Deck 8: Managing Projects

Question 1

A critical path is the sequence of activities between a project's start and finish.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The network diagram is a planning method that is designed to depict the relationships between activities.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

A project is an interrelated set of activities that has a definite starting and ending point.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Activity slack is the maximum length of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the entire project.

Question 5

There are major differences between the program evaluation and review technique (PERT)and the critical path method (CPM)for network planning.

Question 6

The activities along the critical path determine the completion time for the project.

Question 7

To obtain the latest start and latest finish time,we must work forward through the network.

Question 8

Projects often cut across organizational lines.

Question 9

An activity is the largest unit of work effort.

Question 10

Total slack can be calculated as the difference between the latest start (LS)and earliest start (ES),or by the difference between the latest finish (LF)and earliest finish (EF).

Question 11

Project managers should be able to organize a set of disparate activities.

Question 12

Changes to the scope of a project inevitably decrease costs.

Question 13

Network methods let project managers analyze the time and cost implications of resource trade-offs.

Question 14

A Gantt chart is a project schedule that superimposes project activities on a time line.

Question 15

The duration of an entire project is determined by the earliest finish time (EF)for the last activity on the critical path.

Question 16

Free slack is the amount of time that an activity's earliest finish time can be delayed without delaying the earliest start time of any activity immediately following it.

Question 17

Scope creep is one of the primary causes of project failure.

Question 18

The work breakdown structure is a statement of all work that has to be completed.

Question 19

Typically activities along the critical path have more slack than activities not on the critical path.

Question 20

The critical path is the sequence of activities between a project's start and finish that take the shortest time to complete.

Question 21

The critical path method (CPM)is a network planning method initially developed as a means to schedule maintenance shutdowns at chemical plants.

Question 22

Resource allocation is an attempt to reduce the peaks and valleys in resource needs by shifting the schedules of conflicting activities within their earliest and latest start dates.

Question 23

Activities on the critical path have zero slack.

Question 24

Scope creep refers to many small incremental changes to project objectives,which in total significantly expand the scope.

Question 25

Scope creep refers to all activities that have yet to be completed in a project.

Question 26

A precedence relationship specifies that one activity cannot start until a preceding activity has been completed.

Question 27

Projects have a life cycle that consists of four parts.

Question 28

Projects cannot have more than one critical path.

Question 29

A precedence relationship specifies that one activity cannot start until a preceding activity has been started.

Question 30

One of duties of the project manager is to make sure that issues that have been raised during the project actually get resolved in a timely fashion.

Question 31

Crashing,or expediting,any activity within a project will reduce the overall project completion time.

Question 32

The optimistic time is the probable time required to perform the activity.

Question 33

A hierarchical approach to developing a work breakdown structure (WBS)for a project involves breaking major work tasks down into smaller tasks.

Question 34

Risk is a measure of the probability and consequences of not reaching a defined project goal.

Question 35

Each activity in the work breakdown structure must have an "owner" who is responsible for doing the work.

Question 36

Activity slack refers to how much time an activity's completion time must be reduced by in order to shorten the critical path.

Question 37

If one activity along the critical path is delayed,the entire project will be delayed.

Question 38

Among all the paths of activities in a project's network diagram,the critical path is the path with the most activity slack.

Question 39

In planning projects,the acronym WBS stands for "work behind schedule."

Question 40

Standard computerized scheduling packages are rarely used for project management.

Question 41

The difference between the earliest start (ES)and the earliest finish (EF)times for any activity in a project network is the

A) activity total slack time.
B) activity free slack time.
C) estimated duration of the activity.
D) latest finish time for the activity.

Question 42

Total slack for an activity is calculated by adding up the time required to complete all activities that follow the activity in the project.

Question 43

Which one of the following situations is more appropriate for the application of project management?

A) When none of the tasks involved in the project can be done simultaneously.
B) The need for coordination among various functional areas is high.
C) The need for coordination among various functional areas is low.
D) The project is guaranteed to be successful.

Question 44

The earliest start time (ES)for an activity is the maximum of the earliest finish (EF)times for all the activities that immediately precede the activity.

Question 45

In monitoring a project,negative slack indicates how much an activity has been pushed beyond its planned latest start dates.

Question 46

The correct sequence of the four major phases in projects life cycle is; organization,planning,execution and closeout.

Question 47

For controlling projects,the Cost Performance Index (CPI)measures the ratio of the budgeted cost of the work completed to date divided by the actual cost for that same work.

Question 48

Before beginning to create a PERT/CPM network model for a project,the project must be described in general terms.Two types of information that must be defined are

A) slack time and activities.
B) manpower allocation and project due date.
C) crash times and manpower allocation.
D) activities and precedence relationships.

Question 49

The crash cost is the additional cost associated with reducing the time required to complete an activity in a project.

Question 50

Which of the following statements concerning the critical path in project network is FALSE?

A) There is always only one critical path in a project network.
B) The critical path is the sequence of activities between a project's start and finish that takes the longest to finish.
C) Activities on the critical path have zero slack.
D) Delaying an activity on the critical path delays the entire project.

Question 51

Which one of the following statements about network diagrams is TRUE?

A) In an activity-on-node diagram, the nodes depict precedence relationships as well as activities.
B) In an activity-on-arc diagram, the arcs depict the activities as well as the precedence relationships.
C) In an activity-on-node diagram, "events" are used to denote the end points of arcs.
D) In an activity-on-arc diagram, there is never a need to use "dummy" activities.

Question 52

In a network diagram,an "activity"

A) is the largest unit of work effort consuming both time and resources that a project manager can Schedule and control.
B) is the smallest unit of work effort consuming both time and resources that a project manager can schedule and control.
C) should always be something the company has had experience with.
D) must always have a single, precise estimate for the time duration.

Question 53

Of the four major phases in project life cycles,typically the execution stage requires the most resources.

Question 54

A project has three paths.A-B-C has a length of 25 days.A-D-C has a length of 15 days.Finally,A-E-C has a length of 20 days.Which one of the following statements is TRUE?

A) A-D-C is the critical path.
B) A-B-C has the most slack.
C) The expected duration of this project is 25 days.
D) The expected duration of this project is 25 + 15 + 20 = 60 days.

Question 55

The earliest start time for an activity is equal to the

A) smallest earliest finish time of all of its immediate predecessors.
B) largest earliest finish time of all of its immediate predecessors.
C) smallest late start time of any of its immediate predecessors.
D) largest late finish time of all of its immediate predecessors.

Question 56

All activities on the critical path must be crashed,or expedited,in order to reduce the overall project completion time.

Question 57

In an activity-on-node (AON)network,the nodes represent ________ whereas the arcs represent ________.

A) activities; time
B) activities; precedence relationships
C) events; activities
D) precedence relationships; time

Question 58

In controlling projects,the term close out refers to the decision to terminate a project because the actual time required to complete the project was going to exceed the completion date established in the original project plan.

Question 59

For controlling projects,the Schedule Performance Index (SPI)equals the cost of the work that was scheduled to have been completed by a particular date based on the original budget and project plan.

Question 60

Which of the following is NOT one of the five steps involved in planning projects?

A) Analyzing cost-time trade-offs
B) Developing the schedule
C) Diagramming the network
D) Monitoring resource usage during the execution phase

Question 61

When using the beta distribution for estimating activity times,

A) an advantage is that the mode of the distribution is always equidistant from the end points of the distribution.
B) the most likely time estimate can be positioned anywhere between the optimistic and pessimistic time estimates.
C) we assume that the standard deviation is one-third the range between the optimistic and pessimistic time estimates.
D) the most likely time estimate becomes the mean of the distribution.

Question 62

Table 3.2
Time (days)

Using Table 3.2,what is the earliest expected time of completion of the whole project?

A) less than or equal to 21 days
B) greater than 21 but less than or equal to 22 days
C) greater than 22 but less than or equal to 23 days
D) greater than 23 days

Question 63

Activity slack is defined as

A) latest start time minus earliest start time.
B) earliest start time minus latest start time.
C) earliest finish time minus latest finish time.
D) latest finish time minus earliest start time.

Question 64

When using the beta probability distribution to estimate activity times,which of the following statements is TRUE?

A) The project manager is usually the only person involved in making time estimates, since obtaining estimates from workers involved in the activities would result in inconsistent estimates.
B) The beta distribution is used as a way of approximating a normal probability distribution for time estimates.
C) The use of most optimistic, most likely, and most pessimistic times for an activity will result in a determination of the expected times for that activity.
D) The larger the difference between most pessimistic time and most optimistic time for an activity, the smaller the variance of that time estimate.

Question 65

Table 3.2
Time (days)

Using Table 3.2,if the project is due to be completed in 28 days,what is the probability that the project will be completed on or before the due date? You will need to refer to a standard normal table to answer the question.

A) less than or equal to 75%
B) greater than 75% but less than or equal to 85%
C) greater than 85% but less than or equal to 95%
D) greater than 95%

Question 66

Which one of the following best describes the critical path of a PERT/CPM network?

A) the sequence of activities between a project's start and finish that takes the longest time to complete.
B) the sequence of activities between a project's start and finish that has the maximum amount of activity slack.
C) the set of activities that has no precedence relationships.
D) the sequence of activities that has the lowest normal activity cost.

Question 67

Table 3.2
Time (days)

Using Table 3.2,if the project manager wants at least a 98% probability that the project will be completed on or before the due date,what is the shortest project due date that will satisfy the manager? You will need to refer to a standard normal table to answer the question.

A) less than or equal to 28 days
B) greater than 28 days but less than or equal to 30 days
C) greater than 30 days but less than or equal to 32 days
D) greater than 32 days

Question 68

Table 3.3

Using Table 3.3,what is the earliest completion time for this project?

A) 9 weeks
B) 12 weeks
C) 15 weeks
D) none of the above

Question 69

Table 3.1
Time (weeks)

Using Table 3.1,what is the earliest expected time of completion of the whole project?

A) less than or equal to 19 weeks
B) greater than 19 but less than or equal to 21 weeks
C) greater than 21 but less than or equal to 24 weeks
D) greater than 24 weeks

Question 70

Which one of the following conditions violates the assumptions of PERT/CPM networks?

A) Some activities can have zero variance.
B) Costs increase linearly as activity time is reduced below its normal time.
C) Two activities tied together by an arc are overlapping and can be worked on simultaneously.
D) There can be more than one critical path in a network.

Question 71

Table 3.3

Using Table 3.3,what is the minimum number of activities that would have to be delayed in order to cause an increase in the project's earliest completion date?

A) 1 activity
B) 2 activities
C) 3 activities
D) 4 or more activities

Question 72

Assume that activity G has the following times:
Early start time = 7 days
Early finish time = 13 days
Late start time = 15 days
Late finish time = 21 days
Which of the following statements is TRUE about activity G?

A) Activity G takes 14 days to complete.
B) Activity G has a slack time of 8 days.
C) Activity G is on the critical path.
D) Activity G takes 2 days to complete.

Question 73

Table 3.1
Time (weeks)

Using Table 3.1,if the expected times for activities A,G,and H increased by 2,3,and 4 weeks,respectively,by how many weeks would the project's earliest expected time of completion increase?

A) less than or equal to 2 weeks
B) greater than 2 weeks but less than or equal to 4 weeks
C) greater than 4 weeks but less than or equal to 6 weeks
D) greater than 6 weeks

Question 74

Following are four sets of most optimistic,most likely,and most pessimistic times (in weeks)for an activity.Which one of the four sets will have a mean estimated time equal to the most likely time?

A) 1, 9, 9
B) 1, 5, 9
C) 1, 1, 9
D) 1, 5, 5

Question 75

Table 3.2
Time (days)

Using Table 3.2,which activity is on the critical path?

A) activity D
B) activity F
C) activity G
D) activity K

Question 76

To calculate the probability of completing a project by a certain date,

A) the expected completion time of the project is taken to be the sum of the activity times on the shortest path.
B) the variance of the distribution of project completion times is taken to be one-sixth the difference between the latest finish time and the earliest finish time of the last activity in the project.
C) we assume that the activity durations are independent of each other so that the normal distribution can be used.
D) we only need the parameters of the beta distribution for the finish node of the diagram.

Question 77

Table 3.3

Using Table 3.3,what is the largest amount of slack that any activity in the project has?

A) 0 weeks
B) 1 week
C) 2 weeks
D) 3 or more weeks

Question 78

If a project has multiple critical paths,which of the following variances should be used in analyzing project completion time probabilities?

A) the critical path with the smallest variance
B) the critical path with the largest variance
C) the sum of the variances for all critical paths
D) the average variance of the critical paths

Question 79

In making an estimate of the most pessimistic time for an activity,a manager deliberately estimates this time too high (i.e.,longer than it should be).What is the result of this action,assuming the beta distribution is being used to make time estimates?

A) The most likely time for this activity will be larger than it should be.
B) The variance of the activity will be smaller than it should be.
C) The beta distribution will be symmetric around its mean.
D) The expected time for this activity will be larger than it should be.

Question 80

Table 3.1
Time (weeks)

Using Table 3.1,which activity will have the largest amount of slack?

A) activity F
B) activity C
C) activity H
D) activity A