ARC case studies
ARC · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The ARC exam is a professional certification assessment built around eight domains of project and program management practice: project and program fundamentals, requirements and scope definition, planning and scheduling, budgeting and cost control, risk and issue management, stakeholder and communications management, quality and performance monitoring, and ethics, governance, and professional responsibility. It suits practicing project and program professionals - project managers, program coordinators, PMO staff, and delivery leads - who want independent validation that they can run work end to end rather than only in one specialty. The ARC case studies are 5 cases and about 2,290 words.
1The Fixed-Price Migration Nobody Scoped
You are the project lead for a data migration at a mid-sized insurer. The contract was signed as fixed-price at 480,000 with a 14-week schedule and a go-live tied to a regulatory filing window.
493 words, about 2 min2Earned Value Looks Fine Until You Read the Detail
You are the PM for a 12-month infrastructure program with a budget at completion of 6,000,000. At the end of month 6 you report CPI 1.02 and SPI 0.98, which your steering committee reads as healthy.
447 words, about 2 min3The Regulator, the Delay, and the Helpful Stakeholder
You are managing a clinical-records system replacement for a hospital network. A regulator has requested evidence that data integrity controls were tested before cutover.
428 words, about 2 min4The Quality Gate Everyone Wants to Skip
You lead a 9-month project delivering a customer-facing claims portal. The quality plan requires a load test at 3x projected peak traffic and a security penetration test before the final iteration.
493 words, about 2 min5The Stakeholder Who Was Never in the Room
You are the PM for a warehouse management system rollout across four sites. The communications plan identifies the operations directors at each site as the key stakeholders; they have attended every steering meeting and signed off on each design milestone.
429 words, about 2 min