The Planning the Program questions on the PgMP^® certification exam, which constitute 11 percent of the exam, or 19 questions, focus on many critical areas in program management and emphasize the importance of detailed and comprehensive program planning. In The Standard for Program Management, a project plan is mentioned in Program Strategy Alignment, and its Program Definition Phase of its life cycle emphasizes program preparation with a program management plan. In the Standard, its Program Management Supporting processes each have a planning component, most of which will be covered in the questions in this section. According to the Standard, once the program management plan is formally approved, the Program Benefits Delivery Phase begins. Note that Benefits Management; Stakeholder Management, including Communication Management; and Governance are covered in separate sections of this book, and their planning components will not be covered in depth in this section.

Similar to the PMBOK^® Guide’s work breakdown structure (WBS), which is essential for project planning, the PgMP^® includes the preparation of a program WBS (PWBS). This PWBS does not replace the WBS for each of the projects in the program, but it does provide an overview of the program and shows how the projects and non-project work fit into the overall program structure.

The Examination Content Outline has nine tasks on Planning the Program, which also will be covered in the planning questions in this section and in the two practice tests. The emphasis is to ensure that the program’s mission, vision, and values support those of the organization. The planning processes are iterative, and because of the length of the program and the multiple projects in it, plans need to be revisited and updated when components are initiated or closed, during the organization’s fiscal year and budget planning cycle, and when unplanned events occur.

Following is a list of the major topics covered in Planning the Program. Use this list to focus your study efforts on the areas that are most likely to appear on the exam.

Program Preparation

• Develop Program Management Plan
• Difference from the Program Plan
• Define the Program Organization
• Describe Candidate Components
• Describe Management Plans
• Optimize the Plan
• Obtain Approval to Move to the Program Delivery Phase

Supporting Processes

• Program Financial Management Plan Development
• Program Infrastructure Plan
• Program Infrastructure Development
• Program Procurement Planning
• Program Quality Planning
• Resource Planning
• Program Risk Management Planning
• Program Schedule Planning
• Program Scope Planning

Program Scope Statement

• Program Work Breakdown Structure
• Schedule
• Program Management Information System
• Identifying and Managing Project-Level Issues
• Developing Transition/Integration/Closure Plan

Develop Key Performance Indicators

• Decomposition/Mapping
• Balanced Scorecard
• Implementing a Scope and Quality Management System

Key Human Resources

• Determine Program and Project Roles
• Include Subcontractors
• Team Motivation Opportunities

INSTRUCTIONS: Note the most suitable answer for each multiple-choice question in the appropriate space on the answer sheet.

1. As you work to develop a new washer and dryer that will not require any electricity and also will decrease your monthly water bill by 50% assuming you use the washer at least once per week, you have a complex program to manage. Thus far, even though you are still in the early phases of your program, you have six separate projects in it. Now, you are developing the schedule for your program. Typically the first step is to—
   1. Use the schedules from the six projects
   2. Determine the component milestones
   3. Determine the interdependencies between the components
   4. Use the scope management plan
2. You are Company A’s program manager for the development of an online banking system for your community bank, for which your company will receive $20 million. Because the bank would like to implement this system quickly, it has also contracted with Company B. You must implement your system completely in six months to ensure that you beat Company B’s schedule. At this point, you have an expense estimate of $2.5 million. You will lose $10 million if you cannot deliver the product in six months, but if you can complete it sooner, you will earn an additional $25 million, for a total of $45 million. Your risk management officer performs a risk analysis and tells you that there is a 70 percent chance that the program will be completed ahead of schedule. Your company has completed similar programs in the past; judging by these experiences, there is a 30 percent chance that your final expenses will increase by $10 million. What is the expected value of your program if it is completed ahead of schedule?
   1. $29 million
   2. $32 million
   3. $42.5 million
   4. $45 million
3. Working as Company A’s program manager for the development of an on line banking system for your community bank, you have been asked to provide a list of deliverables and the success criteria for the program and its products, services, and results that must be included in the procurement documentation that is provided to potential suppliers. This list is derived from an analysis of the—
   1. Benefits realization plan
   2. Project work breakdown structure (WBS)
   3. Contract WBS
   4. Program scope statement
4. You are managing a program to establish a new distribution center. The facility’s location was selected because labor costs were low, but it is in a remote area. Now gasoline prices have increased 30 percent and are forecasted to rise another 20 percent in the next six months. In planning for the procurement of transportation services, you need to—
   1. Prepare a competitive analysis of service providers
   2. Recommend to your sponsor that the program be terminated and the distribution center be moved to a more urban area
   3. Prepare a contract management plan
   4. Encourage bidders by providing simplified legal requirements in the form of standard terms and conditions
5. As program manager, you find yourself repeatedly changing and refining the program management plan as a result of a number of factors, such as changing external conditions, market factors, stakeholder requirements, and currency fluctuations. A member of the program Governance Board stops you in the corridor and asks what is wrong with the program. You remind this person that program planning is—
   1. An inexact science, and so long as the program is within acceptable variance levels, everything is fine
   2. An iterative process, and as issues arise and are addressed, the plan will naturally fluctuate
   3. Basically a process of elimination, and as work is accomplished, future work is progressively elaborated
   4. Only done at predefined intervals to reduce administrative expenses
6. You are Company A’s program manager for the development of an online banking system for your community bank, for which your company will receive $20 million. However, the bank is so interested in implementing this system quickly that it also contracts with Company B. You must implement your system completely in six months to ensure that you beat Company B’s schedule. At this point, you have an expense estimate of $2.5 million. You will lose $10 million if you cannot deliver the product in six months, but if you can complete it sooner, you will earn an additional $25 million. Your risk management officer performs a risk analysis and tells you that there is a 30 percent chance that the bank will change its requirements, and a 70 percent chance that the program will be completed on time or ahead of schedule. Your company has completed similar programs in the past, and on the basis of these experiences, you know that there is a 30 percent chance that your final expenses will increase by $10 million. If no risks occur, the value of your program will be—
   1. $2.5 million
   2. $17.5 million
   3. $29 million
   4. $42.5 million
7. You are conducting a program kickoff meeting for a new accounting system that will affect more than 500 accounting professionals in 10 locations. The preliminary schedule shows that in month 13, the transition of the system to the users will begin. The Director of Accounting is quite concerned about the impact of the new system on the employees. To ensure a smooth transition, you, as program manager, need to ensure that the Director that the program has—
   1. A sufficient number of people to operate the new system
   2. Enough money in the budget to ensure that the employees receive the appropriate training
   3. The necessary lead time to get people ready
   4. An understanding of the steps needed to move from a development state to an operational state
8. Your firm’s senior program manager is overwhelmed with stakeholder problems and has asked you to join the team as the program’s resource manager. More than 20 people have already joined, and 15 more are expected over the course of the next month. The senior program manager believes that no additional members will be required. However, in casual observation you detect some problems. A handful of people seem to be working extraordinarily hard, whereas others do not seem to have enough to do. As a program resource manager, your first priority must be to—
   1. Identify the compensation package for each team member that will drive the best performance
   2. Determine the people, equipment, materials, and other resources that are needed and obtain them
   3. Identify those competencies that are critical to the program but are not possessed by current team members
   4. Ensure that program resources are allocated across projects to ensure that they are not overcommitted
9. Assume you are working on a program to review and then update as needed all the regulations in your National Highway Transportation Safety Administration especially since people now are using small helicopters for their travel of distances less than 50 miles in your country. Many of the regulations in your Agency were put in place when the Agency was established over 40 years ago, and therefore, a detailed review is needed. You have a major program to manage and are preparing your program work breakdown structure. You believe a bottom-up approach to preparing it is desirable because—
   1. The top two levels of each project’s work breakdown structure (WBS) can be included in the PWBS
   2. Project-related artifacts are then part of the PWBS
   3. The management and control responsibilities of the project team are determined
   4. Earned value reporting is simplified
10. You have prepared your program scope statement, your PWBS, and PWBS Dictionary. Now, it is time to develop the schedule for this program. An essential element as you develop it is—
    1. Determining the order and timing of program packages
    2. Estimating required resources for each activity
    3. Focusing on resource leveling across the constituent projects
    4. Adjusting leads and lags
11. You are the program manager on a multiyear, multimillion-dollar transportation program for the provincial government. Funding for your program is allocated on a fiscal year basis, yet your program transcends multiple years. This situation will affect how your costs are—
    1. Estimated
    2. Obligated
    3. Committed
    4. Budgeted
12. You are the program manager on a multiyear, multimillion-dollar transportation program for the provincial government. Funding for your program is allocated on a fiscal year basis, yet your program transcends multiple years. Because of the challenges in cost estimating and the lack of additional funding to support your program, as program manager in preparing the financial management plan, you should—
    1. Ensure infrastructure and operational costs are included
    2. Establish a set amount for the contingency reserve
    3. Derive program estimates by using scenario analysis
    4. Baseline each estimate
13. You are the program manager for a series of new condominium developments in City A. Each of these condo developments is a separate project, as the City has different zoning requirements. Your company has developed similar condos for a neighboring city, City B. The City B program manager tells you that many different sellers can support the various subcontracts. With respect to awarding contracts, a best practice to follow—
    1. Ask each seller to prepare a detailed proposal so that you can evaluate its technical and managerial approaches
    2. Procure the services of a product integrator
    3. Review each potential seller’s financial capacity as a key evaluation criterion, along with life-cycle costs
    4. Base your evaluation criteria primarily on an understanding of need and technical capability
14. You are the program manager for a new program in your company that will provide global support services for supply chain integration. This program will support your multi-national corporation, and you have a total of nine countries involved in it; three are in Asia Pacific, one is in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), two are in Latin America, and three are in the United States. Your corporate headquarters are in London. You plan to outsource a large portion of proprietary development work to a vendor located in Canada. A key evaluation criterion in selecting the vendor is to assess—
    1. Its technical capability
    2. References to see how successful it has been on other contracts of a similar nature
    3. The level of compatibility between your company’s culture and processes and the vendors
    4. The provisions the vendor has in place to protect intellectual property
15. As the company’s risk expert, you have been requested by the program Governance Board to perform a risk assessment on the Apex program, which includes more than 25 projects. The focus of your assessment should be on—
    1. Analyzing response mechanisms for individual components
    2. Ensuring that each project has a risk mitigation plan
    3. Interproject risks
    4. Stakeholder risk tolerance and thresholds
16. As the organization’s troubled program recovery specialist, you have been called in to take over a program that has had difficulties from the start. An initial assessment reveals that the project-level requirements have not been completed. This needs to be accomplished before any work can be initiated. One way to reduce the time needed for the requirements-gathering cycle is to—
    1. Use as many business analysts as you can find in the organization
    2. Require each project manager to function as a business analyst until such time as the requirements have been gathered
    3. Outsource all the requirements activity so each project manager can devote his or her time to the more important parts of the project
    4. Apply the use of normalized templates, forms, and guidelines to make the process consistent across all projects
17. You are the program manager for a new program in your company that will provide global support services for supply chain integration. This program will support your multi-national corporation, and you have a total of nine countries involved in it. You plan to outsource a large portion of proprietary development work to several companies in a province located in Canada. Looking at procurement planning, it is important to—
    1. Adhere to legal and finance obligations
    2. Direct all procurements to be centralized
    3. Prepare complete evaluation criteria
    4. Set standards for the components
18. You are the executive sponsor of a program that provides global support services for supply chain integration. The program is experiencing quality problems in the individual projects. After meeting with the program manager to discuss the issues, you suggest that one way to improve quality is to—
    1. Identify alternatives on scope definition methods through inputs from subject matter experts
    2. Apply a common approach to the creation of the work breakdown structure across projects for consistency in scheduling, resourcing, and cost control
    3. Align acceptance criteria for the deliverables across phases and projects with the program objectives
    4. Set standards that are relevant to the entire program
19. You and your team have prepared the program work breakdown structure (PWBS) shown below in Figure 3.1. Assume that this program involves the development of products, each of which follows the same sequence.

    

    Figure 3.1

    In this PWBS, a program package is—

    1. Project 1
    2. Design
    3. Program Management
    4. Plan
20. Working for an automotive company and wanting to develop an electric car that can be sold for under $25,000 US and run for 1,000 miles without needing a charge is a major undertaking. Your company is striving to be the first to market. To assess the program regularly, when you became program manager, you were asked to use a strategic performance measurement tool to track execution of the various activities, which means you should develop—
    1. Key performance indicators
    2. A traffic light system
    3. Balanced scorecard
    4. Earned value metrics