PMP Practice Questions

You are managing a complex systems integration project with 12 external vendors and 45 internal team members. The network diagram shows 8 paths through the project, with the critical path having 14 months duration and 4 months total float across all activities. During month 6, you perform schedule compression analysis because a key stakeholder requests moving the completion date forward by 3 months. Your analysis shows: fast-tracking would create 18 new dependency relationships and increase risk significantly; crashing the critical path would cost $2.4M for a 2-month reduction; adding resources to near-critical Path B (currently 11 months with 3 months float) could reduce it to 8 months for $800K. The stakeholder has approved a budget increase of up to $1.5M for acceleration. What is the MOST effective approach?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a defense contractor project using a firm-fixed-price contract worth $28M. During planning, you identified 47 risks and developed response plans with allocated contingency reserves totaling $2.1M. At the 60% completion point, you have consumed $1.85M of contingency reserves, primarily due to three risks that materialized with greater impact than anticipated. You identify a new high-probability, high-impact risk related to a critical supplier's financial instability that could halt production of a custom component with no alternative sources. The risk response would require $450K for a mitigation strategy (qualifying a second supplier). Your remaining contingency reserve is $250K, and management reserves are $800K controlled by the sponsor. What should you do?

October 9, 2026

Your construction project has a 16-month duration with four major phase gates requiring customer sign-off. You are currently in month 11, approaching the third phase gate. Quality inspections reveal that 23% of the concrete structural work completed in the previous phase has microfractures that don't meet specifications, likely due to temperature control issues during curing. The work passed initial inspections but was caught during detailed pre-gate review. Remediation will cost $1.2M and delay the phase gate by 8 weeks. The customer relationship is already strained from previous minor delays. The quality manager suggests accepting the work since the microfractures are within building code minimums, though not project specifications. What is the BEST course of action?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility construction project following a waterfall approach. The design phase deliverables were approved three months ago, and construction is 40% complete. A new regulatory requirement has been published that mandates additional safety features in the HVAC system, requiring significant design changes. The change will cost $2.8M (8% of the total budget) and add 6 weeks to the critical path. The regulatory compliance officer insists this is a mandatory change and not subject to change control. Your project charter states that regulatory compliance changes require automatic approval. What should you do FIRST?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a large-scale infrastructure project with a 24-month timeline and a budget of $45 million. During the eighth month, earned value analysis shows: PV = $15M, EV = $12M, AC = $13.5M. Your sponsor is concerned about the schedule variance and asks whether the project can still finish on time within the original budget. You calculate TCPI based on BAC and determine it is 1.18. The project team's historical performance shows they typically achieve a CPI between 0.85 and 0.95 on similar projects. What is the MOST appropriate recommendation?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a high-stakes hybrid project with a fixed regulatory deadline. The core development uses Scrum, while compliance documentation follows a stage-gate process. Two months from the deadline, your most experienced developer, James, who understands both the technical and regulatory requirements, gives two weeks' notice. He is irreplaceable in the timeline remaining. The team is already at maximum capacity. James mentions he's leaving because he feels the organization doesn't value his contributions despite his critical role. What is your most important immediate action?

October 9, 2026

Your organization is transitioning to hybrid delivery. You are managing a pilot project with both predictive and agile components. The project steering committee, composed of executives unfamiliar with agile, insists on detailed monthly status reports showing percent complete for all work packages, including the agile sprints. Your agile team lead argues this contradicts agile principles and will force the team to waste time on meaningless estimates. The steering committee controls project funding and has expressed concern about the "lack of visibility" into agile work. How should you address this situation?

October 9, 2026

You are leading a transformation program using a hybrid approach. Three months in, you notice that Maria, a senior business analyst on the predictive track, consistently delivers exceptional requirements documentation but frequently criticizes the agile team's "incomplete" user stories in cross-functional meetings. The agile product owner has stopped inviting Maria to refinement sessions, creating a silo. Maria has 20 years of experience and is technically correct that user stories lack the detail of traditional requirements. However, her approach is damaging collaboration. What should you do?

October 9, 2026

Your hybrid project has a distributed team across four time zones. The predictive workstream team meets face-to-face weekly and has strong cohesion. The agile workstream operates virtually with daily standups but team members rarely interact beyond ceremonies. Velocity has plateaued, and retrospectives reveal team members feel disconnected. The agile coach suggests mandatory video-on policies and virtual team-building activities. Several senior developers privately tell you they find these activities juvenile and prefer focusing on work. What is the best approach to improve team cohesion?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a hybrid project where the infrastructure team uses waterfall and the application development team uses Scrum. During sprint planning, the development team commits to features requiring network configuration changes. The infrastructure team, working from a fixed schedule defined six months ago, informs you they cannot accommodate the changes until next quarter. The development team is frustrated and threatens to escalate to executives. Stakeholders expect the features in three weeks. What should you do first?

October 9, 2026

You are managing a pharmaceutical research project following a stage-gate process. Your project has just completed the Phase 2 clinical trials deliverable. According to the project management plan, a phase gate review is scheduled before proceeding to Phase 3 trials, which will require significant investment. During your preparation for the gate review, you discover that while the trials met their primary endpoint, two secondary endpoints showed concerning trends. The data is not conclusive but suggests potential issues. The project is currently on schedule and under budget. What should you do?

October 7, 2026

Your project team has completed the project scope statement and is now developing the work breakdown structure (WBS). One of your team members suggests creating work packages at different levels of decomposition across the WBS—some at a very detailed level that can be completed in days, and others at a higher level representing several weeks of work. The team member argues this will save time in the planning process. What is the best approach?

October 7, 2026

You are managing a software development project using a waterfall methodology. During the design phase, your technical lead identifies that implementing a requested feature will require a third-party library that introduces significant security vulnerabilities. The feature was explicitly defined in the approved scope baseline and is important to the customer. After analysis, your team proposes an alternative technical approach that provides similar functionality without the security risk but will add $15,000 to the project cost. What should you do?

October 7, 2026

Your construction project is 60% complete when you conduct an earned value analysis. The results show: PV = $500,000, EV = $450,000, AC = $480,000. The project sponsor asks you to provide a forecast of the final project cost. Based on current performance trends, you believe the cost variance is atypical and future work will be performed at the planned rate. What estimate at completion (EAC) should you report?

October 7, 2026

You are managing a large infrastructure project using a predictive approach. During the execution phase, a key vendor informs you that a critical component will be delayed by three weeks due to manufacturing issues. This delay will impact the critical path and potentially the project's contractual completion date. The project sponsor is highly concerned about meeting the deadline. What should you do first?

October 7, 2026

You're managing a hybrid project to modernize a legacy system. Phase 1 (months 1-4) uses predictive approach for infrastructure and data architecture, while Phase 2 (months 5-10) uses Scrum for application development. You're now in month 3, and the infrastructure team has encountered unexpected complexity that will delay their completion by 6 weeks, pushing into month 5.5. The development team's sprint 0 is scheduled for month 5, and team members are already assigned. Waiting would idle 8 developers for 6 weeks at $180K cost. The development team suggests they could begin working on independent modules using simulated infrastructure. What factors should most heavily influence your decision?

October 6, 2026

Your hybrid project combines predictive hardware development with agile firmware iterations. The hardware team has completed their design phase and moved into manufacturing (month 8 of 14), while the firmware team is in sprint 12 of 20. During sprint 12, the firmware team discovers that achieving optimal performance requires a minor hardware modification that would cost $45K and delay manufacturing by 3 weeks. Without this change, the product will meet minimum specifications but perform 25% slower than competitors. The product owner wants to make the change, but the hardware lead argues the decision should follow the formal change control process with steering committee approval, which meets monthly. What should you do?

October 6, 2026

You're leading a digital transformation project using a hybrid approach where compliance and regulatory work follows predictive planning, while customer-facing features are developed iteratively. During the fifth sprint review, the product owner and development team demonstrate working features, but the compliance officer identifies that three completed user stories don't meet regulatory requirements that were documented in the initial project charter. The team claims they followed the acceptance criteria in the user stories. The compliance deliverables are managed separately and weren't scheduled for integration testing until next month. What is the root cause you should address?

October 6, 2026

Your organization is implementing a new ERP system using a hybrid approach: data migration and infrastructure use waterfall phases, while business process configuration uses iterative cycles. After the second iteration, stakeholders from finance request significant changes to the chart of accounts structure, which impacts both the completed data migration design and upcoming infrastructure specifications. The change would add substantial business value but requires rework across both predictive and adaptive streams. The project is at 40% completion with moderate schedule pressure. How should you proceed?

October 6, 2026

You are managing a hybrid project where the infrastructure team works in predictive mode with a 6-month timeline, while the application development team uses 2-week Scrum sprints. During sprint planning, the development team commits to features that depend on infrastructure components scheduled for delivery in month 5. The infrastructure team is currently on track but has no buffer. The development team argues they need these features in sprint 8 (month 4) to meet a critical market window. What should you do first?

October 6, 2026

You are managing a telecommunications infrastructure project using a predictive approach. The project team includes specialists from engineering, procurement, and installation departments. During project planning, you identified that the engineering team needs to complete detailed designs before procurement can begin vendor selection, and installation cannot start until equipment arrives. You've created a detailed schedule with these dependencies. However, the engineering manager informs you that his team is being pulled to support an emergency on another project and will be unavailable for three weeks, which will impact your critical path. What is the best way to handle this situation?

October 5, 2026

You are managing a manufacturing project following a predictive life cycle. During a milestone review, you discover that one of your team leads has consistently overstated the completion percentage of their work packages in status reports. Upon investigation, you find the actual progress is about 20% behind what was reported, though the work quality is acceptable. This team lead has been with the company for 15 years and is generally reliable. The project is now showing as on-track when it is actually behind schedule. What should be your first course of action?

October 5, 2026

You are leading a construction project with a detailed work breakdown structure and baseline schedule. A team member who is relatively new to the organization approaches you privately and mentions that they feel intimidated by the project's senior architect, who frequently dismisses their input during technical meetings. The team member is responsible for quality inspections and their observations are important for project success. The senior architect is known for being direct but has excellent technical expertise. How should you address this situation?

October 5, 2026

You are managing a software development project using a waterfall methodology. During the development phase, your lead developer informs you that she has received a job offer from another company and will be leaving in three weeks. She is the only team member with deep knowledge of the legacy system integration, which is critical for the next phase. The project is currently on schedule, and this phase is expected to complete in two months. What is the most effective action to take?

October 5, 2026

You are managing a large infrastructure project using a predictive approach with a team of 45 members across three locations. During the executing phase, you notice that two senior engineers from different locations are in constant disagreement about technical specifications, causing delays in deliverables. The project schedule shows this work is on the critical path. Both engineers are highly skilled and have worked on similar projects before. What should you do first to address this situation?

October 5, 2026