Quiz template · Corporate
Management theories quiz questions and answers
20 questions on the ideas managers quote every week: Pareto, Parkinson, Maslow, kanban, Six Sigma, OKRs and more, with answers and short explanations.
Medium 20 questions 30 s each · about 17 min Checked against two sources
A round for a management training day, a leadership course or a team meeting where you want people talking about how work gets done. You start with the ideas most of your room will know, like the 80/20 rule and work expanding to fill the time. Then you move to the theories behind kanban, Six Sigma and OKRs. Every answer is checked against two sources. Twenty questions take about 17 minutes.
How to run it
- Play it at the start of a training day. The wrong answers show you which ideas the group has heard of but never had explained, so you know where to spend your time.
- After question 12, the Hawthorne effect, ask your room where they have seen it. Someone will mention a visit from senior staff, and that story does more than any slide.
- Questions 16 to 20 are app only. Question 20, Dunbar's number, is the tie-breaker, so keep it for the end even if you shuffle the rest.
Questions and answers
1The Pareto principle says that about 80 percent of results come from what share of the causes?Easy
- A10 percent
- B20 percent
- C50 percent
- D80 percent
Reveal answer
B. 20 percent
Vilfredo Pareto noticed that about 80 percent of the land in Italy belonged to 20 percent of the people. Joseph Juran later applied the idea to quality work, where a few causes drive most of the defects.
2In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which needs form the bottom level?Easy
- AEsteem
- BSafety
- CSelf-actualisation
- DPhysiological
Reveal answer
D. Physiological
Food, water, warmth and sleep come first. Maslow put safety next, then love and belonging, then esteem, with self-actualisation at the top.
3Parkinson's law says that work expands to fill what?Easy
- AThe time available for it
- BThe budget approved for it
- CThe number of people assigned to it
- DThe size of the office
Reveal answer
A. The time available for it
Cyril Northcote Parkinson wrote the line in a 1955 essay for The Economist. His point was that a task takes as long as you give it, so a tight deadline is a tool, not a threat.
4Tuckman's stages of team development are forming, storming, norming and what?Easy
- AReforming
- BPerforming
- CReporting
- DPlanning
Reveal answer
B. Performing
Bruce Tuckman set out the four stages in 1965. He added a fifth, adjourning, in 1977 for teams that finish their work and break up.
5The kanban system of cards that signal when to make or move parts was developed at which company?Easy
- AFord
- BSony
- CToyota
- DBoeing
Reveal answer
C. Toyota
Taiichi Ohno built kanban into the Toyota Production System after the Second World War. The cards pull work through the factory only when the next step needs it. Software teams later borrowed the idea for their boards.
6In the SMART goals model, what does the S stand for?Easy
- ASimple
- BStrategic
- CSpecific
- DShared
Reveal answer
C. Specific
George Doran set out SMART in a 1981 article. The usual reading is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, though the last four letters vary from one author to the next.
7Kaizen, a word you hear across lean management, is Japanese for what?Easy
- AZero defects
- BJust in time
- CTeamwork
- DImprovement
Reveal answer
D. Improvement
Kaizen means improvement, usually read as continuous improvement. The idea is many small changes from the people doing the work, not one big project handed down from above.
8Frederick Taylor's early 1900s method of timing tasks with a stopwatch to find the one best way of working is known as what?Medium
- AScientific management
- BTotal quality management
- CLean production
- DAgile
Reveal answer
A. Scientific management
Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911. His time studies shaped mass production, and they still show up in how factories and warehouses set their targets.
9The Peter principle says that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to what?Medium
- AThe top of the pay scale
- BTheir level of incompetence
- CThe job they trained for
- DA role with no reports
Reveal answer
B. Their level of incompetence
Laurence J. Peter wrote the book in 1969 with Raymond Hull. Each promotion rewards success in the last job, so people stop at the first job they cannot do well.
10Which company developed the Six Sigma quality method in the 1980s?Medium
- AGeneral Electric
- BToyota
- CIBM
- DMotorola
Reveal answer
D. Motorola
Bill Smith introduced Six Sigma at Motorola in 1986. General Electric made it famous in the 1990s under Jack Welch, which is why so many people guess GE.
11Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs, were first used at which company under Andy Grove?Medium
- AGoogle
- BIntel
- CMicrosoft
- DHewlett-Packard
Reveal answer
B. Intel
Grove developed OKRs at Intel in the 1970s. John Doerr learned them there and took them to Google, which is where most people first heard of them.
12The Hawthorne effect, where people work differently because they know they are being watched, takes its name from what?Medium
- AA psychologist
- BA university
- CA factory
- DA town in England
Reveal answer
C. A factory
The studies ran at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works near Chicago from 1924 to 1932. Output rose when the lighting went up and again when it went down, so the attention seemed to matter more than the light.
13Who popularised management by objectives in the 1954 book The Practice of Management?Medium
- APeter Drucker
- BHenry Ford
- CMichael Porter
- DTom Peters
Reveal answer
A. Peter Drucker
Drucker argued that managers and staff should agree goals together and then judge results against them. OKRs and most annual review systems trace back to this idea.
14Porter's five forces, a framework for judging how competitive an industry is, was created by a professor at which business school?Hard
- AWharton
- BINSEAD
- CHarvard Business School
- DLondon Business School
Reveal answer
C. Harvard Business School
Michael Porter published the five forces in 1979 in the Harvard Business Review. They are rivalry, new entrants, substitutes, and the power of suppliers and of buyers.
15The balanced scorecard, from Kaplan and Norton, tracks performance from how many perspectives?Hard
- ATwo
- BThree
- CFour
- DSix
Reveal answer
C. Four
The four are financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. The point was to stop companies steering by money alone.
5 more questions in the full pack. Play all 20 live, free.
Get all 20 questions, ready to play live - free for 100 playersQuestions about this template
Which management theories does the quiz cover?
The classics you meet on any management course: the Pareto principle, Parkinson's law, Maslow's hierarchy, Tuckman's team stages, scientific management, the Peter principle, Six Sigma, kanban, kaizen, OKRs, the Hawthorne effect, management by objectives, Porter's five forces, the balanced scorecard, Herzberg, the Pomodoro technique, PDCA, Brooks's law and Dunbar's number.
Can I run it live in a training room?
Yes. Press Go live, put the PIN or QR code on the screen and people join on their phones. The leaderboard shows after each question, with a bonus for speed. The free plan covers 100 players in a session.
Do people need to download anything?
No. Players open the link or scan the code in a browser, type the PIN and a name, and they are in. Only the host needs a RiLiFi account.
Can I swap in our own frameworks?
Yes. Use this template to make a copy, then replace any question with the models your company uses, or add questions about your own values and processes.
Sources
Every answer shown here was checked against two sources, listed below. Links last checked 3 November 2026.
- Pareto principle - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Vilfredo Pareto - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Abraham Maslow - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Parkinson's Law - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- C. Northcote Parkinson - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Tuckman's stages of group development - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Bruce Tuckman - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Kanban - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Kanban - Toyota Production System guide | Toyota UKmag.toyota.co.uk
- SMART criteria - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Goal Setting | MIT Human Resourceshr.mit.edu
- Kaizen - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- What is kaizen and how does Toyota use it? | Toyota UKmag.toyota.co.uk
- Scientific management - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Frederick Winslow Taylor - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Peter principle - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Laurence J. Peter - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Six Sigma - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Bill Smith (Motorola engineer) - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Objectives and key results - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Andrew Grove - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Hawthorne effect - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Introduction - The Human Relations Movement - Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collectionslibrary.hbs.edu
- Management by objectives - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Peter Drucker - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Porter's five forces analysis - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- The Five Forces - Institute For Strategy And Competitiveness - Harvard Business Schoolisc.hbs.edu
- Balanced scorecard - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- Balanced Scorecard Basics - Balanced Scorecard Institutebalancedscorecard.org
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