Delivery and Performance Measurement
This topic tests predictive, adaptive, and hybrid delivery; flow; increments; acceptance; metrics; earned value; forecasts; and corrective action.
How to study for the PMP
Treat each PMP item as a next-best-action decision: identify delivery approach, stakeholder impact, governance path, value objective, and ethical responsibility.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Delivery approach should fit uncertainty, stakeholder involvement, compliance needs, and cadence of value.
Exam cue: Use value and feedback for adaptive work.
Concept 2
Performance measurement compares actual progress and outcomes against baselines, forecasts, value goals, or agile metrics.
Exam cue: Use baselines and variance analysis for predictive control.
Concept 3
Corrective action should be based on evidence, root cause, team input, and approved authority.
Exam cue: Act on root cause rather than metric optics.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Using velocity as a performance target for individual people.
Guardrail: Avoid answers that hide bad news, skip impact analysis, bypass governance, ignore the team, or deliver outputs that no longer create value.
Changing the baseline to hide variance.
Guardrail: Avoid answers that hide bad news, skip impact analysis, bypass governance, ignore the team, or deliver outputs that no longer create value.
Declaring success when outputs are done but value is not accepted.
Guardrail: Avoid answers that hide bad news, skip impact analysis, bypass governance, ignore the team, or deliver outputs that no longer create value.
Memory anchors
Increment
An increment is usable work completed during an iteration or release.
Definition of Done
Definition of Done defines the quality bar for completed work.
Velocity
Velocity measures the amount of backlog work a team completes in an iteration.
Cycle Time
Cycle time measures how long work takes from start to finish.
Earned Value
Earned value compares planned value, earned value, and actual cost.
Schedule Variance
Schedule variance compares earned value with planned value.
Cost Variance
Cost variance compares earned value with actual cost.
Forecast
A forecast estimates future performance using current data, trends, and assumptions.
Corrective Action
Corrective action realigns project performance with the plan or expected outcome.
Root Cause
Root cause is the underlying reason a problem occurred.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
A team completes many backlog items, but users report little improvement in the target outcome. What should the project manager do?
A predictive project has EV of $500,000, PV of $625,000, and AC of $400,000. Which statement is correct?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
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Move forward only after this module is stable.
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