Project Planning and Execution
This domain tests whether you can convert scope into a controlled plan: a work breakdown structure, dependencies, schedule, budget, risk register, and change control. It emphasizes critical-path reasoning, earned-value interpretation, and the discipline of baselining scope before measuring performance.
Core rules and concepts
- Decompose scope into a work breakdown structure with deliverables and owners; schedule activities only after dependencies are defined.
- Identify the critical path as the longest duration path; critical activities have zero total float.
- Use earned value terms consistently: planned value, earned value, actual cost, cost variance = EV − AC, schedule variance = EV − PV, and cost performance index = EV/AC.
- Manage risk with probability, impact, owner, response, and trigger; update the register as conditions change.
- Control changes through documented approval, impact assessment, and baseline revision.
Worked example
Activities: A (3 days), B (4 days after A), C (2 days after A), D (5 days after B and C). Path A–B–D = 3 + 4 + 5 = 12 days. Path A–C–D = 3 + 2 + 5 = 10 days. The critical path is A–B–D at 12 days. C can finish on day 5, but D cannot start until day 7, so C has 2 days of total float. Crashing C would not shorten the project; crashing A, B, or D could.
Traps
Treating the longest list of tasks as the critical path; crashing a noncritical activity; using percent complete as a substitute for earned value; and approving scope changes without revising the baseline or assessing resource impact.