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Friday, May 25, 2012

PMP Curtain Raiser

By Makarand V Hardas, MBA, PMP


This blog may be useful for fresh PMP aspirants, who are just about to begin and would like to pursue for PMP certification. Blog sets the foundation for aspirant to get familiar with various PMP basic process and knwoledge areas. Happy reading.




What is PMP?


     PMI Stands for Project Management Institute.
     Vital and forward thinking – focused on the needs of project management professionals worldwide; that’s the Project Management Institute of today. Long been acknowledged as a pioneer in the field and now membership represents a truly global community with more than 200,000 professionals, representing 125 countries.
     PMI professionals come from virtually every major industry including, aerospace, automotive, business management, construction, engineering, financial services, information technology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and telecommunications.
     PMP Stands for Project Management Professional
     PMP is one of the several certificate course offered by PMI. Others are CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management), PgPM (Program Management Professional), OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model)
     For more details on PMP & PMI please visit, www.pmi.org


What are Pre-Requisites ?


     Bachelor’s degree or Global Equivalent
     Minimum of 3 years (36 months) unique non overlapping professional project management experience during which at least 4500 hours are spent leading and directing project tasks.
     35 contact hours of formal project management education


What is the exam format?


     The PMP examination is comprised of 200 competency-based, multiple-choice questions. Of the 200 questions, 25 are considered pretest questions. Pretest questions do not affect the candidate’s score and are used in examinations as an effective and legitimate way to test the validity of future examination questions. The pretest questions are randomly placed throughout the exam.


     The exam is constructed based on the PMP Examination Specification. The Exam Specification details the percentage of questions that are contained in each process group. The following reflects the percentage of questions in each of the performance domains:
  •         Initiation, 11 percent
  • Planning, 23 percent
  • Executing, 27 percent
  • Monitoring and Controlling, 21 percent
  • Closing, 9 percent
  • Professional and Social Responsibility, 9 percent 

– The allotted time to complete the examination is four hours. The examination is preceded by a 15-minute computer tutorial, which is not part of the allotted four hours.


What is PMBOK?





The Project Management Book of Knowledge contains three main sections, they are


  •  The Project Management Framework
  •  The Project Management Process Group
  •  The Project Management Knowledge Area


Additionally, you are expected to study and adhere to Project Management Professional Code of conduct and Professional and Social Responsibility.


Project Management Framework


This subject covers the following topic :


      Definition of Project & Project Management


      General management knowledge & skills


      Interpersonal skills


      Programs and Program Management, Portfolio Management, Sub Projects


      PMO – Project Management Office


      The Project Life Cycle, Product Life Cycle


      Project Stakeholders


      Organizational System & Structure



Illustration - 1


Though the project manager had made a perfect project schedule for Training, Paul managed to reach Shanghai instead of Beijing.


The manager evaluated that, it could lead to a delay of 2 days in start of the training at Beijing and incur a loss of $2500 per day.


What decision the manager should take to ensure the training is completed and hence the project?


Project Management Knowledge Area


This subject covers the following topic :


      Project Integration Management


      Project Scope Management


      Project Time Management


      Project Cost Management


      Project Quality Management


      Project Human Resource Management


      Project Communication Management


      Project Risk Management


      Project Procurement Management





Project Management Process Group





INITIATION
PLANNING
EXECUTION
MONITORING and CONTROL
CLOSE-OUT
(Concept)
(Development)
(Implementation)
(Termination)/
 (Finishing)
Select project

Create Scope Statement & scope management plan

Execute the project plan

Integrated change control

Procurement audits

Determine project objectives

Determine project team

Manage project progress

Project performance reporting

Product verification

Determine high level deliverables, time & cost estimates

Create WBS

Complete work packages or tasks

Performance reporting

Formal acceptance

Determine high level constraints & assumptions

Finalize the team & create resource management plan

Distribute information

Scope change control

Lessons learned

Determine business need

Create WBS dictionary

Quality assurance

Quality control

Update records

Develop product description

Define responsibilities of the project manager

Create Network Diagram

Team development

Risk monitoring & control

Archive records

Determine high-level resource requirements

Estimate time & costs

Progress meetings

Schedule control

Release resources

Finalize project charter

Determine Critical path

Cost control

Develop Schedule & schedule management plan

Scope verification

Develop Budget

Manage by exception to the project plan

Create Communications Management Plan

Ensure compliance with plans

Create Quality Management Plan

Reassess plans

Risk management planning, identification, qualification, quantification & response planning

Take corrective action

Create procurement management plan

Create stakeholder management plan

Create project control plan

Develop formal project plan

Gain formal project plan approval

Hold kickoff meeting



Sample Questions -


Question # 1: Which of the following is not the feature of a project?
          1 Constrained by limited resources


          2 Planned, executed and controlled


          3 Creates unique product or service


          4 May be ongoing and repetitive


Question # 2: What are the Process Groups in Project Management?


1 Concept, Initiating, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, Closing


          2 Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, Closing


          3 Initiating, Verifying, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, Closing


          4 Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling, Administrative Closure




Hope this will help you get some direction and traction in order to pursue for the PMP certification.


In coming few days I will try to put few more posts on how to prepare for Exam according to each knowledge area. Stay tuned ..


PMI, PMP, CAPM, PMBOK, PM Network and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Special Note: With a due credit to Mr Sriram Iyengar, PMP who has encouraged me for the PMP certification. The original article belongs to him and this is tailored version of original article. 

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