You are the manager for a governmental portfolio aiming to restructure the roads in your country. Having a tight schedule, a large number of stakeholders including the public, in addition to a strict budgeting framework, you know that you will be managing the portfolio closely and that the governance board and the stakeholders would want to check on the progress and status frequently. For this you have developed a robust Portfolio management plan. What do you expect as output of this development?
Your CEO is keen to know the expected value of multiple components that interest him and wants you to give him a comparison of the expected value across components. You are currently looking for a tool to facilitate comparison of expected value across components and support informed portfolio decision making. What are you looking for?
A junior Portfolio manager has come to you for advice. He is hearing a lot about the focus of portfolio management practices, however, he is not sure anymore of the exact answer. What do you, as an experienced portfolio manager tell him?
While managing portfolio communications, the portfolio manager needs to account for the communication needs of the component teams in order for them to stay in the loop of the big picture. Which of the following can be of interest to this group of stakeholders?
Assume you are preparing the first portfolio risk management plan for your outsourcing company, which typically handles call centers around the world. While the company has implemented portfolio management and has a Portfolio Oversight Group, it did not previously assess risks to the portfolio itself. Instead, it assumed risks would be managed at the project level. However, numerous customer complaints have been received. The root cause is once a new call center is established, limited if any planning is done as the manager rushes to have it ready and operational as soon as possible. This has led to a lack of understanding as to what is required for the call centers to be successful. In preparing this plan, you are reviewing the portfolio management plan because it:
During one of the management meetings, an opportunity was identified. This opportunity has a huge impact on the portfolio. What is your first action as a portfolio manager?
As part of the annual planning, PMO has started to group initiatives managed under each portfolio in the organization. The collected list will be used in developing the new Portfolio Strategic Plan. What is this collected list called?
With the increasing use of drywall, your company, which has been in the plaster business for over three generations, is finding it harder to maintain a share of the market and to achieve a positive return on its investments. Three years ago, the corporate executives implemented a portfolio process, and they serve as the Portfolio Governance Council. They meet monthly, and after each meeting, you prepare a report of their decisions. This report is:
Stakeholders are concerned about the purpose of optimizing a portfolio while already having defined the portfolio with its related components, and are worried that this will cause a lot of time to be wasted. What is your advice to the stakeholders?
Assume you completed your portfolio performance management plan, and it was approved by the Oversight Committee. This plan, with an overall purpose to maximize portfolio performance, describes resource allocation and resource-related issues among other items. In it a key component is benefits realization. This emphasis on benefits planning provides:
Due to a strategic change, multiple components on your portfolio have been terminated, leaving you with limited remaining funds coming from the terminated components. What should be your best course of action?
Your team members were having a discussion about the purpose behind the development of the Portfolio Charter and they came to you for advice because they could not agree on a common answer. What would be your advice to them?
Assume you work in new product development, and you believe you have identified a component that will be a breakthrough for the company. However, you performed a capacity analysis with the help of your EPMO to assess resource availability especially in certain skill sets. You learned that key computer scientists required by this component were in short supply, yet you still believe this component should be in the portfolio. To convince the Portfolio Review Board to consider it, you decide to use:
Risks perspectives differ within the organization between executive management, operations management, portfolio management and project/program management. When it comes to Operations management, which of the following is a risk concern?
Stakeholders have complained to you that they are receiving redundant information and they prefer that you fix the issue promptly as it is time consuming for them. What is your best course of action?
Portfolios include a lot of work and as a portfolio manager you need to keep an eye on the value realization while maintaining the strategic alignment. You are currently aggregating value delivered by the portfolio components. What can you use to help you in this context?
Assume you are the portfolio manager for a legacy software company. For many years, your company was one of the top five leaders in software development, but as newer and more efficient software was invented, it began to lose market share. Your company then found its services were needed as legacy systems were converted, especially since Cloud computing now is so popular. But it has lost revenues increasingly over the years. To gain market share and provide greater portfolio value, the executive team decided it should:
When it comes to managing the portfolio value, one of the junior portfolio managers came to you asking about the relation between cost-benefit analysis and the efficient frontier analysis. What should your answer to her be?
Assume before you prepared your portfolio management plan for your company that you did some benchmarking and learned that if you used elicitation techniques it was useful in the portfolio development stage and before there were significant scope changes because of strategy changes to the portfolio. You decided to involve the Portfolio Review Board members, other key stakeholders, and some subject matter experts in this process and then decided to poll input from the group as a majority vote. This meant you were using:
By setting up portfolio categories and using a pair-wise comparison approach to rank components, as the portfolio manager, you feel that you are finally setting up and getting people to follow standard portfolio practices. Since portfolio management still is relatively new, progress is under way. As some components are added, and others are not continued, you are making sure if a component is terminated that it does not have dependencies with others in the portfolio. You need to then:
Portfolios tend to have over or under allocations if the portfolio management is of low maturity. Which tool will help you analyze the resources over and under allocations?
Risk Management is integrated in all the other processes and process groups and is an integral recurrent activity throughout the portfolio life cycle. Which of the following is considered an external risk that can affect the portfolio?
comes to this type of organizations, which of the following statements is true?
The portfolio manager defines the portfolio based on a listing of already existing work in the organization and selects the right components in order to be able to prioritize them. What do you use for defining the portfolio based on the listing of work?
Stakeholders are an integral part of the portfolio. The portfolio manager will work with the stakeholders to plan, execute and eventually deliver and close the portfolio. While developing the performance management plan, the portfolio manager plans a series of sessions with key stakeholders to define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). What are these sessions collectively referred to in a portfolio?
A key role for portfolio management is to balance the use of resources following the need against the existing skill-set. One of the component managers told you that an important SME on his program is traveling and there is no replacement for her. This will cause a major delay in the program. What is your first step as a portfolio manager?
A junior Portfolio manager has come to you for advice. She is asking about her main responsibilities as a portfolio manager in order to see if she is on the right track. What should be your advice to her?
A big strategic change occurred at the organization level and has impacted multiple portfolios in the organization including yours. The sponsor has asked you to analyze the change and update the needed documents. You managed this change and are currently updating the Portfolio Management Plan. Which of the following are part of this update
Roadmaps may be prepared to show different elements, and at the beginning they may not provide details of the various components. As a high-level plan at the portfolio level, the roadmap:
While aggregating data from component reports in order to present the portfolio status to the governance board on an upcoming review meeting, which of the following is the most important thing to do?
You have been recently assigned to a critical portfolio in your company and wanted to start right away and decided to begin with aligning the strategic management of the portfolio to the organizational strategy and objectives. For this you will use
Optimizing the portfolio is a major recurring process that the portfolio manager performs throughout the portfolio life cycle in order to balance the mix of portfolio components. During this process, the portfolio manager uses a number of graphical analytical methods to help him ease the process. Which of the following is not a graphical analytical method used in this process?
As a portfolio manager you visit and re-do the Optimize Portfolio process continuously. Which of the following, in your opinion, is the objective/purpose of the Optimize Portfolio Process?
In your telecom company, a number of criteria must be considered as you develop your approach to prioritize components in the portfolio. Your management insists that to be competitive the products must be first to market or the window of opportunity is lost with the result being not only lost revenues but also lost productivity. Another criterion to consider is:
starting with the business unit you lead, which is responsible for new products, and then will set the stage to implement it throughout the bank, including at the enterprise level. You have executive support and commitment to implement it in your business unit. A key first step is to:
Assume you are working in a division in your country ' s Department of Interior. The Department is set up in Bureaus, and your work falls within Natural Resources. Your division is the Water Resource Division. You are responsible as the portfolio manager for the work in this Division. As you work on the portfolio for the upcoming year, you point out to the members of the Portfolio Review Committee that:
In your portfolio some of the programs and projects that are being pursued will realize benefits throughout the program and project ' s life cycle, while others will not realize the benefits until the program or project is closed or years later. This means as the portfolio manager, you should:
As part of the strategic alignment, you Evaluate organizational strategic goals and objectives using document reviews, interviewing, and other information gathering techniques in order to
A portfolio manager needs to continuously balance the need and requirements with the available resources to maintain a balanced portfolio and portfolio resources in order to optimize delivery. Capability and Capacity analysis is performed in 4 of the portfolio management processes and it serves a slightly different purpose in each and every one of them. When it relates to the organization level. This analysis comprises which of the following?
Assuming a portfolio manager position means one has more stakeholders than in program, project, or operational roles. The goal is to identify all interested stakeholders but often overlooked are:
Due to market technological changes, your company got impacted and was urged to revise its portfolios. You are currently revising your portfolio to determine the required changes in the component mix. Which of the following options helps in assessing the capability of the organization to undertake the portfolio with its new strategic direction, and what is needed to be done?
You are managing a portfolio for your company and are trying to balance the tasks that will be done internally based on the availability and the ones that will be outsourced. Managing supply and demand is a recurring activity in the portfolio life cycle and results in changes in resource utilization and resource efficiency. Where is this type of results normally found?
The audit department has found out that two of the departments have conflicting standards and have asked you to analyze and compare them in order to be able to take a decision which could impact the portfolio alignment. Which analysis will you use to compare conflicting standards in different departments
Assume you are the portfolio manager for your training company. It decided to implement portfolio management in a major way to ensure it remained competitive in the changing market and could offer a variety of methods to deliver courses rather than only in a face-to-face setting. The company set up a Portfolio Management Group, and you are responsible for providing information on portfolio status and then providing information to those interested stakeholders about the Board ' s decisions. You want to make sure the reports meet stakeholder requirements. After performing a detailed communications requirements analysis, you found it interesting that stakeholders wanted information about:
Assume you are a functional manager in your medical device company in research and development. Your scientists have determined a new product that will be a breakthrough for the company, and you want to serve as the sponsor for this component and present it to your Portfolio Review Board. You will need resources from other parts of the company to commercialize it. As you prepare your proposal you are following the key descriptors set up by the portfolio staff and will include:
Each time a strategic change occurs, it requires a number of updates, and it includes the need to update the portfolio process assets including:
Managing risk is key to the success of any initiative. Risk is considered to be inherent in any activity we do in project management and at any level. Risk is part of project, program and portfolio management and has a different exposure in each and every one. When it comes to Managing portfolio risks, a risk owner, along with the portfolio manager, should select the strategy or mix of strategies most likely to be effective. Which of the following may be the responsibility of a risk owner when it comes to managing risks?
After a strategic change is managed and finalized, you as a portfolio manager, are expected to document changes to the portfolio components attributes. Which of the following is the document in which you document these changes?
It is rare for organizational leaders to have an in-depth knowledge of all the work under way in the portfolio, but it is needed for portfolio decision making. If you were asked to prepare such an inventory, it would:
Your organization, given the economic downturn in your country, decided to reduce its staff by 90% and outsource all operational activities including those of program and project managers and their teams. It has, however, retained the portfolio manager, and it has a Portfolio Review Board comprised of senior executives that meets monthly. Since outsourcing is the norm and not the exception, the manager of Procurement and Contracting is a major stakeholder. Her areas of interest are:
What can you tell about the following portfolio status, having CPI weight = 80% and SPI weight = 20%
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A big strategic change occurred at the organization level and has impacted multiple portfolios in the organization including yours. The CEO has asked you to prepare a presentation to depict the impact of this change on portfolio resources. Which of the following should you present in this case?
Your executive management has been recently undergoing a change from a functional organization to a projectized one and is currently assessing the volume of work that the organization can execute. Which of the following tools and techniques will decide the volume of work and components that the organization can execute?
A major strategic change has occurred and you are managing the change at portfolio level. You are currently performing gap analysis and you receive information on a stakeholder that is extremely unhappy with how the change will be handled in your portfolio. What should be your best course of action?
Assume you are the portfolio manager for a public sector organization, and it has been part of a public-private partnership for three years for highway projects. You are making recommendations as to the next program to undertake. The head of your Highway Department in your State is questioning whether the partnership is the best approach or whether it is best to work on its own. You asked the Marketing manager for assistance, and she prepared a value-for-money analysis. This approach is useful in that it:
When we talk about portfolios, programs and projects, it is inevitable to mention the business value which is the sum of tangible and intangible assets of an organization, also known as the net quantifiable benefit. When it comes to business value, at which level of the organization is the Business Value achieved?
Chartering a portfolio is a major step in getting the needed authorizations to execute the portfolio. Your are currently developing the charter and considering the following inputs
You prepared a portfolio risk management plan when you replaced the previous portfolio manager three years ago. However, recent structural and execution risks have affected the portfolio adversely, resulting in lost opportunities and a decrease in overall return on investment. You are updating the risk management plan as now stakeholders can see its value. In doing so, you can use some portfolio process assets such as:
You are managing a large portfolio and know that you will need to constantly show the progress and status of the portfolio in meeting. For this you have developed a robust roadmap using BI tools. The Portfolio Roadmap is an important document that is referenced throughout the portfolio life cycle. Which of the following is correct regarding the Portfolio Roadmap purpose and focus?
Updates to schedules i.e. resource, funding, benefits, are results of Developing the Portfolio Performance Management Plan process. Where should these updates be recorded?
Assume your food additive company performed a capacity analysis and found some resources had not maintained their skill sets and basically were not as productive as others in the company. Rather than have a massive reorganization, instead the executives decided to eliminate the jobs of these staff members, many of whom had been in the company for more than 20 years. Morale among the existing staff is low as people fear there will be more layoffs. Plus the government issued a new regulation that requires an additional Food and Drug Administration quality check before a new additive can be submitted for regulatory approval. One member of the executive team wants to acquire another company to enhance market share, and the existing plants in the Asia Pacific region require infrastructure upgrades. Given resource shortages, only one component can be selected to be added to the portfolio. The Board should select:
Assume you have determined the prioritization criteria your Portfolio Review Board will use, and you have reviewed the criteria with your key stakeholders to attain their buy off and occurrence. The purpose in establishing these criteria is to:
You are managing a portfolio for a major car dealer in the region and due to diversity of locations, funding terms and your client ' s corporate structure, you have a big number of components to be included in the portfolio. With such a huge number, you need to prioritize the components in order to prepare the mix of components to execute. Where can you find the prioritization model?
Managing risk is key to the success of any initiative. Risk is considered to be inherent in any activity we do in project management and at any level. Risk is part of project, program and portfolio management and has a different exposure in each and every one. You are currently developing the guidelines and approaches for managing risks and are looking for methods to help you. What are you looking for?
You are the portfolio manager for a large county that comprises much of a major city in your country. The city also has a portfolio manager, and often you meet to discuss proposed initiatives to see if there are any dependencies. In your county, you established an approach to evaluate portfolio components to make judgments regarding their alignment and priority. In doing so, which of the following was especially helpful:
Your online ordering company wants to add a component to its portfolio that its sponsor believes will outdistance the competition, but it has risks and also will be subject to regulatory approval. The purpose is to use parachutes to deliver the merchandise ordered through small helicopters so the recipients receive their orders within three hours of the on line purchase. As the portfolio manager you recognize this component is a major change and will require resources if it is approved. You are now performing change management using a change structure that:
You have scored the portfolio components and are analyzing the data in order to prioritize the components. Using the following scoring table, which of the options represents the correct Components Priority? Taking into consideration that the costs for each component is Component A: 10 K USD, Component B: 15 K USD, Component C: 16 K USD, Component D: 13 K USD and Component E: 11 K USD; The budget for this portfolio is a fixed one of 40 k USD
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The portfolio undergoes a lot of changes through the portfolio life cycle, and the state of the portfolio changes on the go. Some components are terminated, other are added and initiated. When it comes to the authorize portfolio process, which of the following represents the state of the portfolio
Each portfolio risk should have a designated person as its owner. As the portfolio manager assigns the owner, the main responsibility is to:
When managed correctly, the balanced scorecards can change the way an organization does business. Balanced scorecards keep focus on results. As a portfolio manager, you use the balanced scorecards while developing the Portfolio Management Plan in order to
For years, your aerospace company has been a leader in the development of sophisticated avionic hardware systems around the world. The executives want to continue with this well-recognized product line, but also they decided it is time to move into state-of-the art software to complement the hardware products. You have been asked to assess whether there are skill set limitations in the company to assess resource capacity internally. To do so, you decide to:
You have been assigned as the manager for a major transformation portfolio in your company. You have a new direction in sight and you need to work with the team to attain the end goal and achieve the expected strategy. You have just finalized managing the strategic change and you are expected to present the following documents:
As you are the portfolio manager for your state government agency, which is undergoing a series of budget cuts, you are focusing attention on managing risks to the portfolio as the budget is reduced. You realize in this process the time and budget for risk management also will be reduced; these data are in the:
Your sponsor has urged you to analyze Portfolio Risk before the end-of-week governance board meeting as the CEO will be present and is interested in Portfolio risk data in particular. Currently, you do not have adequate risk information in order to analyze data and give recommendations. Which tool is the most suitable for you to use in this case?
For governments worldwide, you normally have a lot of people reluctant to change and to using new technology tools especially for communication. You are managing a governmental portfolio and planning for a transformational endeavor. You are currently depicting the various communication media and methods to be used, where is this information normally used?
Being a portfolio manager, you realize that defining value differs among organizations based on the type of organization and its strategic goals and objectives. However, you know a value measurement framework is helpful as it:
After the second shutdown of the Government, your Agency Administrator realized that some essential programs had to continue even during the shutdown, some existing work along with some programs and projects in the pipeline perhaps were not needed, and resources may require reallocation. This example shows the:
Along the course of the portfolio, you will be monitoring and controlling the portfolio a.long with the related stakeholders and governance bodies. This is done as part of your role in portfolio oversight. As a portfolio manager, which of the following, in your opinion, is the objective/purpose of the Provide Portfolio Oversight Process?
One of the major resources on your portfolio is needed by two of the components at the same time. This resource has high technical knowledge and is aware of all the business needs. Which of the following tools and techniques can you use in order to solve this issue?
Resources allocation and optimization for use is key to a successful portfolio. You have assigned human resources, funds and other required assets to a component that you have initiated recently. What should have been done prior to being able to to that?
Working to manage portfolio value is a continuous task. In doing so, as the portfolio manager, you review the monthly and any ad hoc reports submitted by component managers. This month you saw there was an excellent opportunity for major cost savings in two components in the top five on the portfolio list; however, to realize this cost reduction, these components require resources to be reallocated from other components in progress for six months. These forecasts then:
Managing risk is key to the success of any initiative. Risk is considered to be inherent in any activity we do in project management and at any level. Risk is incorporated in all process groups as well. As a portfolio manager, how do you map the risk management elements to process groups?
A new sponsor was appointed by the company in order to push more on the investments underway. The new sponsor wants detailed information on time and money and wants to get things done quickly. Which element of the portfolio management plan will be referred to for managing the sourcing of key resources?
Your goal as a portfolio manager is to develop a strong communications management plan to keep interested stakeholders informed about your progress in portfolio management. Although you have reached out to numerous stakeholders, you know other portfolio processes also can help in this process such as:
You are managing a portfolio for your company and are trying to balance the tasks that will be done internally based on the availability and the ones that will be outsourced. Managing supply and demand is a recurring activity in the portfolio life cycle and results in changes in resource utilization and resource efficiency. Which of the following are considered inputs to the Manage Supply and Demand process?
One of the major steps for a portfolio manager is to know which components qualify to be included in the mix of components that will achieve the strategic objectives sought by the portfolio. As a program manager, you will use a variety of methods to help you achieve this purpose. Which of the following are valid tools and techniques?
As the Director of the Portfolio Management Office at your worldwide furniture store, you prepare a series of reports on the status of the portfolio. One report that you use is a bubble diagram. In using it in terms of resource supply and demand, you should structure it to show:
Consider you have the following efficient frontier graph with multiple portfolios on it. Which portfolio do you choose?
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Assume you are managing your city ' s portfolio, and its overall strategic goal is to promote economic development to attract more visitors to the city. It is a difficult challenge as the city is not a major metropolitan area and also is not a preferred winter or summer destination. Nonetheless, you are planning and allocating resources according to the city ' s strategy. Not to be overlooked as you do so is the need to:
As you focus on managing the value pf the portfolio, you find that portfolio variance/alert reports are helpful. Assume you have been using a ' traffic light ' format as it is easy to prepare, but an objective is to:
The sponsor came to you asking for a high level timeline to depict the approach that you will take to execute this portfolio. What tools and techniques is useful in your case?
Each time the Portfolio Governance Group meets the goal is to review the existing components and any that are proposed to ensure the portfolio has the best mix to attain strategic objectives. As the portfolio manager, you find these meetings, if facilitated accordingly, are effective decision-making sessions. However, you tend to have open issues after every meeting. These open issues:
You work in a fairly small company where the PMO helps in providing oversight to support the portfolio management. In such organization, where are the PMO structure, responsibilities, and implementation approach documented?
An organization decided to increase its business by 80% and approach new different clients. This strategy is followed because previously this organization was depending with its sales on only one client. With this new approach, you can describe the organization as being
Managing Strategic Change is an integral part of any portfolio in order to remain aligned with the strategic objectives. Your portfolio has undergone a major strategic change and you are currently interviewing senior executive stakeholders and analyzing requirements and expectations for strategic change in order to re-align the portfolio. Which of the following tools and techniques are you currently using?
Portfolio Governance Model is developed as part of the Portfolio management plan and defines the way the organizational assets and resources are planned to be managed within the portfolio according to the specific environment of the organization. Which of the following is correct regarding the Governance Model purpose and content?
Assume you are working to prepare the low-level schedule and timelines for portfolio components. You want to make sure, as the portfolio manager, for your country ' s initiatives to promote an awareness of the importance of climate change, that each component then can be monitored and tracked to assess performance. To do so, you should:
Your company changed its executives due to the lack of benefits realization and previous corruption issues. The new management has informed you that as of now, this will not change any process in the portfolio and everything will remain the same. However, only the risk tolerance for the organization will be impacted, what will you do as a portfolio manager?
The governance role in oversight is abundant during planning in order to agree on multiple roles and responsibilities including those of a portfolio manager. The agreements are recorded in the meeting minutes and included as updates to
Over the years, your organization has grown significantly as it has entered new markets while maintaining its presence in its traditional product line of security systems. The company now has eight different business units rather than three, which was the case only two years ago, and it set up funding originally such that it was only allocated to one business unit and could not be transferred to others. At the recently held Portfolio Oversight Committee meeting, five business units did not add components, but some were completed. The other three added a number of programs and projects, which were authorized. Now funding for these new components is an issue. This means:
One of the junior portfolio managers learned that she needs to perform organizational structure analysis as part of the portfolio management plan development. She does not understand why and she came to you for advice. What is your advice to her?
You are managing a complex portfolio with high risk levels due to emerging technological breakthroughs and a short benefit window to market your product. You know that managing risk is key to success and you are coaching your team on the same. A major risk has recently occurred and the risk owner came to you asking advise on how to report it. what would you advise her?
Assume you have been asked to prepare the portfolio management plan as you are on the staff of your company ' s Chief Portfolio Officer. In this plan, you will describe the different methods or approaches that your company will use to manage different types of components in the portfolio as specified in the:
Specific types of communication technology that are used such as communication media, record retention policies, and security information are examples of:
You have been recently assigned to manage a new portfolio that is supposed to shift the company from silo-based to a projectized one. You are in the process of initiating the portfolio. You are currently developing the strategic plan. Upon finishing it, you are expected to present
One of your portfolio team members is confused on the reason behind using the three processes: Define Portfolio, Optimize Portfolio, Authorize Portfolio and Manage Portfolio value. For him, we can skip a couple of processes. He came to you for advice. What should be your response to him?
Portfolios have a lot of components in them and are executed along an extended lifecycle. For this, as a portfolio manager, you continuously monitor and control the progress and status. What input can you use to help you with this?
You are the manager for a governmental portfolio aiming to restructure the roads in your country. Having a tight schedule, a large number of stakeholders including the public, in addition to a strict budgeting framework, you know that you will be managing the Communication closely and that the governance board and the stakeholders would want to check on the progress and performance frequently. For this you have developed a robust Communication management plan. Which of the below is used while developing this plan?
You are mid-way through your portfolio and you are approaching a major milestone where multiple components will be authorized for execution and implementation. For informed decision making, as a portfolio manager, you will be communicating reports that will be viewed and analyzed, and used as critical information for taking a decision for the authorization of components. After passing through the authorization process, multiple reports are generated and others are updated. What type of reports is generated from this process?
While managing a program for the banking sector spanning multiple transformational areas. A new portfolio manager comes to you seeking advice on the usefulness of ROI. You tell her that ROI is the best method to measure returns of
Managing value is key to success as portfolio are undertaken to ultimately deliver an outcome that is strategically aligned and which delivers value to the organization. While managing value, the portfolio manager invokes the Benefits Realization Analysis activity. Which of the following is part of this activity?
Management practices are leveraged by organizational resources and as a portfolio manager, you realize that the correct management of supply and demand with relation to organizational resources is crucial to the success of a portfolio. Which of the following is not an organizational resource?
You are managing a highly technical portfolio and are already mid-way through the implementation. You know that the communication is key to success as all the involved parties and stakeholders have a high technical exposure and you should maintain their buy-in along the lifecycle. Part of your activities is to collaborate with stakeholders to reach a common ground and to resolve conflicts. Which of the following is considered a collaboration technique?
You want to ensure that the Portfolio Review Board is able to make key decisions at each meeting. As the portfolio manager, you and your staff are responsible for scheduling the meetings, providing the agenda, taking minutes, tracking open issues, and documenting and communicating decisions that are made to key stakeholders. Before each meeting, you feel it is a best practice to:
In your architectural organization, each program or project requires some specialized subject matter experts at certain time frames. Because of the interdependencies between components, often these SMEs are needed at the same time. Assume since this is a critical issue in the company, it invested in resource planning and allocating software, and dashboards can be prepared. The goal is to use these dashboard reports to:
You are managing a complex portfolio with high risk levels due to emerging technological breakthroughs and a short benefit window to market your product. You know that managing risk is key to success and you are coaching your team on the same. When it comes to Managing portfolio risks, a risk owner, along with the portfolio manager, should select the strategy or mix of strategies most likely to be effective. Which of the following is not a risk strategy?
When it comes to change, one of your junior portfolio managers came to you requesting your help to deal with the overwhelming strategic changes. He wants your assistance in solving the issue of continuous changes in the organization ' s objectives. What should be your advice to him?
Calculate the composite index for the following portfolio having CPI weight = 80% and SPI weight = 20%
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An urgent review meeting was set due to the discovery of multiple risks which can have drastic effects on the portfolio. As a result of the meeting, it was agreed to increase the portfolio budget and add more resources in order to manage the new risks. Which of the following documents needs to be updated as a result of this decision?
You have been asked to manage a major portfolio in order to salvage the company and and re-align it with the strategic objectives and goals. You decided to develop the strategic documents and are currently developing the charter. As a portfolio manager, which of the following would be your answer when asked of the purpose for the development of portfolio charter?
While defining the portfolio mix, the portfolio manager performs a categorization of the portfolio components based on multiple categorization criteria. Which of the following is considered as a portfolio component category?
In preparing your communications matrix, you identified five communication areas. One is portfolio governance decisions. A communication vehicle for these decisions is:
All measurements in a Portfolio are done in correspondence to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and defining those KPIs is essential and should be done by highly capable personnel. Which of the following is true regarding who prepares KPIs and which party approves them?
The Strategic Plan is an important document that is referenced throughout the portfolio life cycle. Which of the following is correct regarding the Strategic Plan purpose and focus?
The Portfolio Charter is an important document that is referenced throughout the portfolio life cycle. Which of the following is correct regarding the Portfolio Charter purpose and focus?
Risk management is an integral part of project, program and portfolio management and is invoked throughout the project, program and portfolio life cycle. When it comes to managing portfolio risks, which of the following activities is used
You have been asked to be the manager for a governmental portfolio, and your starting point should be tendering a strategic plan to the board for validation and approval for continuation. Which documents/artifacts do you have debuting the portfolio that you can use to develop the strategic plan?
Assume you are working to ensure your organization has a balanced portfolio. You have decided to use a bubble diagram and have set it up to show the components in terms of: ease of execution [difficult or easy] and component importance [high or low] . In such an approach, bubbles are used to:
Working previously in the financial industry and studying finance and risk in graduate school, you are familiar with Markowitz ' s Efficient Frontier theory. Now assume you are the portfolio manager for a state government agency. Your agency has a reputation of being risk adverse but given recent budget cuts, you have convinced your executive team it needs to pursue some new programs and projects to demonstrate its benefits to the state. You decided to apply the Efficient Frontier concepts to show them the current state of its components in terms of risk and associated costs. You explained the portfolio is efficient if it has:
Throughout the course of the portfolio lifecycle, components are initiated, terminated and updated. In order to be initiated, portfolio components receive go/no-go decisions during governance meetings. During which process the go/no-go decisions are taken?
only, which has diversified its product line significantly in the last two years to keep up with its leading competitor located in a different state. Your executive management team learned the other cereal company had implemented portfolio management from a contractor and believes it is essential since the economy is struggling, and resources are constrained. Your first step has been to identify the existing operational work, projects, and programs as well as to learn about proposed components of the portfolio. This list:
Assume your telecom company is time constrained and needs to be first to market with new smart phones with features that are different from those of the competition and also have the traditional features desired by your existing customers. The Portfolio Review Board meets weekly to assess performance and to consider new components. Lack of technical resources is a recurring issue. To make the case for acquiring new resources, you decided to assess capability and capacity. This approach is:
The PMO in your company is newly established and one of its first results was allowing the portfolios to use a new communication method to disseminate the information faster. With relation to your portfolio, where should this new communication be stored?
In your opinion as a portfolio manager, which of the following is considered one of the portfolio ' s concerns?
You have already created portfolio scenarios (what-if analysis) by reviewing components against prioritization criteria and using analysis techniques (e.g., options analysis, risk analysis, SWOT analysis, financial analysis). You now want to recommend portfolio scenario(s) and related components, based on prioritization analysis/criteria. You are doing this in order to
Although it has taken significant time, you and your team inventoried all the work under way in your new product development company. This list of components should be:
One of the ten underlying principles of portfolio management involves a strategic focus. Assume you are going to have a short meeting with your CEO tomorrow, and you want to succinctly describe it. You will tell the CEO it is important since it:
One of your goals as a portfolio manager is to ensure that your stakeholders receive the information they need for decision making. To help manage the portfolio information that is provided, you decide to gather information by holding portfolio component review meetings. Your purpose in holding these meetings is to:
Assume your pork producing company finds that there is an over-abundance of pork products and competitors in the marketplace even though it has had to implement Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) processes that are a regulatory requirement. Profits are lower than ever before in the history of the company. Management is changing the company ' s strategy to also focus on seafood products. You have been asked to complete a gap analysis to:
Even though you do not work in an industry that is heavily regulated by your government, such as in new product development, health, or safety, recently your government issued a mandate that senior management of all corporations must certify the accuracy of reported financial statements to prevent any accounting fraud. These controls are to be implemented in the next fiscal year. This obviously is not in your portfolio strategic or management plans but is an example of a(n):
Assume you are the portfolio manager for a leading drug store in your country that offers numerous products. In the past four years, nearly every store has had to enlarge its pharmacy unit and hire additional staff members with the aging population. Observing this change, two years ago, stores set up clinics to provide customers with immediate care. As you see the growth in the stores in the health arena, you are looking at trends and realize:
As the portfolio manager in the third largest automotive manufacturer in your country, you have a large number of components especially new vehicles each year but also support for dealers, advertising, maintaining the brand image, increasing market share plus continuous improvement initiatives. You have contingency reserve to use to prepare to handle any risks that may occur, which is based on:
Manage supply and demand comes down to balancing the requirements with what is available. Resource requirements are a major input to the manage supply and demand process. Which of the following inputs to this process contains resource requirements?
You are managing a large portfolio and know that you will need to constantly show the progress and status of the portfolio in meeting. For this you have developed a robust roadmap using BI tools. The portfolio roadmap is used abundantly as an input to 7 processes. When it comes to managing portfolio value, how is the portfolio roadmap used?
You are managing a complex portfolio with high risk levels due to emerging technological breakthroughs and a short benefit window to market your product. You know that managing risk is key to success and you are coaching your team on the same. While planning for risk management, multiple investment choice tools are used as part of the quantitative and qualitative analyzes. Which of the following tools determine the effect of changing the portfolio?