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Free PMP Practice Questions for the 2026 Exam
45 free PMP practice questions written for PMI's July 2026 exam outline: People (33%), Process (41%) and Business Environment (26%), with predictive, agile and hybrid scenarios and five earned value calculations. Every answer is explained, and your results show a score for each domain.
Question 1 of 20People
Score: 0
Midway through a hybrid project, two senior developers tell the project manager they no longer see why the product matters, and their sprint commitments have started slipping. What should the project manager do FIRST?
All 45 PMP practice questions with answers
Every question in the bank, grouped by exam domain. Open one to see the answer and the reasoning.
People
Midway through a hybrid project, two senior developers tell the project manager they no longer see why the product matters, and their sprint commitments have started slipping. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Ask the developers where their understanding of the vision broke down
Before acting, the project manager should find the root cause of the misunderstanding, which means talking with the people who raised it. Rewriting the vision is tempting, but without knowing what was misunderstood it may not fix anything.
Two developers on an agile team disagree sharply about which framework to use for a new service. The debate has spilled into daily standups and is slowing the team down. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Facilitate a focused session where the team weighs both options
Collaborating on the problem, with the team weighing the trade-offs together, gives a lasting resolution the team owns. Choosing for them ends the debate quickly but removes ownership and can leave resentment, so it is a last resort.
The team's working agreement says members will not interrupt each other in retrospectives. One team member keeps breaking that rule, and others have started to go quiet. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Speak privately with the member about the behaviour and its effect
A private, direct conversation is the respectful first step for a ground rule violation and gives the person a chance to correct it. Calling it out publicly can embarrass the individual and damage trust, while going to a manager skips a step the project manager owns.
A project manager used a hands-off style with her last team of experts. Her new team is mostly junior, and members keep stalling while they wait for guidance. What should she do?
Answer: Give more direction and coaching while the team builds skill
Effective leaders adapt their style to the team's maturity, so a junior team needs more direction and coaching at first, with autonomy growing as competence grows. Staying hands-off ignores clear evidence that the team is stuck.
During sprint planning, a developer asks the project manager to simply tell the team how many story points a feature is worth, since the project manager built something similar years ago. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Facilitate the team's estimate and share past work as input
In agile delivery the people doing the work estimate it, and a servant leader supports that by facilitating and sharing relevant history as input. Handing down an estimate is faster but undermines team ownership and commitment.
A release was delayed because two team members each assumed the other was preparing the test environment. What should the project manager do NEXT?
Answer: Work with the team to clarify who owns each shared task
The root cause is unclear ownership, so the fix is to agree roles with the team, for example in a responsibility assignment matrix such as a RACI chart. Blaming individuals does nothing to prevent the next gap.
Three months into a project to replace a claims system, the project manager learns that an internal audit group must sign off before go-live. Nobody has engaged this group so far. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Add the group to the stakeholder register and analyze its needs
A newly discovered stakeholder should be identified and analyzed first so the project manager understands its interest, influence and requirements. A change request may follow, but it is premature before anyone knows what the group needs.
The project's executive sponsor admits she has stopped reading the weekly status report because it runs to twelve pages. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Ask what she needs and tailor a short summary for her
Communication should be tailored to each stakeholder, so the project manager should ask what the sponsor needs and update the communication approach. Continuing a report she does not read follows the letter of the plan but defeats its purpose.
An influential operations director openly resists a new scheduling system because it changes how her team works. Her objections are starting to sway other managers. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Meet with the director to understand her concerns and their causes
Engaging a resistant stakeholder starts with understanding her concerns, which builds trust and often reveals legitimate risks. Asking the sponsor to override her may win compliance but not support, and it belongs after direct engagement has failed.
The marketing lead wants the product launched next quarter with a reduced feature set. The sales lead insists every planned feature ship at launch. Both have significant influence. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Bring both leads together to agree priorities against the goals
The project manager should facilitate a discussion that aligns both stakeholders around the project's business objectives, so the trade-off is made openly. Escalating to the sponsor is appropriate only if that facilitation fails to produce agreement.
At a sprint review, the customer agrees an increment meets its acceptance criteria but says it is not what the business really needs. What is the BEST response?
Answer: Work with the product owner to capture the feedback in the backlog
Sprint reviews exist to gather feedback, and the product owner turns it into new or refined backlog items for future sprints. Insisting the criteria were met may be technically true, but it ignores what the customer actually needs from the product.
The only engineer who understands a legacy payment interface has resigned and leaves in six weeks. Several upcoming sprints depend on that interface. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Plan knowledge transfer now, such as pairing and shared notes
Critical knowledge should be transferred while the expert is still available, through pairing, walkthroughs and shared documentation. Logging the departure is reasonable, but monitoring alone protects nothing, and leaving documentation to the last week is too late.
A team split across Toronto, Vancouver and Bengaluru keeps missing decisions made in meetings that some members cannot attend. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Agree with the team on overlap hours and written decision logs
A communication approach agreed with the team, such as limited overlap hours plus decisions recorded in a shared channel, respects time zones and keeps everyone informed. Forcing one city's schedule on the whole team is unfair and does not scale.
A project manager takes over a team whose previous leader often blamed individuals for mistakes. Team members now rarely raise problems until it is too late. What should the new project manager do?
Answer: Set blameless norms with the team and model them every time
People raise problems early only when it feels safe, so the project manager should agree blameless norms with the team and then demonstrate them consistently. A one-time reassurance is easy to give but rarely changes behaviour without visible follow-through.
A reliable team member has missed three deadlines in a row, which is unlike her. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Meet with her privately to understand what has changed
A sudden change in a reliable person's work calls for a private conversation to understand the cause, which may be personal, technical or workload related. Documenting or escalating first skips that assessment and can damage trust.
Process
A credit union wants a new mobile banking app. The regulatory reporting features are fixed and well understood, but the member-facing features will change as feedback arrives. Which delivery approach should the project manager recommend?
Answer: A hybrid: plan reporting up front, iterate on member features
Assessing the project's needs shows two kinds of work: stable, regulated requirements suit predictive planning, while uncertain, feedback-driven features suit iterative delivery. A fully predictive plan would lock in member features that are expected to change.
A product owner keeps rejecting stories the developers consider finished, because testing in the staging environment was never done. This has happened in several sprints. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Facilitate a definition of done the team and product owner share
Repeated disputes about whether work is finished point to a missing or unclear definition of done, which the team and product owner should agree on together. A separate testing sprint delays feedback rather than fixing the shared understanding.
A project will deliver three finance modules over nine months. The invoice automation module could cut processing costs on its own as soon as it goes live. The sponsor wants benefits as early as possible. What should the project manager propose?
Answer: Release the invoice module first so its savings begin sooner
When a component delivers value on its own, releasing it early starts the benefits sooner and produces real feedback. Holding everything for one release may feel safer, but it delays value the sponsor has explicitly asked for.
The schedule assigns a database specialist 60 hours of work in each of two weeks. Some of her activities have float, and the project end date cannot move. Which technique should the project manager use?
Answer: Resource smoothing, shifting her work only within float
Resource smoothing moves activities only within their float, so the critical path and end date stay the same, which fits a fixed deadline. Resource levelling also fixes over-allocation, but it can push the end date out, which is not allowed here.
A project manager needs an outside firm to explore an AI integration whose scope cannot be defined yet, and the work must begin within two weeks. Which contract type fits BEST?
Answer: Time and materials with a not-to-exceed limit
Time and materials suits work that must start quickly before scope is defined, and a not-to-exceed limit caps the buyer's cost exposure. A firm fixed price needs a defined scope the buyer does not have yet, so sellers would decline or add a large risk premium.
A vendor has delivered two components late, putting the next milestone at risk. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Review the contract terms and meet the vendor about the delays
The project manager should first confirm the contractual obligations and learn why the delays happened, then agree a recovery plan with the vendor. Withholding payment or moving toward termination before that conversation may breach the contract and damage the relationship.
A risk in the register occurs: a supplier raises a component price, adding $8,000 in cost. The planned response is funded from the contingency reserve. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Apply the contingency reserve and update the project records
Contingency reserve covers identified risks and sits inside the cost baseline, so the project manager can apply it under the agreed plan and then update the records. Management reserve is for unidentified risks and normally needs sponsor or governance approval.
On a hybrid project, defects have reached production after each of the last three releases. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Analyze the escaped defects with the team for root causes
Root cause analysis shows whether the problem lies in requirements, coding or testing, so the fix targets the real source. Adding a testing phase is tempting, but it treats the symptom and may not catch the kind of defects that are escaping.
A predictive project is two weeks behind on its critical path. The budget cannot increase, but two sequential critical activities could safely be partly overlapped. Which technique should the project manager use?
Answer: Fast tracking
Fast tracking runs activities in parallel that were planned in sequence, shortening the schedule without adding cost, although it raises the risk of rework. Crashing also compresses the schedule, but it adds resources and cost, which the fixed budget rules out.
An agile team completed 30, 34, 28 and 32 story points in its last four sprints. The release backlog has 248 points remaining. About how many more sprints should the team forecast?
Answer: 8
Average velocity is (30 + 34 + 28 + 32) / 4 = 124 / 4 = 31 points per sprint, and 248 / 31 = 8 sprints. A forecast based on average velocity should be revisited as the team's actual velocity changes.
A sponsor asks for a weekly written status report. The team already keeps a live task board and a release burnup chart. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Walk the sponsor through the board and ask what is missing
The existing information radiators may already meet the sponsor's needs, so the project manager should walk through them and find any gaps before creating new reports. Refusing to report ignores a legitimate stakeholder need, while a separate report may duplicate what is already visible.
The customer has formally accepted the final deliverables, but the operations team that will support the system says it is not ready to take it over. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Agree handover criteria with operations and close the gaps
Closing a project includes validating readiness for transition, so the project manager should agree the handover criteria with operations and resolve what is missing. Customer acceptance alone does not mean the product can be sustained once the project team is released.
The organization's new AI scheduling assistant recommends moving two testers onto the critical path to recover a delay. The project manager has not checked whether the testers have the right skills. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Validate the recommendation with the team and known constraints first
AI output is an input to a decision, not the decision itself, so the project manager should test it against the team's knowledge and real constraints such as skills and availability. Applying it blindly risks assigning people who cannot do the work, while dismissing it wastes useful analysis.
At a status review, a project shows planned value of $80,000, earned value of $72,000 and actual cost of $90,000. Which statement describes the project?
Answer: Behind schedule and over budget
SPI = EV / PV = 72,000 / 80,000 = 0.90, and CPI = EV / AC = 72,000 / 90,000 = 0.80. Both indexes are below 1.0, so the project is behind schedule and over budget.
A project has a budget at completion of $200,000. Earned value is $50,000 and actual cost is $62,500. The cost overrun is expected to continue at the same rate. What is the estimate at completion?
Answer: $250,000
CPI = EV / AC = 50,000 / 62,500 = 0.80, and when current performance is expected to continue, EAC = BAC / CPI = 200,000 / 0.80 = $250,000. The $212,500 figure, AC + (BAC - EV), assumes the remaining work will go exactly to budget, which contradicts the scenario.
A project has a budget at completion of $120,000, earned value of $30,000 and actual cost of $40,000. The overrun came from a one-time event, and the remaining work is expected to go exactly to budget. What is the estimate to complete?
Answer: $90,000
Because the overrun will not recur, the remaining work is valued at budget: ETC = BAC - EV = 120,000 - 30,000 = $90,000, which makes EAC = AC + ETC = $130,000. The $120,000 figure assumes the current CPI of 0.75 continues, which the scenario rules out.
A project has a budget at completion of $500,000, earned value of $200,000 and actual cost of $250,000. The sponsor says the original budget cannot change. What cost efficiency must the team achieve on the remaining work?
Answer: 1.20
TCPI = (BAC - EV) / (BAC - AC) = (500,000 - 200,000) / (500,000 - 250,000) = 300,000 / 250,000 = 1.20. The current CPI is only 200,000 / 250,000 = 0.80, so finishing within budget needs a large and possibly unrealistic improvement.
A project reports planned value of $60,000, earned value of $66,000 and actual cost of $70,000. What are the cost variance and the schedule variance?
Answer: CV = -$4,000 and SV = +$6,000
CV = EV - AC = 66,000 - 70,000 = -$4,000, and SV = EV - PV = 66,000 - 60,000 = +$6,000, so the project is ahead of schedule but over budget. The -$10,000 option wrongly compares planned value with actual cost.
Business environment
The steering committee requires escalation whenever cost variance exceeds 10%. A project's variance has just reached 12%, and the project manager believes the team can recover. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Escalate to the steering committee with analysis and recovery options
Escalation thresholds exist so decision makers see significant variances when they happen, and the project manager should bring analysis and options rather than just the problem. Trying to recover quietly may feel responsible, but it bypasses the agreed governance process.
A business analyst wants to paste a client's confidential requirements into a public generative AI tool to draft user stories faster. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Check the organization's data and AI policies with the analyst
Sharing confidential client data with an external tool raises security and contractual compliance questions, so the project manager must confirm what policies and agreements allow before any data is shared. A blanket ban overreacts and may rule out approved tools that could help the team.
Midway through an agile project, a new privacy regulation is announced that takes effect before the planned launch. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Assess the regulation's impact with the product owner
Changes in the external environment should be assessed for their impact on scope, after which the product owner can reprioritize the backlog. Adding features to the current sprint skips that assessment and disrupts the sprint goal.
On a predictive project with an approved scope baseline, a senior stakeholder asks the project manager to add a report, saying it is a small change. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Analyze the request's impact on scope, schedule, cost and risk
Even small changes go through the change control process, starting with an impact analysis that the decision makers will need. Adding the report informally because the requester is senior is scope creep, however small the change looks.
Midway through a sprint, a stakeholder asks a developer to add a new feature right away. The developer brings the request to the project manager. What should happen?
Answer: The product owner ranks it in the backlog for a future sprint
In agile delivery, new requests go to the product owner, who weighs them against other backlog items, which protects the sprint goal. Cancelling a sprint is reserved for when the sprint goal itself becomes obsolete, not for a single new idea.
An agile team has waited five days for another department to approve a firewall change, and its sprint goal is now at risk. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Work with the department's lead to clear the approval quickly
Removing impediments the team cannot clear on its own is a core servant leadership duty, and cross-department approvals often need the project manager's influence. Waiting for the retrospective lets the sprint goal fail when action is needed now.
During a status meeting, a site lead mentions that the city may take longer than usual to issue a building permit this year. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Record it as a risk and analyze it with the team
An uncertain future event that could affect the project is a risk, so it should be recorded and analyzed for probability and impact before a response is chosen. Adding buffer right away skips that analysis and may be the wrong response.
A team plans to use an untested open-source library that could expose the product to security flaws. The project manager decides to use the organization's already certified library instead, so the threat no longer applies. Which risk response is this?
Answer: Avoid
Changing the plan so the threat is eliminated is avoidance. Mitigation would keep the open-source library but reduce the probability or impact of a flaw, for example through extra security testing.
A risk in the register has now occurred: the hardware supplier has confirmed a three-week shipping delay. A response was planned for this event. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Carry out the planned response and track it as an issue
Once a risk occurs it becomes an issue, and the project manager should execute the agreed response and manage it through the issue log. Escalating first is unnecessary when an approved response already exists for this exact event.
The same improvement idea, faster code reviews, has come up in four retrospectives in a row, but nothing has changed. What should the project manager do?
Answer: Help the team commit to one concrete action with a named owner
Retrospectives drive improvement only when ideas become specific actions that someone owns and the team reviews next time, often by adding them to the backlog. Reporting to managers shifts responsibility away from the team that should own its own process.
An organization is moving its projects from predictive to agile delivery. Middle managers are resisting because their approval role is disappearing. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Assess the culture and engage managers on their new roles
Supporting organizational change starts with understanding the culture and the concerns behind resistance, then involving the people affected in shaping their new roles. A mandate from above may force compliance, but it rarely produces the support a lasting change needs.
During a design review, the project manager learns that a provincial accessibility regulation applies to the public website being built, and the current design does not meet it. What should the project manager do FIRST?
Answer: Assess the compliance gap and what noncompliance would mean
The project manager should first measure how far the design falls short and what noncompliance would mean, then plan the required changes through change control. Ordering a full redesign immediately skips that analysis and may redo work that already complies.
Frequently asked questions
Are these PMP practice questions free?
Yes. All 45 questions are free with no sign-up. CISNET's PMP instructors wrote them in their own words against PMI's July 2026 Examination Content Outline, and every answer explains why it is the best choice and why the most tempting alternative is not.
Do these questions follow the 2026 PMP exam?
Yes. PMI launched the current PMP exam on July 9, 2026, weighting People at 33%, Process at 41% and Business Environment at 26%. The bank uses the same weighting and the outline's domain mapping, so change control, risk and compliance questions sit under Business Environment.
How many questions are on the real PMP exam?
The PMP exam has 180 questions in 240 minutes, with two 10-minute breaks. 170 questions are scored and 10 are unscored pretest questions you cannot tell apart. About 40% of the exam uses predictive approaches and 60% agile or hybrid, which this bank mirrors in its scenarios.
Are there earned value questions?
Yes. Five questions practise the earned value formulas the exam expects you to apply: cost and schedule variance, CPI and SPI, estimate at completion, estimate to complete and the to-complete performance index. Each explanation shows the arithmetic step by step.
How should I use PMP practice questions?
Answer as PMI expects a project manager to act: assess the situation, collaborate, address the root cause and follow the agreed process before escalating. Read every explanation, note your weakest domain from the results, study it, then take a new random set.
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