) _____ is an output of controlling the schedule
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project management plan update
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Which of the following is a difference between an activity list and an activity attribute?
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An activity attribute provides more schedule-related information about each activity than an activity list.
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In project time management, the main goal of _____ is to ensure that the project team has complete understanding of all the work they must do as part of the project scope so they can start scheduling the work.
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defining activities
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A network diagramming technique in which boxes represent activities is known as a(n) _____.
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PDM
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Which of the following is true of dummy activities?
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They show logical relationships between activities.
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After working with key stakeholders to define activities and calculate their resources, the next process in project time management is to:
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estimate the duration of activities.
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The critical path is the _____ path through a network diagram, and it represents the _____ amount of slack or float.
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longest; shortest
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The technique for making cost and schedule trade-offs to obtain the greatest amount of schedule compression for the least incremental cost is known as _____.
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crashing
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A similarity between the crashing technique and the fast tracking technique is that:
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both can shorten the time needed to finish a project
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Money that has been spent in the past. When deciding what projects to invest in or continue, one should not include these:
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Sunk cost
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If an important supplier goes out of business, __________________ _______________ can be set aside to cover the resulting costs.
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management reserves
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When are budgetary estimates made ?
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one to two years prior to project completion.
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Analogous estimates are also called :
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top-down estimates
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One of the reasons why project cost estimates are very inaccurate is because :
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human beings are biased toward underestimation.
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Determining the budget involves:
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allocating the project cost estimate to individual work items over time.
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The formulas for variances and indexes start with :
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EV, the earned value.
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A negative schedule variance means that it took ____________ than planned to perform the work, and a positive schedule variance means that the work took less time than planned to perform.
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longer
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Which of the following involves developing an approximation of the costs of resources needed to complete a project?
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Estimating costs
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Work performance information and cost forecasts are main outputs of the _____ process.
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Cost Control
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_____ helps develop an accurate projection of a project's financial expenses and benefits.
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Life cycle costing
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Newtech Inc. hires John for the position of a software programmer to work on their new project. Salary paid to John by Newtech Inc. would be an example of _____ costs.
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direct
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Soles is a footwear company which has recently set up its store in Ambrosia. To manufacture its products, Soles incurs a range of different costs. Which of the following would be an example of an indirect cost?
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Electricity used to run its factories
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Which of the following is true of contingency reserves?
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They allow for future situations that can be partially planned for.
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Analogous estimates are also known as _____ estimates.
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top-down
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_____ uses project characteristics in a mathematical model to estimate project costs.
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Parametric estimating
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If the cost estimate for a project is a basis for contract awards and performance reporting, it should be a(n) _____ estimate and as accurate as possible.
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definitive
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Which of the following is an output of the process of controlling costs?
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Cost forecasts
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Variances are calculated by subtracting the actual cost from _____.
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earned value
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Schedule variance is:
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the earned value minus the planned value.