PMP Mock Exam Sample | Instant Hints & Feedback (Free)

While being a virtual or remote team - one can have team members in close proximity with customers or suppliers and can take advantage of having skilled members spread across the world, there is a slight disadvantage too with a virtual or remote team and that is the team members won't be near to each other.

While this question may be a bit lengthy to read, you can expect a few such questions in the PMI PMP Exam. Besides being lengthy, it has some irrelevant information (added on purpose to trick you), such as "She has an agile certification."

The whole point of this question is to make sure you understand what to do first. Choosing Scrum or selecting certain skill team members may still be the right choices depending on the project's context. However, in the above scenario, the PM should first focus on cultural awareness of her team. Cultural differences can influence the decision-making process or the speed at which the work is completed. It can also cause team members to act without proper planning. Not recognizing cultural differences can then result in conflict and stress within the project, which will further delay it.

Since the team is geographically distributed, she should focus on cultural awareness first, and then she can think about choosing Scrum or different skills needed for the project.

One out of the twelve agile principles is that business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

It is of utmost importance in an agile project that the development team collaborates with the business executives on a daily basis.

This collaboration helps the development team quickly clarify any business requirements and implement them without delay. Consequently, it aids the development team in producing deliverables more rapidly.

All other options are inappropriate for the given scenarios.

Ideally, your agile team should be self-sustained, meaning they don't depend on others outside the team. All other options are desired in an agile team.

For an Agile team, team members need to be 100% dedicated, and they should be self-managing, rather than being managed by a Scrum Master or Agile coach. Additionally, the ideal team size is small, typically consisting of about 3 to 9 members.

Before transitioning to using Agile, it is recommended that an organization should understand the relative compatibility of Agile methods with their current approaches. Executive management's willingness to change and focus on short-term budgeting are "desirable" characteristics. Work is decomposed into departmental silos, and employees are specialized contributors with limited tools to diversify their skills, which are not ideal for Agile adoption.

A project is a means to deliver benefits to all of its stakeholders. These benefits include improved quality, reduced production costs, better customer service, increased customer retention, and so on.

Identifying, describing, and measuring these project benefits is called benefits management.

Having a project benefits management plan allows project managers to maximize these outcomes for the organization and stakeholders.

So, you should prepare a benefits management plan and ensure that benefits are identified, and measurement systems are in place to track benefits.

One of the responsibilities of a project manager's role is to carefully manage project artifacts. As a project manager, you should:

• Determine the exact requirements (what, when, where, who, etc.) for managing the project artifacts.
• Validate that the project information is kept up to date (by using version control, for example) and accessible to all stakeholders.
• Continually assess the effectiveness of the management of the project artifacts.

In the above scenario, the defect count is irrelevant. So, hiring a new team with I-shaped or T-shaped skills is not the right choice. The project sponsor is not unhappy due to a lack of trust, but because there is incorrect or inaccurate project information being shared with her. The project information validation is lacking. To overcome this, the project manager and the team should ensure that project information such as the defect report is kept up to date and accessible to all stakeholders.

In a moment of chaos, such as mentioned in the above scenario, directive action can create more clarity. Hence, a project manager should adapt a directive leadership style.

Of course, there is no 100% guarantee that adapting the directive leadership style will address all the issues mentioned in the above scenario, but at least the directive leadership style can bring in a sense of clarity and momentum which is needed in the above chaotic situation.

An agile mindset is the set of attitudes that support an agile working environment. These attitudes include things such as respect, collaboration, continuous improvement, learning cycles, shared ownership, a focus on delivering value, and the ability to adapt to change. This mindset is necessary to cultivate high-performing teams, who, in turn, deliver amazing value for their customers.

During the transition to agile, as an agile leader, your focus should be on instilling the agile mindset and way of thinking based on agile values and principles. All other options mentioned in the above scenario can be carried out later once the team has embraced the agile mindset.

The answer is really common sense, and in the PMP exam, you will come across a few such questions that a working professional should be able to answer or judge based on experience and common sense. It is obvious that one should avoid grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Poor grammar shows unskillful communication and a lack of attention to detail. Project managers work on many different kinds of written materials other than emails, such as contracts, proposals, presentations, speeches, brochures, and social media posts. If the project manager makes any mistakes here, it will negatively reflect in business relations and could lead to project failure.

Other choices:

• Using "markers" such as introduction, description, summary, etc.
• Using concise expressions.
• Elimination of excessive words.

These are part of the 5 C's of written communication, which, as a project manager, you should be aware of and follow.

Here's a quick review:

Stakeholder surveys are a questionnaire-based quantitative tool, most often used by projects or organizations to enhance their understanding of the knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, interests, and experiences of their stakeholders, both internal and external. Some large projects could have a very large set of project stakeholders, and one of the recommended approaches to understanding the satisfaction level of the project's stakeholders is to conduct a survey.

The backlog refinement meeting (also known as the backlog management meeting or backlog grooming session) usually takes place towards the end of the current sprint.

In the backlog refinement meeting, the product owner or product manager, along with some or all of the project team members, reviews the items on the product backlog to ensure that it contains the appropriate items, that they are prioritized, and that the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery.

During the backlog refinement meeting, the team looks at each item in turn and discusses whether it's feasible to include it in the next sprint. Since, as mentioned in the scenario, there is not enough work available for all six members, there is a good chance that the team may skip the backlog refinement meeting.

Creating an environment of safety - especially when a team is migrating from other methodologies to agile is one of the most important things as an agile practitioner you should do.

Only in a safe, open and transparent environment can team members and leaders truly express their views and opinions without the fear of any negative consequences.

When the team feels safe, they’re able to articulate their concerns without the distress of negative reactions.

For example, when conducting story estimation, it can be tempting to fall into groupthink and just agree with everyone else. The consensus may be that the story is 5 points. However, one individual may feel that the story is much larger based on previous experience with similar types of work.

Only in a safe, open and transparent environment, the individual communicates their opinion without hesitation. The rest of the team may not agree, and the team may ultimately decide to proceed with the 5-point estimate. The point is that the individual was heard, and a discussion occurred.

While having T-shaped individuals is good for an agile project - this is not a most important priority especially when the team is migrating from other methodologies to agile.

Also, I-shaped skills and rewarding individual excellence are not recommended when adapting agile.

There are several tools and project artifacts used in real-life projects, and many of these are also relevant to the PMP exam. Therefore, you should be familiar with their usage and know which one to use in a given scenario.

A RACI chart, which is a form of a Responsibility Assignment Matrix, also known as a RACI matrix or Linear Responsibility Chart, describes the participation of various roles in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process.