Here are some example answers and feedback to consider when studying for the APM PMQ Exam.
Project Governance
QUESTION: Describe five of the key principles of project governance?
Make sure you include five clear points in your answer, describe what governance is and why it is important. Try to illustrate each point with any example where possible.
Example answer 1:
1. Project Governance ensures that there is clear oversight of all projects within an organisation and any gap between the projects and the board of directors is met. It is important to ensure clear lines of responsibility are established and policy is set for the whole organisation, to minimise the risk of projects failing and not meeting their objectives.
2. A key element of good project governance is that there are clear lines of responsibility in place and that the organisation has clearly defined roles such as who is the project sponsor and if they will have a programme manager for example to manage more than one project. The roles and people across the organisation such as the project manager and any team and the users understand the reporting structures and methods.
3. A key principle of project governance is that all project need to have an approved project plan in place containing what and when the stages are that authorization is required to continue. This would for example be relevant to a gate review where the project plan has been developed during the definition phase and needs full agreement and sign off before the implementation phase begins.
4. It is important part of project governance to ensure that all project plans and programmes meet the organisations aims and objectives. This will enable an organisation to make the best use of its finance and resources and not waste time and effort on carrying out a project that will be of no benefit to the organisation or it’s stakeholders. This is also sometimes achieved via a robust portfolio management where for example the portfolio manager can ensure that all the projects and programmes within the portfolio meets the objectives of an organisation and can decide which may be in or out as required.
5. The organisation should always foster a culture of open and honest disclosure that aims to continually improve the organisational learning from what it has done. This could for example mean that a project manager feels able to say when the project is not going so well and may be failing to meet its key milestones dates. This will enable prompt action to be taken if required by the sponsor and the learning from the mistakes made and also the successes can be used in future projects as ‘lessons learned’.
Feedback to example answer 1:
It may have taken a bit longer but I can not fault your answer here. The five points are clearly different and are well explained. It is a hard question to answer. Well done, enjoy your weekend and don’t study too hard.
Example answer 2:
The purpose of project governance is to fill the gap between the project environment and that of the organisation.
Good project governance should address such questions as:
•Who appoints the sponsor?
•What methods will be used on the project?
•Who will carry out project assurance?
•Are project sponsors competent?
•Does the organisation have a culture of open and honest reporting?
Project governance has a significant bearing on the success or failure of a project and its absence could place the project at risk. Project governance is not designed to replace organisational governance, but to link with it to provide an effective framework within which the project can operate.
Five principles of project governance include:
1.The Board of Directors have overall responsibility for project management governance. This means they have to set policy and define overall responsibility for projects. In practice this may mean at senior management meetings time is dedicated to defining this policy and role responsibilities within the governance structure.
2.The roles, responsibilities and performance criteria for project governance are clearly defined. This will be reflected within all key documentation that supports the project plan, for example the project management plan, business case and job descriptions. Without senior management spending time on this (see point 1), completing this principle is impossible.
3.Disciplined governance arrangements are in place that are supported by appropriate methods and controls applied throughout the project lifecycle. This requires for an agreed and implemented reporting system that delivers consistency across projects. In practice, this often requires a member of the programme team to take on the role for project governance, using the methods and reporting processes to communicate adherence to project governance standards. Where non-compliance exists, this can be communicated appropriately to the project team, programme office or senior management as necessary
4.A coherent and supportive relationship is demonstrated between the business strategy and the project portfolio. In practice, the senior management team should review projects within the portfolio with their sponsor to ensure risk is being managed and the business case will be achieved
5.All projects have a plan containing authorisation points at which point the business case is reviewed and approved. Decisions made at these points should be recorded and communicated, for discussion in principle 4 (see above) or for feedback and guidance from key stakeholders as appropriate.
Feedback to example answer 2:
You seem to have got the hang of this. The only comment is to say that as a marker I can only give you five sets of 10 points, so your opening paragraph fantastic as it is, won’t earn you any extra marks.
Example answer 3:
Governance of project management details the procedures and regulations a project must adhere to throughout its life cycle. It is a subset of corporate governance directly related to projects and ensures that project and portfolio directions are in line with corporate objectives. According to APM it has 11 key points 5 of which are as follows:
-There must be a coherent and supportive relationship between corporate strategy and portfolio direction. This hopefully should ensure the link between strategic direction, portfolio and project direction and ensure the desired benefits are achieved.
-The board has the overall responsibility for governance of project management. Though it is implemented jointly by the project management and corporate management.
-There should be in place governance procedures support by relevant methods and control procedures throughout the project life cycle.
-All governance roles, responsibilities and success criteria should be defined for the project, followed and audited at various points (gate reviews)
-All projects should have high-level documentation, used for go/no go authorisation at various points in the projects. The decisions should then be documented.
Governance is not successful by the rigid application of the 11 APM principles rather, an appropriate mixture at the project managers discretion.
In order to determine whether project management governance is being upheld it is a good idea for corporate management to address the following areas: Portfolio direction, project management, project sponsorship and reporting and disclosure. The APM book of knowledge has questions under each of these topics designed to assess the level of governance adherence on a project.
Feedback to example answer 3:
The marker has a guide that says they can give you five sets of 10 points. So while your answer is fine I would restructure it like this:
1) There must be a coherent and supportive relationship between corporate strategy and portfolio direction. This hopefully should ensure the link between strategic direction, portfolio and project direction and ensure the desired benefits are achieved. This means that only projects that support the ultimate goal of the organisation would be approved.
2) The board has the overall responsibility for governance of Project Management. Though it is implemented jointly by the Project Management and corporate management. This means that the reporting lines for project governance must be clearly defined.
3) There should be in place governance procedures support by relevant methods and control procedures throughout the project life cycle. This would include formal gate reviews, end of project reviews and for a commercial organisation bid and contract reviews.
4) All governance roles, responsibilities and success criteria should be defined for the project, followed and audited at various points (gate reviews). These would be defined in the business case (and or project brief) to ensure that the controls were appropriate for the level of risk in the project.
5) All projects should have high-level documentation, (such as a business case), used for go/no go authorisation at various points in the projects. The decisions should then be documented and taken by individuals with appropriate levels of delegated authority.
I know it may look like I have just added padding and broken your answer into a formula, but it will make it much easier for the marker to give you the marks you deserve.
Configuration Management
QUESTION: Describe five advantages of a effective configuration management system?
Each advantage should be a paragraph of three sentences. Think about what would happen in a project without any configuration management and then this will help you to define the advantages.
Example answer 1:
Describe five advantages of an effective configuration management system?
A configuration management system offers the following advantages to a project:
- It ensures that products conform to their initial specifications and that the way they interact with each other works. It does this through effective control, whereby should the specification of a product need to change, and then this is carefully annotated, with related products being checked for impact of the change to the product concerned.
- All components and sub-components are carefully itemised; often through a product breakdown structure. This means at both a macro and micro level there is a clear understanding of a product and its component elements and how they relate to each other.
- Stops waste and re-work; by ensuring changes to products are understood. This means project team members do not have to re-work activity, because a “master” product has enforced a change. With appropriate configuration planning, team members only have to complete the work once.
- Maintains project team morale; there is nothing more demoralising for a project team than the sense that their hard work is for nothing due to poor planning. A change to a specification of a product can have a detrimental effect when the team have to redo all their work.
- Supports supply chain communications: Many projects require a number of suppliers to produce specialist products for the project. If the project team are not clear on how these products work together, or are unable to document changes to specifications; communications with the supply chain will at best be muddled and confusing, or at worst be very expensive due to requirements for rework.
Earned Value
Earned value is a project reporting tool which provides a comprehensive view of project status, however it is not widely used.
Exam Tip: Each of the five advantages / disadvantages should the a short paragraph of two or three sentences. For example the first of the five might say something like.
1) Earned value provides a way of tracking the plan, expenditure and progress in one integrated framework. Earned Value Management used a common currency (most often money) to measure the planned progress (and expenditure), the Actual Cost from the finance system and actual progress from estimates of percentage complete to give a combined view of these three critical performance measures. As such it provided on of the most comprehensive ways of monitoring project performance.
QUESTION: Describe five advantages / disadvantages of using earned value management in your project.
Example answer 1:
Earned value is the term used to describe an objective value to products produced by the project. It is a figure calculated by multiplying the budget allocated to the product and the percentage of the product complete. This objective measure of project (and product) performance is very helpful as it helps the project team identify if anything is going wrong and what might be done in relation to time and cost to rectify it. For example, funds can be re-distributed from other products to accelerate the production process.
Earned value calculations can look at time to deliver and highlight issues in relation to resource management. For example, if the team are working hard, but the products are no where near being produced, questions around team structure, leadership and morale can be asked.
Earned value calculations provide simple metrics and visuals that allow stakeholders to report on project performance. This supports a culture of early warning and enables a project manager to take corrective action earlier than they might otherwise have been able to do so without the quality of earned value data.
However, one can easily assume that actual cost less than planned cost is a good thing. In effect, in this scenario, the product is under budget, but if for example the estimates were overly high, this may mean the project has lost the opportunity to produce other products that might have been of significant benefit.
Earned value analysis requires a high level of definition in the work break down structure (WBS) and this is not always possible. If percentage completion rates are arbitrary the metrics will in fact be interpretative, rather than based on fact. Making decisions on project performance based on assumptions of work complete has obvious risks and can waste time and effort.
Feedback to example answer 1:
This is a very comprehensive answer, a little bit beyond the level of understanding required for the APM PMQ. An acceptable answer would be
1) Earned value provides a way of tracking the plan, expenditure and progress in one integrated framework. Earned Value Management used a common currency (most often money) to measure the planned progress (and expenditure), the Actual Cost from the finance system and actual progress from estimates of percentage complete to give a combined view of these three critical performance measures. As such it provided on of the most comprehensive ways of monitoring project performance.
2) Earned value management can be used to measure the schedule performance of the project against the baseline plan. This is done by calculating the percentage complete by the budget for each work packages. This can then be compared to the plan to determine if the project is ahead to behind the plan.
3) As part of earned value management we can measure the actual expenditure against the progress (earned value). In this way it is possible to determine if the project is overspending compared to the amount of work being delivered. This give a good measure of project efficiency.
4) Earned value can be used to calculate performance metric for high level reporting. The performance metric (SPI and CPI) are useful for senior management to get an overview of the projects performance. Furthermore it can be used to forecast the likely project estimate at completion (EAC) and a completion date.
5) One of the main weaknesses of earned value reporting the accurate measurement of percentage complete. These are difficult because often it is hard to physical measure projects and the assessments can be subjective. Without this accurate information it then the earned value metrics and predictions can be valueless.
This is a bit simpler but nevertheless your answer is as good.
Example answer 2:
Earned Value Management (EVM) is a common tool used to track the project performance against the baseline. A few of the advantages and disadvantages of the process are given below.
1.Assess Performance. EVM gives a view of the project performance based on the value of useful work done at that point in time, relative to the baseline cost/programme. For example if the package is 10% complete and spent 50% of the budget this is bad news – as we are likely to overspend.
2.The assessment of the useful work done is usually based on the percentage complete of an activity. This exercise is subjective and can lead to potential errors in the EVM analysis. For example the old adage in IT that the source code is 90% complete for 90% of the time.
3.Set-up work. To allow Earned Value analysis to be undertaken the baseline schedule needs to be constructed in an appropriate way to judgement of cost and budget against. This can often involve additional work to develop the project schedule to a point at which the information/detail is appropriate to be used by the process.
4.Forecasting. The Earned Value analysis generation of Schedule and Cost Performance Indices (SPI/CPI). These indices can be used to extrapolate the Estimate At Completion (EAC) and Planned Completion based on current project performance.
5.Resourcing. The use of EVM outputs can allow the Project or Programme manager to identify projects or programmes that are underperforming or over-performing. As a result they can manage or re-allocate resources to help bring the project back on track. For example reassign resource on a project that is well ahead of programme to help manage project that is late and under spent.
Feedback to example answer 2:
Not bad but here are a few improvements to this answer.
1. One advantage of EVM is it allows the performance to be assesses against the baseline. This is done by converting the plan, progress and cost into a common currency. EVM gives an overall view of the project performance based on the value of useful work done at that point in time, relative to the baseline cost/programme. For example if the package is 10% complete, compared to a planed completion of 40% and spent 50% of the budget this is bad news – as we are likely to overspend.
2.One disadvantage of EVM is that the assessment of the useful work done is usually based on the percentage complete of an activity. This exercise is subjective and can lead to potential errors in the EVM analysis. For example the old adage in IT that the source code is 90% complete for 90% of the time.
3.One dis-advantage of EVM is the additional set-up work. To allow earned value analysis to be undertaken the baseline schedule needs to be constructed in an appropriate way to judgement of cost and budget against. This can often involve additional work to develop the project schedule to a point at which the information/detail is appropriate to be used by the process.
4.On major advantage of EVM is the ability to produce accurate forecasts. The Earned Value analysis generation of Schedule and Cost Performance Indices (SPI/CPI). These indices can be used to extrapolate the Estimate At Completion (EAC) and Planned Completion based on current project performance. Often these can give a good inform the assessments made by the project manager.
5.EVM can be useful when planning resources. The use of EVM outputs can allow the Project or Programme manager to identify projects or programmes that are underperforming or over-performing. As a result they can manage or re-allocate resources to help bring the project back on track. For example reassign resource on a project that is well ahead of programme to help manage project that is late and under spent.