L5M8 Paper 6

✅ Correct Answer: Break scope into work packages

📌 Explanation:
Estimating requires something to estimate. A work breakdown structure decomposes scope into deliverables and then into work packages small enough to cost, schedule and assign. Every later technique depends on it, which is why it comes first.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Draw the full dependency network – sequences activities that decomposition must already have identified.
❌ Level the resource demand – smooths a schedule that does not yet exist.
❌ Track earned value weekly – measures against a baseline that cannot be set until scope is defined.

🧠 Summary: Scope is decomposed before it can be estimated, scheduled or controlled.

📋 LO: 1.1 — Analyse aspects of projects in organisations
📑 Indicative content: 1.1.2 Stakeholder identification, analysis and involvement; 1.1.6 Work breakdown structure

✅ Correct Answer: Keep them satisfied

📌 Explanation:
High power with low interest calls for keeping the stakeholder satisfied: address the matters they care about and avoid surprises, without consuming their attention. Their objection late in a project is decisive, so neglect is the expensive error.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Manage them very closely – suits high power with high interest, where involvement in decisions is wanted.
❌ Keep them informed – suits high interest with low power, who supply detail and become advocates.
❌ Monitor them only – applies where both power and interest are low.

📋 LO: 1.1 — Analyse aspects of projects in organisations
📑 Indicative content: 1.1.2 Stakeholder identification, analysis and involvement; 1.1.6 Work breakdown structure

✅ Correct Answer: Whether business case benefits were realised; Whether stakeholders accept the outcome

📌 Explanation:
Time and cost measure delivery efficiency, not worth. Benefit realisation asks whether the outcome produced the value promised, and acceptance asks whether it is usable in practice. Both are judged after handover, which is why a post-project review exists.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ How many change requests were raised – indicates requirement stability; a high count can accompany a very successful outcome.
❌ How much of the contingency reserve remained unspent – may show good risk management or an inflated estimate, so it measures nothing alone.

📋 LO: 1.1 — Analyse aspects of projects in organisations
📑 Indicative content: 1.1.2 Stakeholder identification, analysis and involvement; 1.1.6 Work breakdown structure

✅ Correct Answer: Initiation

📌 Explanation:
Initiation establishes whether the project should exist: it defines the need, tests feasibility and the business case, confirms the sponsor, and grants authority to commit. Projects that skip it proceed with no agreed purpose and nobody accountable for benefits.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Execution – delivers the work that planning has defined.
❌ Planning – develops scope, schedule and cost after authority has been given.
❌ Termination – is the closing stage, which hands over and releases resources.

📋 LO: 1.4 — Analyse the project life cycles of projects
📑 Indicative content: 1.4.2 Project initiation; 1.4.5 Project control; 1.4.6 Project closure; 1.4.7 Project review

✅ Correct Answer: Appoint a sub-contractor

📌 Explanation:
A sub-contract keeps the main contractor liable to the client for everything, including the specialist's performance, while the specialist contracts only with the main contractor. That is exactly the allocation Northgate wants.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Form a joint venture – would create a jointly owned entity and share ownership of risk and reward.
❌ Join a wider consortium bid – would place the parties alongside one another, contracting with the client.
❌ Novate to the client – would transfer the obligation away, which is the opposite of the intention.

📋 LO: 1.2 — Evaluate the impact on supply chain relationships
📑 Indicative content: 1.2.2 Relationships with sub-contractors; 1.2.3 Consortiums and joint ventures; 1.2.5 Project and strategic partnering

✅ Correct Answer: Obtain acceptance from the new owner; Close open contracts and accounts

📌 Explanation:
Closure is active work. Formal acceptance transfers responsibility to whoever will operate the deliverable, and closing contracts and accounts stops cost accruing and frees resources. Projects that skip it leave contracts live and people unavailable.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Approve the case with the sponsor – happens at initiation, before the project is authorised at all.
❌ Baseline the schedule and the cost plan – is planning work that sets the reference for later control.

📋 LO: 1.4 — Analyse the project life cycles of projects
📑 Indicative content: 1.4.2 Project initiation; 1.4.5 Project control; 1.4.6 Project closure; 1.4.7 Project review

✅ Correct Answer: A jointly owned venture

📌 Explanation:
A joint venture creates a separate entity the parties own together, with its own capital, management and accounts. It is the vehicle used where a contract exceeds what either can carry and where risk and reward are genuinely shared.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ A long strategic partnership – is a long-term collaborative relationship creating no new entity and no shared ownership.
❌ A sub-contract chain – places one party beneath the other rather than alongside it, sharing no ownership.
❌ A framework agreement – sets terms for future call-offs and funds nothing.

📋 LO: 1.2 — Evaluate the impact on supply chain relationships
📑 Indicative content: 1.2.2 Relationships with sub-contractors; 1.2.3 Consortiums and joint ventures; 1.2.5 Project and strategic partnering

✅ Correct Answer: Directive, with defined milestones

📌 Explanation:
This is closed change: what must change, why, and by when are all clear, and the outcome can be specified in advance. Conventional project planning and a directive approach fit, because progress towards a known endpoint can be measured objectively.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Exploratory, with emerging goals only – suits open-ended change where neither endpoint nor solution is agreed.
❌ Consultative, with open scope – suits contained change, where scope is clear but the solution is not.
❌ Deferred, pending more analysis – wastes the certainty the situation already provides.

📋 LO: 2.1 — Analyse the types of organisational change
📑 Indicative content: 2.1.1 Evolution; 2.1.2 Adaption; 2.1.3 Revolution; 2.1.4 Reconstruction; 2.1.5 Closed, contained and open-ended change

✅ Correct Answer: Reschedule inside available float

📌 Explanation:
Resource levelling moves activities within their float so demand for a constrained resource is smoothed. It resolves an unstaffable peak without changing scope, though where float is insufficient it may extend the duration.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Add more resource to critical tasks – is crashing, which shortens duration at extra cost and does not smooth a peak.
❌ Overlap sequential activities – is fast tracking, which compresses the schedule and raises risk.
❌ Extend the reporting interval – changes how often progress is reviewed and has no effect on demand.

📋 LO: 1.3 — Analyse the resources for projects
📑 Indicative content: 1.3.1 Resource loading and levelling; 1.3.5 Critical chain methodology; 1.3.6 Asset finance and the role of banks

✅ Correct Answer: Political factors

📌 Explanation:
PEST classifies by the source of the influence. A change to statutory entitlement is an act of government, so it belongs under political, which covers legislation, regulation, taxation and policy. Its effect may be felt as cost, but the origin is political.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Economic factors – cover growth, inflation, interest rates and employment levels rather than legislation.
❌ Technological factors – cover innovation, automation and obsolescence.
❌ Social factors – cover demographic shift, attitudes and lifestyle change.

📋 LO: 2.2 — Analyse situations that lead to organisational change
📑 Indicative content: 2.2.2 SWOT and PEST analysis; 2.2.3 Internal drivers; 2.2.5 Multiple-cause diagrams

✅ Correct Answer: Pool safety time into buffers

📌 Explanation:
Critical chain strips padding from individual activities, schedules them at aggressive durations, and pools the recovered time into a project buffer and feeding buffers. Buffer consumption then becomes the control measure, so protection is shared rather than hidden inside each task.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Extend each single activity estimate – increases the padding that is causing the problem.
❌ Report progress more often – improves visibility without changing where the protection sits.
❌ Raise the contingency budget – addresses cost rather than the scheduling behaviour described.

📋 LO: 1.3 — Analyse the resources for projects
📑 Indicative content: 1.3.1 Resource loading and levelling; 1.3.5 Critical chain methodology; 1.3.6 Asset finance and the role of banks

✅ Correct Answer: State early how each role is affected; Involve staff in designing delivery

📌 Explanation:
Fear of personal loss is reduced by removing uncertainty and restoring some control. Early, specific communication addresses the uncertainty, and genuine involvement in implementation design converts part of the resistance into ownership.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Delay all news until the plan is settled – extends the uncertainty, during which rumour fills the gap and resistance hardens.
❌ Stress the savings at every briefing – frames the change as a gain for the organisation and a cost to the individual.

📋 LO: 2.3 — Evaluate organisational responses to change
📑 Indicative content: 2.3.2 Resistance to change; 2.3.3 Cynicism and scepticism; 2.3.5 The change cycle

✅ Correct Answer: A multiple-cause diagram

📌 Explanation:
A multiple-cause diagram maps the several contributing causes of a situation and how they interact, including where one reinforces another. It is used precisely to break the assumption of a single cause and to show where an intervention would have most effect.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ A responsibility matrix – records who is responsible for tasks, not why performance is failing.
❌ A milestone trend chart – shows whether dates are slipping but not what is causing it.
❌ A detailed risk register review – examines events that might occur rather than causes already operating.

📋 LO: 2.2 — Analyse situations that lead to organisational change
📑 Indicative content: 2.2.2 SWOT and PEST analysis; 2.2.3 Internal drivers; 2.2.5 Multiple-cause diagrams

✅ Correct Answer: Participative and negotiated

📌 Explanation:
This is a soft problem on the change spectrum: objectives are disputed and no solution can be specified in advance, so it must be explored and negotiated with the people involved. Directive methods, which suit hard problems with clear objectives, fail here because they presume agreement that does not exist.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Directive and fully engineered – suits hard problems where the objective is clear and a solution can be designed.
❌ Automated and monitored – presumes a defined process, which a disputed objective does not provide.
❌ Deferred and reviewed – postpones a disagreement that will not resolve itself.

📋 LO: 2.4 — Analyse methods to manage, achieve and sustain change
📑 Indicative content: 2.4.2 Clarify goals; 2.4.4 Empowerment and ownership; 2.4.6 Lean and value stream mapping; 2.4.8 The change spectrum

✅ Correct Answer: Cynicism

📌 Explanation:
Cynicism is doubt learned from experience: earlier changes were announced and abandoned, so belief is withheld while cooperation is displayed. It is harder to detect than resistance because it looks like compliance, and it is answered by finishing a change visibly rather than by more communication.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Resistance – is visible objection, delay or refusal, which can be engaged with directly.
❌ Commitment – is genuine belief and discretionary effort towards the change.
❌ Confusion – would be resolved by clearer explanation, which cynicism would not.

📋 LO: 2.3 — Evaluate organisational responses to change
📑 Indicative content: 2.3.2 Resistance to change; 2.3.3 Cynicism and scepticism; 2.3.5 The change cycle

✅ Correct Answer: The initiation document

📌 Explanation:
The project initiation document records what was agreed before delivery began - the business case, scope, objectives, roles, plans and controls. It is the baseline against which any change is assessed, so a scope argument is settled by reference to it.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ The highlight report – reports progress in a period and does not define scope.
❌ The lessons learned logbook – captures experience for future projects.
❌ The project risk register – records threats and owners rather than agreed deliverables.

📋 LO: 3.1 — Evaluate structures for corporate governance of projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.1.1 Project boards; 3.1.2 Project responsibility charting; 3.1.3 Project initiation documents; 3.1.5 Project reporting

✅ Correct Answer: Map the value stream

📌 Explanation:
Value stream mapping documents every step with the time and information flow between them, then classifies each as value-adding, necessary non-value-adding, or waste. It makes delay and duplication visible, which is why it is the standard first step in lean improvement.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Benchmark against rivals – shows that performance is poor without showing which step causes it.
❌ Survey the requisitioners – gathers opinion rather than measured evidence of where time goes.
❌ Audit the approval limits – examines one control rather than the whole flow.

📋 LO: 2.4 — Analyse methods to manage, achieve and sustain change
📑 Indicative content: 2.4.2 Clarify goals; 2.4.4 Empowerment and ownership; 2.4.6 Lean and value stream mapping; 2.4.8 The change spectrum

✅ Correct Answer: Specify lower embodied-carbon materials; Design the asset for later disassembly

📌 Explanation:
Impact is largely fixed at design, when specification and structure are chosen; later change is expensive or impossible. Lower-impact materials reduce the footprint built in, and designing for disassembly determines whether material can be recovered at end of life.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Purchase offsets once building finishes – compensates after the fact without reducing the impact the design created.
❌ Disclose energy use in the annual report – is reporting, which measures impact rather than lowering it.

📋 LO: 3.2 — Analyse the common objectives for projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.2.2 The balance between cost, quality and time; 3.2.4 Building sustainability into major projects

✅ Correct Answer: Name one accountable person

📌 Explanation:
In a RACI matrix, accountability must rest with exactly one named person for each task. Shared accountability means nobody can be held to the outcome, which produces exactly the stalling described. Responsible, consulted and informed may legitimately be held by several people.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Add more consulted parties – widens input and slows the decision further.
❌ Mark all managers responsible – spreads the doing without settling who answers for the result.
❌ Report progress to everyone – increases information without assigning responsibility.

📋 LO: 3.1 — Evaluate structures for corporate governance of projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.1.1 Project boards; 3.1.2 Project responsibility charting; 3.1.3 Project initiation documents; 3.1.5 Project reporting

✅ Correct Answer: Revolution

📌 Explanation:
Revolution is transformational change delivered rapidly across the organisation, usually forced by a crisis that removes the option of incremental adjustment. It alters the paradigm as well as the structure, and carries the highest disruption risk because everything moves together.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Adaptation – is incremental change inside the existing paradigm.
❌ Evolution – is also transformational but achieved gradually and proactively.
❌ Realignment – adjusts position without changing the underlying paradigm.

📋 LO: 2.1 — Analyse the types of organisational change
📑 Indicative content: 2.1.1 Evolution; 2.1.2 Adaption; 2.1.3 Revolution; 2.1.4 Reconstruction; 2.1.5 Closed, contained and open-ended change

✅ Correct Answer: The cost

📌 Explanation:
Time, cost and scope are interdependent: fixing two determines the third. With date and scope both fixed, cost is the only remaining variable, typically through extra resource, overtime or premium supply. Refusing to move any of the three is what produces silent quality reduction.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ The time – has been fixed by the sponsor's delivery date.
❌ The scope – has been fixed by the sponsor's refusal to reduce it.
❌ The quality – should not be treated as the flexible variable; letting it absorb the pressure is a control failure.

📋 LO: 3.2 — Analyse the common objectives for projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.2.2 The balance between cost, quality and time; 3.2.4 Building sustainability into major projects

✅ Correct Answer: £80,000

📌 Explanation:
Expected monetary value multiplies probability by impact: 0.2 × £400,000 = £80,000. It puts risks of different likelihood and severity on one scale for comparison and for sizing contingency, though it never predicts what any single risk will actually cost.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ £320,000 – applies the complement of the probability rather than the probability.
❌ £400,000 – is the full impact, ignoring that the risk may not occur at all.
❌ £20,000 – divides the impact by twenty rather than applying the stated likelihood.

📋 LO: 3.3 — Analyse approaches to the management of risks in projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.3.1 Identifying assumptions and risks; 3.3.2 Risk simulation; 3.3.3 Risk registers; 3.3.4 Risk accountability

✅ Correct Answer: Assign a named owner per risk

📌 Explanation:
A risk needs a single named owner accountable for monitoring whether it is materialising and for triggering the agreed response. Registers without owners are compiled and then ignored, which is exactly the failure described.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ Increase the review frequency – surfaces the list more often but leaves nobody responsible for acting.
❌ Score the impact more precisely – improves prioritisation of a list nobody is acting on.
❌ Record more candidate risks – lengthens a register that is already not driving action.

📋 LO: 3.3 — Analyse approaches to the management of risks in projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.3.1 Identifying assumptions and risks; 3.3.2 Risk simulation; 3.3.3 Risk registers; 3.3.4 Risk accountability

✅ Correct Answer: 11 days

📌 Explanation:
PERT weights the most likely estimate four times: (optimistic + 4 × most likely + pessimistic) ÷ 6, giving (4 + 40 + 22) ÷ 6 = 11 days. The weighting lets the most likely case dominate while still allowing a long tail to pull the estimate upward.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ 12 days – is the unweighted average, which gives the extremes too much influence.
❌ 10 days – is the most likely value alone, ignoring the skew towards the pessimistic case.
❌ 18 days – does not follow from any recognised weighting of these three figures.

📋 LO: 3.4 — Critically compare methodologies for the planning and control of projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.4.1 Sequencing activities; 3.4.2 Network techniques including PERT and critical path; 3.4.3 Gantt charts and baselines

✅ Correct Answer: The float on that activity

📌 Explanation:
Float is the time an activity can slip without moving the completion date. Activities on the critical path have none, so any slip delays the project; activities with two weeks or more of float can absorb it. This measure answers the question directly.

❌ Why the other options are wrong:
❌ The total project duration – states how long the project takes, not whether one activity has slack.
❌ The budget contingency held – is a financial reserve and says nothing about schedule.
❌ The count of milestones – describes how progress is reported.

📋 LO: 3.4 — Critically compare methodologies for the planning and control of projects
📑 Indicative content: 3.4.1 Sequencing activities; 3.4.2 Network techniques including PERT and critical path; 3.4.3 Gantt charts and baselines