The Controlling the Program questions on the PgMP^® certification exam, which constitute 10 percent of the exam, or 17 questions, continue to focus on phase four of the program life cycle from the Examination Content Outline and more specifically on monitoring and controlling the program and its components. The expected benefits need to be in line with the original plan, the level of risk must remain acceptable, and accepted best practices must be followed.

The Examination Content Outline focuses on the need to analyze variances in costs, schedule, quality, and risks to identify corrective actions or opportunities to the program because of these variances. The Program Management Plan and other plans may need updating as a result of corrective actions that are implemented. It also emphasizes the need to manage issues on the program to identify and select a course of action consistent with the program’s scope, constraints, and objectives to achieve the programs benefits. Impact assessments for various possible changes may need to be conducted and decisions made. Additionally, risks require monitoring, following the risk management plan.

In the Standard for Program Management—Third Edition (2013), monitoring and controlling is part of the Benefits Delivery Phase of this life cycle. Questions then cover program performance reporting, program financial monitoring and control, program performance monitoring and control, program procurement administration, program quality control, resource interdependency management, program risk monitoring and control, and program scope control.

You should expect to answer questions on earned value and should be familiar with the various earned value terms and formulas. You should also expect to answer some questions about program trends and the need to communicate these trends to the program’s stakeholders. Stakeholders are emphasized in the Manage Program Stakeholder Expectations process, covered in the stakeholder domain in this book. Other work involves governance oversight and managing benefits, covered in the respective domains in this book.

Because monitoring and controlling involves preventive and corrective actions, some questions include scenarios in which the program manager and the core program team must decide on the best course of action. Because the program manager is responsible for managing program issues, the use of an issue register is required, and its contents may be reviewed by the Governance Board. Many of these processes will occur throughout the program’s life cycle, from initiation to closure. Furthermore, it is essential to focus on monitoring and controlling the program’s scope, schedule, and budget, and if contracts are to be awarded, to focus on administering program procurements.

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

Program Benefits Delivery

• Program Performance Monitoring
  • Preparing contract and sponsor related data reports
  • Requesting customer feedback
  • Preparing periodic reports, presentations, and key performance indicators

• Program Financial Monitoring and Control
  • Monitoring program finances and coordinating expenditures within budget
  • Managing changes as they occur
  • Making payments to contractors
  • Closing component budgets
  • Updating the budget baseline
  • Approving change requests
  • Using earned value
  • Implementing corrective actions

• Program Performance Monitoring and Control
  • Collecting, measuring, and disseminating performance information
  • Assessing program trends
  • Providing information to determine the program’s status, trends, and areas in need of realignment
  • Determining if requests for preventive or corrective action are needed
  • Preparing status reports
  • Preparing forecasts

• Program Procurement Administration
  • Ensuring the budget is being spent to deliver benefits
  • Using performance/earned value reports
  • Using progress reports from contractors with key performance indicators

• Program Quality Control
  • Monitoring deliverables to see if quality requirements are fulfilled
  • Implementing quality change requests
  • Using quality control checklists
  • Using quality test reports and measurement results

• Resource Interdependency Management
  • Controlling the schedule for scarce resources
  • Focusing on interdependent resources

• Program Risk Monitoring and Control
  • Identifying, analyzing, and planning for new risks
  • Tracking identified risks
  • Reanalyzing existing risks
  • Executing risk responses
  • Documenting lessons learned

• Program Schedule Control
  • Tracking and monitoring start and finish of milestones
  • Managing the master schedule planned timelines
  • Identifying slippages and opportunities
  • Reviewing the program master schedule
  • Updating the roadmap

• Program Scope Control
  • Determining scope changes with significant impact
  • Establishing a scope change control system
  • Determining when updates to the scope statement and PWBS are needed

Preventive and corrective actions

Proactive and reactive cost control

Managing and controlling changes

• Change requests
• Coordinating changes
• Change control board
• Change request log
• Impact analysis
• Approved change requests
• Variance analysis

Meetings and reviews

• Presentations
• Status review meetings
• Lessons learned reviews

Program management controls

• Standards
• Policies and procedures
• Program plans
• Performance reports
• Forecasts
• Program performance analysis
• Issue analysis
• Program metrics
• Impact assessments
• Time and cost reporting systems
• Inspections
• Reviews
• Oversight
• Audits
• Contracts
• Documentation
• Regulations

Earned value

• Schedule and cost variance
• Schedule performance index and cost performance index
• Estimate at completion
• Estimate to complete
• Budget at completion

Trend analysis

Variance analysis

Impact assessments

Issue register

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

1. As a program manager on the next generation nuclear submarine, you have six projects so far in your program, and this is only year one. You know additional projects and non-project work will be added as the program continues since it is scheduled to last for at least seven years. One of your responsibilities is to ensure that common activities among projects are coordinated to maximize the use of resources and achieve results that would not be possible if the projects were managed in a standalone fashion. This is done in—
   1. Program Performance Monitoring
   2. Benefit Management
   3. Resource Prioritization
   4. Resource Interdependency Management
2. You know from your work on programs, that change is inevitable on both on the overall program and its projects. As a program manager for this nuclear submarine program, you use a change management system as part of the program management information system (PMIS). You do this during part of your work in—
   1. Integrating overall change control
   2. Working to deliver incremental benefits
   3. Managing scope
   4. Monitoring and controlling program performance
3. Your program, which designs, develops, and manufactures a class of farm equipment that can be used above the Arctic Circle, has been requested to consolidate data and status for a key stakeholder. Part of your work involves maintaining a spare parts inventory and fulfilling spares requests for clients. In consolidating your report, you—
   1. Do not include the spares data because they are really not part of the defined program and do not fit the definition of a project
   2. Include the spares data, even though they are non-project work, because they are part of the program
   3. Include the spares data because you can reasonably define fulfilling a spares order as a project
   4. Ask the stakeholder who requested the report whether he or she wants to see the spares data
4. You have been asked to assume the management of a program to rebuild the water desalinization plant for Haddad, Saudi Arabia. Much of the equipment on the job is being leased. The program has been under way for more than five years. You decided to conduct an audit of the hundreds of lease agreements, and you found that you are making payments on leases for equipment that are not being used. Your next step is to—
   1. Set up a system to alert your team to this problem on future leased resources
   2. Use a resource register
   3. Recommend corrective actions
   4. Inform your Governance Board because it is focused on the program’s financial status
5. Your program to produce the first polycarbonate city car is making progress. The client is concerned that the cost to manufacture the car will cause the car to be priced at a level that the average consumer cannot, or will not, pay. The client has asked you to see whether you can reduce the cost of manufacturing the vehicle yet still meet the specifications. Such customer feedback requests are helpful and are part of—
   1. Establishing a cost change management system
   2. Preparing program performance reports
   3. Determining when to take corrective actions
   4. Implementing a lean Six Sigma manufacturing processes
6. You have been asked to assume the management of a program to rebuild the water desalinization plant for Haddad, Saudi Arabia. You are using earned value on your program. The schedule performance index indicates that you will not meet your proposed schedule, and you are only about 20 percent complete to date. You need to—
   1. Issue a revised schedule to your program team
   2. Update the program master schedule
   3. Update your budget baseline
   4. Inform your Governance Board
7. As program manager for development of a next-generation catalytic converter, you have a core team of six people. So far, you are in the first year of your program, scheduled to last four years, and you have three projects as part of your program. The project manager of the first project to design the converter has raised an issue to you as he feels it has far reaching consequences. You decide to use an issue register. After each issue is identified, your core program team records it in this register. The next step is to—
   1. Subject the issue to analysis by a reviewing authority
   2. Appoint a member of the program team to resolve the issue
   3. Ask the person who raised the issue to propose a resolution
   4. Determine a course of action
8. Assume you are managing a program for the judicial branch of your government, and you are reporting to the Chief Information Officer of the Administrative System of the Courts. The program is the number one priority on the Court’s list of ongoing programs and projects in the portfolio. The purpose of your program is to manage a legacy system conversion program, and thus far, your team has identified a number of risks to monitor, which means at the program level, you should—
   1. Determine if the program’s assumptions are still valid
   2. Appoint a member of your core team to be responsible for risk management on the program
   3. Ensure the planned risk responses are executed in a timely way
   4. Monitor the effects of the risk responses as they are executed to ensure they were effective
9. It is important to address and control scope changes on programs to ensure successful program completion. These scope changes can originate from many sources including—
   1. Risks
   2. Architecture issues
   3. Missed milestones
   4. Resource reallocations
10. One of the issues on your program is difficult to resolve because it concerns serious personality conflicts. Although it was raised by Project Manager A, it affects Projects B and C. Each of the three project managers has a different solution, and there is a stalemate. Therefore, a key performance competency for a program manager in monitoring and controlling the program is to—
    1. Establish an issue analysis process
    2. Recognize some of these solutions could be program opportunities
    3. Provide issue oversight at the program level
    4. Ask an expert for assistance before taking corrective
11. You realized in your work on the next generation nuclear submarine that since it will last seven years, you will probably have scope changes. You want to prepare for them and be able to exploit them as much as possible. However, because most scope changes have associated costs, every proposed change requires analysis to determine whether it should be implemented. If change requests are accepted and approved, the next step is to—
    1. Communicate the decision to the stakeholders involved
    2. Update the program management plan
    3. Revise the work breakdown structure (WBS)
    4. Work with the component manager to implement the change
12. A scope change request is approved for your program. It is estimated to require an additional $1 million. Your program Governance Board recommended to the executive sponsor that this scope change be approved to maintain a competitive advantage. Which of the following should you first update?
    1. Program management plan
    2. Budget baseline
    3. Program work breakdown structure (PWBS)
    4. Scope management plan
13. You are the legacy system conversion program manager in your company. You have a request now to update the company’s business development/sales tracking system, which was not in your business case. Your Governance Board recognizes the importance of including this project in your program and asks you to prepare a cost estimate for this new project. The board approves your estimate. You now should—
    1. Update the program budget baseline
    2. Revise the cost management plan
    3. Prepare a resource management plan
    4. Identify staffing needs
14. Because of their size, complexity, and duration, programs tend to be more important than projects in most organizations, and program managers tend to interact more with senior management, often through the Governance Board or steering committee that oversees the program. Throughout the program, it is especially important to monitor and control program changes. It is helpful to—
    1. Conduct impact assessments
    2. Authorize funding for each change
    3. Update the scope statement
    4. Influence factors that lead to change with effective program metrics
15. You are the program manager on a mergers and acquisition (M&A) team that is responsible for integrating your company with the one it has recently acquired. The company you acquired has a history of failure in such mergers; your company is now its fourth owner, and unfortunately, things are not going well. In a meeting with your executive sponsor after the last governance review meeting, he suggested that you set up—
    1. Key performance indicators
    2. A different governance structure
    3. Benchmarking studies
    4. A program audit
16. In a program performance meeting, you asked the project manager of Project A what the status was on her program. She responded by saying that the total project budget of $600,000 was evenly allocated over the project’s six-month life. She has just completed the second month of the project and has finished 50 percent of the work. What earned value method information is available thus far?
    1. Earned value
    2. Planned value
    3. Actual costs
    4. Earned value and planned value
17. Every program is planned on the basis of a set of hypotheses, scenarios, or assumptions. As a newly appointed program manager, you ask one of your core program team members to explore cost and contingency reserves. This is important as part of the—
    1. Forecasts
    2. Risk monitoring function
    3. Program procurement administration
    4. Program financial monitoring and controls
18. You are a program manager on an international program that relies on contractors for approximately 75 percent of its work. Some of the contracts apply to a specific project, but five contracts span six of the projects. You have one basic ordering agreement, which enables you to obtain temporary resources as required for this complex program. In terms of Program Procurement Administration, you should review the—
    1. Program reports
    2. Procurement register
    3. Contract management plan
    4. Change requests
19. Your program is beginning to miss key milestones because of delays by your customer, with whom you have a contract. Your goal is to ensure that corrections are made as quickly as possible, so you decide to conduct a contract performance review earlier than planned. At the program level, it is your responsibility now to—
    1. Prepare a change request
    2. Document the causes for the delay and bring it to your attorney’s attention
    3. Ensure the budget is being spent properly
    4. Document the delay and discuss it with the steering committee
20. You are preparing for a meeting of your program’s Governance Board. On your program, you are using earned value for monitoring, control, and forecasting. The planned value is $30,587, and the earned value is $26,365. You are working on a customer-imposed schedule for the completion of the program. Looking at the schedule variance (SV), you conclude that—
    1. The SV is −$4,222, and the program is behind schedule
    2. The SV is 1.16, and it appears that the schedule will be met
    3. The program is behind schedule, and the tasks on the critical path are affected
    4. The budget at completion is $46,475, but the delays are insignificant