PMI Risk Management Professional Practice Exam

Duration and cost estimates in a project primarily feed into which risk management process?

1. Identify Risks

2. Monitoring and Controlling

3. Reserve analysis

4. Validate Scope

The correct answer is: Identify Risks

Duration and cost estimates in a project primarily feed into the process of identifying risks. This is because understanding the time and financial resources required for a project allows teams to recognize potential risks associated with these estimates. If a project is under-resourced or timeline constraints are unrealistic, this can lead to various risks such as delays, budget overruns, and scope creep. Having accurate and realistic duration and cost estimates enables project managers and teams to proactively identify these risks and develop strategies to mitigate them. By clearly understanding where the project stands in terms of its resources and timeline, the project team can better foresee challenges that may arise during execution and plan accordingly. While the other processes mentioned—monitoring and controlling, reserve analysis, and validating scope—also play important roles in project management, they do not primarily rely on duration and cost estimates to identify risks as the identification phase does. Instead, they focus on the ongoing management and verification of those estimates once risks have already been considered.