Knowledge Area Test: Project Scope Management

Question 1

1. A project has gone out of control, and the project manager is trying to bring it back under control. There have been a number of changes to the project scope. Some of these changes resulted in further changes, causing project cost to spiral upward and causing the project to go out of schedule. This is known as:

Answer 1

Scope creep

Explanation:
Scope creep is the term used to refer to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope. Scope creep can be a project manager’s nightmare if not properly managed. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 168]

Question 2

2. Janice, a project manager, wanted to obtain early feedback on the project requirements. However, she was concerned that the abstract representations of the requirements might not elicit useful feedback. Which of the following tools and techniques might help her overcome this hurdle?

Answer 2

Prototypes

Explanation:
Prototypes are working models of the expected product before actually building it. The tangible nature of prototypes allows stakeholders to experiment with a model of their final product early in the project life cycle and to generate clear feedback. The other choices are incorrect as they are quality management tools. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 147]

Question 3

3. Peter is leading the development of a digital solution for your organization. There will be over 500 users of this automated workflow within the organization. The high-level project scope has been defined, documented and approved. However, an effort needs to be made to elicit and document detailed system design requirements such as system screen designs, data types and format, system happy and unhappy paths, and related detailed functional and non-functional requirements. If according to the management directive, requirements can only be gathered through requirements elicitation workshops, what would you recommend to Peter?

Answer 3

Form a focus group for the requirement workshops.

Explanation:
Although the management directive is limiting, we don’t know the reasons behind the directive and at this stage we will take it as a project constraint. For such a large stakeholder base, it wouldn’t be wise to invite all stakeholders to the requirements workshops as that could be very chaotic. It is highly recommended to form a focus group. Focus groups bring together prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts to learn about their expectations and attitudes about a proposed product, service, or result. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, page 142]

Question 4

4. Your organization is currently automating its core business processes. This is the CEO’s dream project and was initiated in a hurry. As a result, insufficient time was spent on requirements gathering and project planning. You have recently taken over this project and have immediately realized that the missing requirements are now leading to scope creep on the project. The developers are prototyping system components and as a result of the user feedback, they are adding their own product features that aren’t documented anywhere. What should you do first?

Answer 4

Stop the developers adding scope on their own.

Explanation: First of all, you need to ask the developers to stop gold plating the solution. Then you need to re-visit the planning processes and properly document the project scope. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, page 168]

Question 5

5. During a weekly status meeting, a team member suggests adding a component to the project. As the project manager, you maintain that all focus should stay on the current scope and not on any enhancements. Focusing on the current scope is an example of:

Answer 5

Scope management

Explanation: This is an example of scope management. If the team actually implemented the change, that would be gold plating. Scope verification is done near the closure of the project. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 129]

Question 6

6. You have just taken over the reins of a troubled project that is required to automate a complex organizational workflow. The business analyst on the project defined the current-state and the future-state process maps and documented the functional and non-functional requirements. The technical architect on the project was happy with these and used these as inputs to the system architecture design blueprint. However, once these artefacts were shared with the developers you got a strong pushback in regards to completeness and accuracy of the project scope and requirements. This led to multiple revisions to the requirements and change of requirements management approaches which further exacerbated the situation. The developers don’t seem confident that the documented requirements reflect true business requirements and collectively define the project scope. In order to get to the root cause of this problem, what should you look for first?

Answer 6

Find out if an approved scope management plan exists that was socialised and agreed by all key stakeholders.

Explanation: A Scope Management Plan documents how the project and product scope will be defined, validated, and controlled. It appears that multiple requirements management approaches have been tested on the project without proper change control. This leads to a basic question; doest an agreed and approved scope management plan exits? If the answer to this question is a yes, then further investigations will be required to identify the root cause of the problem. [PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition, Page 134]

Question 7

7. You are coaching a project team that has historically struggled with managing their project scopes. You tell the team that managing the project scope is an absolute must for any successful project. What is the MAIN reason for controlling the project scope?

Answer 7

Preventing scope creep

The main reason for controlling the project scope is to deal with the impact of changes on the project. This is done by managing approved changes and disregarding rejected changes. This reduces the risk of scope creep on the project. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 168]

Question 8

8. You are auditing an internal organizational project. You want to start by assessing project requirements and are looking for some documentation on project’s deliverables and the work required to create those deliverables. Which document should you ask the project team to present?

Answer 8

Project scope statement

Explanation:
The project scope statement is the correct response. This document describes the project’s deliverables in detail and the work that is required to create those deliverables. It also forms the baseline for evaluating whether requests for changes are within or outside the project’s boundaries. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 154]

Question 9

The project scope statement is the correct response. This document describes the project’s deliverables in detail and the work that is required to create those deliverables. It also forms the baseline for evaluating whether requests for changes are within or outside the project’s boundaries. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 154]

Answer 9

Project Scope Statement

Explanation: The project scope statement documents and addresses the characteristics and boundaries of the project and its associated products and services, as well as product acceptance criteria and scope control. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 154]

Question 10

10. You are managing a process automation project. So far the team has been struggling in collecting and gathering requirements. A number of requirements collection workshops have been organized but so far you haven’t been able to finalize the requirements. Some SME has suggested using the prototyping technique to help lock the requirements. Which of the following inaccurately describes a prototype?

Answer 10

Requirements from a prototype are usually insufficient to move to the design phase.

Explanation:
Prototypes usually go through multiple feedback cycles after which the requirements obtained from the prototype are sufficiently complete to move to a design or build phase. [PMBOK® Guide 6th edition, Page 147]