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PMP Practice: Estimate project tasks (milestones, dependencies, story points)

Question 1 of 5 in Plan and Manage Schedule

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Cedar Petersen is leading a product development project at Silver Badger Consulting to create a new mobile app for personalized fitness coaching. The executive sponsor initially requested a detailed 18-month Gantt chart with milestone dates for executive review. However, after the first stakeholder workshop, it becomes clear that user preferences and competitive features are changing rapidly in the market. The marketing team reports that three competitors launched similar features in the past two months, and customer feedback from a prototype session revealed unexpected preferences that differ significantly from initial assumptions. The development team has strong technical skills but limited experience with the current AI frameworks required. The sponsor now wants to see working features every month to make funding decisions and adjust market positioning. What approach should Cedar use to manage the schedule going forward?
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Correct answer: Transition to iterative development with fixed-length sprints, using velocity tracking and a prioritized backlog to measure progress toward business value

Explanation

This scenario presents characteristics that strongly favor an agile approach: rapidly changing market conditions, uncertain requirements revealed through prototype feedback, a need for frequent stakeholder visibility to make funding decisions, and a learning curve with new technology. The sponsor's need to see working features monthly to adjust market positioning indicates that delivering incremental value is more important than following a predetermined plan. Using iterative development with fixed-length sprints allows the team to respond to market changes, incorporate user feedback quickly, adapt to the learning curve with AI frameworks, and provide the monthly working features the sponsor needs for decision-making. Velocity tracking provides a reliable measure of progress based on delivered functionality rather than plan compliance, which is appropriate when requirements are evolving. The combination of frequent delivery, stakeholder engagement, and adaptability addresses all the scenario's challenges.

**Why not A:** Maintaining the 18-month Gantt chart with monthly variance reports preserves a planning artifact that no longer fits the project context. Market conditions are changing rapidly, requirements have diverged from assumptions, and the sponsor now wants working features monthly. Reporting variance against an outdated plan provides little value.

**Why not B:** Creating a hybrid schedule with predictive AI framework work and agile UI sprints splits the project in a way the scenario does not support. Both the AI work and the UI features face uncertainty (the team has limited AI experience and user preferences differ from assumptions), and the sponsor wants to see integrated working features monthly across all components.

**Why not D:** Rolling wave planning with detailed near-term schedules and high-level milestones is better suited for projects where requirements are reasonably stable in the near term. With competitors launching features monthly and the sponsor wanting to make funding decisions based on working software, iterative delivery with velocity tracking provides more relevant progress measurement than even a rolling wave Gantt chart.

Key Concept

This question covers Estimate project tasks (milestones, dependencies, story points) under Plan and Manage Schedule (Process).

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