You have a critical 5-day window and a $100,000 contingency reserve. You planned five actions at $20,000 each and 1 day each. After 3 days you completed two actions and have spent $80,000. What should the project manager do next?

The correct answer is to reevaluate and reprioritize the remaining actions because both the Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) are less than 1.0. Let's calculate: Planned Value (PV) for 3 days = 3 actions $20,000/action = $60,000. Earned Value (EV) for 2 completed actions = 2 actions $20,000/action = $40,000. Actual Cost (AC) = $80,000. CPI = EV / AC = $40,000 / $80,000 = 0.5. SPI = EV / PV = $40,000 / $60,000 = 0.67. Both CPI (0.5) and SPI (0.67) are less than 1.0, indicating the project is over budget and behind schedule. This situation requires immediate action to reassess the plan. Stopping work and submitting a change request (option 2) might be necessary later, but first, the project manager should understand the impact and explore internal adjustments. Finishing all actions (option 1) without addressing the issues would exacerbate the problems. Option 3 is incorrect because the CPI and SPI are not greater than 1.0.