Top 10 Primavera Interview questions and Model Answers

The most common Management Interview Questions for Primavera interview and what is the model  answer to all of them, Best Interview Questions and Answers

Popular Interview Questions

Preparing for a Primavera Interview is not difficult if you know what you are doing. Just read and search about the company history and current ongoing projects and check sample interview questions and answers for your job position. For the Primavera interview, check out these Primavera interview questions and answers for your reference.

Q1: What are the differences between free float, and total float, and what is different between Float and Slack?

This is a very common question in a primavera interview, Float and slack are two different words with the same meaning.

Free Float: amount of time, an activity can be delayed without delaying the successor activity

Total Float: amount of time, an activity can be delayed without delaying the project finish date.

Q2: What is a constraint in primavera?

Constraints in primavera is to fix the early or late start or finish date of an activity as per the following options:

1) As Late As Possible

2) Mandatory Start / Mandatory Finish

3) Start / Finish On or After

4) Start / Finish On or Before

5) Start / Finish On

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Q3: How can you define the Critical Path in Primavera?

The sequence of activities describes the longest path from the data date to the end of the project. In a schedule without any constraints, this will be all activities with zero total float.

(If you have constraints that force negative float, simply filtering on total float equal to or less than zero can bring up activities that are not on the critical path)

Q4:What is WBS?

WBS means Work Breakdown Structure. It represents a hierarchical breakdown of a project into elements and deliverables.

Q5: What is an open-end activity in primavera?

An open-end activity is an activity that does not have any successor. Normally open-end activity is not accepted in the schedule because the total float will be calculated from the end of the project and these entire activities’ late dates gather at the end of the project and can not be prepared for a logical late start plan.

Q6: What is the difference between Retained Logic & Override Logic in progress update?

If a project is generally running according to plan and activities are not progressed out of sequence then there will be virtually no difference between the two methods.

BIG differences come when activities are progressed out of sequence. I believe in retained logic. Invariably that will produce the longest critical path but if activities have progressed out of sequence, there could be some resulting illogical dependencies remaining, in particular resulting from dependencies with durations.

Progress override invariably produces a shorter critical path and again there could be some illogical lack of dependencies resulting from activities having been progressed out of sequence.

Q7: How do you measure & compare the progress using Primavera?

This is one of the hard Primavera interview questions, try to explain without confusion.

Progress is measured primarily against the baseline.  If the baseline has been loaded with cost and/or resources, earned value management can be used for this purpose.

If not, progress is measured as variance to baseline dates.

• Budget at Completion (BAC)
• Planned Value (PV) = budget at Completion (BAC) x Planned % Complete
• Earned Value (EV) = budget at Completion (BAC) x Actual% Complete
• Actual Cost (AC) = No formula What you’ve spent on the project
• Schedule Performance Index (SPl) =Earned Value (EV) / Planned Value (PV)
• Schedule Variance (SV) =Earned Value (EV) – Planned Value (PV)
• Cost Performance Index (CPI) =Earned Value (EV) / Actual Cost (AC)
• To Complete Performance Index (TCPI) =(Budget at Completion (BAC) –Earned Value (EV) ) / (Budget at Completion (BAC) -Actual Cost (AC) )
• Cost Variance (CV) = Earned Value (EV)  -Actual Cost (AC)
  For more information see this article: EVM earned value management

Q8: What is resource allocation and resource leveling?

Resource allocation is assigning resources to activities, and determining the amount of labor, equipment, and money required for any activity.
Resource leveling is the resource requirements of all scheduled activities that are compared to the maximum quantity available at the time of leveling.

An activity is delayed if too few resources are available at any time during the activity’s duration. The maximum quantity for a resource is determined through the max units/time for a particular resource in the “Resources” tab.

Q9: What is an S-Curve and how to create a curve in primavera?

An S-curve is a graph showing cumulative cost or value (measured in terms of money or manhours) against time. On a typical project, these graphs follow an “S” shape, hence the name. Typical data to be plotted on an S-Curve includes:

• Actual Cost (ACWP)
• Planned Value (BCWS) –Early dates
• Planned Value (BCWS) –Late dates
• Earned Value (BCWP)
• Forecast Value –Early dates
• Forecast value –Late dates
• Forecast Cost –Early dates
• Forecast cost –Late dates

Q10: What are the differences between flag and milestone activity in primavera?

This is one of the tricky Primavera interview questions.

Milestones & flags both are events rather than activities. Some client likes to use flags rather than milestone due to the following differences.

• With the use of flags, the logic of the main event can be easily tracked as these can not be created without a predecessor as a stand-alone allocating the constraint. Whereas milestones can.
• Flags can not be updated manually as Primavera automatically update the status as milestone can be updated manually.
• Flags can not be constrained only driven by predecessors as milestones can.

Advice: At the end of your primavera interview thank the interviewer by sending him a thanking interview email following your interview.

You can also read  Planning Engineer Interview Guide – 90 Questions and Model Answers

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