Quiz Answers

1. You want to get your project done in the shortest possible time / shorten time to market. What’s the #1 thing you should do to achieve that?

• Use Agile.
• Make sure the requirements are clear.
• Have an experienced team.
• Build a plan at the day level of detail.

Answers:

• Can’t hurt, but it’s not the right answer.
• Very important, but again, not the right answer.
• Great, if you can manage it but it won’t make as big a difference as:
• Yep. Here’s why.

2. You work in a world of ‘constantly changing priorities’. A change occurs on your project – something you hadn’t expected happens. How many ways are there to deal with this change?  

• One.
• Two.
• Three.
• Stupid question – obviously depends on what the change that occurred was.

Answers:

• No. Though lots of people chose this one – work more to implement the change.
• No.
• Yes. See ‘2. Things will change over the project’s lifetime.’
• No.

3. True or false? A project will go wrong if its demand (amount of work to be done) and supply (amount of people to do that work) aren’t the same?

• True.
• False.
• It’s not as simple as that. What about things like motivation, levels of experience, knowledge of the industry / sector, and so on?
• You can always work overtime and make the equation come true.  

Answers:

• Sure is.
• Sure isn’t.
• Things actually are as simple as that.
• Yes, you can always work overtime. Whether there will be enough time available to make the equation come true is a separate question. Hint: There are 24 hours in a day, 7 days in the week, a finite number of people on your team.

4. You have a superstar working on your project – highly skilled, experienced, motivated and doing what they love to do. What is most likely to make them unhappy?

• You micromanaging them.
• Them being given uninteresting work.  
• You questioning their judgement and decisions.
• Low or infrequent salary hikes. 

Answers:

• Yes, nothing surer. A waste of your time and could potentially lead to very negative outcomes
• Yes again.
• And again.
• To some extent but not as much as you might think.

5. Your project is running to schedule, and you’re nearing the end. The customer calls you up and wants to ‘add just one little thing’ and still get delivery on the date originally agreed. The ‘one little thing’ is actually reasonably significant. You are new to the company. The customer tells you that your predecessor always accommodated such requests. What do you do?  

• Say yes. Satisfying the customer is what it’s all about.
• Ask the team to work nights and weekends to hit the (unchanged) end date, and have a moan with them about ‘bloody customers.’
• See if you can keep to the original date by adding more resources. If you can, charge the customer for this. If you can’t, tell the customer the new end date (and probably charge him for this too.)
• Use some of your contingency – assuming you have some – to satisfy the request.

Answers:

• No, no, no. Of course, it’s about satisfying the customer – but not at this price.
• Not this either. This is the same as (a).
• Yes.
• Yes, but make a bit of a deal out of it. You were able to do this for your customer because you were (a) smart enough to put contingency in your plan in the first place, and (b) even smarter that you stopped people (e.g. the customer) from taking it out.

6. Estimate the task ‘Review Document’. The document is 30 pages, printed on one side, all text, no diagrams. There are three reviewers.  

• 1 hour.
• 3x 1.5 person hours.
• One day elapsed.
• None of the above.

Answers:

• Doubt it. Not if the review consists of individual reviews plus a meeting.  
• Could be closer to the right answer.
• So could this.
• Yes. First, what are we estimating – duration or effort? Second, what does ‘review’ mean – individual? A meeting? Individual plus a meeting? Something else?

7. You’re assigned to run an IT project. You have no background in IT. When you sit down with the team to build the plan, the techies tell you that there is no way they can estimate this project. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ they say. ‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’ Do you:  

• Accept this.
• Sign up for some kind of course / qualification in IT, and start spending all your spare time in libraries and bookstores.
• Insist that the project be estimated, making assumptions where necessary. 
• Ask to be assigned to a project in a discipline in which you are proficient.

Answers:

• No! No, no, no, no, no!
• Maybe can’t hurt, but it’s not the right answer.
• Yes. And expect some resistance, so you may have to be a bit of a hard ass to drive it through.
• It would solve your current problem, but not everyone has this luxury. And what about the next time you’ve given a project in a discipline you know nothing about?