CompTIA Project+ Performance-Based Questions

Discovery tests whether the idea is worth pursuing, usually with a business case. Initiating authorizes the project with a charter and identifies the stakeholders. Planning works out the scope, the schedule, the budget and the risks. Executing does the work, with progress monitored and changes controlled along the way. Closing hands over the result, releases the team and records the lessons learned.

Waterfall is predictive: the requirements are settled first, each phase is completed before the next starts, and changes go through formal control. Agile is adaptive: work is delivered in short iterations, the backlog is reprioritized as needs change, and the team inspects its own way of working in regular retrospectives. Waterfall suits work with fixed, well-understood requirements; Agile suits work where they are expected to change.

A change starts as a written request and is logged, so nothing is agreed in a corridor. Its impact on scope, schedule and cost is assessed before anyone decides, because the decision depends on that impact. The change control board approves or rejects it. Only an approved change updates the plan and is implemented. Finally the change is checked and the stakeholders are told the outcome.

Transferring a risk passes its financial impact to another party, such as an insurer. Avoiding it changes the plan so the risk can’t happen. Mitigating it reduces its likelihood or its impact. Accepting it means taking no action in advance, often with a contingency reserve set aside. Exploiting is a response to a positive risk: acting to make sure an opportunity is realized. Sharing an opportunity with a partner is another positive response.

The project charter authorizes the project and names its manager. The work breakdown structure divides the scope into deliverables small enough to estimate. A Gantt chart shows tasks as bars on a timeline, with their dependencies. A RACI matrix records who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed for each task. The risk register lists each risk with its owner and response, and a burndown chart shows the work left in a sprint.

Personally identifiable information identifies a living person. Protected health information is health data linked to a person, and has its own rules. Payment card data falls under the card industry’s security standard. Intellectual property is what gives the company its commercial edge, and public data may be shared freely. The label decides how each data set must be handled in the project: who may see it, where it may be stored and whether it must be encrypted.