PMP Practice Questions

You are managing a pharmaceutical research project following a stage-gate predictive methodology. Your project has just completed the design phase, and you are preparing for the gate review before entering the development phase. During preparation, you discover that one of the key assumptions documented in the project charter—that a specific research facility would be available—is no longer valid due to facility renovations. The next available equivalent facility is in a different location and would increase project costs by 8%. What should you do BEFORE the gate review?

September 29, 2026

You are managing a large infrastructure project with multiple subcontractors. One of your key vendors has completed their deliverable, and you are conducting procurement closure activities. While reviewing the final deliverable, you notice it meets all technical specifications in the contract, but the vendor failed to submit three required progress reports during execution as stipulated in the contract terms. The vendor is requesting final payment and contract closure. What is the MOST appropriate action?

September 29, 2026

You are managing a software implementation project for a financial institution using a waterfall approach. During quality testing, the QA team discovers that 12% of test cases are failing, primarily related to security authentication features. The quality management plan specified that no more than 5% of test cases should fail at this stage. The development team believes they can fix the issues within one week, but this will delay the scheduled user acceptance testing. What should you do?

September 29, 2026

Your manufacturing project is in the planning phase, and you are developing the cost baseline. You have completed bottom-up estimating for all work packages and have aggregated these costs. The finance department requires a 10% management reserve for organizational risks, and historical data shows similar projects typically experience 15% cost variance. Your project sponsor asks what the final project budget should include. What is the MOST appropriate approach?

September 29, 2026

You are managing a construction project using a predictive approach. During the execution phase, a key supplier informs you that critical materials will be delayed by three weeks due to manufacturing issues. The delay will impact the critical path and push the project completion date beyond the contractually agreed deadline. Several team members suggest crashing the schedule by adding overtime resources, while the sponsor wants to explore fast-tracking options. What should you do FIRST?

September 29, 2026

You are managing a bridge construction project and have just completed developing the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with your team. Each work package has been defined and assigned a unique identifier. A team member asks what the lowest level of the WBS represents. How should you respond?

September 24, 2026

Your manufacturing project has a budget of $500,000 and is scheduled to last 10 months. You are currently at the end of month 4. According to the project management plan, you should have spent $200,000 by now, but you have actually spent $180,000. The value of the work completed is $190,000. What is the Cost Variance (CV) for this project?

September 24, 2026

You are managing a government infrastructure project with strict documentation requirements. During a planning meeting, a stakeholder questions why you need to document lessons learned throughout the project rather than just at the end. The stakeholder is concerned about the additional administrative burden. What is the primary benefit of documenting lessons learned throughout the project lifecycle?

September 24, 2026

You are leading a software development project using a predictive approach. The project sponsor has approved the project charter, and you are now ready to begin detailed planning. Your next step is to gather requirements from stakeholders to understand what the software must accomplish. Which process group are you currently working in?

September 24, 2026

You are managing a construction project to build a new office facility. During project planning, you identify that concrete foundation work cannot begin until the excavation is complete and inspected. The concrete must cure for 7 days before framing can start. You need to document these relationships in your project schedule. What type of dependency exists between excavation and foundation work?

September 24, 2026

You are managing a marketing campaign project using a hybrid approach where creative content is developed iteratively with weekly reviews, while media buying and contracts follow a predictive schedule with fixed commitments. Three weeks before launch, the iterative creative reviews reveal that the campaign messaging needs significant changes based on stakeholder feedback. However, media placements worth $200,000 have already been contracted based on the original creative concept, and changing them would incur 25% cancellation fees. The CMO insists the new messaging is essential for campaign success. How should you proceed?

September 22, 2026

Your hybrid project uses iterative development for software components and predictive planning for regulatory submissions. During a retrospective, the development team reports that 40% of their completed work from the last two sprints cannot be deployed because regulatory documentation hasn't kept pace with development velocity. The regulatory specialist, who works part-time on your project, states she can only document work after it's fully tested and stabilized. This creates a growing backlog of undocumented, undeployable features. What should you address first?

September 22, 2026

You are leading a hybrid project where software features are developed using Scrum while hardware components follow a stage-gate process. During a sprint review, the software team demonstrates a new feature that requires a hardware modification the hardware team didn't anticipate. The hardware team's next gate review isn't scheduled for six weeks, and making changes outside the stage-gate process violates organizational governance. The software feature cannot be released without the hardware change. What is the best way to handle this situation?

September 22, 2026

Your organization is implementing a new customer portal using a hybrid approach. The infrastructure and security components follow a predictive lifecycle with a fixed release date in six months, while the user interface features are being developed iteratively in two-week sprints. The product owner wants to release features to users as soon as they're ready, but the infrastructure team insists nothing can go live until the full security framework is complete. Stakeholders are pressuring you to show early value. How should you proceed?

September 22, 2026

You are managing a hybrid project where the product development team works in two-week sprints while the regulatory compliance team follows a waterfall approach with predefined milestones. During sprint planning, the development team commits to features that require compliance documentation, but the compliance team indicates they need four weeks' advance notice to complete their reviews. This misalignment has caused delays in three consecutive sprints. What should you do to address this integration challenge?

September 22, 2026

Your agile project team has been using two-week sprints successfully for six months. A new regulatory requirement has been introduced that mandates monthly compliance reports with detailed documentation of all work completed. The compliance officer suggests moving to four-week sprints to align with the reporting cycle, arguing it will reduce administrative overhead. The team is concerned this will reduce their ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. How should you address this situation?

September 21, 2026

During a sprint, your development team discovers that implementing a user story as currently defined would require significant technical debt due to integration with a legacy system. The story is high priority for the product owner and represents 8 story points of the 40-point sprint commitment. Refactoring to avoid technical debt would increase the effort to 13 story points. The team is currently on day 3 of a 10-day sprint. What should happen next?

September 21, 2026

Your agile team is developing a customer portal and has received feedback from the product owner that the last three increments did not meet customer expectations, despite meeting acceptance criteria. The team followed all documented requirements and the product owner approved each user story before development. Customers are frustrated that features don't solve their actual problems. What should the team do to prevent this in future sprints?

September 21, 2026

You are managing an agile software development project with a distributed team across three time zones. During sprint planning, the team commits to 45 story points, which is significantly higher than their historical average of 32 story points per sprint. When you question this, the team explains they want to impress the new executive sponsor who will attend the sprint review. The product owner supports the ambitious commitment. What is the BEST action to take?

September 21, 2026

Your agile team has completed three sprints on a mobile application project. During the sprint retrospective, several team members mention that the Definition of Done (DoD) has become unclear, as some user stories are being marked complete without proper testing documentation. The product owner suggests loosening the DoD to improve velocity metrics. Team members are divided on this approach. What should you do as the Scrum Master?

September 21, 2026

You are managing a 14-month product development project currently in month 8. The project has a documented communications management plan that specifies monthly status reports to stakeholders. A key stakeholder who rarely attended review meetings or responded to status reports suddenly expresses strong dissatisfaction with the project direction during a chance meeting with your sponsor. The sponsor is now questioning your stakeholder management approach. Upon investigation, you discover this stakeholder's engagement level has dropped from 'supportive' to 'resistant' without your awareness. What should you have done differently?

September 18, 2026

You are managing a software development project using a predictive approach. During a quality audit, the quality assurance team identifies that 15% of the deliverables from the development phase contain defects that meet the defined acceptance criteria but fall short of industry best practices for security standards. The project quality management plan specifies conformance to acceptance criteria as the measure of quality. Fixing these issues would require additional time and budget not currently allocated. What should you do?

September 18, 2026

Your manufacturing project is in the execution phase. A critical supplier informs you that a key component will be delayed by three weeks due to material shortages. This component is on the critical path and was scheduled to be delivered in two weeks. You review your risk register and find that supplier delays were identified as a risk, with a mitigation strategy to identify alternate suppliers. However, no alternate suppliers were pre-qualified. What should you do first?

September 18, 2026

You are managing a construction project with a 12-month timeline and a fixed budget of $2.5 million. During the fourth month, you conduct an earned value analysis and find that the Cost Performance Index (CPI) is 0.85 and the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) is 0.92. The sponsor asks you to forecast the final project cost assuming current performance continues. What is the most appropriate estimate to provide?

September 18, 2026

Your project team has completed the work breakdown structure (WBS) for a complex infrastructure project. During the activity definition process, a senior team member suggests that some work packages are still too large and should be decomposed further into smaller activities. Another team member argues that further decomposition is unnecessary and will create excessive administrative overhead. The work packages in question represent approximately 120 hours of work each. How should you proceed?

September 18, 2026