Practising With Some Questions
On the following pages you’ll find some questions to have a go at. The answers are on the grey-edged pages at the end of the chapter.
The questions in this chapter are samples for you to practise with, preferably to time. They don’t cover everything that you’re likely to be asked. To prepare for the exam, you need to be confident in all areas of the subject, and not just learn the answers to these particular questions.
Foundation-level questions
You’ll find answers to these questions, and some explanation, at the end of the chapter. Set your timer for eight minutes then go for it.
1. Two management products are given to the Project Board after the end of the process Starting Up a Project. The first is the Project Brief. What is the second?
a) The Benefits Review Plan
b) The Risk Register
c) A Stage Plan
d) The Project Product Description (PPD)
2. The Lessons Log is used during the process Starting Up a Project to:
a) Record details of things learned in the past that need to be taken account of in this project.
b) Record what will need to be recorded in this project to pass on to future projects.
c) Record who will be responsible in this project for recording any lessons learned, and who will be responsible for passing that information on.
d) All of the above.
3. Which of these logs and registers is created in Starting Up a Project?
a) Issue Register
b) Project Log
c) Quality Register
d) Daily Log
4. Which two roles are appointed first in Starting Up a Project?
a) Senior User and Project Manager
b) Senior Supplier and Senior User
c) Executive and Senior User
d) Executive and Project Manager
5. Which of these questions is answered by the process Starting Up a Project?
a) Do the benefits outweigh the costs of the project?
b) Do we have a viable and worthwhile project?
c) Does the Product Breakdown Structure reflect the full extent of the project?
d) Have all the risks been documented and the associated risk actions approved?
6. Which of these is NOT covered in the process Starting Up a Project?
a) Appointing the Project Board
b) Appointing Project Support
c) Appointing Programme Management
d) Appointing Project Assurance
7. What’s the difference between the Business Case included in the Project Brief and the one included later on in the Project Initiation Documentation (PID)?
a) The Business Case isn’t included in the Project Brief at all.
b) It’s less detailed than the version in the PID.
c) It’s more detailed than the PID version, to support initial decision making.
d) There’s no difference: the Project Brief version is carried forward into the PID.
8. Which of the following statements accurately reflects an important aim of the process Starting Up a Project?
a) To do the minimum necessary in order to decide whether it’s worthwhile initiating the project
b) To document all aspects of a project in detail to allow Initiation, if approved, to proceed on a sound basis
c) To build in a delay to the start of Initiation and so provide a cooling off period where managers can consider whether the project really is justified
d) To carry out thorough risk analysis to prevent a high risk project ever being taken forward into Initiation
9. Which of the following is a true statement?
a) Starting Up a Project is the first stage in any PRINCE2 project.
b) Starting Up a Project is an optional theme in PRINCE2.
c) Starting Up a Project includes consideration of the way in which work will be conducted – the project approach.
d) Starting Up a Project ends with the production of the Project Initiation Documentation (PID).
10. After Initiation and the production of the Project Initiation Documentation (PID), the Project Brief is:
a) No longer maintained
b) Maintained as a section of the PID
c) Held in the Daily Log and kept up to date to serve as the Project Manager’s overview
d) Used as a baseline for checks at the end to see whether the project satisfied its original objectives
Practitioner-level questions
There’s some additional project scenario information for this section which you’ll need for answering some of the questions. However, don’t forget the original scenario information, which you’ll find at the end of Chapter 2.
For advice on dealing with the different styles of Practitioner question, please see Chapter 2.
In the Practitioner exam you’ll get 10 questions in a section and about 15 minutes to answer them. Also in the exam, you won’t get a whole section on a single process; Starting Up a Project will always be combined with Initiating a Project. With typical For Dummies generosity though, you’ve got 12 questions here, and all on Start Up.
Read the extra project scenario, then set your timer for 18 minutes, but if you can answer the questions accurately in slightly less time, then that’s good.
Additional scenario – the project approach
1. The Accommodation Manager, who left last month, won’t be replaced until after the end of this project. Consequently we don’t have a member of staff with qualified health and safety expertise at the moment. An outside agency must be used to check the proposed floor plan for the new business unit to ensure it’ll provide a safe working environment.
2. Because the headquarters building is 200 years old, problems may occur when work is carried out to make the new doorways. Unforeseen difficulties have caused significant delay in other projects involving structural alterations at the headquarters.
3. Financial constraints mean that the project work, apart from phone line installation, must all be done by our own Headquarters Building Works Team. It’s accepted that this limitation may extend the time needed for the project, because the Works Team is small and has some existing commitments.
4. The floor plan for the layout of the offices making up the new business unit must clearly show the position of electrical sockets, both new and existing.
5. The cost of the refurbishment project is expected to be between £25,000 and £27,000 depending on the exact nature of the new furniture needed.
6. Any new furniture purchased must be robust. It must also be of similar style to existing furniture in the headquarters building so as to be usable elsewhere, should that be necessary, in the future.
Warning: There may be errors in this information
Answers to the Foundation-level questions
1. c. A Stage Plan – for the Initiation Stage. The Project Product Description (PPD) is included in the Project Brief. Think of the brief as a folder, containing other things. [Manual A19 and Figure 13.2 Inputs to the ‘Authorise Initiation’ activity, P2FD Ch4 Getting it together with the brief and also Planning the Planning: Initiation]. The Benefits Review Plan and Risk Register aren’t created until Initiation.
2. a. Record details of things learned in the past. In Start Up, the log is retrospective, looking back at past experience. The name of the activity in Start Up is ‘Capture previous lessons’. The forward-looking information is recorded as the project progresses, and the log doesn’t include in advance what should be recorded. Neither does it record responsibilities. [Manual A.14, P2FD Ch4 Learning Lessons from the Past]. You may think that this is a tough question, and so it is. It’s here to reinforce the point that you need to understand what a product is, and that includes appreciating what information it contains.
3. d. Daily Log. Both logs (Daily and Lessons) are created in Start Up, while all three registers (Risk, Quality and Issue) are created in Initiation. There’s no such thing as a Project Log in PRINCE2. Remember, logs are for informal control and registers are for formal control.
4. d. Executive and Project Manager. The Executive brings immediate decision-making authority, and the Project Manager brings project skills. The other board roles are appointed in the activity ‘Design and appoint the project management team’. [Manual 12.4.1, P2FD Ch4 Appointing the first two key people]
5. b. Checking for a viable and worthwhile project, as set down in the purpose statement. [Manual 12.1 purpose statement and following paragraphs, P2FD Ch4 Seeing Why You Really Need Start Up]. On the first answer, remember that the benefits don’t have to outweigh the costs. The project may be mandatory and have to be done anyway, even if there are no benefits at all, such as in response to a head office instruction. The third and fourth answers both relate to detailed things done later, during Initiation; they’re not done in Start Up.
6. c. Programme management is not appointed in Start Up, or indeed in any other part of PRINCE2. It’s not down to a project to decide on programme management which is at the management level ‘corporate or programme management’ and so above the PRINCE2 project. That’s like a junior manager in an organisation choosing and appointing senior managers. A nice thought perhaps, but the reality is the other way around.
7. b. It’s less detailed. At this point in its life, the Business Case is known as the Outline Business Case because it’s sketchy. It’s just enough to decide whether to go on to full planning and the Initiation Stage. It’s only during Initiation that the full Business Case will be developed. If you think that question was a bit hard because you’re doing this test before you’ve studied Initiation in detail, then there’s no harm done because you need to be clear on the point. [P2FD Ch4 Writing the Outline Business Case]
8. a. To do the minimum necessary to check it’s sensible to initiate the project. Start Up should happen fast; it’s not a delaying tactic. It’s like producing a quick sketch of the project to decide whether to go forward and, to use the words of the manual, for ‘preventing poorly conceived projects from ever being initiated’. [Manual 12.1, P2FD Ch4 Getting Start Up Done Fast]
9. c. Work is done for the project approach. The work for the project approach is covered in the Start Up activity ‘Select the project approach and assemble the Project Brief’. If you’ve forgotten all about the project approach, that’s quite common, but go back over it to make sure that you’re clear. [Manual 12.4.5, P2FD Ch4 Thinking Through the Project Approach]. Remember that Start Up isn’t a stage. It comes before the project (which starts with Initiation) so it pre-dates the project stages. And Starting Up a Project is obviously a process and not a theme as suggested in an incorrect answer, b. So, yes, you do have to watch every word.
10. a. The brief is not maintained after the production of the PID. The brief is like a sketch plan, and as such is a stepping stone on the way to the PID. Once the full plans of the PID are in place, the sketch isn’t needed any more. The Project Brief is not maintained through the project. [Manual A.19.1]. It’s also the PID, not the brief, that’s used at the end to check on fulfilment of objectives.
Answers to the Practitioner-level questions
Classic-style questions
1. E. Leave the entry alone. It’s forewarning a resourcing matter, and that’s appropriate for the project approach. Don’t expect every entry in a sample document, in this case the project approach, to be incorrect. Some of it will be right.
2. C. Transfer the information to the Daily Log. You need to be careful here and remember the detail of the method and keep in mind where you are at the moment. This section is about Starting Up a Project, so although the possible problem with the doorways represents a risk, the Risk Register won’t have been created yet; that’s done in Initiation. Any risks spotted during Start Up are noted in the Daily Log. If the project goes ahead and the risk is to be formally managed, it will be transferred to the Risk Register when the register is set up.
3. D. Put the information into the Product Description. It doesn’t relate to the approach to the project. This sort of information is describing the nature of the product and belongs in the Composition section of a Product Description. You’ll have found that question tough if you’re doing these questions as you learn PRINCE2 rather than at the end, because you almost certainly won’t have covered Product Descriptions yet, although you should be clear on the project approach. But if you’re using this for revision having covered the whole method, then the question is significant because it’s testing whether you know which information goes in which management product.
4. D. Cost estimates for the project appear in the Project Plan and also in the Business Case. Because no plans for the project will have been done in Start Up, the only possible place for cost estimates is in the Business Case, and in Start Up that’s the Outline Business Case. Beware of seeing something that you have learned in PRINCE2, such as tolerances or the Project Plan, and wrongly jumping on that as the correct answer because it sounds familiar.
Matching-style questions – true/false
5. B. False. The Executive and Project Manager are the first to be appointed. See the first activity in the Start Up process model dealing with appointments, which is ‘Appoint the Executive and the Project Manager’.
6. A. True. ‘Timescale’ is a heading in the Business Case, and that includes the Outline Business Case. [Manual A2.2, P2FD Ch11 Writing a Business Case]
7. B. False. The Stage Plan for the Initiation Stage is produced as part of Starting Up a Project. It’s the final activity: ‘Plan the initiation stage’. Having the plan means that if the Project Board approves the brief, it can check the plan for the Initiation Stage and, once approved, the Initiation Stage can start without delay. That approach follows the normal pattern of ‘just before’ for stage planning in the method. [P2FD Ch14 Figure 14-9 Planning points in a PRINCE2 project]. Even if the full details of the project are not known, as suggested in the question, the work involved in finding them out and creating the PID and the plan for the first delivery stage can and should be planned out using the Initiation Stage Plan.
8. B. False. The Acceptance Criteria are not carved in stone and may well be modified later – if that’s appropriate. That can happen with more detailed thinking while writing the PID or even later on in the project on a stage boundary where checks are made on the Project Product Description (which includes the Acceptance Criteria) to see whether it needs revision. That work in the process Managing a Stage Boundary is covered by the activity with the understated title of ‘Update the Project Plan’.
9. B. Risk is an important consideration during Starting Up a Project, although it’s done at a high level in the process. The Project Brief includes a section on risk. It is, however, correct to say that the detailed work is done in Initiation, and actually that’s at the same time as the Risk Management Strategy is produced.
10. A. True. The Executive is the first role to be appointed. Even if you didn’t know that the Executive is appointed by corporate or programme management, you should have been able to work it out by logic, since there would be nobody else in the project management team to do it at that point. Equally you could have looked it up in the manual where the information appears as a rather awkward ‘product’ on the responsibilities table for the activity, and also in the section in the Organization chapter describing the Executive role, although a long way down a very long section. [Manual Table 12-1 and Section 5.3.2.1 Executive]
More classic-style questions
11. B and C. The project definition has its own section in the Project Brief, and the acceptance method is part of the Project Product Definition which forms part of the brief. There’s a mention of risk in the Project Brief, but there’s no Risk Register yet in PRINCE2 and there’s no such thing as an Outline Risk Register. The Stage Plan for the Initiation Stage is sent to the Project Board at the same time as the Project Brief, but it’s a separate document and not part of the brief. The Project Product Description (PPD) does contain quality information but it isn’t in the form of quality criteria. Instead the PPD has the Customer Quality Expectations, the project Acceptance Criteria and project-level quality tolerances. The description of individual products and the detail of their quality criteria will go in the relevant Product Descriptions, which are done later – not in the PPD, which is at a much higher whole-project level. [Manual A.21.2, P2FD Ch4 Producing the Project Product Description]
12. A. The Executive. Others may contribute to the Outline Business Case, but it remains the responsibility of the Executive to produce it. [Manual Table 12-4]. Please note that you were being asked for just one answer here, unlike Question 11 where you were asked for two. In the Practitioner exam, all the questions in a block will require the same number of answers – or at least they have so far to the time of writing this. But as part of the objective of this book is to make you vigilant, the number of required answers changed for this second question in the panel. Sneaky, huh? Do watch out in the exam that you’re absolutely clear on the number of answers required. Don’t lose a mark simply because you didn’t take on board the number of answers you were being asked for. There’s more on exam technique for classic questions in Chapter 2.