Questions on Stakeholder Management

1. As the PM at a manufacturing organisation producing retail electronic goods, including personal computers, netbooks and mobile communication devices, you have noticed that your customer markets are facing increasingly stiff competition and innovation is needed.

You have been given a project to integrate an online Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system into the Head Office and 25 stores nationwide. Although the cost is high at a conservative $680,000, early research suggests it could generate $150m in bottom line benefits.

Because market share is shrinking there is a lot of pressure on you to achieve and the project timescale is constrained by a must finish constraint of 3 months. You are required to report on project progress every week to the Project Sponsors and all key stakeholders. You have worked with your team after having the Project Charter approved five weeks ago and you have captured the requirements, completed the initial planning, specified the Project Scope, produced the WBS and have produced the detailed work packages.

You have been exerting assertive leadership and have achieved an SPI of 1.2 and a CPI of 1.3. Final review of the first wave of project deliverables is scheduled for the end of next week. You are shocked to learn that your project is being cancelled since the final product result is now being deemed as unacceptable and does not meet the business needs. What is the most likely cause?

A – Risk monitoring and control was not correctly applied in the project
B – A key stakeholder was not sufficiently involved in the project
C – The project was behind schedule and over budget
D – The Project Charter did not contain enough detail on the final product and milestones prior to it being signed off.

2. Your project is to construct a new 18 hole championship golf course, featuring 12 sand bunkers, 4 pools, 1 lake, 15 places each having a minimum of 5 trees and long grass areas and one 7,500 yard par 72 course. It will also have a hotel and spa onsite with car parking spaces for 2,650 vehicles, in 2 nearby car parks and 10 overspill car parks further away.

It is intended to also provide an overnight stay and extended car parking for singles and couples going on holidays of up to 2 weeks. This will provide an additional income stream as the airport is only 18 miles away.

Working to a tight deadline is the norm but after completing the schedule analysis you realise that the completion date you now estimate overruns the desired completion date by 2 months. After analysing the network diagram you have also determined that many of the project activities have discretionary dependencies.

This project is key to the organisations growth strategy and although you are very well regarded, you know that your reputation is only as good as the last project you deliver. There are many strong stakeholders and you have taken time to build good relationships with a good cross section of them. What is the next course of action you should take?

A – Look at your Stakeholder Map to see who is interested in what
B – Re-examine the Stakeholder Profiles and check their diaries to see who you can invite to an evening meal
C – Look at the Stakeholder Management Plan to see who is best to meet up with and communicate ways that you can crash the schedule
D – Examine the Communications Management Plan to see when the next communication going out to all stakeholders will be sent

3. You are a PM at Pear Enterprises, a software applications company developing enterprise level HR solutions. Your new project is to reduce the organisation’s engineering costs by developing a new software development centre, independent of current operations and which uses offshore resources.

During a recent meeting with a senior VP of Engineering, it became clear that she had real concerns over the project plan and was worried that with the project as it stands, she would have to reduce her staffing complement by over 250 staff. The impact of the project on the whole organisation is substantial, given its core focus and range of operations, but she feels that this impact was not given due consideration during project planning.

What should you now do?

A – Resolve this conflict in favour of the Project Sponsor
B – Change the Project Plan to retain more of the work in house
C – Postpone the project while you carry out a full impact analysis, since this was not taken into account during project planning
D – File a change request to change the project plan, taking her feedback into account

4. Which of the following is true regarding the Manage Stakeholder Engagement process?

A – The Project Manager is solely responsible for engaging and managing stakeholders
B – The Project Sponsor may assist to discharge this responsibility with the Project Manager
C – Expert Judgement is a key tool/technique in this process
D – Quality Assurance Meetings is a key tool/technique in this process

5. You are a PM for a project which is to develop a creative financing solution for a large bio-tech company in order to facilitate the acquisition of another company. It involves issuing convertible debt securities so that a new pool of low-cost capital can be accessed. This transaction is the largest ever transaction of its type that the bio-tech company will undertake.

Fortunately, your project is ahead of schedule and below budget, with a CPI of 1.5 and SPI of 1.2. And you have some flexibility to accept new work without delaying your current project or exceeding the project budget. You are now midway through your budget and one of the project stakeholders has issued a change request to the change control board, to add a new task to your project. This new work involves developing the risk control system to manage the client company’s pension plans.

Although you have flexibility to accommodate the work change, you don’t understand how the new work fits within the existing project for your Project Charter. After evaluating the change request, you determine that work is self-contained with no overlap between the existing work and new work. Furthermore, different skill sets are required to implement the change request. Which of the following is the BEST plan of action in this scenario?

A – Identify the project objectives and create the Project Charter and Business Case
B – Identify the specific changes that are required in order to implement the change requests
C – Implement the corresponding corrective actions associated with the change requests
D – Re-evaluate the impact of the change requests on the project budget and project schedule

6. You are a project manager responsible for constructing a new sports arena in preparation of the Brazil Olympics. Construction began on the project a year ago. A key stakeholder of the project has asked for a status report on the performance of the project to the date.

Unfortunately, you are afraid of telling your stakeholders that your project is coming in over the budget and a budget increase will be required using the cost change control system.

Which tool was used to calculate the cost variance and its projection?

A – Performance reports
B – Analogous estimating
C – Performance measurement analysis
D – Performance reviews

7. Which of the following is NOT an output of Manage Stakeholder Engagement process?

A – Change requests
B – Approved corrective actions
C – Issue log
D – Project management plan updates

8. You are working for Delboy Form Factors, a company in the middle of making a strategy shift: from being focused on fulfilling customer requests, to becoming the most efficient dairy producer in the industry. Your existing manufacturing system is not able to capture the costs associated with handling special flavours, small production runs and complex delivery and order processing options.

You have been assigned as the PM to take over an existing project to develop a new time-drive, activity-based costing system that will capture the full complexity of the company’s operations and gives managers new insights into the profitability orders, products, and customers.

Senior management will use the information to enhance process efficiencies, negotiating new terms with customers, and attempt to win new business and will rely heavily on the integrity of the information you provide.

Although they know you have very limited knowledge of this technical area, they have faith in your other numerous skills in project management. Some of your project team members are highly technical, and you have delegated most of the project management activities to them.

These include schedule development, cost estimating and assignment of project activities to your technical team members, while you serve as an occasional coordinator of project activities. Which of the following will be the MOST likely result of this arrangement? Your project team will exhibit:

A – Initially a high level of productivity, but performance and effectiveness will decrease as the project progresses
B – A high level of creativity, commitment, and productivity throughout the entire project
C – Low productivity levels, poor morale, and high levels of conflict throughout the project
D – Low productivity levels throughout but will exhibit a strong team spirit and morale due to the shared nature of responsibilities

9. You have been monitoring the situation and noticed that in the privately owned Chinese financial services company you work for, several systemic factors have become critical.

It is increasing hard to keep up with growth as the sales team are very successful and the operational areas and their processes cannot keep up with demand; low skill levels and weak accounting systems threaten the company’s cash flow; poorly invested assets are delivering inadequate returns and the HR staffing systems are inadequate and outdated.

A senior stakeholder has assigned you to take over an existing project to upgrade the IT systems to allow for an expansion as it will enable the company to serve more competitors, expand the product line, gain market share, and win more licenses.

You’ve determined the following information so far: Activity X has an early start of day 3, early finish of day 6, and a late finish of day 10. Activity Y is being performed by resource that was difficult to obtain. The CPI of the project is 1.2 and the SPI is 1.3.

Midway through your project, your client has requested additional deliverables to your project. Luckily you already determined that this functionality will just add one extra week to the critical path. To accommodate this request, you’ve determined that you could fasttrack the schedule to recover one extra week. Which of the following should you perform NEXT?

A – Evaluate the impact of the change request on the other project constraints
B – Inform the client the impact of the change
C – Implement the change request
D – Consult the project sponsor before taking action

10. In which of the following project management process group can stakeholders be identified?

A – Planning, monitoring and controlling
B – Initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and control and closing
C – Initiating, planning and executing
D – Initiating only

11. Which of the following statements is true regarding issue logs? An Issue Log:

A – Describes the ground rules and conflict management procedures to manage the project.
B – Is a written log that address the roles and responsibilities of each project team member
C – Is an input to the Manage Project Team process and an output of Manage Stakeholder Engagement process
D – Contains a graphic display of project team members and their reporting relationships.

12. In which process is Expert Judgement a tool/technique and Issue Log an input?

A – Identify Stakeholders
B – Plan Stakeholder Management
C – Manage Stakeholder Engagement
D – Control Stakeholder Engagement

13. Which of the following is not a tool/technique of Manage Stakeholder Engagement process?

A – Communications methods
B – Interpersonal Skills
C – Information Management Systems
D – Management Skills

14. The Change Control Board is comprised of stakeholders, some of them senior stakeholders in the organisation. Which statement best describes their responsibility? The CCB is responsible for approving/ rejecting:

A – The project charter
B – Changes to the cost baseline and project schedule
C – Change Requests
D – The WBS and Project Management Plan

15. You are a PM for a project which is to develop a creative financing solution for a large bio-tech company in order to facilitate the acquisition of another company. It involves issuing convertible debt securities so that a new pool of low-cost capital can be accessed. This transaction is the largest ever transaction of its type that the bio-tech company will undertake.

Unfortunately, your project is plagued by frequent changes to the Project Charter. Who should be primary person, people or group who is/are responsible for deciding whether the changes to the Project Charter are necessary?

A – Project manager
B – Change control board
C – Steering Committee
D – Project sponsor

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