PMI Scheduling Professional Certification (PMI-SP) Practice Exam

What does an incremental life cycle provide?

1. Continuous feedback on project objectives.

2. Finished deliverables that can be used immediately by the customer.

3. Regular assessments of team performance.

4. Frequent changes to project scope.

The correct answer is: Finished deliverables that can be used immediately by the customer.

An incremental life cycle is characterized by the development and delivery of a project in small, usable segments or increments. This approach allows teams to release portions of the final product throughout the project duration, rather than waiting until the end to deliver the entire product. The rationale behind this method is that each increment can be a fully functional piece of the overall solution, meaning that stakeholders can start using and benefiting from these deliverables almost immediately. This not only provides value to the customer sooner but also allows for ongoing feedback and adjustments based on how the increments are received, enhancing customer satisfaction and aligning the project outcomes more closely with user needs. In the context of the other choices, while continuous feedback on project objectives is indeed a feature of many project management methodologies, it is not the primary feature of an incremental life cycle. Regular assessments of team performance may occur but are not unique to incremental approaches. While frequent changes to project scope can happen in agile methodologies, they are not inherent to the core principle of incremental delivery, which emphasizes producing usable deliverables at each stage. Therefore, the focus on finished deliverables that can be used immediately by the customer is the defining characteristic of the incremental life cycle.