Practice Test 2

  1. Finally both the Boeing 787 and the Airbus 380 are operational. Assume you are the Program Manager now for the Boeing 797. You have reviewed all the lessons learned from the work done on the 787 as you are determined this time that the 797 will be in service before the scheduled date. However, the 797 uses new technology, and you have different subcontractors than those of the 787. Your executive managers recently returned from the Paris Air Show and already have some orders, and you and your team are just identifying the various projects that will comprise this important program. You have been asked since you are the program manager to provide your sponsor and your Governance Board with regular updates on the status of the program’s benefits, and you need to be able to measure the benefits that have accrued during each reporting period. You decided to track the benefits in a—
    1. Benefits register
    2. Benefits realization report
    3. Benefits control system
    4. Benefits monitoring system
  2. You are working to establish program management in your organization. You recognize since you are working in the Portfolio Management Office that there are many benefits to be attained if projects that are somehow related can be part of a program structure so through the program, more benefits can be attained than if they were managed separately. You recognize the importance to aligning program goals and benefits with long-term organizational goals. Therefore, you realize as the company embraces program management, you will need to hire people as program managers, or appoint people from within the organization, who have skills in—
    1. Leadership
    2. Organizational awareness
    3. Political awareness
    4. Strategic visioning
  3. Your organization has a defined career path in project and program management and you are now a program manager. Since you have your PMP®, when PMI announced the PgMP® certification, you asked if you could move into a program management position so you could gain the hours needed to qualify for this credential. This is your first program management job. Your program management plan now has been approved. Your emphasis now should be on—
    1. Holding a kickoff meeting with your team
    2. Delivering intended benefits
    3. Chartering projects and appointing project managers
    4. Determining needed knowledge, skills, and competencies for potential team members
  4. You are working for pharmaceutical company, GenBioform, as program manager for the development of a breakthrough drug to inhibit the growth of cancer tumors and eliminate the need for chemotherapy or radiation treatments. Your CEO is determined that your company will be the first to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this new drug. You have performed an in-depth analysis of stakeholders in your company and have identified the following key external stakeholders: consumer groups, oncologists, the FDA, and cancer patients. Your next step is to—
    1. Finalize the results of your stakeholder identification and analysis by preparing a transition plan
    2. Note stakeholder considerations in your program charter
    3. Rank the stakeholders by importance and assign key team members to work with the top two
    4. Ask your Marketing Department to perform an analysis of the competition
  5. You are a newly hired program manager in your company and plan to use a number of contractors and serve as the system integrator on your program. Your Procurement Department suggested that the qualified vendor list be used to simplify the procurement process and pointed out one vendor that had performed well on a similar program in the past. The problem is that this vendor’s company is owned by your cousin. You should—
    1. Use the vendor since the Procurement Director suggested the company based on past performance
    2. Disclose this relationship to the Procurement Director and to your sponsor immediately
    3. Suggest that since this vendor’s firm is owned by your cousin that it is more appropriate to have a competitive process with a RFP
    4. Use a competitive process with a RFP and do not include past performance work with your company as an evaluation criterion
  6. You are working for pharmaceutical company, GenBioform, as program manager for the development of a breakthrough drug to inhibit the growth of cancer tumors and eliminate the need for chemotherapy or radiation treatments. Your CEO is determined that your company will be the first to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this new drug. So far on your program, with its six projects, you have had a number of change requests, which is not surprising given the complexity of the program. At the program level, analysis of change requests involves identifying, documenting, and estimating the work the change would entail. As program manager, you also need to—
    1. Determine which components are affected
    2. Meet with the program Governance Board for approval, rejection, or deferral of the request
    3. Convene a meeting of the configuration control board
    4. Maintain a change log for status
  7. The emphasis at your logistics company has always been to ‘do projects right’. Therefore, your management established a Project Management Office, with the responsibility to develop a methodology that project managers would follow that was consistent across the organization. This has proven to be effective. Now the organization is doing the same for program management. Since it has been successful in ‘doing projects right’ and is ‘doing programs right’, the organization now has implemented portfolio management to ensure it is ‘doing the right programs and projects’. The relationship between portfolio management to program management thus is—
    1. One comparable to a child-parent
    2. Influenced by requirements
    3. Focused on achieving planned outcomes
    4. One that emphasizes management of issues and risks with an escalation process
  8. You are managing a systems integration program for your company, Globus Enterprises, which is under contract to the government of Moldova. This program includes a hardware systems project and an information systems project; other projects are expected to be added as the program progresses. Because this program will include numerous projects, you have decided to—
    1. Have each project use a distinct life cycle as defined by the program management office (PMO)
    2. Define a common life-cycle model for the various projects
    3. Deploy the program organization
    4. Prepare the project management plans
  9. You have been appointed program manager for the closing phase of the systems integration program for Globus Enterprises, under contact to the government of Moldova. As the closing program manager, you must ensure that all administrative activities are complete. One best practice is to review the—
    1. Program work breakdown structure (PWBS)
    2. Business case
    3. Program management plan
    4. Benefits management plan
  10. You are pleased to finally move into a program management position in your city, and as the program manager for the new wastewater treatment initiative, you have now completed your program management plan. You have selected project managers and also a core team and have defined criteria to help you evaluate the various candidates. You are fortunate that you have worked with two of the people before on specific projects, but the others are new to you, and the team has not worked together previously as a team. As a program manager, you must be an effective leader. A key area of focus is—
    1. Ensuring task delivery
    2. Adding value to decision making
    3. Setting directives and procedures
    4. Establishing program direction
  11. You are managing a program that comprises new systems application development and maintenance activities. These applications are critical to your company, CDE, as they involve access to proprietary data. The systems must be available to your clients on a 24/7/365 basis. Much of the work on you program will be outsourced as you have an aggressive schedule to meet; fortunately CDE has a qualified vendor list to simplify the acquisition process. This program has high visibility in CDE. You and your core team realize the high level of interest and have worked hard to identify the key stakeholders and determine their position toward your program. You have prepared your stakeholder engagement plan, and it has been approved by your sponsor and Governance Board. Now, the next step for you and your team is to—
    1. Provide guidelines for project-level stakeholder engagement
    2. Prepare a stakeholder inventory
    3. Ensure the stakeholder management plan supports CDE’s strategic plan
    4. Communicate to all stakeholders a need for change to the new systems applications
  12. On your new 797 program, you have a larger number of stakeholders than did your counterpart program manager on the 787. You are working actively to identify early all the key stakeholders and prepare and follow a stakeholder engagement plan. To date, you find the stakeholder’s major interests are in the program’s benefits. However, the program is progressing as planned. In your plans, you have decided to conduct an overall review of the program’s benefits with the Governance Board during the—
    1. Execution phase
    2. Delivery of Program Benefits phase
    3. Program Closing phase
    4. Program Setup phase
  13. As the manager of your company’s natural gas distribution program, you are pleased to have this program as it is ranked number one in the company’s portfolio. So far, you have five separate projects, and the program is scheduled to last four years. In order to gauge program quality, a powerful metric is—
    1. End user satisfaction
    2. Benefit sustainment
    3. Effectiveness of adherence to the program’s quality policy
    4. Cross-program inter-project quality relationships
  14. Now that you have moved into this program management role in your manufacturing company, you realize your work really involves active involvement with stakeholders at a variety of levels. It is also compounded because on your program you have external stakeholders involved and need to spend time communicating with this group. Additionally, your Governance Board is extremely interested in your program and wants to meet more regularly than solely at phase-gate review sessions. They have requested these other meetings in order to—
    1. Ensure expected benefits are in line with the original business plan
    2. Focus on alignment of the program and your projects in it with the organization’s strategic plan
    3. Determine if the level of risk still remains acceptable to your organization
    4. Focus on ongoing performance and progress
  15. As a program manager in an aerospace organization, you are managing the next fighter plan. It is considered to be one that is high risk. It is going to require new technology, different types of scientific experts, a different manufacturing line, and new suppliers and subcontractors. Some members of the executive team, although they did approve the business case, are skeptical and believe that if the program does move ahead, and if it does not prove to be financially beneficial, it can jeopardize the reputation of the company in such a detrimental way that the company may not remain dominant in its field. This is why it is important in the early stages to—
    1. Prepare a program charter
    2. Prepare a high-level scope statement
    3. Develop a roadmap
    4. Define standard measurement criteria
  16. As you work to propose a program to your Portfolio Review Board to develop a new colon cancer detecting approach that does not involve any pre-preparation work or after effects to patients, you want to also to identify high-level financial and non-financial benefits for this program. You also want to make sure the benefits are congruent with the funding goals for the program as the financial organization will not be a passive stakeholder. One business case driver for financial management that often is overlooked is—
    1. Mission statements
    2. Reducing risks
    3. Increasing efficiency
    4. Streamlining administration
  17. As the program manager for the landfill program for your county, you have assembled your program team. It consists of civil engineers, regulatory specialists, project managers, and environmental engineers. This program is considered to be a very large one that will take a number of years to complete to deliver the societal benefits as planned. You plan to add some key subject matter experts as required. You also will have contractors on your team. With the various contractors, you are considering—
    1. Using your PMO
    2. Adding a specialist in contract management to the core team
    3. Using blanket purchase agreements
    4. Using fixed-price contracts with incentives for early completion
  18. Now that you have moved into this program management role in your manufacturing company, you realize your work really involves active involvement with stakeholders at a variety of levels. It is also compounded because on your program you have external stakeholders involved and need to spend time communicating with this group. Additionally, your Governance Board is extremely interested in your program and wants to meet more regularly than solely at phase-gate review sessions. While you have two projects in your program, the Manufacturing Director at your company, CCC, has requested that you add another project to your program. Criteria for initiating a project is contained in the—
    1. Program management plan
    2. Program business case
    3. Program charter
    4. Governance plan
  19. As the program manager working to upgrade and integrate the back office components of your organization’s systems, you have five projects in your program. You realize all programs, and projects, have risks associated with them, and some of the high-level risks are in your program charter. As you prepare a risk management plan, it is essential to define—
    1. Risk profiles
    2. Market conditions
    3. Risk management consolidation
    4. How the risk may affect program success
  20. You are a program manager and are responsible for a major project to integrate the back office components of your organization’s systems. You have five projects in your program. Quality is important to your company. A quality control measurement you plan to use is—
    1. Number of defects
    2. Number of workarounds
    3. Customer satisfaction surveys
    4. Cost of quality
  21. You are the program manager to restructure your department within your government agency. The head of the agency informed your sponsor that she wants to change the scope of the program so you will be working to restructure the entire agency instead of just one department. The Agency Administrator felt this change would be beneficial as the Agency also has to undergo some funding cuts in the next three fiscal years. This represents a major change to your program. You decided before moving forward that your best course of action was to—
    1. Inform your team and involve them in planning the next steps
    2. Meet with your program sponsor
    3. Convene a meeting of your Governance Board
    4. Meet with the Director of the Enterprise Program Management Office as obviously you now need additional resources for your program
  22. As the program manager for the systems integration program for Globus Enterprises, which is under contract to the government of Moldova, you have a number of projects in your program. First, your program includes a hardware systems project. Second, you have an information systems project. Now, you recently added a software engineering project, and you plan to add a verification and validation project in the fourth quarter. Other projects also are on your roadmap. Your overall program success is measured in terms of—
    1. Benefits delivery
    2. Earned value
    3. Each project’s adherence to its schedule
    4. Products delivered according to specification
  23. The roadmap is an important document used in program management. One key purpose of it is to—
    1. Use it as part of the program’s business case
    2. Evaluate through it your program’s alignment to the strategic plan
    3. Summarize the supporting infrastructure
    4. Show internal details of components
  24. You met with the organizational leaders for your colon cancer detection program that does not involve any pre-preparation work or after effects to patients, and its business case was approved. You then were asked to take over sponsorship for a program for a long-time customer, which would be awarded to your company under contract, to develop drugs for use by people before undergoing a colon cancer detection program. Your company has never developed these types of drugs before, but your customer is convinced it will not be an issue. You do not wish to disappoint this customer. In this situation—
    1. You should proceed with the colon cancer detection program as its business case has been approved
    2. Tell your customer you cannot take on this opportunity now because you are committed to another program
    3. Meet with your organizational leaders
    4. Diversify the portfolio and sponsor both programs
  25. At the last strategic planning meeting, the CEO set forth a three-year plan with a major goal to be the leading provider of portfolio, program, and project management training in your country; it still will offer general managerial and business analyst training. You are the program manager for this new initiative, and your program management plan has been approved. Resources are limited. To provide guidance to component managers, you decide to—
    1. Prepare a program resource plan
    2. Set up a resource pool that is managed at the program level for the components
    3. Prepare a staffing management plan
    4. Set up a process so component managers can escalate any resource issues to you for prioritization
  26. You are the program manager to restructure your department within your government agency. The head of the agency informed your sponsor that she wants to change the scope of the program so you will be working to restructure the entire agency instead of just one department. The Agency Administrator felt this change would be beneficial as the Agency also has to undergo some funding cuts in the next three fiscal years. You now have acquired additional resources for this major change and have re-structured your program. You realize, however, that with this change, you should have—
    1. Followed appropriate procedures and guidelines
    2. An appropriate governance structure in place
    3. Updated all your plans
    4. Communicated with every stakeholder
  27. You are managing a landfill program for your county. Your program team consists of civil engineers, regulatory specialists, project managers, and environmental engineers. You also have a number of internal and external stakeholders. Your client, the county executive, has informed you that your program must be completed no later than September 15, 2015, to comply with a regulatory mandate. You have prepared the program’s master schedule, and the program dates for each component have been identified, which are—
    1. Constraints
    2. Assumptions
    3. Dependencies
    4. Schedule risks
  28. When you were a project manager, you found the risk register to be an extremely useful tool. Now that you are a program manager, you ask your project managers to use a risk register, and you assign a member of your core program team to identify, analyze, and track program-level risks. You also need to—
    1. Conduct risk audits
    2. Review residual risks
    3. Track schedule risks
    4. Track scope risks
  29. You have been appointed program manager for the closing phase of Program CCC. As closing program manager, you must ensure that all administrative activities are complete. Sixty-two contracts were awarded during the life of this program. You contact the Contracts Department and a contracts specialist assists you. You need to—
    1. Review the contracts management plan
    2. Make sure the contractors completed performance reports as stated in their contracts
    3. Ensure payments were made
    4. Review contract closure procedures
  30. Assume you are managing the reward loyalty operational activity for your airline. Members have been complaining about the difficulty of actually using an award, especially your elite members who tend to fly on your airline at least one million miles per year. You feel you will lose elite members to other airlines unless the program changes dramatically, and you believe it needs to offer more possible rewards in conjunction with free stays at leading hotels of the world and also free car rentals. You have received authority from your Portfolio Review Board to establish a new program to emphasize improvements in how rewards are to be handled. You now are in the Initiating process. The key output of it is—
    1. Identification of the program manager
    2. The program charter
    3. The benefits analysis plan
    4. Feasibility studies
  31. Assume you are the program manager to redesign the reward loyalty operational activity for your airline. Members have been complaining about the difficulty of actually using an award, especially your elite members who tend to fly on your airline at least one million miles per year. You feel you will lose elite members to other airlines unless the program changes dramatically, and you believe it needs to offer more possible rewards in conjunction with free stays at leading hotels of the world and also free car rentals. Therefore, you want to plan for success from the beginning of the program. This need means that the program manager requires which one of the following skills?
    1. Facilitation
    2. Political
    3. Emotional intelligence
    4. Conflict resolution
  32. Assume that you have completed your program to re-design your organization’s approach to how it works with other companies. Now that the process is in place and has been followed, it is time to close this program. You must transition the benefits of your program. This is demonstrated—
    1. According to strategic alignment
    2. Through value delivery
    3. By implementing required change efforts
    4. By providing operational support as requested
  33. You are responsible for business development in your division, which is a subsidiary of a large defense contractor. Recently, you attended a conference and learned that many of your competitors are focusing on continuous improvement in the area of sales strategies and techniques and are conducting maturity assessments. When you returned to your office, you prepared a business case and recommended that such a program be initiated. One of the criteria you used was—
    1. Representatives from each business unit in the organization would participate in the program
    2. The program duration would be short because a maturity assessment typically can be conducted in three months
    3. It would be necessary to set up some specific projects as a result of the improvement plan from the maturity assessment, but these projects would be unique to each business unit
    4. The benefits that would accrue from the program would be independent of specific deliverables of the various associated projects
  34. Your company has established a program to manage the development of new pet food products, and you have been appointed manager of this program. One of your five projects has completed its deliverables successfully, and a transition request has been processed. As the program manager, you should—
    1. Reallocate the resources to the other four projects
    2. Update the resource plan
    3. Update the program roadmap
    4. Send the transition request to the program sponsor for approval
  35. You are the program manager for a program that is using multiple suppliers. Even though you have signed partnering agreements with each supplier, you know performance problems will surface, especially with this program because more than 75 percent of the work is being done by third-party suppliers. Also, your company has not worked with five of these suppliers in the past, and two are start-up companies. You have identified the various stakeholders on this program and classified them. As part of stakeholder analysis and planning you should document—
    1. The organizational culture and readiness for change
    2. Affected individuals and organizations
    3. Perceptions of program outcomes
    4. Attitudes about the program and its sponsors
  36. Because of extreme droughts in Haddad, Jordan, water restrictions have been imposed. Your company is awarded a contract to eliminate the need for these restrictions. The program includes a project to formulate and implement policies and procedures that ensure continuity of operations and performance of associated equipment. Another project will oversee improvements and modifications to existing treatment methods and facilities. A third project will design modifications to increase productivity and effectiveness. As program manager, you will manage, contract, and provide oversight for capital improvement projects. You will need various types of resources and a variety of office supplies. To assist in managing contracts, you should—
    1. Conduct inspections and audits
    2. Use performance/earned value reports
    3. Follow your procurement management plan
    4. Use written deviations
  37. You are the program manager for a program that is using multiple suppliers. Even though you have signed partnering agreements with each supplier, you know performance problems will surface, especially with this program because more than 75 percent of the work is being done by third-party suppliers. Also, your company has not worked with five of these suppliers in the past, and two are start-up companies. Many in your organization are interested in this program and especially how the integration efforts will be accomplished given the large number of suppliers involved. It is important in this situation to ensure—
    1. A contact change control system is in place
    2. A contract administrator is a member of your core team
    3. There is compliance with legal policies
    4. Key stakeholders have active involvement in the program at all times
  38. As a program manager in the Department of the Interior, you are working on ways to ensure continued availability of water resources. You have a number of projects in your program, but you are particularly interested in the effect of earthquakes on water resources. You have appointed a manager for this project, and he has assembled an outstanding team that does impressive work. You have already determined your program’s budget requirements for the next fiscal year; your Governance Board concurs with your financial analysis and includes your requirements in the budget submitted to the Office of the Secretary. However, the Office makes 30 percent cuts across the board, thus forcing you to eliminate the earthquake analysis project. Your next step is to—
    1. Disband your team
    2. Assign the project manager to another project so that he does not lose his job
    3. Update your program plans as required
    4. Make another attempt to secure funding for this project
  39. Your program in the Department of Interior to ensure continued availability of water resources to the citizens of your country has a number of projects, now seven are under way, and unless there are no other budget cuts, you expect at least three more to be added. In most programs, there is a core infrastructure which is the—
    1. Governance Board
    2. Program management team
    3. Program management office (PMO)
    4. Program office
  40. As the manager of a major program in your company, you have access to various supporting resources. Your organization uses a balanced matrix organizational structure, and supporting resources come from a variety of functional departments. One member of your program team regularly prepares resource deviation reports. These reports are—
    1. Part of Resource Interdependency Management
    2. Described in the resource plan
    3. Helpful to determine if the program’s benefits will be met
    4. Used as part of Risk Monitoring and Control
  41. You have been appointed program manager to develop digital yo-yos. You are excited by this challenge, and when you learned of this possible opportunity, you decided to attain your PgMP® and also take a course on managing programs for best practices. This is your first time as a program manager, and this program is ranked number three in your organization. You are preparing a high-level program plan, which has a number of key purposes one of which is to—
    1. Demonstrate the value the program is to deliver
    2. Justify the required resources
    3. Serve as a reference to measure program success
    4. Establish the relationship between program activities and expected benefits
  42. As the program manager on the digital yo-yo program, you realize for success on this program, you need an outstanding team, and you have been negotiating for the best and the brightest people to manage the seven identified projects that will comprise the program and will be in your Program Management Office. It has been a difficult process working with the company’s department managers to obtain needed resources. You know for success you also need—
    1. A determination of contractor resources for your use
    2. Agreement among the team as to the program values
    3. Standard measurement criteria
    4. Risks identified by stakeholders
  43. You are a program manager in a global software company that uses virtual teams. Work is passed 24/7 from team members on one continent to those on another continent. Since this is a complex program with a significant amount of associated uncertainty, changes in program direction may be needed. Recognizing this can occur on your program, you should—
    1. Use adaptive change
    2. Provide consistent messages about changes to stakeholders
    3. Set up an approach to facilitate timely decision making about needed changes
    4. Follow your communications management plan
  44. As the program manager for a new wastewater treatment initiative in your city, you must deliver both tangible and intangible benefits. You must also identify the interdependencies of the benefits delivered in various projects in your program. This means that you must map benefits to program outcomes. In terms of the benefits management life cycle, this is done during—
    1. Benefits identification
    2. Benefits setup
    3. Benefits analysis and planning
    4. Benefits delivery
  45. You and your core team realize the high level of interest in your program and have worked hard to identify the key stakeholders and determine their position toward your program. You decided to use mapping to help develop a stakeholder matrix to put stakeholders into certain categories. One of the advantages of the mapping approach is that it—
    1. Can be done easily through brainstorming sessions
    2. Shows the stakeholder’s attitude toward the program
    3. If done correctly, can promote stakeholder engagement
    4. Visually shows the stakeholders’ current and desired support and influence
  46. Before preparing your stakeholder engagement plan, you decided to conduct stakeholder analysis and planning. Your first step is to—
    1. Brainstorm the possible stakeholders to get a complete list of them
    2. Evaluate the degree of support or opposition each stakeholder has regarding the program
    3. Gain an understanding of expectations of program benefit delivery
    4. Perform a detailed review of the Statement of Work and other key documents already completed
  47. Your company is noted for its maturity and excellence in program management. It has received awards for program and project delivery. People seem dedicated to the success of the company and in its management of programs and their projects, which is due to—
    1. Awareness of the influence of environmental enterprise factors
    2. Use of a common program approach
    3. A portal for sharing information
    4. An up-to-date program management information system
  48. You are the program manager for a global Fortune 100 software company. The company has determined that it must pursue Cloud Computing, and it wants to use agile methods as it enters this market to speed the time to complete the Cloud Computing program and to develop a marketing campaign for it. You also know you will need to do extensive testing before the program is complete. One tool you should develop to help execute the program is a—
    1. Work authorization system
    2. Issue and risk escalation process
    3. Roadmap
    4. Decision log
  49. You are the program manager for a global Fortune 100 software company. It has determined that it must pursue Cloud Computing, and it wants to use agile methods as it enters this market to speed the time to complete the Cloud Computing program and to develop a marketing campaign for it. You are responsible for ongoing management of program benefits. You must ensure that the program transition activities provide for continued management of benefits through the framework of—
    1. Ongoing operations
    2. Transfer of the benefits to the customer
    3. Program closure
    4. Consolidation of the benefits
  50. You are the legacy system conversion program manager in your company. You need to upgrade the company’s business development/sales tracking system, which was developed in C++. You now have projects in your program to also upgrade the accounting/financial management system, interface them to the program management information system, and add a knowledge management system. You have a complex program. With these additional projects, you and your core team realize you need to prepare your stakeholder engagement plan. In developing this plan, you should—
    1. Analyze the stakeholder register
    2. Determine how receptive the stakeholder is to communications from the program
    3. Prioritize stakeholders in a matrix according to their ability to influence the program outcomes, either positively or negatively
    4. Determine the degree of support or opposition the stakeholder has for the program’s objectives
  51. You are the program manager for a program that is using multiple suppliers. Even though you have signed partnering agreements with each supplier, you know performance problems will surface, especially with this program because more than 75 percent of the work is being done by third-party suppliers. Also, your company has not worked with five of these suppliers in the past, and two are start-up companies. Today, one of the suppliers responsible for Project D informed you that it did not have sufficient financial capacity and resources to continue on the program and was going to declare Chapter 11 and file then for bankruptcy. Obviously, this change involves other projects on your program and the entire program’s ability to deliver its benefits on time. You have decided that the best course of action is to first—
    1. Call an immediate meeting with your program team
    2. Contact the Procurement Department to obtain their services in obtaining another qualified supplier
    3. Contact the suppliers with whom you have had positive working relationships in the past to see if they can take on this company’s work
    4. Follow the issue escalation process
  52. As the manager for a water-gasification program that will provide potable sparkling mineral water from public water fountains in Garvey, England, you have leased some of the needed equipment. Unfortunately, you have found that on two of your projects, some of these leased resources did not meet specifications. The project managers on Projects A and D advised you of their concerns because they were concerned that overall program progress might be affected. You need to identify a course of action to best achieve program benefits, which means you need to—
    1. Perform an issues analysis
    2. Assess stakeholder risk tolerance
    3. Conduct a risk audit
    4. Manage program level issues
  53. Assume you are managing the next generation SMART car so it runs entirely on ethanol rather than gasoline now that your country has ethanol stations in all major cities and on interstate highway systems. Your executives believe this type of SMART car will increase in popularity. Since there are a number of benefits associated with this new line of SMART cars, you decided to use a benefit register to track the benefits accrued by each of the projects in your program so your organization can realize them and then through its dealers be able to sustain them. As the program manager, you develop this benefits register during—
    1. Benefits identification
    2. Benefits analysis and planning
    3. Benefits transition
    4. Benefits delivery
  54. You have successfully finished your new line of SMART cars, and they have been well received. In all, you have four different models, all using ethanol and all with advanced safety measures. They also are environmentally efficient. Now that the cars are being purchased, to derive the optimal value from the work you and your team accomplished, as the program manager, you should—
    1. Conduct team satisfaction surveys
    2. Plan the transition from program management to operations
    3. Ask an independent party to contact end users to ensure the effectiveness of customer relationship management
    4. Provide support to end users throughout the product life cycle
  55. As the key member of your company’s Program Selection Committee, you are responsible for deciding which programs to undertake. Your Committee meets on a quarterly basis and then selects new programs and projects as appropriate and also then rebalances the company’s portfolio accordingly. As you consider the proposed business case for a new program and assess the suggestions of the other committee members, a key factor is—
    1. Constituent component identification and definition
    2. Total available resources
    3. Overall stakeholder interest
    4. The project’s feasibility study
  56. You are the program manager for a program that is using multiple suppliers. Even though you have signed partnering agreements with each supplier, you know performance problems will surface, especially with this program because more than 75 percent of the work is being done by third-party suppliers. Also, your company has not worked with five of these suppliers in the past, and two are start-up companies. Many in your organization are interested in this program and especially how the integration efforts will be accomplished given the large number of suppliers involved. Given the extensive work being done by suppliers, you expect you will have more internal audits than usual on your program. Their specific timing should be—
    1. In your program’s roadmap
    2. Set forth in an audit plan
    3. Set forth in your program plan
    4. In your program schedule
  57. You are the program manager to restructure your department within your business unit. The head of the company informed your sponsor that she wants to change the scope of the program so you will be working to restructure the entire company instead of just one department. You prepared a stakeholder register as part of your planning efforts for the restructured program and then worked to—
    1. Assess the stakeholders’ ability to influence strategic goals
    2. Determine metrics to evaluate stakeholder participation in the program
    3. Prioritize a list of stakeholders
    4. Outline how stakeholders will be engaged in the program
  58. You are managing a program in your company, and you are following the phases articulated in the Project Management Institute’s The Standard for Program Management. Assume you have prepared your benefit realization plan, and It was approved. Now, you must concentrate on—
    1. Linking component activities to planned outcomes
    2. Delivering benefits
    3. Mapping the benefits to the program components
    4. Establishing a program architecture
  59. You are the program manager for a program that is using multiple suppliers. Even though you have signed partnering agreements with each supplier, you know performance problems will surface, especially with this program because more than 75 percent of the work is being done by third-party suppliers. Also, your company has not worked with five of these suppliers in the past, and two are start-up companies. Many in your organization are interested in this program and especially how the integration efforts will be accomplished given the large number of suppliers involved. Recently, your organization made a major change in its financial management policies and now is requiring a 10% retainage as part of each supplier’s contract. This means that—
    1. You require a person specializing in contracts and procurement management to be a member of your core team
    2. Suppliers are now a major stakeholder
    3. You need to actively work to rewrite each contract and then submit it to your Contracts Department
    4. A supplier engagement plan should be prepared
  60. Assume that you are the program manager for a product to be delivered to an external customer, and you are now planning your program. This new product is to be completed in two years. So far, you have three projects in your program and plan to add several more as the program continues. You believe you have an excellent team with the key competencies to assist you in the program. You also are glad to have a Governance Board. Conflicts, though, are program challenges, which means you should—
    1. Actively listen
    2. Use a variety of approaches to lead the team
    3. Assume program ownership and take responsibility
    4. Leverage political dynamics to promote program goals
  61. You are managing a program to produce the next generation of hurricane-, tornado-, and typhoon-resistant glass. Technical specialists in your company will support each of the projects in this program. Four projects are in process. Project A is fully staffed; Project B has about 75 percent of the staff members it needs; and Projects C and D are about to begin, but these two projects will require the services of several key specialists now working on Projects A and B. You tell Project Manager A that he must release two staff members to support Project C and three to support Project D. He uses resource leveling to analyze this change and tells you that the end date for Project A will need to be extended, as he will be understaffed. The program Governance Board and the executive sponsor agree to extend the schedule for Project A. The five specialists are released to the other projects. Your next step is to—
    1. Commend Project Manager A for his willingness to release these resources
    2. Meet with the five people involved and tell them they must move to the new projects
    3. Update the program-level documentation and records
    4. Continue to prioritize resources as needed
  62. You are managing a program to produce the next generation of hurricane-, tornado-, and typhoon-resistant glass. Four projects are in process. Project A is fully staffed; Project B has about 75 percent of the staff members it needs; and Projects C and D are about to begin. Your program team identifies several issues that force you to modify program requirements. Some changes are minor, but one issue requires a program scope change. Your next step is to—
    1. Involve the program’s Governance Board in its resolution
    2. Prepare a change request
    3. Update the program management plan
    4. Update the scope statement
  63. You are the legacy system conversion program manager in your company. You need to upgrade the company’s business development/sales tracking system, which was developed in C++. You now have projects in your program to also upgrade the accounting/financial management system, interface them to the program management information system, and add a knowledge management system. You have a complex program, and it now has increased risks with the variety of systems involved and the stakeholders who are used to these legacy systems and do not see the need to change. You also have three sponsors on this program. You should therefore update a number of the plans you have prepared with the first one to—
    1. Update your quality management plan
    2. Update your schedule management plan
    3. Update your financial management plan
    4. Update your risk management plan
  64. You are the developing your communications plan for your legacy system conversion program manager in your company. Compared to projects, this program is far more complex. It has a greater degree of uncertainty, and it will take longer to complete. Plus multiple vendors will be used. As you develop this plan another concern is—
    1. You lack needed resources now for some of the new projects
    2. New stakeholders will become known and addressed
    3. You will be spending more time communicating with more groups
    4. You realize you will require strong leadership skills to deal with the complexity of this program
  65. Assume you have just been named program manager to develop and manufacture a new drug designed to have fewer side effects than the existing ones on the marketplace to strengthen bones and help to minimize bone cancer. A number of benefits therefore will be associated with this program. You want to establish a program architecture in order to—
    1. Provide a process to determine the extent each benefit is achieved before the program closes
    2. Describe how each benefit will be measured
    3. Establish a performance baseline for the program
    4. Map how the components will deliver outcomes to achieve the program’s benefits
  66. Your company is a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. It has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new drug that will cure all glaucoma conditions. You are managing a process to upgrade the manufacturing process, and your CEO has given you an aggressive schedule, especially so the glaucoma drug can reach its numerous possible patients. You have five projects in this program, and you are getting ready for your second gate review on it. Although it is cumbersome assembling all the required materials for these reviews, you know they are useful as they ensure—
    1. Expected benefits are in line with the benefits realization plan
    2. Lessons learned are collected in order to prevent any future problems and improve overall processes
    3. Alternatives can be uncovered when problems are identified
    4. Processes and procedures are being used as designed
  67. You are the program manager to restructure your department within your government agency. The head of the agency informed your sponsor that she wants to change the scope of the program so you will be working to restructure the entire agency instead of just one department. The entire agency basically is a stakeholder as everyone is concerned about the impact of the reorganization and the funding cuts that have been proposed. As the program manager, you need to—
    1. Use expert judgment
    2. Bridge the gap between the current state and the to-be state
    3. Demonstrate how the reorganization supports strategic goals
    4. Hold meetings with affected groups to listen to their concerns and obtain their buy in to the program
  68. As a program manager for Destruct, AB, a leading defense contractor, you must determine which components should be part of your program. Your program involves the development of the next generation parachute. It is to be completely safe, easy to deploy, and available in one year at a reasonable price. Your executives want it to be completed at the time of the next Paris Air Show. When you do this, you are working in the—
    1. Benefits planning
    2. Pre-program preparations
    3. Program initiation
    4. Component identification
  69. It is easy to focus primarily on the benefits programs will deliver to the organization and the deliverables the projects in each program will produce. Many organizations though do not have a clear understanding of all of the programs and projects that are under way, and many people do not want to disclose some ‘pet’ program they are working on as they believe they are breakthrough initiatives for the company. However, assume you are in an organization that lacks such a list of all the work in progress, and your company needs such a list as the executives have mandated that a portfolio management process be followed. The executives plan to meet monthly to review the existing portfolio and determine whether or not new programs and projects should be added and others deferred or terminated. The overall objective is to ensure the—
    1. Programs and projects in the portfolio are focused on alignment to strategic objectives
    2. The portfolio’s strategy is one in which it focuses on preventing poor return on investments in the programs and projects that are pursued
    3. Program and project inputs are emphasized along with direct program deliverables and metrics
    4. The emphasis continues on the triple constraint as programs and projects to pursue are considered
  70. Assume you are working toward your doctoral degree in program management part-time as you work in your City government office that oversees all existing regulations and standards. You have suggested based on your studies that many of the existing projects to overhaul and review these regulations and standards might be better handled as a program since through a program the benefits from proposed projects can be coordinated more effectively especially if the benefits are interdependent. Intended interdependencies of benefits are stated in the—
    1. Program management plan
    2. Benefits management plan
    3. Benefits realization plan
    4. Project management plan
  71. Assume your suggestion to your City government to combine projects into programs in the regulations and standards area has been well received. After a meeting of the City’s Commissioners, they appointed you as the program manager to oversee this work. You have decided as one of your first tasks to prepare a benefits register and will base it on the expected benefits as defined in the—
    1. Program charter
    2. Program business case
    3. Program management plan
    4. Organization’s strategic plan
  72. You are the program manager for a new product development program for Company AAA. This product will serve to make sure that consumers will be able to wash all types of clothing through use of your product, and therefore, they no longer will need to spend money at dry cleaning establishments. To complete your program successfully, you have identified five projects. You also will require some specialized resources that are always in demand in your organization; therefore, you meet with members of your core team and subject matter experts to—
    1. Assign roles and responsibilities
    2. Determine reporting relationships
    3. Prepare a staffing management plan
    4. Prepare a program resource plan
  73. You are the program manager for a new product development program for Company AAA. This product will serve to make sure that consumers will be able to wash all types of clothing through use of your product, and therefore, they no longer will need to spend money at dry cleaning establishments. To complete your program successfully, you have identified five projects. You want to assess the likelihood of achieving these planned outcomes so you decide to—
    1. Use trend analysis
    2. Prepare a forecast
    3. Conduct a benefit audit
    4. Conduct a risk review
  74. Your organization is embarking on an international program to update all processes now used in portfolio, program, and project management to ensure they are useful and are not responsible for bureaucratic overhead. It this situation, it is useful to—
    1. Appoint the program manager from outside of headquarters given its global nature
    2. Ensure each location is represented on the Governance Board
    3. State that the vision for the program is standardized processes in the three areas to promote common understanding
    4. Recognize the need to address cultural, socioeconomic, and political differences
  75. As the program manager in your company responsible for establishing a culture of portfolio management, you were fortunate to be assigned early so you could participate in the development of the program’s charter. Your program management plan and the other key subsidiary plans have been approved. As you are working to provide oversight on the program and its four components, you realize a new component is needed to integrate the efforts of the existing components. This is needed because—
    1. There are resource prioritization issues that are causing existing components to miss scheduled milestones
    2. You are using earned value and now are at 15% into your program and forecasts show your schedule and budget targets will not be met
    3. You must continually escalate issues and risks to the Governance Board for resolution
    4. The components are producing deliverables as planned, but their benefits are not being realized successfully
  76. Working with a small core team, you completed your program management plan and the other key subsidiary plans and also prepared a master schedule. As your company follows the PMI® Program Management Standard for guidance, you know lessons learned are useful but should be organized effectively in order that they—
    1. Assist in preparing the final program report and in overall program transition
    2. Serve as a useful reference for other program and project managers
    3. Provide data for use in quickly responding to stakeholder requests for additional program information
    4. Serve as a reference for the program manager for program information and documentation accessibility
  77. You are the program manager for a program that is using multiple suppliers. Even though you have signed partnering agreements with each supplier, you know performance problems will surface, especially with this program because more than 75 percent of the work is being done by third-party suppliers. You also have a large number of internal stakeholders who are actively involved or interested in your program. To help your stakeholders have a common understanding of the high-level expectations for the program, you should provide stakeholders with information contained in the—
    1. Stakeholder engagement strategy
    2. Business case
    3. Benefits transition plan
    4. Program management plan
  78. You are sponsoring a new program to be implemented at the beginning of the corporation’s fiscal year. This program is to design the next generation refrigerator that also can serve as a dishwasher and a stove with an oven so there is only one large appliance in one’s home. It will use state-of-the-art technology but will be offered at an affordable price. The new appliance is to be designed to be attractive and also not to require much space. As the validity of the business case was assessed to also help develop the charter, you prepared—
    1. An analysis of the expected benefits from the program
    2. A feasibility study
    3. An analysis of competing efforts under way in the corporation
    4. A SWOT analysis
  79. You are the contract program manager to restructure a department in a government agency. The head of the agency informed your sponsor that she wants to change the scope of the program so you will be working to restructure the entire agency instead of just one department. The Agency Administrator felt this change would be beneficial as the Agency also has to undergo some funding cuts in the next three fiscal years. Since most everyone is involved to some extent, there is extreme resistance to change, and many key stakeholders have been going directly to the Administrator and not to you since your firm has never worked with this agency before as to why their department should not be part of the reorganization. You and your team are striving to gain the support of all stakeholders, both positive and negative. You decide to—
    1. Actively use your stakeholder register
    2. Use a questionnaire to get everyone in the agency involved in the process
    3. Conduct interviews with the heads of each of the departments and support offices
    4. Re-evaluate your stakeholder engagement plan
  80. Your company is a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. It has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new drug that will cure all glaucoma conditions. You are managing a process to upgrade the manufacturing process, and your CEO has given you an aggressive schedule, especially so the glaucoma drug can reach its numerous possible patients. You have five projects in this program, and you are getting ready for your second gate review on it. Your Governance Board is one that is extremely proactive, and it also holds a number of periodic health checks on your program in between these gate reviews. This is because—
    1. They want further involvement than just a possible four meetings during the life cycle
    2. They want to determine if the level of risk associated with this program remains acceptable especially given the lengthy regulatory process
    3. They want to assess performance against the strategic direction of the organization
    4. They want to assess performance against expected benefits and sustainment
  81. Your stakeholder engagement plan now is complete. As you prepared this plan, you recognized that some stakeholders’ interests needed special consideration. However, with this plan you now have—
    1. An in-depth understanding of the organization’s environment
    2. A detailed strategy for effective stakeholder engagement
    3. A method to communicate program benefits to affected stakeholders
    4. A way to balance the impact of negative or resistant stakeholders with those who view the program positively
  82. You are the program manager to set up one integrated system in your company that provides a single point of entry that is easy to use rather than the numerous legacy systems that now exist. You have people who are actively interested and strong supporters of this program, and others are resistors as no one really likes change. You have prepared a stakeholder register. This register—
    1. Shows information distribution methods
    2. May require access restrictions
    3. Becomes the basic document used to prepare the communications plan
    4. Sets forth a stakeholder engagement strategy
  83. You are responsible for a major systems integration program that involves converting customer relationship management software, supplier management software, human resources software, and telecom systems from legacy systems to an integrated platform. Your program management plan has been approved. Because of poor performance on two of the projects and by associated vendors, you needed to implement a number of preventive actions and workarounds. You have had to implement a number of change requests. A best practice to follow is to—
    1. Ensure they are ones you can approve or reject
    2. Consult the Governance Board for assistance because the performance of these projects may be such they should be terminated
    3. Establish an integrated change control process
    4. Set up Change Control Boards for each project and at the program level
  84. You are responsible for a major systems integration program that involves converting customer relationship management software, supplier management software, human resources software, and telecom systems from legacy systems to an integrated platform. You prepared a program risk response plan. Because of poor performance on two of the projects and by associated vendors, you needed to implement a number of preventive actions and workarounds. However, this program is long and complex, and changes are inevitable. You have described the scope, limitations, expectations, and business impact of the program along with a description of each project and its resources, but now you need to—
    1. Set up a scope change control system
    2. Update the scope statement
    3. Focus on preparing and following a change management plan
    4. Establish metrics to track adherence to the scope management plan
  85. You are the program manager for a new accounting system that will affect more than 500 accounting professionals in 10 locations. You have a core team of five people, and your preliminary schedule shows that in month 13, the transition of your system to the users will begin. This aggressive schedule recently was made even more difficult as every program in your company will have a five percent budget cut; this means it will be even harder for you to get the key subject matter experts you need when you need them. You have a Governance Board for your program. It is important before you submit a recommendation to formally close the program to the Board that you—
    1. Ensure the members of the operations group are actively involved in the program from the start
    2. Provide extensive job aids to the people who will be responsible for running the program once it is completed
    3. Document your final lessons learned after you submit a performance report
    4. Ensure conditions for closure are satisfied
  86. You have numerous stakeholders, both internal and external as your program involves members of the public. You also are using five different vendors. Different stakeholders have different areas of interest at different times and may be positive toward the program or negative. You have decided you should—
    1. Use a stakeholder impact and issue tracking and prioritization tool
    2. Work with a mentor to update your own negotiation and influencing skills as you work with negative stakeholders on this program
    3. Conduct another stakeholder analysis to make sure you have a greater understanding of the culture of the organization
    4. Set up specific channels of communications
  87. You have been appointed as manager for a new program in your organization. This program will receive $250,000 as an initial investment; $175,000 at the beginning of year 2; $150,000 at the beginning of year 3; and $125,000 at the beginning of year 4. The program will start with a core team of seven senior managers; three project managers will be added during year 2, and two more project managers during year 3. While you work on this program, it is essential to ensure you can—
    1. Identify and evaluate integration opportunities and needs
    2. Set up a PMO for overall support, especially in administrative requirements
    3. Focus in your planning first on a bottom-up approach and then integrate it with a top-down approach
    4. First address the program’s vision and justification
  88. Wanting to make sure that existing lessons learned from every project and program undertaken in your organization are actually captured and used, you have received approval from your Portfolio Selection Committee to establish a program in knowledge management for your services company. The purpose is not only to record these lessons learned in an easily accessible fashion but to also make sure they are used by future program and project managers. You have identified four projects so far that will be part of this program. You recognize for this program to have visibility among the executives of your company that the mission, vision, and strategic fit of the program must be aligned with the organization’s objectives. This is done as part of the—
    1. Pre-Program Preparations
    2. Program Initiation
    3. Program Strategy Alignment
    4. Benefits Identification
  89. You are the program manager for a new accounting system that will affect more than 500 accounting professionals in 10 locations. You have a core team of five people, and your preliminary schedule shows that in month 13, the transition of your system to the users will begin. You have a Governance Board for your program. Possible members of your Governance Board were first identified—
    1. As a section in the governance plan
    2. At the time the business case was developed
    3. As part of the program management plan
    4. At the end of the program formulation
  90. Rarely have hurricanes reached the northern states of the United States until the past two years. People were not equipped to deal with them. You are the program manager to help ensure people are prepared. Your company won a government contract and developed a business case for the program that was approved quickly. You have a Governance Board set up, but in the last three meetings, the Chief Information Officer or a substitute from IT did not attend. You have defined metrics to monitor performance of stakeholders in your program in the—
    1. Communications plan
    2. Stakeholder engagement strategy
    3. Stakeholder engagement plan
    4. Stakeholder register
  91. As you plan your program, so far you have identified three projects, and you are to complete it in six months. It is especially important to identify the program’s resource requirements and prepare a resource plan. A useful tool and technique to use is—
    1. Capacity planning
    2. Resource assignment matrix
    3. Resource breakdown structure
    4. Program management information system
  92. Working on an internal program to restructure your company so it is more customer facing is a major challenge. No one ever likes reorganizations, and many people fear they will lose their jobs as a result of your program. However, it has relied on its existing customer base for its 20 year life, and a new focus is part of the company’s strategic plan to attract new customers and enter new markets. As you plan your program, so far you have identified three projects, and you are to complete the reorganization in six months. You are determined to control expenditures to stay within your budget. Therefore. you are focusing on the need to—
    1. Identify opportunities to return funds back to the company
    2. Completing the program ahead of schedule
    3. Avoid use of contingency and management reserves
    4. Monitor costs reallocation impact and results between components
  93. Your company is a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. It has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new drug that will cure all glaucoma conditions. Although demand for the product is high, your company has many other drugs to manufacture. You are managing a process to upgrade the manufacturing process, and your CEO has given you an aggressive schedule. Many people who have responsibility for other drugs in your company are concerned that once your manufacturing upgrade program is complete, the production of the glaucoma drug will be given preferential treatment, and their products will not be produced in sufficient quantities. You and your team realize you have a large number of stakeholders, and many of them are negative toward your program. This means you need to foster use of—
    1. Leadership skills
    2. Management skills
    3. Strategic visioning skills
    4. Political skills
  94. On your program, you and your team realize you have a large number of stakeholders. Of course you require a number of interpersonal skills, but the most important one is—
    1. Leadership skills
    2. Communications skills
    3. Strategic visioning skills
    4. Political skills
  95. Working on your glaucoma program, you have received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new drug that will cure all glaucoma conditions. Although demand for the product is high, your company has many other drugs to manufacture. You are managing a process to upgrade the manufacturing process, and your CEO has given you an aggressive schedule Many people who have responsibility for other drugs in your company are concerned that once your manufacturing upgrade program is complete, the production of the glaucoma drug will be given preferential treatment, and their products will not be produced in sufficient quantities. You and your team realize you have a large number of stakeholders; many seem to be negative toward your program. Given this situation, your best course of action should be to—
    1. Focus on customer expectations
    2. Proceed according to your program management plan
    3. Establish buy-in from stakeholders to ensure program success
    4. Escalate this issue to your Governance Board to seek assistance in dealing with these stakeholders
  96. You have three projects that comprise your program. Your aggressive schedule recently was made even more difficult as every program in your company will have a five percent budget cut; this means it will be even harder for you to get the key subject matter experts (SME) you need when you need them. You have a Governance Board for your program. Today, you had your regularly scheduled status meeting with Project Manager A. He told you he needed a key SME earlier than anticipated because of a new technological risk that had occurred. You were able to negotiate for this SME by meeting later with Project Manager C and getting the SME reassigned for two months to Project A. This was handled appropriately by Project Manager A as he—
    1. Immediately reported the problem to you
    2. Followed the issue escalation process
    3. Realized that the SME was on Project Manager C’s team and notified you accordingly
    4. Asked Human Resources where he might locate a SME before contacting you
  97. You were appointed program manager early in your program’s life cycle, and you are leading the development of the benefits realization plan. You are working in benefits analysis and planning, which is important in that you are—
    1. Establishing the program’s performance baseline
    2. Establishing processes to measure progress against the benefits plan
    3. Creating tracking and communications processes
    4. Defining the program’s critical success factors
  98. You are meeting with your company’s Program Selection Committee. Because your company has limited resources, you are selecting one of two programs to undertake. The return on investment (ROI) and payback periods for the programs are basically identical, so the major factor in making your decision is—
    1. The balance between cost and benefit
    2. The ability to realize benefits before the program is complete
    3. Whether the business benefits are easily quantifiable
    4. Extrinsic versus intrinsic benefits
  99. As you work as the program manager to establish Centers of Excellence in your global company on every continent except Antarctica, you have a large number of stakeholders who are interested in your program. You also have 12 different projects and know others will be added as the program continues. Your team, therefore, is a large virtual one, and you hold conference calls regularly, rotating the times in which they are held so no one is always inconvenienced. You also do a lot of traveling to the various sites. You realize you as well as your project managers must be excellent in—
    1. Communicating
    2. Understanding cultural differences
    3. Distributing consistent messages
    4. Actively engaging stakeholders
  100. You are the legacy system conversion program manager in your company. Your Governance Board recognizes the importance of improving other projects in this upgrade so there is an integrated system for all applications in your company. You now have projects in your program to also upgrade the accounting/financial management system, interface them to the program management information system, and add a knowledge management system. You have a proactive Governance Board, which can assist in—
    1. Managing quality across the life cycle
    2. Ensuring you have the most competent people assigned to your program
    3. Enabling you to use a benchmarking forum with other organizations that have done similar programs
    4. Providing you with direct access to the senior executives in your company as needed.
  101. Assume that your organization specializes in programs to handle conferences for government agencies. Each conference tends to attract about 800 to 1,000 people throughout the country in different locations. Each conference is a separate program as it involves different agencies, subject matter, themes, and speakers. Your company handles all the logistical requirements and basically is transparent to the agencies for which it works. Most of your programs, therefore, are initiated as a result of—
    1. Alignment with the company’s mission statement
    2. The business case
    3. A decision to bid on a contract
    4. The desire to remain competitive in the field
  102. In each of these conferences, the program sponsor has important responsibilities as this person has primary responsibility for securing finances and ensuring the program delivers its intended benefits. The sponsor is identified—
    1. When the business case for the program is presented
    2. Before program initiation
    3. In the program initiation
    4. In the pre-program preparations process
  103. Assume that your organization specializes in programs to handle conferences for government agencies. You are the program manager for an upcoming conference on portfolio management for government agency representatives. This conference is expected to attract about 200 people as each agency will send at least five people to it, many of whom will be political appointees. You realize as you plan this program, with your five identified projects in it thus far, that changes are inevitable. In your program planning, you want to include an approach to communicate scope changes. This should be included as part of your—
    1. Integrated Change Control Plan
    2. Scope Management Plan
    3. Communications Management Plan
    4. Scope Control Plan
  104. Program governance covers systems and methods by which program and its strategy are defined, authorized, and monitored. It conducts periodic reviews of the program in delivering its benefits enabling the organization to assess the viability of the program and the organization’s strategic plan and the level of support needed to achieve program goals. The structure for your Governance Board and its meeting schedules are part of the—
    1. Overall governance framework
    2. Gate review requirements established by the Enterprise Program Management Office
    3. Governance plan
    4. Program management plan
  105. Assume you are working for a dry foods company. For the past five years, every one of your projects in this company has met its goals in terms of being on schedule, within budget, and meeting its specifications. However, your company finds that even though its projects are meeting its goals, overall the company is not meeting its strategic goals and objectives. You were asked to meet with the executive team to discuss your opinions as to what is occurring in the company as you are an experienced and successful project manager. You pointed out that you felt the basic problem was:
    1. The projects should be managed as a program
    2. The projects were defined in too narrow a fashion
    3. The organization’s strategic goals would change, but the project managers were not aware of the changes
    4. The organization requires a Program Management Office
  106. You are managing a complex training program in your company. It has a number of component projects plus some ongoing work especially in logistical areas. Your team consists of instructional system design specialists who support the program on a full-time basis. For each training project, you need the services of subject-matter experts (SMEs) to complement the instructional designers. Assume that you met today with the manager of Functional Unit C in your company, and she agreed to release two chemists to support Project D in your program. You now need to—
    1. Meet with Project Manager D and inform him that you have acquired the needed SMEs
    2. Transition the SMEs to the program position
    3. Determine how this assignment can benefit the SMEs in their career path
    4. Update the program resource plan
  107. You have a complex program. Thus far, you have passed gate 3 and are executing your program. Because the executing phase in the life cycle will last over a year, your Governance Board is holding periodic performance reviews with you and your team on a bi-monthly basis. The Governance Board has assumed responsibility for compliance with organizational reporting and control functions. An example is—
    1. Benefit transition
    2. Strategic and operational assumptions
    3. Quality criteria and standards
    4. Code of conduct compliance
  108. In managing a program, you terminated three contracts that supported your projects. One of the contractors went bankrupt, and the other two were unable to deliver as promised. You now are preparing your final report as your program is ready for closure. In it these problems show—
    1. The need to conduct contractor performance reviews
    2. The importance of following documented contract closure procedures
    3. A major area of improvement
    4. Why contractual terms and conditions need to be revised
  109. Assume that you just finished a meeting with your Program’s Governance Board. It was not a stage gate review but was a more informal health check as several of the key stakeholders were concerned that a key milestone had been missed, and an incremental benefit from the program now would be delayed. They also were concerned that missing this milestone may lead to missing future milestones. Unfortunately, you are not using earned value on your program, but when you prepared your benefits realization plan, you did include a number of metrics that you and your core team have been tracking. To ensure continual realization of the intended benefits and to reassure your stakeholders and the Governance Board members that the program is not in trouble, you and your team have used which of the following techniques before taking corrective action—
    1. Delphi technique
    2. Decision trees
    3. Brainstorming
    4. Causal analysis
  110. You are the program manager for a new accounting system that will affect more than 500 accounting professionals in 10 locations. You have a core team of five people and your preliminary schedule shows that in month 13, the transition of your system to the users will begin. This aggressive schedule recently was made even more difficult as every program in your company will have a five percent budget cut; this means it will be even harder for you to get the key subject matter experts you need when you need them. You have set up a stakeholder register and are using it to—
    1. Provide an inventory of how each type of stakeholder will be impacted the program
    2. Provide a way to make sure the key stakeholders remain engaged in the program
    3. Show how best to manage the impacts of the program on stakeholders
    4. Report and distribute program deliverables and formal and informal communications
  111. You and your team have prepared your stakeholder register for your organizational change program. In preparing it, you and your team found which of the following techniques to be the most useful—
    1. Nominal group technique
    2. Organizational analysis
    3. Interviews
    4. Open-ended questions
  112. Programs need to be funded to the degree noted in the approved program plan for success in realizing their benefits. Funding should be provided consistently with program needs and organizational priorities, which may be defined in the organization’s portfolio management process. This responsibility is one that is handled by the—
    1. Portfolio manager
    2. Program sponsor
    3. Governance Board
    4. Finance Department
  113. You are the program manager to restructure your entire government agency. Since no one likes change, you are holding meetings every two weeks that are recorded and made available to everyone in the Agency as to your progress. You are requesting comments from people throughout the Agency after each meeting. You feel these meetings can better help you understand the urgency and probability of stakeholder-related risks so basically you are—
    1. Updating your stakeholder register
    2. Updating your communications log
    3. Striving to focus on risks as opportunities
    4. Conducting a program impact analysis
  114. Working in portfolio management and helping program sponsors prepare the business case for new programs in your chemical company, you want to make sure each program supports at least one of the objectives in your company’s five year strategic plan. You encourage one program sponsor to meet with the strategic planners to make sure there is alignment and also to make sure the strategic planners do not expect any major changes in the next three years, the proposed length of the sponsor’s program. One best practice is to prepare a high-level roadmap and continue to use it during the program. However, a disadvantage of the roadmap is—
    1. People believe it is the program’s schedule
    2. It is difficult to keep its information current and relevant
    3. It typically is not possible to balance the timing of program demands with resource availability
    4. It is hard to use it to provide senior and program managers with a view of the programs in the portfolio over time
  115. Working as the program manager for Guenther, Germany’s water-alleviation program, you have an outstanding core team of five subject matter experts and a Program Management Office to support you. So far, you have three projects in your program. As you create your program work breakdown structure (PWBS), decomposition is useful to identify program deliverables and related work. The decomposition process is complete when—
    1. Each phase of the program life cycle has been detailed
    2. The program manager has the desired level of control
    3. The work packages of the various projects in the program have been identified
    4. Verifiable products, services, or results from each project have been determined
  116. Continuing to work on your water-alleviation program in Guenther, Germany, you and your team now have prepared your program’s work breakdown structure. This turned out to be a far more difficult process than you imagined because in the past, you had templates you could use to assist you in preparing the PWBS. However, you and your team completed it. The next step is to—
    1. Organize the work
    2. Prepare the program schedule
    3. Develop cost estimates
    4. Prepare a scope management plan
  117. You are pleased to be the program manager for Guenther, Germany’s water alleviation program. So far, you have three projects in your program. Six months after your plan was approved, Guenther issued some new regulations, and you requested approval and received it to add a new project to address regulatory compliance. However, this project is consuming extensive time, and it affects other initiatives under way in the organization. Your best approach is to—
    1. Request additional resources and reprioritize some that now support the other projects
    2. Suggest to the Governance Board that this project be moved from your program to be a distinct program
    3. Conduct a quality assurance audit to determine the extent of compliance with the new regulations
    4. Reprioritize resources to the regulatory project and acquire the services of a qualified vendor to support the other projects
  118. As the program manager for Guenther, Germany’s water alleviation program, you have many challenges. So far, you have three projects in your program. One challenge of course is the aggressive schedule you must meet and the high priority of this program in your company’s portfolio. You also have a number of technical SMEs on your program, who seem to want to really work on technical topics in a functional environment. Also, as program manager you must work with stakeholders at all levels as well as with your team and your Governance Board. Your flexibility in managing this program is limited by—
    1. Communication channels
    2. Constraints
    3. Assumptions
    4. Benefits analysis
  119. For Guenther, Germany’s water-alleviation program, you have many challenges. Fortunately, you have assembled your core team and have a PMO. You also have met individually with your key stakeholders. You regularly communicate with your program sponsor. So far, you have three projects in your program. Your core team uses earned value at the program package level. Your cost performance index (CPI) is at 0.67, although the schedule performance index (SPI) is at 0.88. Your team recognizes the cost overrun and the fact that you are only 15 percent into the program. The team revises the Estimate at Completion, and you present the revision to your Governance Board. The Estimate at Completion is—
    1. A forecast
    2. A trend
    3. Atypical
    4. An inappropriate technique at this time
  120. You have been managing Guenther, Germany’s water alleviation program for three years. Fortunately, you have had an outstanding core team and have a PMO. Your project managers have diligently completed their projects, and their deliverables have been accepted by the City. Now, the program is officially complete, as all deliverables have been accepted by the City. Your next step is to—
    1. Prepare your closure report
    2. Archive your program records
    3. Meet with the sponsor for a closure review
    4. Obtain a signed final acceptance from the customer
  121. You are the director of your telecommunications company’s enterprise project management office (PMO). Your company has more than 200 projects under way, and you are considering managing some of them as a program. It took about six months to even determine how many projects were in process as many people felt if they described every project they worked on, their “pet” project that they felt would really benefit the company might be canceled. Obtaining the trust of the project professionals was a major challenge, but you believe you have an inventory now of all the project work. As you move into program management, which of the following is best suited to manage as a program?
    1. Conducting a training class in program management
    2. Providing product support to a recently introduced cellular phone
    3. Developing the next-generation cellular phone and related products
    4. Preparing a marketing campaign to introduce the next phone when it is developed
  122. Leading organizations in diverse fields have noted the importance of governance for effective programs and to ensure programs are completed successfully as defined by their business case. To begin to establish governance processes, the first step is to—
    1. Prepare a governance plan
    2. Follow processes established by the Enterprise PMO
    3. Define governance goals for each program
    4. Have a sponsor organization
  123. You are managing a program to develop a new source of energy to use in the tropics when solar power is not available. Working with your core program team and your Governance Board, you identify a number of component projects. However, several other key projects are under way in your company, and resources will be difficult to acquire for a new program. In determining whether you will use internal or external resources, you should consider—
    1. When the resources will be needed
    2. Your ability to negotiate with functional managers for the needed staff
    3. Previous work by the staff as a successful team
    4. The need to advertise for the open positions
  124. You are managing a program to develop a new source of energy to use in the tropics when solar power is not available. Working with your core program team and your Governance Board, you identify a number of component projects. You also have identified some non-project activities. Analysis of program costs must be performed, although some overlook the need to consider the non-program/non-project cost activities. You are, however, analyzing them on your program as you believe doing so is a best practice for program and project managers. Accordingly, they—
    1. Should be tracked outside the program’s budget
    2. Ensure costs are within expected parameters
    3. Are part of earned value
    4. Are an expense to be consumed by the program
  125. Assume you have sponsored a program to develop a new stent for coronary patients that is based on new laser technology and that will only take 30 minutes from the time the patient actually enters the hospital. Then, the patient will be able to be discharged and resume normal activities as if nothing happened. The patient will not experience any side effects from this new approach. You have obtained approval from your Executive Committee to develop this program in more detail so you are now in the initiating process. Once the charter is approved—
    1. The program’s financial framework is prepared
    2. A draft communications management plan is prepared
    3. The program is linked to the ongoing work and strategic priorities
    4. A high-level plan for components is prepared
  126. Assume your company has a new program to develop a new stent for coronary patients that is based on new laser technology and that will only take 30 minutes from the time the patient actually enters the hospital. Then, the patient will be able to be discharged and resume normal activities as if nothing happened. The patient will not experience any side effects from this new approach. As a project manager, when you prepared your schedule, you focused on identifying activities on your critical path and managing them aggressively. Now you are the program manager. Your focus now is on—
    1. Estimating program activity duration
    2. Using a critical chain to incorporate buffers and manage drum resources that affect your component projects
    3. Identifying interdependences among the constituent projects
    4. Performing “what if” analyses to ensure that the key stakeholders’ expectations for program deliverables are met
  127. Recently, a member of your core team on your program for the next generation air traffic control system in your country obtained his Risk Management Professional credential from the Project Management Institute. While you and your core team spent time early in the program preparing a risk management plan, which was approved by your Governance Board, and you have been maintaining a program risk register, this core team member felt you and the other team members needed to perform another in depth session identifying risks given that the program had slightly changed direction during the past year and had added one more project than planned. Also, the Administrator of your government agency resigned to take a position in industry, and the new Administrator is more risk adverse, especially where new technology is involved. You have a choice of different technologies to employ. As you considered each one in terms of possible risks, you and your team used which of the following techniques to best make a recommendation to the Administrator and the core team in terms of overall program benefits—
    1. Sensitivity analysis
    2. Modeling through Monte Carlo simulation
    3. Decision-tree analysis
    4. Risk urgency analysis
  128. In developing your benefit realization plan for this air traffic control upgrade system, you and your core team set it up in order that you would have specific metrics in place to help monitor the actual realization of the benefits throughout the program. The plan includes both tangible and intangible benefits of this major program. While the tangible benefits are easy to monitor, you now are finding the intangible benefits to be a challenge. One approach that has been useful to you so far is to use—
    1. Business value measurement
    2. Total cost of ownership
    3. Cost of quality
    4. Trend analysis
  129. In your role as program manager for your country’s food safety department to ensure the safety of imported food in your country, you are facing a number of challenges. It seems as if more imported food is arriving rather than producing the food domestically. Many of the food products are totally new to your country. You lack the needed number of inspectors who have expertise in some of the exotic food that now is being imported, and you are implementing a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Program approach as part of this important program. You realized you needed a Governance Board to assist in ensuring your program continued to meet the Department’s strategic objectives. Your sponsor agreed and assisted you in preparing a governance plan and also obtained commitments from senior level executives in the Department to be Board members. As you worked on your plan, you realized a key activity that occurs within governance is—
    1. Resource prioritization
    2. Issue management
    3. Risk response planning
    4. Transition planning
  130. You are a member of your company’s Program Selection Committee, which is deciding which program to pursue in consideration of the company’s limited resources. Your company prides itself on time to market as an attribute that distinguishes it from its competitors in the automobile parts field. Each program has prepared a business case addressing its strategy, organization, process, metrics and tools, and culture. Proposed Program A will eliminate features if necessary in a trade-off situation; Proposed Program B will delay its schedule if necessary; Proposed Program C has a flexible structure to ensure innovative features at a minimum cost; and Proposed Program D will focus on technical, cost, and schedule in its metrics. Which program should be selected?
    1. Program A
    2. Program B
    3. Program C
    4. Program D
  131. No one likes to prepare cost estimates since almost every estimate turns out not to be accurate even if you have outstanding historical information to help you in this process and organizational templates. However you have prepared your estimate and financial management plan. Your next step is to—
    1. Publish this cost estimate
    2. Prepare the budget baseline
    3. Determine program financial metrics
    4. Have component managers prepare component cost estimates
  132. You realize since your company recently merged with a competitor, and there is a revised strategic plan that for your program to continue to be in alignment, you need to add a new project. To do so, you require approval from your Governance Board, and the Board ‘s approval generally requires—
    1. Highlighting any possible risks
    2. Ensuring compliance with existing program processes and procedures
    3. Ensuring communication of critical component-related information to stakeholders
    4. Confirming the business case for the new project
  133. You are managing a program to build your country’s new embassy, consulate, residences, and other facilities in the Republic of Sarsmania. It will be the largest construction project on the Isthmus of Rak, requiring more than 50 subcontractors working on 20 projects. To have ownership of subcontractor selection, the selection process criteria must be defined—
    1. At the program level
    2. At the project level
    3. By professionals in the construction business working with the program manager
    4. By local Sarsmanian officials working with the program team
  134. Managing a program to improve the services of your city government to elderly people, you have six projects in progress. Your program is to be completed in two years. Project Manager B met with you today and requested a change to the scope of her project. She noted that this scope change also affected Projects A and E, which is why she is escalating it to you. The next step should be to—
    1. Convene a meeting of all six project managers to discuss the ramifications of this change
    2. Analyze the change request
    3. Ask a member of your core team to analyze the change request and determine its impact in terms of overall program benefits
    4. Meet with your Governance Board to inform them of this change and receive their authorization to implement it
  135. Rarely have hurricanes reached northern states in the United States until the past two years. You are a contractor to the government to manage a program to help people prepare should a hurricane occur. As you are the program manager, you want to keep all of your stakeholders apprised of your process on this program and want to obtain information from them to better understand their concerns relative to your program so you used—
    1. Interviews
    2. Focus groups
    3. Questionnaires
    4. Organizational analysis
  136. On your program you and your team prepared a detailed stakeholder register. You also used a variety of methods to better understand stakeholder concerns about your program. However as the program manager, a best practice to follow is to—
    1. Establish a balance between people who have negative views about the program and those who are advocates
    2. Work diligently with stakeholders that have been identified as program resistors to better understand there issues
    3. Prepare a stakeholder inventory to help classify stakeholder groups who are affected positively and negatively
    4. Prepare a stakeholder management strategy
  137. You are a member of your insurance company’s Program Selection Committee, which is considering a number of possible programs to pursue. Each one has identified benefits that will support your company’s overall strategic plan. Program A is estimated to cost $100,000 to implement and will have annual net cash inflows of $25,000; Program B is estimated to cost $250,000 to implement, with annual net cash inflows of $75,000; Program C is estimated to cost $300,000 to implement, with annual net cash inflows of $80,000; and Program D is estimated to cost $500,000 to implement, with annual net cash inflows of $225,000. You should recommend that your company select—
    1. Program A
    2. Program B
    3. Program C
    4. Program D
  138. You are managing a program, BBB, for your manufacturing firm. You have five projects in your program (three were under way before the program officially began). While some contracts will be ones at the program level, some have been awarded already at the project level on the existing projects. The best approach to follow for these existing contracts is to—
    1. Conduct regular supplier performance reviews
    2. Have one provider that supports several projects
    3. Have service level agreements
    4. Have the project managers report procurement results to the program manager
  139. You have just received approval from your Executive Team to begin to develop the next generation of stealth shield aircraft. You prepared a business case, which the Executive Team accepted, and it showed you could achieve a payback on your investment in this new program within three years. You received approval to begin to initiate this program. Now, you are preparing estimates of cost and—
    1. Schedule
    2. Scope
    3. Risk
    4. Benefits
  140. You have been the program manager for an aerospace company on its stealth shield aircraft program now for five years and officially closed the program. However, your product support team monitors the product from a reliability and availability-for-use perspective and compares it with the expected performance, which was predicted when the product was developed. The team cites a need to improve reliability and uncovers various anomalies in the software system. Your best approach in this situation is to—
    1. Use project management to perform the upgrade
    2. Contact the client and all stakeholders immediately
    3. Support this new problem independently of the program through an operations function in the company
    4. Relinquish the product support function to the client
  141. You are the manager for a wind-energy program that will last for eight years. You identify a number of component projects and expect to add others as the program proceeds, especially since this program will last such a long time. Although you have fully staffed your program team, you realize that some of your core team members and project managers will leave the organization or your program for other opportunities. You have decided to facilitate the development of your team members and in doing so perhaps turnover will be minimal. A best practice to follow is—
    1. Set up a succession program for career advancement
    2. Support coaching
    3. Support mentoring
    4. Set up a 360 degree performance evaluation system
  142. On your program you have a large number of stakeholders, many of whom are not supporters. To listen to their concerns as you work with these stakeholders over this large and complex program, you should—
    1. Follow your stakeholder engagement strategy
    2. Update your stakeholder register
    3. Use an issue log
    4. Update your communications plan
  143. You are a member of your energy services company’s Program Selection Committee, which is considering a number of possible programs to pursue. Each one has identified benefits that will support your company’s overall strategic plan. You have the following data on four possible programs. You may select only one because of resource limitations.

    Program A NPV at

    Program B NPV at

    Program C NPV at

    Program D NPV at

    5% = 3,524

    5% = 2,201

    5% = 6,400

    5% = 3,055

    10% = 2,901

    10% = 2,254

    10% = 3,275

    10% = 2,857

    15% = 1,563

    15% = 1,632

    15% = 1,679

    15% = 1,125

    Note: NPV = net present value.

    You should recommend that your company select—

    1. Program A
    2. Program B
    3. Program C
    4. Program D
  144. Assume you are the program manager to implement enterprise resource planning software in all the agencies in your province. This program would be difficult if it were limited to only one agency, but it is especially hard because you have 17 agencies in the province, and each one has its own legacy system that it uses. You will have to have a separate project for each agency as well as projects for training, implementation, and maintenance. This program thus will span several years and budget cycles. Before the budget is baselined, you must—
    1. Add program overhead costs
    2. List income and payment schedules
    3. Determine component payment schedules
    4. Update the program management plan
  145. Quality is essential in IT projects especially in complex ones such as enterprise resource planning software development and implementation. A quality management plan contains—
    1. Standard templates
    2. A schedule for planned quality assurance audits
    3. Checklists
    4. A method to handle change requests from quality assurance and control results
  146. Assume you are the program manager to implement enterprise resource planning software in all the agencies in your province. This program would be difficult if it were limited to only one agency, but it is especially hard because you have 17 agencies in the province, and each one has its own legacy system that it uses. The executive director of your program Governance Board suggests that you explore local consulting firms for additional resource support. The best document to use to identify potential sellers is the—
    1. Request for information
    2. Invitation to bid
    3. Contract terms and conditions
    4. Contract statement of work
  147. Introducing program management to your electric company has been a challenge but is finally being embraced as executives to team members now are seeing that using programs can produce more benefits to the company and its customers than if projects were managed in a standalone way. One approach that has been useful to you in your role of leading this culture change in the electric company has been to prepare a benefits realization plan and to get it signed off by your sponsor, members of the Governance Board, and other key stakeholders. Your company also uses the balanced scorecard approach, and your benefits realization plan considered it when you developed it so the benefits are aligned to the scorecard. One benefit that is often overlooked is—
    1. Cost of quality
    2. New income
    3. Competitive advantage
    4. Risk avoidance
  148. One of the first programs you managed at your electric company, DDD, was for a city in Draeger, New York. The purpose was to reduce the numerous power outages so that if a power outage occurred, residents in Draeger would only lose power momentarily until a backup system could be deployed to provide time for on-site personnel to arrive at the location and diagnose the problem and provide corrective action. When you prepared your benefits realization plan for this program early on, one of the items you included in it was—
    1. Review sessions to be held on a periodic basis by citizens of Draeger
    2. Methods to maximize citizen satisfaction in the program delivery
    3. Ways to ensure all stages of the program are managed in a way to satisfy the use of the program’s outputs
    4. Overall business requirements, including scope and limitations
  149. Researchers have noted the emergence of corporate program management and note that its processes must be structured to coordinate and manage the multiple components that together contribute to business value and organizational structure. It therefore is clear that being a program manager is different from being a project manager as required competencies as a program manager are significantly different. As the business case for a program is being prepared, a performance competency for the program manager is—
    1. Marketing
    2. Political awareness
    3. Aligning program objectives with strategic goals
    4. Preparing a benefits realization plan
  150. Your organization receives an award for the construction of a new courthouse complex in the state capital of State A. Your company is located in State B, approximately 1,000 miles away, and has never worked in State A. You plan to use a number of contractors and to hire local people to support the program team. From time to time, you will need cranes. To facilitate acquiring these cranes, you should—
    1. Purchase the cranes
    2. Develop a qualified seller list
    3. Issue an Invitation for Bid
    4. Issue a Request for Proposals
  151. Your organization receives an award for the construction of a new courthouse complex in the state capital of State A. Your company is located in State B, approximately 1,000 miles away, and has never worked in State A. You plan to use a number of contractors and to hire local people to support the program team. From time to time, you will need cranes. However, you always have some type of risks whenever you use contactors. Therefore, it is important as a best practice to—
    1. Only use contractors on the qualified seller list
    2. Perform a site visit to each contractor’s headquarters to demonstrate to its leaders the importance of your program
    3. Have each contractor prepare a monthly performance report
    4. Manage risk in accordance with the risk management plan
  152. Assume this is the first time you are managing a program. You have had success in your company in project management, and you are on a career path that now leads to program management. On your program, you want to apply some of the successful best practices you used on your projects, recognizing the differences between programs and projects and their greater complexity. However, since you have been in project management for so long now in this company (17 years), you also know that—
    1. You need to prepare a comprehensive WBS for the program that includes the work of the projects
    2. You want to build your program schedule only after all the project schedules are complete
    3. You recognize the importance of qualifying and quantifying all possible risks
    4. You realize project stakeholders are also program stakeholders
  153. You are managing a program that comprises new systems application development and maintenance activities. The program has been under way for three years. One of the projects has completed its deliverables, and its benefits have been realized. However approval by your Governance Board is required, and their review generally includes—
    1. Ensuring communications of closure to stakeholders
    2. Reviewing your program issues register
    3. Verifying customer acceptance of deliverables
    4. Reviewing compliance with quality assurance plans
  154. In your organization, the program Governance Board has assumed organizational responsibilities that its programs are prepared for audits that may be required or desired. These audits—
    1. Are part of the quality assurance function
    2. Should be documented in the master schedule
    3. Should be included in the roadmap
    4. Focus on management processes
  155. In determining whether it is better to use program management or project management, the culture of the organization should be considered. Your organization is considering implementation of program management, and you are leading a team to recommend this approach to your CEO and other members of the executive team. One of your arguments for the change is that the organization’s culture has transitioned so that it is now characterized by—
    1. A specialist level of business expertise
    2. A strong connection between execution output and strategic objectives
    3. A lower dependency between cross-discipline specialties in the organization
    4. Less need for a time-to-money improvement
  156. You are managing a program that comprises new systems application development and maintenance activities. These applications are critical to your company, CDE, as they involve access to proprietary data. The systems must be available to your clients on a 24/7/365 basis. Much of the work on you program will be outsourced as you have an aggressive schedule to meet; fortunately CDE has a qualified vendor list to simplify the acquisition process. This program has high visibility in CDE and is a major change to the organization. Therefore, CDE’s CEO decided to serve as the executive director of the program and chairs each meeting of your program’s Governance Board. Before Board meetings are held to review program performance, your Board members have asked you to submit—
    1. Benefit realization reports
    2. Estimate to complete data
    3. To-complete performance index data
    4. Financial reports
  157. Now that you have moved into this program management role in your manufacturing company, you realize your work really involves active involvement with stakeholders at a variety of levels. It is also compounded because on your program you have external stakeholders involved and need to spend time communicating with them. It seems as if each time you pass a stage gate review, the number of stakeholders increase, or people who lacked interest in the program now are interested. Therefore, the primary skill to best engage stakeholders—
    1. Negotiation
    2. Conflict management
    3. Communications
    4. Influencing
  158. One of the project managers in your program has told you that although he did a thorough job of risk management planning, a new risk has emerged that has major negative ramifications for the project. This risk could also affect another project in the program, as it involves a lack of critical resources. Another project manager tells you that he will need this same resource on his project, although he did not consider it during resource planning. In this situation, you should—
    1. Implement your contingency reserve to hire needed resources to support these projects
    2. Propose a solution to these risks escalated by the project managers
    3. Ask each project manager to revise the risk register to add these risks and to use a workaround
    4. Revise your program work breakdown structure (PWBS) accordingly, because this risk shows that a key planning package is missing
  159. You are a member of your organization’s Program Selection Committee. The company’s strategic plan includes five major goals, which are all weighted equally. Goal 1 is to fall within the time-to-market window; goal 2 is to reduce operational costs; goal 3 is to differentiate the products from others on the market; goal 4 is to deliver the highest-quality product; and goal 5 is to promote economic sustainability. At the next committee meeting, you will consider four programs and recommend one. Program A partially supports goal 1, fully supports goals 2–4, and does not support goal 5. Program B fully supports goals 1, 3, 4, and 5, but does not support goal 2. Program C fully supports goals 1 and 2, partially supports goals 3 and 4, but does not support goal 5. Program D partially supports goals 1, 2, and 5, and fully supports goals 3 and 4. With this information, which program will you recommend?
    1. Program A
    2. Program B
    3. Program C
    4. Program D
  160. You are managing a complex program to develop the next-generation submarine. It is planned to replace the existing non-nuclear submarines in your country with nuclear weapons. It is estimated to take about nine years to complete as you will be using new technology now not available in your country. The program includes a number of projects, and you plan to use subcontractors extensively. You also plan contracts for services or for insurance to protect the program. For these contracts, you need to—
    1. Use qualified seller lists
    2. Document the relevant parties’ responsibilities regarding risk
    3. Prepare a contract administration plan
    4. Prepare component cost estimates
  161. It is a challenge to effectively exchange information among all program stakeholders. This is one reason why the program manager must have excellent communications skills. Managing information on programs may become a formidable task in itself. To assist in this key area, the Governance Board may—
    1. Establish a standard reporting process
    2. Set up a knowledge management system
    3. Set up a program management information system
    4. Protect intellectual property
  162. Your organization recently conducted an Organizational Project Management Maturity Assessment (OPM3®). The assessment results and the improvement plan showed much work needed to be done in the area of portfolio management. It was especially apparent that many projects, and almost every program, lacked a defined business case that had been prepared by the sponsor and then approved and authorized by leadership. After receiving the reports from the OPM3® assessor, you held a focus group of program sponsors to determine why business cases were not regularly prepared. It turned out many of the people in the focus group lacked an understanding of the benefits of preparing one. You explained that the primary benefit is to—
    1. Establish alignment with strategic goals
    2. Provide a perspective on how best to execute the program
    3. Determine how the program will help the organization meet its business and strategic goals
    4. Make the portfolio process more effective
  163. Your organization announces that funds in all areas will be cut by 10 percent. Even though you are still in the planning stages and your program is a high priority for your company, your program is not exempt from the budget cuts. Management has also mandated certain delivery dates that will be hard to meet with the budget cuts. As you decide which program components should be handled internally and which should be outsourced, you consider the—
    1. PWBS
    2. Program scope statement
    3. Make-or-buy analysis
    4. Qualified seller lists
  164. Assume that your program for Draeger, New York is in its final stages. The purpose was to reduce the numerous power outages so that if a power outage occurred, residents in Draeger would only lose power momentarily until a backup system could be deployed to provide time for on-site personnel to arrive at the location and diagnose the problem and provide corrective action. Recently, there was a power outage in one part of the City. The new power station’s backup capability was available in less than two minutes. It is now time to close this program and transition it to ongoing operations. Before doing so, a best practice is to—
    1. Review the program’s scope statement
    2. Conduct a customer satisfaction survey
    3. Review the quality assurance plan
    4. Review the benefits realization plan
  165. In determining whether to pursue a program, it is important to assess goals and objectives. In your new product development organization, of the triple constraint, quality and scope are the dominant. This does not imply the schedule and budget are not important, but given that the programs must achieve regulatory approval, quality dominates in the company. Quality goals that are too low may lead to customer and end-user dissatisfaction, whereas goals that are too high may result in a high cost to the business. Therefore, it is important to consider—
    1. Market needs and expectations
    2. The value proposition
    3. Cash-flow management
    4. Risk analysis and assessment
  166. As part of your procurement management plan for this new product development program, you have explicitly stated the actions that you and your program team can take on its own and those that require involvement by or should be deferred to the Procurement or Contracting Department. As you prepare your procurement management plan, the best practice is to optimize procurements to meet program objectives and deliver benefits. To do so you need to—
    1. Address commonalities and differences across components
    2. Review your resource management plan
    3. Use pre-negotiated contracts and blanket purchase agreements
    4. Direct procurements to be centralized at the program level
  167. You are Company A’s program manager for the development of an online banking system for your community bank. One of its objectives is to make sure all transactions are secure. You have a large team supporting you as program manager, and you have four projects thus far. Two of the project managers are new to your company and lack familiarity with the company’s standard program management procedures. Because time and quality are of the essence in this program, you are need to make sure these two project managers understand what must be done to comply with the various procedures. Your best approach to do so is through—
    1. One-on-one meetings each day
    2. Developing an on-line training system to show all the various procedures to follow
    3. Using mentoring
    4. Using skills in creative thinking
  168. You are Company A’s program manager for the development of an online banking system for your community bank. One of its objectives is to make sure all transactions are secure. You have a large team supporting you as program manager, and you have four projects thus far. Two of the project managers are new to your company and lack familiarity with the company’s standard program management procedures. You have set up a change management plan as you know programs involve change and with this program and its four projects, changes will occur. You especially want to use it to help control—
    1. Benefits
    2. Issues
    3. Quality
    4. Human resources
  169. Assume you are sponsoring a proposed program. You have identified tangible benefits such as a one year payback period, a high return on investment, and an increase in productivity by 25 percent. Some of the intangible benefits that you have identified include an increase in employee morale with retention of intellectual property. You also believe it will contribute to knowledge sharing. You are getting ready to present your business case to the Portfolio Review Board. Before doing so, you want to make sure it has been completed properly so you first should—
    1. Present a cost/benefit analysis
    2. Describe the business opportunity and product, service, or result that you are proposing
    3. Identify the Key Performance Indicators
    4. Describe the high-level risks if the program is approved
  170. The organization is new to program management but has been a leader in program management. A new CEO was appointed, who used program management extensively in his previous organization. He has set up programs and Governance Boards. The Governance Board is a first step and it should—
    1. Establish policies and procedures
    2. Provide training in program management
    3. Determine the knowledge, skills, and competencies of existing project managers to manage programs
    4. Provide the link to portfolio management

Answer Sheet for Practice Test 2

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Answer Key for Practice Test 2

1. a. Benefits register

The benefits register is set up as benefits are identified and is maintained throughout the program. It Is used to measure and communicate the delivery of benefits and contains, among other things, target dates and milestones for benefit achievement.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 36
2. d. Strategic visioning

Program managers require a combination of knowledge, skills, and competencies. Strategic visioning and planning are two critical skills that are required to align program goals and benefits with the organization’s long-term goals. The program manager also must align individual project plans with the program goals and benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15
3. b. Delivering intended benefits

After the program management plan has been approved, the Program Benefit Delivery Phase begins. During this phase, the purpose is to plan, manage, and integrate components to facilitate delivery of intended benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 68
4. b. Note stakeholder considerations in your program charter

It is highly appropriate to perform market research to identify any potential stakeholders who may have an interest in or influence over your program and its component projects. The program charter should describe stakeholder considerations, including an initial strategy to effectively engage them.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 84
5. b. Disclose this relationship to the Procurement Director and to your sponsor immediately

Under PMI’s “Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct”, fairness is a mandatory standard. This situation can easily be perceived as a conflict of interest as under 4.3.3 in the Code, contracts are not to be awarded based on personal considerations, one of which is nepotism.

PMI®, PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Available from http://www.pmi.org/codeofethics/PDF, 4
6. a. Determine which components are affected

In Program Scope Management, the program manager must determine the components that are affected by the requested scope change and update the PWBS accordingly.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 106
7. b. Influenced by requirements

As an organization manages its portfolio, programs are influenced by a number of portfolio needs, one of which is requirements; they are then translated into the program scope, deliverables, budget, and schedule.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 10–11
8. c. Deploy the program organization

In Program Preparation, which ends when the program management plan is reviewed and approved, the program organization is deployed, and an initial team is established to develop the program management plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 68
9. b. Business case

The business case and current goals of the organization are used to judge successful program completion.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 89
10. d. Establishing program direction

Substantive leadership skills are required to manage multiple project teams in the program life cycle. Program leadership entails establishing program direction, identifying interdependencies, communicating requirements, tracking progress, making decisions, and resolving conflicts and issues, among other important tasks.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15
11. a. Provide guidelines for project-level stakeholder engagement

While the stakeholder engagement plan documents how stakeholders will be engaged throughout the life of the program, the program manager also provides guidelines for component stakeholder engagement to the individual projects and non-project work that are part of the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
12. c. Program Closing phase

During the Program Closing phase, all program work has been completed and program benefits are accruing. A key activity in this phase is for the program manager to review the status of the benefits with the Governance Board as the program transitions.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 70
13. a. End user satisfaction

Quality control is performed throughout the program. It is important to ensure components and the program fulfill quality requirements for adequate benefit realization. End user satisfaction is considered a key metric to gauge program quality.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 93–94
14. d. Focus on ongoing performance and progress

In addition to phase-gate reviews, Governance Boards tend to have less formal ‘periodic health check’ sessions to assess ongoing performance and progress especially toward the realization and sustainment of benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56
15. d. Define standard measurement criteria

While all of the answers relate to the initiating activities, given the high level of risk associated with the program and the skepticism of some key stakeholders, standard measurement criteria are required for success to monitor and control the program.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 8

Miller, L. Trae, “Program Initiation”, in Levin, Ginger. 2012. Program Management A Life Cycle Approach. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 69–71
16. b. Reducing risks

Reducing risk is essential as a business case driver for financial control and compliance with external requirements such as corporate reporting and mandatory audits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 28

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6

Williams, David and Parr, Tim. 2006. Enterprise Program Management Delivering Value, Hampshire, England: Palgrave MacMillan, 124
17. a. Using your PMO

While the PMO performs many functions in support of programs, it is not uncommon for it on large and intricate programs to provide support for contracts and procurements.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 13
18. d. Governance plan

Component initiation criteria are part of the program’s governance plan, and the initial gate review for a component is at its initiation. The Governance Board typically approves the initiation of components based on their business plans.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56
19. a. Risk profiles

In preparing the program risk management plan, it is essential to define risk profiles of the organizations involved in the program to construct the most suitable approach to manage program risk, adjust risk sensitivity, and monitor risk criticality.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 97
20. c. Customer satisfaction surveys

During Program Quality Control, it is essential to determine fitness for use of the benefits, products, or services delivered by the program by the end users. Programs therefore often use customer satisfaction surveys as a quality control measurement.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 94
21. c. Convene a meeting of your Governance Board

Program governance activities are conducted throughout the program life cycle. One purpose is to establish and enforce policies addressing managing program change. The Governance Board should be consulted about this major change and how best to handle it.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 58–59
22. a. Benefits delivery

Success on programs is measured by the degree to which programs realize the needs and benefits for which they are undertaken.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 8
23. c. Summarize the supporting infrastructure

The roadmap serves numerous functions in program management. Among other things, it provides a high-level snapshot of the supporting infrastructure and component plans.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, Second Edition, 2013, 30

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
24. c. Meet with your organizational leaders

You have a conflict as these are competing programs. It is incumbent on you to meet with the organization’s leaders as the customer’s request also is one in which is not consistent with the organization’s background or the core background, experience, skills, and qualifications of its staff.

PMI®, The Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Available from www.pmi.org/codeofethicsPDF, p. 2

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
25. a. Prepare a program resource plan

While a program resource plan is prepared in Resource Planning, it is one for the entire program as resource requirements are identified. Now that the program management plan has been approved, you are working to prioritize resource use. A program resource plan then often is prepared that describes the use of scarce resources and the priority for which component can plan for that resource.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 95
26. b. An appropriate governance structure in place

The governance structure ensures the program’s goals and objectives are aligned with the strategic goals. This program’s original governance structure may no longer be appropriate given the dramatic change to the program. Different people may now be needed as members of the Governance Board, including that of the program sponsor.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 55
27. a. Constraints

Constraints limit the options of the program management team. Once the high-level program master schedule is determined, the dates for each component are identified. These dates are used to develop the component’s schedule and are constraints for each component team.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 102
28. c. Track schedule risks

In Program Schedule Control, slippages and opportunities should be identified and used in risk management. This means program schedule risks should be tracked as part of the risk management activity.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 103
29. c. Ensure payments were made

In Program Procurement Closure, it is necessary to close out all contracts. This is done after determining all deliverables were completed satisfactorily, all payments have been made, and there are no outstanding contractual issues.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 91
30. b. The program charter

Approval of the program charter is critical as it formally authorizes the commencement of the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 85
31. a. Facilitation

Program managers require a number of interpersonal skills. With facilitating, one key element is to plan for success from the start of the program. Milestones can be set in the high-level program plan that can be easily met in order that early successes can lead to an atmosphere of later successes among the team.

Levin, Ginger and Ward, J. LeRoy. 2011. Program Complexity A Competency Model, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 87–89
32. b. Through value delivery

Value is delivered when the organization, community, or other program beneficiaries are able to use the program’s benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 41
33. a. Representatives from each business unit in the organization would participate in the program

Such internal programs serve as a catalyst for change. Participation across the various business units is desirable so that resources can be shared. Furthermore, while the maturity assessment itself is typically conducted rather quickly, it takes time to implement the various recommendations, each of which is a specific project that depends on other projects to create a set of benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 27

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 7
34. c. Update the program roadmap

The processing of the transition request is complete with updates to the roadmap. These updates reflect go/no-go decisions and approved change requests affecting major milestones, scope, or timing of major stages or blocks of the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 87
35. d. Attitudes about the program and its sponsors

Stakeholder analysis and planning is performed before the stakeholder engagement plan is prepared. Among other items to consider is the attitudes the stakeholders that have been identified have toward the program and is sponsors.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
36. b. Use performance/earned value reports

The program manager maintains visibility in Program Procurement Administration to ensure the program budget is being spent properly to deliver benefits. An output is the use of performance/earned value reports to assist in this role.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 91
37. c. There is compliance with legal policies

The Governance Board often assumes responsibility for program reporting and control. An example of one of its many functions is compliance with corporate and legal policies appropriate since this example includes so many suppliers.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 57
38. c. Update your program plans as required

Budget cuts, the organization’s fiscal year, and the budget planning cycle may affect programs and projects. If they affect your program, as program manager, you have the responsibility to revisit and update program plans as necessary. Planning is an iterative activity as competing priorities assumptions, and constraints are resolved.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 85
39. c. Program management office (PMO)

For most programs, the program management office (PMO) is the core of the program infrastructure. Program Infrastructure Development includes the PMO to support the management and coordination of the program’s work and that of the components.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 86
40. c. Helpful to determine if the program’s benefits will be met

Program performance reports include identification of resource use to determine if the program’s goals and benefits will be met and summarize the components’ progress and the program’s status relative to benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 87
41. c. Serve as a reference to measure program success

The program plan has many purposes, and it is the documented reference by which the program will measure its success during the program; it includes metrics for success, a method for measurement, and a definition of success.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 28
42. c. Standard measurement criteria

On each program, standard measurement criteria for success must be defined for all consistent projects. This is done by analysis of stakeholder expectations and requirements across the projects in order to manage and control the program.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 8
43. a. Use adaptive change

Although the program management plan and roadmap will show the intended program direction and its benefits, the entire suite of components may not be known The program manager should provide oversight during the benefit delivery phase and if necessary replan for proper integration or changes in program direction through adaptive change.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 69
44. c. Benefits analysis and planning

Benefits are mapped into the program plan during benefits analysis and planning along with deriving and prioritizing components, deriving benefit metrics, and establishing the benefit realization plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 35
45. d. Visually shows the stakeholders’ current and desired support and influence

Mapping is a useful stakeholder identification technique to analyze stakeholders and map them into various categories. It visually represents the interaction of all stakeholders’ current and desired level of support and influence regarding the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 46
46. c. Gain an understanding of expectations of program benefit delivery

One purpose of stakeholder analysis and planning is to understand the stakeholders’ expectations of program benefits delivery. After stakeholder analysis and planning is complete, the result is the stakeholder engagement plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
47. b. Use of a common program approach

The program approach defines how the program will deliver its goals and benefits; a common approach can lead to repeatable program success.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 153
48. c. Roadmap

The roadmap has many purposes one of which is that it is a valuable tool to help manage the execution of the program and to assess its progress toward achieving specific benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 30
49. a. Ongoing operations

Even after the program life cycle ends, benefits management allows the organization to realize and sustain the benefits from its investment. The program manager ensures that this is accomplished within the framework of ongoing operations in the organization.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 41–42
50. a. Analyze the stakeholder register

Stakeholder engagement planning is done to outline how program stakeholders will be engaged In the program. The stakeholder register should be analyzed to help understand the environment in which the program will operate.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
51. d. Follow the issue escalation process

The issue escalation process should be used in this situation to escalate this issue to your Governance Board and involve them in the decision-making process as stated in your governance plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56
52. d. Manage program level issues

Issues are concerns that may affect the program. It is necessary to manage program level issues, such as ones involving human resource management, finance, technology, and the schedule, by defining and selecting a course of action consistent with program scope, constraints, and objectives to achieve program benefits.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 11
53. a. Benefits identification

The benefits register is prepared during benefits identification and is maintained and updated until it is time to transition the benefits or if the program ends prematurely.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 35–36
54. b. Plan the transition from program management to operations

Through benefit sustainment the ongoing sustainment activities are transferred to operations or subsequent programs. The program and component managers plan for ongoing sustainment during the program. One aspect is to plan the transition of product or capability support from program management to operations.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 43–44
55. b. Total available resources

Resources—funding, equipment, and people—are limited in all organizations. In selecting a program, it is necessary to consider the total available resources that will be required to successfully implement it. The estimated resources should be included in the preliminary business case.

Thiry, Michel. Program Management. 2010. Surrey, England: Gower Publishing Limited, 119
56. b. Set forth in an audit plan

The Governance Board may assume responsibility for creating organizational or program-specific plans for audits to be used on programs. Audit plans provide details on audit expectations, audit processes, anticipated schedules, roles and responsibilities and policies to communicate audit results.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 65
57. c. Prioritize a list of stakeholders

After the stakeholder register is prepared, information is obtained to better understand the organizational culture, politics, and concerns about the program and its overall impact. From this information, a prioritized list of stakeholders is prepared to help focus the engagement effort on the people and organizations that are most important to the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 48
58. b. Delivering benefits

After the benefit realization plan is prepared, the focus shifts to delivering the expected benefits as defined in the plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 39, 67
59. b. Suppliers are now a major stakeholder

In this situation, suppliers are a major stakeholder especially because of the changing policies and procedures in your organization. They require communications about this change and will need interaction with the program manager and his or her team so they do not become negative stakeholders.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 48
60. a. Actively listen

Program managers require strong communications skills. A key part of communications is to actively listen, understand, and respond to stakeholders. It is essential to pay close attention to the speaker and make sure there is an understanding of the speaker’s concerns, showing empathy for the points of view of others.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15

Levin and Ward, 2011, 61
61. a. Commend Project Manager A for his willingness to release these resources

The program manager manages the individual component managers and members of the core team. The program manager, therefore, reviews the performance of these individuals. In this situation, Project Manager A should be commended as his releasing these resources will improve team engagement and help achieve greater commitment to the program’s goals.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 10
62. b. Prepare a change request

A key activity in Program Scope Control is to set up a change management activity. The first step in it is to capture requested scope changes following policies and procedures that are part of this change management activity.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 106
63. d. Update your risk management plan

It is important to evaluate the risks stakeholders identify, including sponsors, and then incorporate them in the risk management plan.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 14
64. b. New stakeholders will become known and addressed

Preparing a communications plan at the program level is far more difficult than at the project level. New stakeholders will become known and addressed, and new components will be added. Since programs take longer to complete, many stakeholders will leave during the program as new stakeholders are added. Using multiple vendors adds to the number of stakeholders to consider.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 74
65. d. Map how the components will deliver outcomes to achieve the program’s benefits

The program architecture defines the structure of the components by identifying the relationships between them and the rules that govern their inclusion in the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 39
66. a. Expected benefits are in line with the benefit realization plan

The gate review assesses the program with respect to a number of quality and strategic-related criteria including whether the expected benefits are in line with the benefit realization plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56
67. b. Bridge the gap between the current state and the to-be state

The program manager is the champion for change. He or she needs to bridge the gap between the “as-is” state and the desired vision of the “to-be” state to show an understanding of the current state and be able to describe the benefits that will accrue as the organization moves to the “to-be” state.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 46
68. c. Program initiation

During the Program Initiation phase, the program components are defined and configured to deliver the program. This phase may also include a high-level plan for all components.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 84
69. a. Programs and projects in the portfolio are focused on alignment to strategic objectives

Portfolio management involves the process of creating, managing, and evaluating a portfolio of strategic initiatives focused on delivering lasting results and benefits. The objective is to align the portfolio to strategic objectives, approving only those components that support business objectives. If the strategic direction changes, the portfolio is reexamined.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6

PMI®. The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 10–11

Williams and Parr, 2006, 19
70. c. Benefits realization plan

The benefits realization plan identifies the business benefits and documents the plan to realize them. It includes intended interdependencies of benefits being delivered by the various projects in the program. It identifies organizational processes and systems required, changes to these processes and systems, and how and when the transition to the new arrangements will occur.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 38
71. b. Program business case

The benefits register is established during benefits realization and uses the program’s business case since the business case is the formal declaration of the value the program is expected to deliver and the resources required to do so.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 36
72. d. Prepare a program resource plan

A program resource plan is prepared as an output of Resource Planning. In order to execute the program and its components, it is necessary to determine the needed resources, when they will be needed, and in what quantities.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 94–95
73. b. Prepare a forecast

Forecasts are part of Program Performance Monitoring and Control. They enable the program manager and stakeholders to assess the likelihood of achieving planned outcomes.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 87
74. d. Recognize the need to address cultural, socioeconomic, and political differences

Although the program manager must determine the optimal approach for overall program management, this is a global program. It is necessary to therefore tailor program management activities, processes, and interfaces to address effectively cultural, socio-economic, political, and environmental differences.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 142–143
75. d. The components are producing deliverables as planned, but their benefits are not being realized successfully.

During Component Oversight and Integration, different components produce benefits at different times. The program manager receives status information and uses it to integrate components into the program activities. In many cases the program manager may initiate a new component to conduct integration efforts especially if components are producing deliverables, but benefits are not being realized without coordinated delivery.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 69–70
76. d. Serve as a reference for the program manager for program information and documentation accessibility

Program management supporting activities may include work addressing knowledge management on programs. By organizing program management information for use as a reference, this enables the program manager to ensure that important program information and documentation are easily accessible and available to those who need it, and it can help support decision making.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 65
77. b. Business case

To help stakeholders establish common expectations of the program’s benefits, the program manager provides stakeholders with information from the program charter and the business case to summarize the details of the dependencies, risks, and benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 50
78. d. A SWOT analysis

Environmental analyses are used to assess the validity of the business case and the program plan. A SWOT analysis is one type of analysis to conduct and it then provides information to develop the charter and the program plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 31
79. b. Use a questionnaire to get everyone in the agency involved in the process

Given the magnitude of this program in that it affects almost everyone in the agency to some extent, the questionnaire is a key approach to solicit feedback from stakeholders to have a better understanding of the organization’s culture.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 48
80. d. They want to assess performance against benefit realization and sustainment

Phase-gate reviews are not a substitute to periodic performance reviews, which are used to asses performance against expected outcomes and against the need to realize and sustain program benefits into the long term.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56
81. b. A detailed strategy for effective stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement planning shows how the stakeholders will be engaged during the program. When the plan is complete, the program manager has a detailed strategy for effective stakeholder engagement for the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
82. b. May require access restrictions

The stakeholder register should be easy to access by the program team, but it may contain political ad sensitive information. Therefore, access and review restrictions may be needed that the program manager establishes.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 47
83. a. Ensure they are ones you can approve or reject

Change requests are common on programs and their components. The program manager must ensure that the ones he or she are able to approve or reject change are within one’s scope of authority as part of Program Delivery Management.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 87
84. b. Update the scope statement

Program Scope Control is necessary as the program develops to ensure successful completion, and scope changes can originate from many sources. As a result, an output is an updated program scope statement.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 105–106
85. d. Ensure conditions for closure are satisfied

Before submitting the closure recommendation, conditions warranting closure must be satisfied and recommendations for closure must be consistent with the organization’s vision and strategy.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 61–62
86. a. Use a stakeholder impact and issue tracking and prioritization tool

Stakeholder issues and concerns should be tracked to closure. Using a tool to document, prioritize, and track these issue and stakeholder interests can help ensure the stakeholder concerns are properly addressed.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 50
87. a. Identify and evaluate integration opportunities and needs

In strategic program management, once organizational leadership for the program has been obtained, and the authorization to initiate the program is received, it then is necessary to identify and evaluate integration opportunities and needs. These range from human capital, human resource requirements and skills sets, to facilities, finance, assets, processes, and systems within the program and its operational activities to align and integrate benefits across the organization.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
88. b. Program Initiation

A statement of the program’s justification, vision, and strategic fit is included as part of the program charter, which is developed in the Program Initiation phase. The charter provides the authority to move forward to commence the program or to Planning in the life cycle from the Examination Content Outline.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 84–85
89. d. At the end of the program formulation

Among other things, at the end of the program formulation, the governance structure is described as well as stakeholder considerations as the charter is prepared. The program project sponsor and program manager are assigned.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 68, 84–85
90. c. Stakeholder engagement plan

Working to actively engage stakeholders, metrics are needed to measure performance of stakeholder engagement activities, such as meeting attendance and communication plan delivery. These metrics are part of the stakeholder engagement plan as it describes among other things how to effectively engage stakeholders in the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
91. d. Program management information system

A common way to measure resource availability is to consult the PMIS. It can assist in early identification of resource issues as well as in resource allocation activity. The program manager analyzes resource availability and allocation to ensure the resource is not overcommitted. Limitations in resources must be addressed if the program is to be successful.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 94

Levin and Ward, 2011, 45
92. d. Monitor cost reallocation impact and results between components

A number of activities are performed in Program Financial Monitoring and Control. By monitoring cost reallocation impact and results between the program’s components, the program manager is being proactive and is striving to control costs and stay within the budget baseline.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 81
93. d. Political skills

While a number of key interpersonal skills are needed in program management, the program manager must recognize the dynamic human aspects of each program stakeholder’s expectations and manage accordingly. He or she must leverage the organization’s political dynamics to promote program goals in building relationships with stakeholders.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15

Levin and Ward, 2011, 73–75
94. b. Communications skills

Although program management requires a special blend of technical skills, time management, and a sound foundation of people skills, communications is the most important competence. The program manager requires strong communications skills to deal with all the stakeholders—team members, sponsors, executives, functional managers, customers, vendors, the public, and other stakeholders.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15, 145–147
95. c. Establish buy-in from stakeholders to ensure program success

All the interests of stakeholders are important ones. As the program manager it is important to initiate, engage, and maintain effective stakeholder relationships to manage the program and achieve desired benefits. Active stakeholder engagement is needed to build and maintain ongoing program support.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15
96. b. Followed the issue escalation process

The issue escalation process described in the governance plan operates at two levels, one of which is between component teams and the program management team.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56
97. a. Establishing the program’s performance baseline

A number of key activities are performed in benefits analysis and planning in addition to preparing the benefit realization plan. One is to establish the performance baseline for the program and communicate program performance metrics to key stakeholders.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 37
98. a. The balance between cost and benefit

The program’s business case is developed to assess the program’s balance between cost and benefit. It can be high level or detailed and includes parameters used to assess the program’s objectives and constraints.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 27–28
99. a. Communicating

Communication skills are part of overall general management skills and are required by program and project managers. Program managers require strong communications skills to interact effectively with stakeholders at all levels.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15
100. a. Managing quality across the life cycle

In many programs, it is important that program quality is ensured at the program level. Program managers prepare quality plans, which the Governance Board approves. The quality plan establishes mechanisms for ensuring program quality by identifying and applying cross-component quality standards.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 58
101. b. The business case

The program’s business case along with a program mandate are the key inputs organizational leaders consider to charter and authorize programs.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 28
102. c. In program initiation

The sponsor is selected to oversee the program in program initiation and secures funding and ensures the program delivers its intended benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 83
103. b. Scope Management Plan

In Program Scope Planning, once the scope is determined, then a scope management plan to manage, document, and communicate scope changes is prepared.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 105
104. c. Governance plan

The governance plan contains several sections, which include its structure and meeting schedules. This plan may become a section in the program management plan. It describes the goals, structure, roles and responsibilities, policies, procedures and logistics for executing the governance polices.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 55
105. c. The organization’s strategic goals would change, but the project managers were not aware of the changes

Organizations face numerous complexities and challenges, which lead to changes in its strategic goals and objectives, but typically a project manager is too far removed from the process to know about these changes or lacks the experience, competencies, and skills to understand why the goals have changed and the impact on the project.

Shuler, Kai. “Achieving Business Advantages through Program Management”. in Levin, Ginger. 2012. Program Management A Life Cycle Approach. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 7–8

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
106. d. Update the program resource plan

Staffing internally involves identifying existing personnel qualified for the positions, negotiating for their services with their management, and then transitioning them to the program position. Changes in assignment of program staff are expected during Resource Prioritization reflected in updates to the program resource plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 95
107. b. Strategic and operational assumptions

The Governance Board assumes responsibility to ensure programs comply with standardized reporting and control processes applicable to all programs in many cases. One example is compliance with strategic and operational assumptions. Often assumptions turn out to be false. They require review as they can turn into risks at either the strategic or operational areas.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 57–58
108. c. A major area of improvement

The problems with these contractors show a major area of improvement is needed to prevent future, similar problems. Areas of improvement are items to discuss in the program’s final report.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 88
109. d. Causal analysis

Causal analysis is a technique that is used to provide the real reason why something has happened in order to then take corrective action for focused change activity. It emphasizes the root cause, and often cause-and-effect diagrams are used.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 13
110. d. Report and distribute program deliverables and formal and informal communications

The stakeholder register is used throughout the program as it lists all the stakeholders and is used for reporting, distributing program deliverables, and formal and informal communications. It is the primary output of the Program Stakeholder Identification.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 46–47
111. a. Nominal group technique

Brainstorming sessions with the program team and other stakeholders is useful in preparing the stakeholder register. The nominal group technique is a form of brainstorming that allows everyone present to discuss ideas without interruption, enabling active participation from all participants.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 48
112. c. Governance Board

Often program funding is provided through a budget process that is controlled by a Governance Board responsible for overseeing several programs. The purpose is to ensure funds are provided in a manner consistent with both program and organizational priorities that may be defined by portfolio management.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 54
113. c. Updating your stakeholder register

Stakeholder Engagement is a continuous activity on programs as the list of stakeholders and their attitudes to the program will change. After each of these meetings, the stakeholder register should be updated. It should be referenced often and evaluated by the program manager and the team and updated as needed.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 49
114. b. It is difficult to keep its information current and relevant

A high-level program roadmap or framework can set a baseline for program definition, planning, and execution. It is dynamic and is prepared or updated along with the portfolio management process. A disadvantage to it is that developing and updating the roadmap requires discipline that many organizations lack to keep its information current and relevant.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 29–30

Milosevic, Dragan Z., Martinelli, Russ J., and Waddell, James M. 2007. Program Management for Improved Business Results. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 295–296

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
115. b. The program manager has the desired level of control

The program work breakdown structure (PWBS) does not replace the work breakdown structure (WBS) on each of the program’s projects. From a program perspective, the PWBS should be decomposed to the level of control that the program manager requires, which typically corresponds to the first one or two levels of the WBS of the component projects.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 105
116. d. Prepare a scope management plan

Once the program scope is determined and has been described, a scope statement has been prepared, and a PWBS has been prepared, the next step is to prepare the scope management plan. It serves to manage, document, and communicate scope changes.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 105
117. b. Suggest to the Governance Board that this project be moved from your program to be a distinct program

Compliance programs are initiated because of legislation, regulations, or contractual obligations. This situation is an example of the need to establish a new program because of the new regulations as even though it is not a strategic initiative, it is one that must be performed by the organization.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 141
118. b. Constraints

Constraints are factors that limit the program team’s options; typically, they affect schedule, cost, resources, or program deliverables. They are common throughout parts of a program may restrict action.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 165
119. a. A forecast

The Estimate at Completion is a forecasting technique; it is an estimate to complete the remaining work for an activity, program package, or control account. It is an output from Program Financial Monitoring and Control.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 81–82
120. c. Meet with the sponsor for a closure review

It is important to obtain formal acceptance of the program through a review with the sponsor. The program is formally closed after receiving closure acceptance from the Governance Board or the sponsor that the program has achieved its objectives.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 89
121. c. Developing the next-generation cellular phone and related products

The development of the next-generation cellular phone and related products is best suited to be managed as a program. It will include numerous projects that should be managed in a coordinated way to obtain greater benefits and control than would be possible if they were managed individually.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 4
122. d. Have a sponsor organization

Establishing governance in organizations requires a sponsoring organization to implement governance processes that then enable the organization to monitor the program’s goals and objectives to ensure they remain in compliance with organizational needs.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 54
123. a. When the resources will be needed

Resource availability should be part of the program resource plan. Among other things, it indicates availability of the personnel, assets, materials, or capital resources that are required to accomplish program goals and deliverables and is a key factor in determining whether or not to conduct procurements.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 94–95
124. b. Ensure costs are within expected parameters

It is necessary to manage the expenditures on the program infrastructure to ensure these costs are within their expected parameters and do not have an impact on the budget baseline and need corrective actions.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 81
125. c. The program is linked to the ongoing work and strategic priorities

When the charter is approved, the program has formal authority to start. Approval of the charter also links the program to the organization’s ongoing work and strategic priorities.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 85
126. c. Identifying interdependences among the constituent projects

As a program manager, you must ensure that the independencies among the constituent projects are reflected and managed in the program schedule, whereas the project manager concentrates on detailed activities in the project schedule. Internal and external dependencies are a key input to this process. The program schedule includes component milestones that represent an output to the program or share an interdependency with other components.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 101
127. c. Decision-tree analysis

Decision-tree analysis is used to assist in choosing available alternatives when some future scenarios or outcomes are uncertain. It helps organizations identify the relative values of alternate actions. In program management it is a technique that is helpful in analyzing and updating the benefit realization plan and sustainment plans for uncertainty, risk identification, risk mitigation, and risk opportunity.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 13
128. a. Business value measurement

Business value measurement is useful in overall benefit measurement but especially in measuring intangible benefits. This approach tests the intangible benefits against business strategies and objectives continually to ensure they are robust, relevant, and in some way measureable even if against an artificial scale aligned to a business objective.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 13

Williams and Parr, 2006, 179
129. b. Issue management

Issue escalation is an activity that occurs within governance. Skillfully tracking, managing, and resolving program-level and inter-component issues helps enable effective governance.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 56–57
130. a. Program A

Program A will drop features if necessary in a trade-off situation. It is schedule-driven and supports the time-to-market attribute of the company, thus aligning itself with the organization’s culture and environment.

Milosevic et al., 2007, 75–76

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
131. c. Determine program financial metrics

In Program Financial Management Plan Development, the program’s financial management plan is a key output. However, other outputs are program funding schedules, component payment schedules, program operational costs, and program financial metrics. These metrics are necessary as they are used to measure the program’s benefits.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 79–80
132. c. Ensuing communication of critical component-related information to stakeholders

In most organizations, the Governance Board approves the initiation of individual components. Governance approval includes several key activities, one of which is to communicate critical component-related information to key stakeholders. Such communication is essential for stakeholder engagement and support.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 60–61
133. a. At the program level

To achieve consistency at the program level across all construction activities, responsibilities regarding subcontractors and their selection and performance should be defined at the program level as the buyer or owner.

Shimizu, Motoh. 2012. Fundamentals of Program Management Strategic Program Bootstrapping for Business Innovation and Change. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, 89
134. b. Analyze the change request

As part of Program Scope Control, a change management activity should be established to handle scope changes. After the change request is accepted, the next step is to evaluate or analyze it.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 106
135. b. Focus groups

Focus groups are useful to provide a deeper understanding of the program impacts than can be done through individual interviews or a questionnaire; they provide feedback from groups of stakeholders regarding their attitude toward the program and approaches for communications and impact mitigation.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 48
136. a. Establish a balance between people who have negative views about the program and those who are advocates

After the stakeholder register has been prepared and the stakeholder concerns are better understood, it is up to the program manager to establish a balance to mitigate the effects of stakeholders who have negative views about the program and encourage the active support of positive proponents for it.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 48–49
137. d. Program D

The payback period can be determined by dividing the initial fixed investment in the program by the estimated annual net cash inflows. In this example, the payback period for Program D is 2.2 years, and it should be selected.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, April 2011, 6

Milosevic et al., 2007, 21 and 42
138. d. Have the project managers report procurement results to the program manager

In Program Procurement Administration, administration and closeout of many contracts is handled by the components. The details of contract deliverables, requirements, deadlines, costs, and quality are handled at the component level.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 91
139. b. Scope

Estimates of scope, resources, and scope are prepared in program initiation. These studies are determined early to assess the organization’s ability to execute the program, as the program is being compared with other initiatives to determine its priority.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 83
140. a. Use project management to perform the upgrade

Delivered benefits must be sustained when the program is over. It may be necessary to assure that ongoing product support adds value by managing the post-production life cycle. Project management is often used to deliver upgrades to the product during its life cycle.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 43–44
141. c. Support mentoring

Mentoring is a key personal competency for the program manager and encourages and facilitates team member professional development. It differs from coaching and among other things encourages the program manager to display a genuine interest in team member performance as well as in team development.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 10

Levin and Ward, 2011, 90–93
142. c. Use an issue log

Stakeholder meetings serve two main purposes: communicating program status and hearing issues and concerns of the stakeholders. These issues and concerns then are captured in an issue log to document, prioritize, and track them to help understand the feedback that is provided.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 50
143. c. Program C

In using net present value (NPV) as a selection criterion, the time value of money is considered based on the fact that a dollar one year from now is worth less than a dollar today. The more the future is discounted (that is, the higher the discount rate), then the less the NPV of the program. If the NPV is higher, then the program is rated higher. In this situation, you would select Program C.

Milosevic, Dragan. 2003. Project Management ToolBox: Tools and Techniques for the Practicing Project Manager. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 43–44

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
144. a. Add program overhead costs

Although the majority of the program’s cost is attributable to the components and to work done by contractors, the budget cannot be baselined until program overhead is added to the initial budget figure.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 80
145. c. Checklists

Checklists are contained in the program quality plan. Checklists can be very helpful in ensuring that items are not missed and also for use in quality assurance and quality control.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 93
146. a. Request for information

The request for information is used to help the organization to formulate its requirements and identify qualified sellers to support program procurement in a timely way.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 98
147. d. Risk avoidance

Benefits tend to be categorized as tangible and intangible. However risk avoidance should be considered as a further benefit as in many instances risk avoidance can be the main driver for a change.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 13

Williams and Parr, 2006, 179
148. c. Ways to ensure all stages of the program are managed in a way to satisfy the use of the program’s outputs

The benefits realization plan defines each benefit, associated assumptions, and determines how each benefit will be achieved. Among other items, it should ensure all stages of the program are managed in a way to satisfy the utilization of the program’s outputs, since the objective of managing by programs is to ensure there are more benefits than if projects were managed in a standalone way.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 38–39
149. c. Aligning program objectives with strategic goals

Competencies can be personal ones or performance based. In the early stages, the program manager must ensure the program objectives are aligned with the strategic goals of the organization to best realize business value. Organizational and business strategies must be assessed to assist in this alignment.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 26–27

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6

Levin and Ward, 2011, 11, 22, and 32
150. b. Develop a qualified seller list

The program manager negotiates and finalizes program-wide policies and agreements. Qualified seller lists can facilitate the procurement process, as procurement documents can be sent to these prospective sellers to gauge interest and to see whether they want to present a proposal or quotation.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 91
151. d. Manage risk in accordance with the risk management plan

Using contractors is a way to transfer risks. All risks, however, need to be managed in accordance with the risk management plan in order to ensure benefit realization.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 11
152. d. You realize project stakeholders are also program stakeholders

The stakeholder register identifies stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities. Each component project also will have stakeholder engagement guidelines to be considered at the program level. The project stakeholders are also program stakeholders since dissatisfaction by project stakeholders can negatively impact stakeholder acceptance criteria of the whole program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 47, 49
153. a. Ensuring communications of closure to stakeholders

Approval by the Governance Board is typically required to close or transition a program component. As the Governance Board reviews recommendations for transition or closure a number of activities is performed. One is to ensure communications with program-level stakeholders that the component is ready to close in order that the stakeholders agree the component has met its requirements and delivered its benefits to the program.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 61
154. d. Focus on management processes

Audis may be conducted by people internal or external to the organization. Program audits focus on program finances, management processes and practices, program quality, and program documentation.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 65
155. b. A strong connection between execution output and strategic objectives

Organizational culture is an important part of the success of program management. If executives view development efforts as strategic and linked to the success of the business rather than as tactical, program management is recommended.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 5, 14

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6

Milosevic et al., 2007, 430–431
156. d. Financial reports

The status report, financial report, and resource deviation report are examples of reports submitted to the Governance Board to assist the Board members in their ability to monitor program progress and strengthen the organization’s ability to assess status and conformance with organizational controls.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 57–58
157. c. Communications

Communications are the primary tool for engaging stakeholders; negotiation, conflict management, and influencing are also important, but communications are the most important competency for program managers.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 15, 45
158. b. Propose a solution to these risks escalated by the project managers

As the program manager, you must resolve risks raised by your project managers. When risks remain unresolved, the program manager ensures that they are escalated progressively higher in the organization until they are resolved. The escalation approach can be part of the risk management plan as part of authority levels for decision making.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 96–97
159. b. Program B

Programs should have a strategic fit with the organization’s long-term goals. In this example, Program B fully supports four of the five goals.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2008, 23

Milosevic et al., 2007, 286
160. b. Document the relevant parties’ responsibilities regarding risk.

At the program level, responsibility in Program Procurement it is necessary to negotiate and finalize various agreements and award contracts that will support the project components and other ongoing work of the program. If these agreements involve insurance or services to protect the program, the relative parties’ responsibilities regarding potential risks must be documented and incorporated into contracts and program files.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 90–91
161. c. Set up a program management information system

Project governance provides support to program management. The Governance Board may support the program management capabilities by establishing a program management information system that enables collecting, accessing, reporting, and analysis of information relevant to program management.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 65
162. c. Determine how the program will help the organization meet its business and strategic goals

There are many reasons why a business case should be prepared, and its primary reason is to answer the following critical question: “How will this program help our company meet its business and strategic goals?” With a business case, all crucial information for the program is included. It then is used to assess the feasibility of investing in the program based on cost, benefit, and business risk and once prepared can provide the vision to guide program planning and execution.

PMI®. The Standard for Program Management, 201, 23

Milosevic et al., 2007, 284
163. a. PWBS

In Program Procurement Planning, techniques such as make-or-buy decisions and the PWBS aid the program manager in developing the procurement management plan, determining procurement standards, and determining whether updates are needed to the program’s financial plan or to the budget.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 90
164. d. Review the benefits realization plan

The benefits realization plan, among other items, should ensure the program delivers its expected benefits. This plan is reviewed in Benefit Delivery before the benefits are transitioned by the Governance Board. The actual benefits delivered should be regularly evaluated against the expected benefits in the plan.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 39–41
165. a. Market needs and expectations

Market knowledge is required to understand customer and end-user expectations. Such knowledge is helpful in making the business case for a program, because it provides information—such as market size, market segmentation, and sales potential—that will increase the probability of program and organizational success.

Milosevic et al., 2007, 368

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6
166. a. Address commonalities and differences across components

Early and intensive planning is critical to success in planning program procurements. The program manager looks across all components to develop the procurement management plan to optimize objectives and for benefit delivery. By addressing commonalities and differences across components, then the best type of procurement approaches for the program can be determined.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 90
167. c. Using mentoring

Mentoring can be used effectively in this scenario to model the appropriate behavior these two project managers should follow especially as they learn the various standard processes to use. As they gain confidence, the mentoring relationship then can change from one that is less formal and is more consultative as they will not need your active involvement as often.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 10

Levin and Ward, 2011, 90–93
168. c. Quality

Changes on programs should be managed in accordance with the change management plan in order to control scope, quality, schedule, cost, contacts, risks, and rewards.

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 11
169. b. Describe the business opportunity and product, service, or result that you are proposing

Before going into detail in the business case, first define the business opportunity. Then, relate it to the organization’s strategic goals and show the benefits associated with this program. Later, describe the cost/benefit analysis and other financial benefits, intangible benefits, and the risk and complexity.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2008, 28

PMI®, Program Management Professional (PgMP)® Examination Content Outline, 2011, 6

Milosevic et al., 2007, 285
170. d. Provide training in program management

Program governance is responsible for a number of supporting functions. It can support program management by providing organizational training in it, especially in program management roles and responsibilities, skills, capabilities, and competencies. This sponsorship by governance enables focused training on specific practices and needs of the organization to ensure those responsible for important programs are prepared to fulfill their roles.

PMI®, The Standard for Program Management, 2013, 66
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