Project Management

A project is an activity with temporariness, meaning a defined time limit, and uniqueness, meaning its deliverables differ each time. The first option describes routine work with no end and lacks temporariness. The third is wrong because many projects are internal. The fourth is wrong because no such condition on headcount exists.

The project manager plans the project, coordinates staff and budget, manages progress, and is responsible for achieving the QCD goals of quality, cost, and delivery. The second option is the role of project members, the third is the role of operations staff in service management, and the fourth is a matter decided by executives or the shareholders' meeting; none is the PM's role.

Stakeholders, that is, interested parties, broadly include the people and organizations involved in a project and those affected by its outcome, such as members, sponsors, customers, users, and partner companies. The first, second, and fourth options each name only a subset of stakeholders, so their scope is too narrow and they are wrong.

A WBS is a diagram that progressively decomposes deliverables and work from large blocks into finer pieces, preventing omissions and providing the basis for effort estimation and task assignment. The first option describes a Gantt chart, the second an arrow diagram, and the third an organization chart; none of these is the purpose of a WBS.

Scope management clarifies what will and will not be built and prevents scope creep, the uncontrolled expansion of the work. The first option belongs to cost management, the third to schedule management, and the fourth to procurement management, so they cover different areas.

Resource management is the area that estimates and secures the required amount of resources such as people, equipment, and materials, and develops and manages the team. Scope covers defining the range of work, procurement covers managing external purchases and outsourcing, and communications covers distributing and sharing information; none of them deals with securing and developing staff itself.

Change requests are handled through the change control procedure of integration management: their impact is analyzed, approval or rejection is decided, and only approved changes are reflected in the plan. The first option invites scope creep, the uncontrolled expansion of work. The second and fourth judge uniformly without assessing impact and cannot take in necessary changes, so they are not appropriate.

An arrow diagram represents tasks as arrows and their boundaries as nodes to show task sequence, and it is used to find the shortest overall duration and the critical path. The first option is a budget management table, the third an organization chart, and the fourth what a WBS represents; none is the purpose of an arrow diagram.

The durations are 4+6+3=13 days for path 1, 4+5+4+3=16 days for path 2, and 4+8+3=15 days for path 3. The project is not complete until every path finishes, so the minimum duration is that of the longest path, 16 days. 13 days is path 1's value, 15 days is path 3's, and 18 days matches no path's total.

The durations are 3+7+4=14 days for path 1, 3+5+4=12 days for path 2, and 3+2+6+4=15 days for path 3. The critical path is the path with the longest duration, so path 3, A to D to F to E, at 15 days is the answer. Paths 1 and 2 are shorter and have slack, and their durations also differ from each other, so the third option is wrong as well.

Path 1 takes 5+4+6=15 days and path 2 takes 5+8+6=19 days, so the overall duration is the longer one, 19 days. Path 1, which contains task B, has 19−15=4 days of float, so B can be delayed up to 4 days without affecting the whole. A 5-day delay would make path 1 take 20 days and push back completion. The fourth option describes a task on the critical path.

Before shortening, path 1 takes 6+4+5=15 days and path 2 takes 6+9+5=20 days, so the overall duration is 20 days. Reducing C from 9 days to 6 days makes path 2 take 6+6+5=17 days, which is still longer than path 1's 15 days, so the overall duration becomes 17 days. 20 days is the value before shortening, and 15 days is a mistake that looks only at path 1, which cannot hold because path 2 still needs 17 days.

A finishes after 3 days; from there B takes 4 days, finishing after 7 days, and C takes 7 days, finishing after 10 days. D needs both B and C to finish, so its earliest start is after 10 days, matching the later one, C. After 7 days is a mistake that looks only at B, after 14 days mistakenly adds B and C in series, and after 3 days is merely when A finishes.

A Gantt chart puts tasks on the vertical axis and dates on the horizontal axis, showing each task's period as a horizontal bar; it suits progress management by comparing plan with actual. A WBS is a hierarchical breakdown of work, an arrow diagram shows task sequence and durations, and a cause-and-effect diagram organizes the relationship between an outcome and its causes.

The function point method counts the functions visible to users and weights them by complexity to quantify software size. The first option describes analogous estimation, the second bottom-up estimation, and the third estimation based on lines of code, LOC; each is a different technique.

Analogous estimation takes the results of similar past projects as its basis and adjusts for differences in scale; it suits rough estimates early in planning when information is scarce. Bottom-up estimation accumulates detailed tasks, the function point method calculates from the amount of functionality, and the Delphi method is a forecasting technique that anonymously converges the opinions of multiple experts.

Avoidance removes the source of the risk itself so that the project is no longer exposed to it. The first option is transfer, shifting the burden of loss to a third party; the second is mitigation, reducing probability or impact; and the fourth is acceptance, taking the risk without countermeasures; none of these is avoidance.

Transfer shifts the burden of loss, should the risk materialize, to a third party such as an insurance company or an external contractor. The second option is avoidance, cutting off the source of the risk; the third is mitigation, lowering the probability; and the fourth is acceptance, taking the risk without countermeasures.

Accepting a risk as it is, for example when the cost of countermeasures does not match the expected loss, is called acceptance, also known as retention. Avoidance removes the source of the risk, transfer shifts the burden of loss to a third party, and mitigation takes measures to reduce probability or impact; all of these take some action, which distinguishes them from acceptance.

Quality management consists of planning, which sets quality goals and criteria; assurance, which confirms that work follows the defined procedures; and control, which inspects deliverables and corrects them. The first option belongs to cost management, the third to schedule management, and the fourth to procurement management, so they cover different areas.

An RFP is the document used in selecting a contractor: it presents the requirements and preconditions and requests concrete proposals and quotations. An RFI asks for information about products and technologies at the stage before narrowing down candidates, an SLA is an agreement setting service quality levels, and a WBS is a hierarchical breakdown of work; none is used to request proposals.

Communications management plans what information each stakeholder needs and the means and frequency of delivery, and distributes and shares information through meetings and reports to prevent misunderstandings. The second option is the purpose of procurement management, the third of quality management, and the fourth of schedule management; none is the purpose of communications.