PMI Project Management Office Certified Professional Questions and Answers
A PMO professional is responsible for a team of project managers who lead projects for the business departments. A business manager has mentioned to the PMO professional that one of the project managers assigned to them is very set in their ways, which is causing friction among the project team members.
How should the PMO professional respond to this feedback?
An established PMO has a forecast of the expected benefits from all current and planned initiatives for the next 3 years. Due to a new regulation, the portfolio delivery plan needs to be reviewed to ensure that compliance will be realized by the given due date. The engineering department proposes to delay a strategic initiative to free up some resources for the compliance project.
What should the PMO manager do first?
Which primary strategy should the PMO professional adopt to effectively oversee an organization's portfolio to drive value creation, innovation, and competitive advantage?
A PMO professional is responsible for a recently deployed project management methodology. A project manager who manages a significant portion of the portfolio refuses to follow the methodology, leaving gaps in the PMO reporting at the portfolio level. The project manager views the prescribed processes as rigid, time-consuming, and as adding no value.
How should the PMO professional respond?
A PMO was just established in a large organization. The PMO team identified all potential PMO customers and analyzed them based on their power and interest. The list of customers was much too long and the PMO's capacity to nurture them all is not sufficient.
What should the PMO professional do to move toward developing the service catalog?
A PMO professional is tasked with ensuring the organization's competency framework stays relevant to evolving industry trends and internal strategic needs. Which approach should the PMO professional take to achieve this?
A pharmaceutical company operates an enterprise PMO (EPMO) that provides different types of services to several different PMO customers. The PMO leader wants to ensure that the service offerings of the EPMO are catering to the needs of its diverse PMO customers and delivering maximum value.
What should the PMO lead do?
A PMO was recently established to support the organization's new strategy following a global restructuring process.
Which two actions should the PMO leader take to effectively identify the expectations of PMO customers? (Choose 2)
A manufacturing company is in the process of establishing its PMO, and the PMO professional leading it recognizes that securing executive sponsorship and ongoing support is crucial for the PMO's success and mandate.
How should the PMO professional effectively secure and maintain executive sponsorship for the PMO?
A PMO professional received feedback from the project managers indicating that the project management software is not user friendly and fails to support their work. Which action should the PMO professional take to address this concern?
The PMO has decided to expand its services by including project prioritization and status reporting to better visualize project execution.
Which action should the PMO professional take next?
A newly appointed PMO professional for a startup specializing in mobile analytics has been tasked with establishing a PMO to streamline project management processes and ensure successful delivery.
Which step should the PMO professional prioritize to gain approval from the CEO to sponsor the initiative?
Historically, an organization's PMO has been considered as a department that employs project managers, with its role linked to managing only internal projects. With a change in PMO leadership, the new PMO manager decides to elevate the role of the PMO and make it a strategic partner.
Which actions should the PMO manager take to achieve this goal?
Due to a recent organizational transformation, the PMO has been excluded from strategic meetings and discussions. Although still responsible for program and project performance reporting, business representatives are now bypassing the PMO and directly approaching project managers for specific performance updates.
What actions should the PMO professional take to ensure the PMO remains valued by the organization?
A company decided to expand its PMO services to include strategic alignment and to participate in strategic planning. The company tasked a PMO professional with developing a framework to ensure the new services are properly planned, implemented, and governed.
Which action should the PMO professional take to develop the requested framework?
A PMO professional is leading a new PMO that aims to enhance organizational PMO maturity. When the PMO professional presents the roadmap to the board of directors, one of the executives says that no resources are available to work with the PMO.
What should the PMO professional do to avoid this situation in the future?
A PMO professional has been tasked with assessing and improving the competencies of the PMO team to better support the wide range of services the PMO provides. For example, the competencies required for a portfolio management service may differ significantly from those needed for training and mentoring services.
What steps should the PMO leader take to ensure the PMO team's competencies align with the diverse services provided?
A PMO professional uses a project portfolio performance dashboard designed using PMO standard metrics. The PMO professional discovers that the lab team is using its own metrics. The lab team's project manager explains that the PMO standard metrics are not meaningful to their team.
How should the PMO professional ensure that the PMO standard metrics are captured, while allowing flexibility for the lab team?
A PMO professional notices that the project managers are not adhering to the established project management guidelines within the organization. What actions should the PMO professional take to address this issue effectively?
A software company hired a PMO professional to establish a new PMO to oversee the performance of its projects and create the required processes. The new PMO professional immediately conducted project management training sessions for all project managers, developed project templates, and regularly conducted project audits. After the PMO had been in service for a year, senior management decided to shut down the PMO due to lack of value generation.
What should the PMO professional have done differently to ensure that the PMO generated the desired value?
A PMO team member with limited experience as a project manager was hired 2 years ago. The PMO team member has been identified as being talented in their role. Currently, the PMO team member is playing a key role in a strategic program and is facing challenges in specific areas such as leadership and stress management.
What steps should the PMO professional take to develop the competencies of the PMO team member?
A mid-sized technology company has established a PMO to improve project delivery and governance. The company's leadership has tasked the PMO professional with assessing the current effectiveness of the PMO and identifying areas for improvement.
How should the PMO professional proceed to fulfill this request?
An organization hired a new PMO professional to enhance an existing PMO that is facing several challenges. Following an initial assessment, the PMO professional identified that the PMO is seen as overly technical and lacking alignment with the organization's business objectives.
What actions should the PMO professional take to improve the PMO's alignment with business needs?
A PMO professional is acting as the PMO leader temporarily in a well-established and mature PMO unit. In this role, a PMO professional receives an escalation from the portfolio manager that a new business stakeholder's activity is overlapping with key portfolio management functions.
What should the PMO professional do to resolve this issue?
After which event should a PMO professional expect the PMO mandate to be reviewed?
A newly hired PMO professional is tasked with improving the executives' level of satisfaction with the PMO's performance. The PMO was established last year and has not been very successful in attending to the needs of the PMO customers.
Which two actions should the PMO professional take to address this issue? (Choose 2)
A PMO currently serves all investment initiatives within a company and has reached a high level of maturity. The executive leadership team is enthusiastic about PMO value, and all PMO customers promote its services. The PMO professional who leads the PMO has received information that the innovation portfolio struggles with its initiatives.
What should the PMO professional do first to support the innovation portfolio?
A PMO was set up in a large organization with a highly skilled PMO professional appointed to lead it. The sponsor agreed to give the PMO professional all the necessary resources from the beginning. The PMO professional and team immediately progressed with the implementation of accepted project management methodologies and internationally recognized practices and tools. At the end of the year, executive leadership raised concerns about the PMO's performance.
What should the PMO professional have considered during the service catalog development?
A newly hired PMO professional works within the PMO and supports a large enterprise program. This professional is expected to guide junior PMO team members but faces difficulties with team management and collaboration.
How should the PMO leader best support the PMO professional in overcoming these challenges?
A new portfolio management tool was introduced as the organization took on more projects. A few months later, the PMO professional observes that the organization is paying for more functionality than the project teams are using.
What should the PMO professional do first?
The executive management team for a healthcare company is discussing the second quarter's low result in the customer satisfaction score, which is a key performance indicator (KPI). One of the executives shares concerns about wasting efforts on projects and initiatives without being able to keep up with competitors and increase the customer satisfaction score.
Which action should the PMO professional take to avoid such a situation?
Last year, a PMO professional from a food processing company implemented a new portfolio management tool that is running smoothly. As a part of the portfolio management process, a resource management functionality was released for better assessment of the portfolio delivery resource needs.
What should the PMO professional do first to ensure proper implementation?
A PMO professional has been assigned to create a skills matrix to ensure effective PMO resource allocation.
What action should the PMO professional take to complete this task?
A newly established PMO has been given an opportunity to give a presentation to the executive committee of a natural flavors company. The new PMO is striving to shape its service offerings to support the research and development (R&D) department of the company.
What should the PMO leader do to gain executive support?
In a global financial services company, the PMO recently implemented the "Provide Methodologies and Tools" service to ensure project teams use standardized approaches and tools for project management.
What key performance indicators (KPIs) should the PMO professional create to measure the performance of this specific service? (Choose 2)
Last year, a company established a new PMO to enhance the management of its customer projects. After 1 year, the CFO is dissatisfied with the perceived lack of value in the PMO's periodic reports, and the CIO has raised concerns about the PMO staff's insufficient IT competencies.
What should a PMO professional recommend to the company's CEO to address these concerns?
