Practice Questions
PMP Practice Questions
Scenario-based questions aligned with the 2026 PMP Exam Content Outline. All questions reviewed by a certified PMP before publishing.
85 questions found · page 3 of 4
You are managing a complex engineering project with 47 identified risks in your risk register. During a risk audit, your PMO director challenges your risk response strategy for Risk #23, which has a probability of 35% and an impact of $180,000 if it occurs. You have allocated $45,000 from the contingency reserve to implement a mitigation strategy that will reduce the probability to 15% and the impact to $120,000. The mitigation work will take 3 weeks and consume resources from the critical path. The PMO director argues that this mitigation strategy is not cost-effective. What is the most valid justification for your mitigation approach?
June 12, 2026
You are managing a software implementation project for a financial services client using a predictive approach with a detailed WBS and network diagram. During the planning phase, you identified a critical dependency: the data migration activity (Activity M, 15 days duration) cannot start until both the database configuration (Activity D, 10 days) and the data cleansing validation (Activity V, 12 days) are complete. Activities D and V can occur in parallel and both start after user requirements approval (Activity R, 8 days). Activity M is followed by user acceptance testing (Activity T, 20 days). If Activity R starts on Day 1, what is the earliest day that user acceptance testing can be completed, and what type of dependency exists between Activities D and V relative to Activity M?
June 12, 2026
You are managing a government defense project operating under a Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) contract with a target cost of $8 million and a fixed fee of $800,000. At the 60% completion point, you discover that a subcontractor has been misclassifying certain labor costs as direct project costs when they should have been indirect overhead costs. The misclassification has inflated your actual costs by $400,000. The client's auditor has identified this issue and is demanding corrective action. The contract includes a clause limiting reimbursable costs to 115% of target cost. What is your most appropriate immediate action as project manager?
June 12, 2026
During the execution phase of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility construction project, a critical piece of specialized equipment arrives on-site three weeks late due to supply chain issues. The equipment installation is on the critical path and has zero float. Your project team has identified four potential corrective actions, each with different implications. The original schedule shows the equipment installation taking 4 weeks with 2 weeks of successor activities before the facility handover. What corrective action should you implement first to minimize overall project impact?
June 12, 2026
You are managing a large infrastructure project with a 24-month timeline and a fixed budget of $15 million. At the end of month 12, you conduct an earned value analysis and find: PV = $7.5M, EV = $6.8M, AC = $7.9M. The sponsor is concerned about cost overruns and asks whether the project can be completed within the original budget. Your team estimates that current performance trends will continue. What is the most accurate estimate at completion (EAC) you should report to the sponsor?
June 12, 2026
Your distributed agile team spans three time zones with only a two-hour daily overlap. Sprint planning consistently runs over time, with the India-based developers joining at 6 AM their time and the US-based product owner available only until 11 AM EST. Retrospectives reveal that 40% of stories require significant rework because developers interpreted requirements differently than intended. The team has tried detailed acceptance criteria, but misunderstandings persist. Team velocity is 30% below similar co-located teams. What structural change would most effectively address this challenge?
June 10, 2026
During a release planning session for a regulated healthcare product, your compliance officer insists that all user stories must be fully documented with detailed requirements specifications before development begins, citing audit requirements. Your agile team argues this contradicts their working agreements and will create massive waste, as they've successfully used acceptance criteria and collaborative elaboration for 15 sprints. The compliance officer shows you audit findings from another division that was penalized for insufficient documentation. Your organization has no precedent for agile projects in regulated environments. How do you proceed?
June 10, 2026
Your product has been using two-week sprints successfully for eight months. Recently, market dynamics have accelerated, with competitors releasing features weekly. Your executive sponsor wants the team to switch to one-week sprints to 'move faster and be more agile.' The team is concerned this will increase ceremony overhead and reduce their actual development time. When you analyze the data, you find the team averages 1.5 days of ceremonies per sprint and typically doesn't have testable increments until day 9-10 of the current sprint. What recommendation best addresses the sponsor's concern while maintaining team effectiveness?
June 10, 2026
You're managing a complex product with three agile teams working on interdependent features. During sprint planning, Team A commits to a critical API that Teams B and C need by sprint day 7 to meet their commitments. On day 5, Team A discovers the API requires a third-party security review that takes 10 business days. Team A's scrum master suggests they'll finish other stories and carry the API to next sprint. Teams B and C will miss their sprint goals without this dependency. How should you handle this situation?
June 10, 2026
Your agile team has been delivering features every two weeks for six months. During the latest sprint review, a key stakeholder expresses frustration that the product increment doesn't align with their vision, despite approving stories throughout development. The product owner admits they've been accepting stories based on technical completion rather than business value validation. Technical debt has accumulated, and the team's velocity has dropped 30% over the last three sprints. What should you do first to address this systemic issue?
June 10, 2026
You are facilitating a project using a hybrid approach where requirements are gathered upfront but development occurs in two-week iterations. After four iterations, the team's velocity has been inconsistent: 28, 15, 32, and 18 story points respectively. The team reports that some iterations include significant work on technical infrastructure that doesn't directly relate to user stories but is necessary for the architecture. The project sponsor is concerned about the unpredictable pace and asks why the team cannot maintain consistent velocity. How should you address this situation?
June 7, 2026
During the eighth sprint of a twelve-sprint project to build an e-learning platform, your team completes a sprint review. The product owner and key stakeholders attend the demonstration, and while they acknowledge the functionality works as specified in the acceptance criteria, they express concern that the user interface is more complex than they expected. They mention that teachers, the primary users, may struggle to navigate the system without extensive training. The team followed the user stories and acceptance criteria exactly as written. What should happen next?
June 7, 2026
Your Kanban team is experiencing flow problems on a data migration project. The team's board shows 15 items in the 'In Progress' column, 8 items in 'Code Review', and only 3 items in 'Done' over the past two weeks. Team members report feeling overwhelmed and context-switching frequently between multiple work items. Lead time for items has increased from an average of 5 days to 12 days. The team lead suggests adding more people to help clear the backlog. What is the most appropriate action to improve flow?
June 7, 2026
You are leading a Scrum team developing a customer relationship management (CRM) system. During sprint planning, the product owner presents a high-priority user story estimated at 21 story points, which exceeds the team's average velocity of 35 points per two-week sprint. The product owner insists this feature is critical for an upcoming sales conference in three weeks and must be completed in the next sprint. Several team members suggest breaking down the story, but the product owner argues that all components must be delivered together to be valuable. How should you proceed?
June 7, 2026
Your agile team has completed three sprints of a mobile application development project. During the sprint retrospective, team members express frustration that they frequently discover integration issues late in the sprint when merging code. These issues require significant rework and have caused the team to miss their sprint goals in two of the last three sprints. The team asks for your guidance on how to address this recurring problem. What should you recommend?
June 7, 2026
You are managing a product launch project using a hybrid approach where marketing campaigns follow a predictive waterfall timeline tied to a fixed launch date, while product features are developed using Scrum. With two months until launch, the development team reports they can deliver 80% of planned features with high quality, but completing all features would require cutting testing time and accepting technical debt. Marketing has already committed to feature messaging in materials going to print next week. The product owner is willing to descope features, but marketing insists all advertised features must be delivered. How should you proceed?
June 2, 2026
Your hybrid project includes both custom software development (agile) and hardware procurement (predictive). During iteration planning, the agile team wants to demonstrate new features at the upcoming stakeholder review, but the hardware needed for the demonstration has a six-week procurement lead time that wasn't anticipated. The procurement manager states that emergency orders would exceed budget by 30% and requests approval. The team suggests using simulation software for the demonstration instead. What should you evaluate first before deciding?
June 2, 2026
You are leading a regulatory compliance project using a hybrid approach where legal requirements are managed predictively with sequential gate approvals, while technical implementation uses iterative sprints. After three sprints, the compliance team reviews the working software and identifies that two implemented features may not fully satisfy regulatory requirements. The development team argues that requirements were ambiguous and their interpretation was reasonable. The next compliance gate is in two weeks. What is the best course of action?
June 2, 2026
Your organization is implementing a new customer portal using a hybrid approach. The database migration follows a waterfall methodology with detailed planning, while the user interface development uses Kanban with continuous flow. The project charter specifies a fixed go-live date in four months. During the first retrospective, the UI team identifies that database schema decisions are blocking their work, causing significant wait time. Stakeholders are concerned about meeting the deadline. How should you address this integration challenge?
June 2, 2026
You are managing a hybrid project where the infrastructure team works in predictive mode with fixed milestones, while the application development team uses two-week Scrum sprints. During sprint planning, the development team commits to features that depend on network infrastructure scheduled for delivery in six weeks. Three sprints later, the infrastructure team reports a two-week delay due to vendor issues. The development team has partially completed dependent features and is requesting guidance on how to proceed. What should you do first?
June 2, 2026
You have just been assigned as project manager for a new manufacturing project. During your first review of the project documentation, you find the project charter, stakeholder register, and several technical specifications. However, you cannot locate a document that clearly defines what is included and excluded from the project, along with the acceptance criteria for deliverables. Which document are you missing?
May 31, 2026
You are managing a pharmaceutical research project with a strict regulatory timeline. During a weekly team meeting, one of your scientists mentions that a required laboratory test is taking longer than expected due to equipment calibration issues. This task is on the critical path and any delay will impact the project completion date. What should you do first?
May 31, 2026
Your team has identified a risk that a key supplier might not deliver critical components on time, which would delay your project by two weeks. After analyzing the risk, you decide to order the components from a backup supplier who can guarantee delivery within your required timeframe, even though this will cost 15% more. What risk response strategy are you implementing?
May 31, 2026
You are leading a software development project using a predictive approach. The project has been ongoing for three months, and you need to report the current status to stakeholders. You calculate that the project has completed $150,000 worth of work, but you have actually spent $175,000. The planned value at this point was $160,000. What is the cost variance (CV) for this project?
May 31, 2026
You are managing a construction project to build a new office building. During the planning phase, you need to create a detailed breakdown of all the deliverables and work required to complete the project. Your sponsor has asked you to organize this information in a hierarchical structure that will serve as the foundation for planning, scheduling, and cost estimation. What should you create?
May 31, 2026