Deck 7: Monitoring and Controlling the Project

Question 1

An important use of data analysis is to identify who to properly blame for poor project performance.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Everyone associated with the project should receive the same information.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

The most important use of data gathered from monitoring is control.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Control is the collection,recording,and reporting of project information.

Question 5

In order to manage for overall project success,control must be exercised at the detailed work level for each aspect of project performance.

Question 6

It is often the case with particularly challenging or uncertain projects that the planning-monitoring-controlling effort is minimized so that the "real work" can be done.

Question 7

One way of linking planning and control is to monitor project progress on the MSP Gantt chart.

Question 8

In order to manage for overall project success,control should be exercised at a very high and aggregated level and not get bogged down with unnecessary details.

Question 9

Frequent blame is considered a good motivational tool to keep project team members on track.

Question 10

The purpose of control is to ensure that all interested parties have the information they need.

Question 11

Project monitoring and control can be thought of as opposite sides of project selection and planning.

Question 12

In general,it is preferable to have periodic reports.

Question 13

Raw numbers represent a simple tally of the occurrence of an event.

Question 14

An overload of reporting is just as dangerous as underreporting.

Question 15

Too often,intensity of activity is measured instead of results.

Question 16

A common mistake is to focus too much on results and not enough on the intensity of activity.

Question 17

Statistical quality control techniques can be helpful for determining what size variances are significant.

Question 18

The most important use of data gathered from monitoring is learning from mistakes.

Question 19

Mechanisms to gather and store data rarely need to be designed.

Question 20

The plan-monitor-control cycle constitutes a "closed loop" process.

Question 21

To maximize efficiency,project team meetings should follow Robert's Rules of Order.

Question 22

The percentage of an activity's budget actually spent by a given date is typically a good indicator of the percent of that activity's completion.

Question 23

Remarks should be directly attributed to individuals in the meeting minutes.

Question 24

Earned value is a measure for overall project progress in terms of performance,budget and schedule.

Question 25

Which of the following is NOT a primary mechanism by which the PM exerts control?

A) reviews
B) personnel assignments
C) audit reports
D) resource allocation
E) all of the above are mechanisms by which the PM exerts control

Question 26

Exception reports are prepared to disseminate the results of a special study.

Question 27

According to the text,there is no satisfactory way to measure accurately the percent of completion of most tasks.

Question 28

Exception reports are primarily intended for unexpected situations.

Question 29

Project review meetings are always important.

Question 30

Which of the following is NOT an objective mentioned in the text for data gathered from monitoring?

A) promoting team members
B) keeping management informed
C) auditing
D) learning from mistakes
E) control

Question 31

Which of the following is NOT a distinct type of report?

A) exception
B) special analysis
C) critical incident
D) routine
E) all of the above are distinct types of reports

Question 32

Which of the following was NOT listed in the text as a convention for estimating task progress?

A) 50% when task is started and another 50% when it is completed
B) 100 percent when task is completed and 0% before that
C) using the ratio of cost expended to total cost budgeted
D) using the ratio of time expended to the total time scheduled
E) all of the above were mentioned

Question 33

The plan-monitor-control cycle is best described as

A) an open loop process
B) a closed-loop process
C) an ad-hoc process
D) an informal process
E) a hierarchical process

Question 34

Weekly progress report meetings should be rarely held.

Question 35

Which of the following is most closely associated with ordinal rankings?

A) frequency counts
B) raw numbers
C) indicators
D) subjective numeric rankings
E) surrogates

Question 36

The cost/spending variance is calculated as

A) AC - EV
B) EV- PV
C) PV - EV
D) AC - PV
E) EV - AC

Question 37

Estimated (remaining cost)to completion (ETC)is calculated as

A) (BAC - EV)/CPI
B) (BAC - EV)/SPI
C) (BAC + EV)/CPI
D) (BAC + EV)/SPI
E) (BAC - AC)/CPI

Question 38

Which of the following is used when it is especially difficult to find a direct measure of a variable?

A) frequency count
B) raw numbers
C) surrogates
D) subjective numeric ratings
E) verbal characterizations

Question 39

Lower expenditures than expected at a given point in time is always good.

Question 40

In earned value analysis

A) it is desirable to have negative variances for both schedule and spending.
B) it is desirable to have positive variances for both schedule and spending.
C) the schedule variance should be positive and the spending variance negative.
D) the schedule variance should be negative and the spending variance positive.
E) ideally both variances would equal zero.

Question 41

The most common source of changes to a project based on the natural tendency of the client and project team members to improve the project's output is called

A) scope creep
B) projectitis
C) multitasking
D) dynamic scoping
E) unfreezing

Question 42

Which of the following is NOT a component of a control system?

A) effector
B) sensor
C) decision maker
D) leveler
E) standard

Question 43

Which of the following is NOT true regarding meetings?

A) A written agenda should be distributed in advance of the meeting.
B) The agenda should announce pre-set starting and stopping times.
C) It is appropriate to be flexible and extend a meeting's stopping time if issues come up that were not on the agenda.
D) Don't penalize those who show up on time by making them wait for those who are late.
E) All of the above are true.

Question 44

Which of the following is NOT a tool used to aid the PM in project control?

A) variance analysis
B) trend projections
C) earned value analysis
D) control charts
E) discounted cash flow analysis

Question 45

The first step in setting up a monitoring system is to:

A) identify personnel
B) identify all project milestones
C) identify key factors to be controlled
D) identify reports required
E) develop a change request form