A Meridian stakeholder asks the project manager to list the CPMAI methodology's six phases in the correct order. Which sequence is correct?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Say it in order enough times and it sticks: understand the business, understand the data, prepare the data, build the model, evaluate it, then put it to work. That's the whole CPMAI spine.
Full Explanation
The CPMAI methodology's six phases, in their fixed and exam-critical order, are: Business Understanding, Data Understanding, Data Preparation, Model Development, Model Evaluation, and Operationalization. Each phase logically depends on the one before it — you can't meaningfully prepare data before understanding what data exists (Data Understanding must precede Data Preparation), you can't build a model on unprepared data (Data Preparation must precede Model Development), and you can't evaluate a model that doesn't exist yet (Model Development must precede Model Evaluation) — which is why the other three orderings in this question are wrong: each scrambles at least one of these logical dependencies, such as placing Model Development before Data Preparation, or Operationalization before the model has even been evaluated. This ordering is explicitly named across the Domain II task titles in the exam content outline (Executing the Business Understanding Phase, Managing the Data Understanding Phase, Coordinating the Data Preparation Activities, Determining the Approaches for Model Development, Conducting Model Evaluation and Maintenance, with Operationalization/deployment as the sixth and final phase), so a CPMAI-certified project manager is expected to recall this sequence exactly and to recognize a described real-world activity as belonging to its correct place in it. The exam point: this order is foundational and worth memorizing cold, since many scenario questions test phase recognition rather than the name itself.