PMP in 21 Days | Based on PMBOK 6

The changes in processes could be categorized as follows: Planning Process Additions: The Planning processes for few of the knowledge areas were clubbed. Now to bring uniformity new planning processes are introduced. These are:         5.1 Plan Scope Management         6.1 Plan Schedule Management         7.1 Plan Cost Management Modification of Process Name for Process Consistency: The process names are changed to bring uniformity across the naming conventions. These are:         4.3 Direct & Manage Project Work (Execution)         5.5 Validate   ( Verify ) Scope          8.1 Plan Quality Management         8.3 Control Quality (Perform Quality Control)         11.6 (Monitor &) Control Risks         12.1 Plan Procurement Management   ...

This is a question I always hear in each workshop; every person aspiring to be PMP is dealing with it. Few have come out with very innovative ways to remember the knowledge areas, processes and ITTOs.  However before we blindly decide to spend hours of time and money of this activity – lets step back.   What does PMP exam expect from you? It expect you would be doing your role on day today basis and have executed few projects as Leader/manager You are at a knowledge level of applying the knowledge rather than recalling level (please bear in mind that recall (remember) is a low skill set then apply. Think of a kid at 2 nd grade who can recall the words and use them in some context, and a kid going to 7 th grade who can apply math on day today life situations. Now back to the question – Do I need to mug up the ITTOs? The answer is NO. You need not.  However the key is:   Understand Process Goal Understand why any process exist Reme...

PMBOK version 5 is soon to be released and the examination henceforth..

While you are trying hard to push a deliverable for the targeted date, you find your team discussing the pros and cons for the design of a crucial component. Worse your two very senior architects have very different opinion on the solution, How you as PM ensure that the project meets its target milestone with quality and efficiency, having high team moral??  Is this too much to ask or deal with? I'm sure all of us who is reading this post have been in situations. Conflict can arise due to many reason few are below: Conflict over project priorities Conflict over administration procedures Conflict over technical opinions and performance trade-offs Conflict over human resources Conflict over cost and budget Conflict over schedules Personality conflict How do you handle them? It depends on the project manager, the organisation structure and climate.  Conflict Root cause Management (Typical) Conflict Sources and Best Practices ...

A critical path is the longest path in the network.  Each node which falls under critical path has zero or negative float (Slack). Now how do we calculate critical path?? Sample Node I’ve seen various illustrations having different way to calculate CPM, few are: -           The project starts on day 1. -           The project starts on day 0. Both the approaches give same results, however I liked the day 0 approach better, its simpler, easy and lesser room for errors. Example Figure 1 - Example  There are 3 steps to calculate CPM: 1. Forward Pass - To calculate the Early Start(ES) and Early Finish(EF) of node. 2. Backward Pass - To calculate Late Start (LS) and Late Finish(LF) of node. 3. Calculate Float and Thus CPM. The Forward Pass: Forward Pass Illustration We start from first Node or Start node. The works begin on day 0....

Perform Integrated Change Control is one of the process under monitoring & Controlling process group and in Integration knowledge area. One of the most weighted process in PMP examination and you can expect lot of questions from this process. Let’s pick up few instances: A team member comes to you and proposes changes in high level design for security module interfaces. He feels confident that introducing those changes will lead to lesser efforts and more secured and de- coupled interfaces.  You (Project Manager) along with few senior team leads is having a meeting with customer to get the prototype sign off. The customer feels that the screen is too bland and needs a better UI (User Interface) Your senior manager comes up to you and informs you that the inter-related BPO project has few changes in the process and hence the current project (under me) needs to change the current workflow to match the updated workflow.   What do you think...