PMP Practice Questions

You are leading a pharmaceutical research project to develop a new drug formulation. During risk identification workshops, your team identifies a risk that a key regulatory approval might be delayed by up to 6 months due to recent policy changes. The probability is assessed at 40% and the impact on project completion would be significant. What should you do with this information?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a product development project with a fixed budget of $500,000. At the end of month 3, your earned value analysis shows: Planned Value (PV) = $150,000, Earned Value (EV) = $120,000, and Actual Cost (AC) = $130,000. The project sponsor asks for a status update. What should you report about the project performance?

July 13, 2026

Your team is developing a project schedule for a manufacturing facility upgrade. You have identified all activities, sequenced them, and estimated their durations. Several team members have been assigned to multiple concurrent activities. What should you do next to complete the schedule development process?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a software implementation project using a waterfall approach. The testing phase has just begun, and the QA team reports that 15% of test cases are failing due to missing requirements that were not included in the requirements specification document approved three months ago. The client insists these requirements are essential. What is the best course of action?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a construction project to build a new office building. During the planning phase, you identify that specialized steel beams must be ordered from an overseas supplier with a 12-week lead time. The beams are needed in week 20 of the project schedule. Your team is currently in week 2 of the project. What should you do first?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a critical infrastructure project for a utility company with a 36-month timeline and a highly structured governance framework. Six months into execution, your most senior electrical engineer, who serves as a technical authority and mentors three junior engineers, begins showing signs of stress and reduced engagement. Their deliverable quality remains acceptable, but they are increasingly absent from team meetings, less responsive to questions, and have stopped participating in design reviews. Two junior engineers have privately expressed concern. When you meet with the engineer, they acknowledge feeling overwhelmed but are reluctant to discuss specifics, saying 'it's personal' and they'll work it out. Your next major design milestone requiring their expertise is in five weeks. The project has no schedule buffer. What is the MOST appropriate course of action?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a complex manufacturing facility upgrade project for an automotive supplier. The project has a fixed-price contract with milestone-based payments. Your project team includes 12 full-time employees and 18 contractors from three different vendors. At the 60% complete point, you learn that two contractors from Vendor A have been socializing with your client's procurement director outside of work and have mentioned they could deliver certain components 'more efficiently' if contracted directly by the client, bypassing your organization. Your contracts manager confirms this would violate the exclusivity clause in your vendor agreement. The contractors are performing well technically, and replacing them now would delay the project by 4-6 weeks, risking a $200,000 milestone payment. What should you do?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a defense contract project with 35 team members across four locations. The contract includes specific earned value management (EVM) reporting requirements. At the month 9 performance review, you notice that one remote team of eight developers consistently reports 100% completion of planned tasks on time, yet integration testing repeatedly uncovers significant defects requiring rework. The team lead is well-liked and has been with the company for 15 years. Other teams have expressed frustration about the rework burden. Your SPI is 1.02 but CPI is 0.87, partly due to these rework costs. When you discuss this with the team lead privately, they explain their team is working hard and meeting their commitments as they understand them. What is the MOST effective way to address this performance issue?

July 13, 2026

You are leading a pharmaceutical product development project following a waterfall approach. During the detailed design phase, your quality assurance lead raises concerns that the technical lead is making design decisions without consulting the regulatory compliance specialist, potentially creating future audit risks. When you investigate, you discover the technical lead believes the compliance specialist is being overly cautious and slowing down progress. The technical lead has 20 years of experience and has successfully delivered similar projects. The compliance specialist is newer to the company but has deep regulatory expertise. Your project has strict regulatory submission deadlines with significant financial penalties for delays. How should you address this situation?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a large government infrastructure project with a baseline budget of $45 million and a 24-month timeline. At month 16, a critical team member who holds specialized knowledge about legacy system integration submits their resignation, citing personal reasons. This team member has been instrumental in interfacing with three key stakeholders and possesses undocumented institutional knowledge. The project is currently on schedule but slightly over budget (CPI 0.92). Your sponsor is concerned about the impact on the upcoming integration phase scheduled to begin in three weeks. What should be your FIRST action to address this situation?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a manufacturing project to develop a new production line. During a risk review meeting, the engineering team identifies a potential risk: a key piece of automated equipment might not integrate properly with existing systems, which could delay commissioning by four weeks. The probability is assessed at 40% and the impact would be $150,000 in additional costs. After discussing response strategies, the team proposes purchasing a backup manual system for $45,000 that could be used if the integration fails. What risk response strategy does this represent?

July 13, 2026

You are managing an infrastructure project with a fixed budget of $2.5 million. At the end of month 4, your earned value analysis shows: PV = $800,000, EV = $750,000, AC = $825,000. The project is planned for 12 months total. Based on this information, senior management asks you to forecast the final project cost. What is the most appropriate estimate at completion (EAC) to present if you expect current performance to continue?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a pharmaceutical research project with strict regulatory requirements. During quality inspections, you discover that 15% of the test samples from the last production batch do not meet the acceptance criteria defined in the quality management plan. The lab supervisor suggests reworking the samples, while the quality manager recommends disposing of the batch and starting over. The rework would save two weeks but carries some risk. What should you do?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a software development project using a waterfall approach. During the design phase, your technical lead discovers that a third-party component you planned to integrate has been discontinued by the vendor. This component was included in the approved project scope and budget. The technical lead suggests two alternatives: building the component in-house or using a different vendor's solution with similar functionality but different technical specifications. What is the best course of action?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a construction project to build a new office building. During the execution phase, a key supplier notifies you that the specialized steel components will be delayed by three weeks due to manufacturing issues. The critical path includes the steel frame installation, and this delay will impact the project completion date. Your project sponsor is very concerned about meeting the contractual deadline. What should you do first?

July 13, 2026

You are managing a product development project using a stage-gate approach. The project is approaching the gate review for Phase 2 completion. During quality inspections, you discover that three of the fifteen deliverables have minor defects that do not prevent functionality but fall slightly below the quality standards documented in the quality management plan. Correcting these defects would take two weeks and consume the remaining schedule buffer. The gate review is scheduled for next week, and senior management is eager to proceed to Phase 3. What should you do?

July 10, 2026

You are managing an infrastructure project with a detailed WBS and network diagram. A key stakeholder requests the addition of a new feature that was not included in the original scope baseline. The change would provide significant value to end users and has strong executive support. After analysis, you determine the change would add three weeks to the schedule and increase costs by 8%. The change control board (CCB) has approved the change request. What should you do next?

July 10, 2026

Your manufacturing project has a Cost Performance Index (CPI) of 0.85 and a Schedule Performance Index (SPI) of 1.10. The project is 60% complete with six months remaining until the planned completion date. During the monthly steering committee meeting, the CFO expresses concern about the budget overrun and asks whether the project can be completed within the approved budget. What should you present to the steering committee?

July 10, 2026

You are leading a software development project using a waterfall methodology. During the testing phase, the QA team discovers that 15% of the delivered functionality does not meet the acceptance criteria defined in the requirements document. The development team claims the requirements were ambiguous and their interpretation was reasonable. The testing phase is scheduled to end in one week, and any rework will delay the go-live date. What is the most appropriate action?

July 10, 2026

You are managing a construction project using a predictive approach. During the execution phase, a supplier informs you that a critical material will be delayed by three weeks due to manufacturing issues. This delay will impact the critical path and push the project completion date beyond the contractual deadline. You have already exhausted schedule reserves on previous delays. The project sponsor is highly concerned about contractual penalties. What should you do first?

July 10, 2026

You are managing a complex infrastructure project using earned value management and a predictive approach. Your project has a CPI of 0.92 and SPI of 0.88, indicating both cost and schedule challenges. During a difficult steering committee meeting, your sponsor publicly criticizes your leadership and questions your competence in front of other executives and your project team members who were presenting. The sponsor demands immediate corrective actions and threatens to replace you if performance doesn't improve by next month. After the meeting, your team members express concern about the public criticism, and you sense their confidence in the project's success is wavering. What should be your FIRST priority in responding to this situation?

July 10, 2026

You are managing a multinational aerospace engineering project with team members across five countries and three time zones, following a stage-gate predictive methodology. During the design phase, you discover that your lead engineers in Germany and Japan have been making conflicting technical decisions in their respective subsystems, each believing they had authority over the integration approach. This has resulted in incompatible design specifications that were just revealed during a scheduled integration review, three weeks before the gate review. Both engineers are highly respected technical authorities who report to different functional managers in a strong matrix organization. The functional managers are now involved and supporting their respective engineers' approaches. How should you address this situation?

July 10, 2026

You are managing a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility construction project following a waterfall approach. During the executing phase, you notice that your quality manager and construction manager have fundamentally different interpretations of the acceptance criteria in the approved requirements specification. The quality manager insists on FDA pharmaceutical-grade standards for all areas, while the construction manager argues that only clean room areas require this level, with administrative areas following commercial building standards. Both cite different sections of the 300-page requirements document. This disagreement is causing daily conflicts, delaying inspections, and creating team tension. How should you resolve this conflict?

July 10, 2026

You are leading a government IT system integration project using a predictive lifecycle with a dedicated team of 25 members. Six months into the 24-month project, organizational metrics show your team's velocity is 15% below the planned baseline, though quality metrics remain acceptable. During a retrospective session, team members confidentially share that the project's strict command-and-control governance structure, mandatory daily status emails, and your directive leadership style are demotivating them. Several high performers hint they are exploring other opportunities. However, the government client has explicitly required this governance approach due to previous project failures, and your sponsor strongly supports maintaining tight controls. What is the BEST course of action?

July 10, 2026

You are managing a critical defense infrastructure project with a fixed 18-month timeline and strict requirements documentation. Three months into execution, your technical lead, who designed the entire system architecture, submits a resignation effective in two weeks to join a competitor. This person holds critical knowledge not fully documented, and the remaining team members have varying levels of expertise. Senior management is extremely concerned about project continuity and wants to prevent knowledge loss. What should be your FIRST action as project manager?

July 10, 2026