TOPIC: Free PMP® Exam Sample Question of the Week

Hello everyone! Here is this week's free PMP® exam sample question from the PM Exam Simulator.

You are a project manager working for a client to build property on Lake Ontario. The project is expected to complete before winter arrives and makes construction too costly to perform. Three days before closing, the client calls and says he wants to add an outdoor sauna to the property. You analyze the project schedule and determine that this change would be fairly easy to implement without any impacts to the project completion date. In this situation, what should you do first?

A. Begin construction as your schedule analysis revealed no potential issues
B. Review the change against project constraints
C. Have the sponsor verify if the change violates winter construction regulations
D. Contact the change control board for proper implementation procedures

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HINT: As a project manager, you need to make sure you have everything you need to properly execute a change and understand its possible impacts on the project.

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Answer and Explanation:
The correct answer is B.

A project manager is responsible for overseeing the development of the product of the project. This includes managing changes that arise during execution by balancing competing constraints with the resources available. In the scenario presented, the project manager is faced with managing a change introduced late in project life cycle. While it appears that an outdoor sauna will not be difficult to implement and that no negative schedule impacts are anticipated, the change request must still be examined in greater detail using the Perform Integrated Change Control process to assess the impact of the change on other project constraints and communicate the impact to the client.

Details for Each Option:

A. Begin construction as your schedule analysis revealed no potential issues
Incorrect. This answer choice is incorrect because it does not take into consideration other key project constraints such as project costs, quality efforts, project risk, etc. By only analyzing a change request against the project schedule, the project manager or designated team member responsible for handling change requests may not have a definitive assessment of what other aspects of the project could be affected by adding scope late in execution. A better answer would have been to begin construction only after a comprehensive evaluation and approval of the change request had been made, however, that option was not listed.

B. Review the change against project constraints
Correct. Before a change request can be implemented, it must first undergo the Perform Integrated Change Control process in which all change requests are evaluated for their potential impacts on a project. This includes a thorough analysis of any impacts to the project schedule, project costs, quality of deliverables, resources, risks and other factors. Although the project manager has already done a quick, high-level review of the change request to the project schedule, he or she should not accept or decline the request based on that analysis alone. Instead, he or she should carry on and review the change request against all remaining project constraints for a better understanding of whether or not the change request is feasible.

C. Have the sponsor verify if the change violates winter construction regulations
Incorrect. While it is important to understand if the change request could potentially violate construction regulations, asking the sponsor to do so would not be an appropriate first step. Instead, the change request must be analyzed holistically against all project constraints, as well as organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors (e.g., legal and regulatory requirements such as winter construction rules) by the project manager or designated team member. A better answer choice would have been for the project manager to perform the Perform Integrated Change Control process and wholly analyze the change request against all aspects of the project, including enterprise environmental factors, rather than having the sponsor do it. However, that option was not provided.

D. Contact the change control board for proper implementation procedures
Incorrect. This answer choice is incorrect because a project manager should not contact the change control board for implementation procedures, as these instructions should have already been laid out in the change management plan for the project. The change management plan outlines the entire Perform Integrated Change Control process for the project, including how change implementation procedures should be done. A better answer choice would have been to have the change control board vote on the change request first, and if was approved, implement it using the procedures described in the change management plan. However, that answer choice was not provided.

Reference: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute Inc., 2017, Page(s) 113-116

Thanks for the detailed explanation. i got the answer right though. I'm writing my PMI exam in 2 weeks. Any other useful/critical tips?