PMP Practice Questions

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

Your development team has been consistently achieving their sprint goals for the past four sprints with a stable velocity of 30 story points. In sprint planning for the next iteration, the team commits to 30 points of work. However, by mid-sprint during the daily standup, it becomes clear that three critical stories are blocked due to an unexpected production outage requiring immediate team attention. The team estimates they can only complete 18 points this sprint. What should the scrum master do?

May 29, 2026

Your scrum team is working on a healthcare application where regulatory compliance is critical. During the sprint, a team member discovers that a completed story from the previous sprint doesn't meet new HIPAA requirements that were recently clarified by the compliance department. The feature is already in the staging environment and was demonstrated to stakeholders. The Definition of Done includes 'meets all regulatory requirements,' but this specific requirement wasn't known during development. What should the scrum master facilitate?

May 29, 2026

During a sprint review, stakeholders see the completed user stories but express disappointment that the features don't match their expectations. The team followed the acceptance criteria precisely, and all stories meet the Definition of Done. The product owner approved the stories during backlog refinement two weeks ago. Stakeholders now request significant changes that would require reworking most of the sprint's output. What is the most appropriate next step?

May 29, 2026

You are facilitating sprint planning for a new feature that involves complex data migration. The development team estimates the work at 34 story points, but the sprint capacity is only 28 story points based on historical velocity. One developer suggests reducing quality checks to fit everything into the sprint, while another proposes splitting the migration into smaller, independently deliverable chunks. The product owner is concerned about delaying the feature launch. How should you proceed with sprint planning?

May 29, 2026

Your agile team has completed three sprints of a mobile application development project. During the retrospective, team members report that they consistently struggle to complete stories because dependencies on a third-party API team cause delays. The API team works in a different department and follows a waterfall approach with monthly release cycles. Several stories have been carried over to subsequent sprints, affecting the team's velocity. What should the product owner do to address this impediment?

May 29, 2026

You are managing a government IT project following predictive methodologies. During a phase gate review at the end of the design phase, the project governance board expresses concern that several technical risks identified in the risk register have not been actively managed, though none have materialized yet. The board notes that risk response plans were documented during planning but asks for evidence of ongoing risk monitoring activities. Your risk register has not been updated in six weeks. How should you address this situation moving forward?

May 28, 2026

You are managing a 12-month infrastructure project using a predictive approach. At the end of month 4, you review the project dashboard and notice that planned value (PV) is $400,000, earned value (EV) is $350,000, and actual cost (AC) is $380,000. Several team members report that they have been working on activities that were not originally scheduled for this period because they had available time. What is the PRIMARY issue this situation reveals about project management processes?

May 28, 2026

You are leading a pharmaceutical software implementation project following a predictive approach. The project has completed the planning phase, and you have a detailed WBS, activity list, and resource assignments. During the first month of execution, three team members inform you they will be pulled away for two weeks to support an urgent regulatory audit. This was not anticipated during planning and affects activities on the critical path. What should be your FIRST action as the project manager?

May 28, 2026

Your manufacturing equipment upgrade project is in the executing phase. A key vendor has submitted deliverables for the third milestone, but during the inspection process, your quality assurance team identifies that 15% of the components do not meet the specifications outlined in the procurement contract. The vendor claims the specifications were ambiguous and requests additional payment to remake the components. This is causing a potential two-week delay. What is the BEST course of action?

May 28, 2026

You are managing a construction project with a fixed budget of $2.5 million and a 14-month timeline. During month 6, you conduct an earned value analysis and discover that the Cost Performance Index (CPI) is 0.85 and the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) is 0.92. The project sponsor asks you to forecast the final project cost and determine what actions are needed. Using the current performance trends, what is the most appropriate estimate at completion (EAC) if you believe current variances are atypical and future work will be performed at the planned rate?

May 28, 2026