PMP exam prep

EXAM LOGISTICS

• PMP^® exam blueprint.
• Project Manager Role Delineation Study (RDS).
• Develop your customized study plan.
• Exam study tips.
• What to expect on exam day.

PM FOUNDATION

• Selecting the project life cycle(s). Predictive, Adaptive (Interative; Incremental; Agile) or Hybrid.
• PMBOK Guide 5 processes, 10 knowledge areas, and 49 processes (predictive).
• SCRUM most common Agile practice.
• Organization influences and structures.
• Relationships among Portfolio Management, Programs, Operations, etc.
• Enterprise environmental factors.
• Organizational process assets.

STAKEHOLDER

• Identify Stakeholders: Documenting stakeholders’ interest, power, expectations, and potential impact on the project.
• Plan Stakeholder Engagement: Determine appropriate strategies to manage stakeholders.
• Manage Stakeholder Engagement: Process to communicate with stakeholders to meet their needs and address their issues.
• Monitor Stakeholder Engagement: Monitoring overall stakeholder relationships and adjusting strategies to ensure engagement.

RESOURCES

• Plan Resource Management: Define how to estimate, acquire, manage, and utilize physical and team resources. Identifying roles and responsibilities. A.k.a. the infamous RACI chart.
• Estimate Activity Resources: Estimating the types and quantities of resources required to complete the activities.
• Acquire Resources: Obtaining team members, facilities, equipment, material, and other resources.
• Develop Team: Motivate and develop the team to enhance project performance.
• Manage Team: Track team performance, provide feedback and resolve conflict.
• Control Resources:  Ensuring the physical resources are available as planned.

SCOPE

• Plan Scope Management: The plan on how the scope will be defined, validated, and controlled.
• Collect Requirements: Defining and documenting stakeholders’ needs to ensure project objectives are met.
• Define Scope: Developing a detailed description of the project and product as a basis for future decisions.
• Create WBS: Subdividing major deliverables into smaller components.
• Validate Scope: Formal acceptance of the completed project deliverables.
• Control Scope: Monitoring status of the project and product scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.

SCHEDULE

• Plan Schedule Management: The plan on how the schedule will be developed, managed, controlled, etc.
• Define Activities: Decomposing the WBS completed during scope into activity lists.
• Sequence Activities: Determining the dependencies for each activity.
• Estimate Activity Durations: How long will each activity take with the resources we have assigned?
• Develop Schedule: Producing the schedule baseline. We will work through a network diagram to calculate the critical path and float for each of the activities.
• Control Schedule: Monitoring the schedule compared to the plan and take appropriate action.

COST

• Plan Cost Management: The plan on how the budget will be developed, managed, controlled, etc.
• Estimate Costs: What does each activity cost?
• Determine Budget: Roll up all the activity costs to determine the cost baseline to measure our cost performance against.
• Control Costs: Influencing the factors that create cost variances and taking corrective action as necessary.

QUALITY

• Plan Quality: Identify the standards, determine the quality metrics and create the quality management plan to obtain overall quality.
• Manage Quality: Evaluate our processes to ensure we will satisfy the quality plan’s quality standards.
• Control Quality: Inspect the various project deliverables and results to ensure they met the standards.

RISK

• Plan Risk Management: Assess stakeholder tolerances to risk and create the risk management plan to manage risk on the project.
• Identify Risks: Brainstorming a list of risks.
• Perform qualitative analysis: Is the probability and impact of the risks high, low, or medium? I think/gut feel about the risks.
• Perform quantitative analysis: More detailed analysis to quantify the risk. 80% probability the risk will occur with a $50,000 impact on the project. Putting numbers to the risk.
• Plan Risk Response: Now that we have ranked the risks, what is our response/action to prioritized risks. Responses to threats – can be avoid, mitigate, transfer or accept. Responses to opportunities can be enhance, exploit, share or accept.
• Implement Risk Responses:  Implementing agreed-upon risk response plans.
• Monitor Risk: Keeping an eye for unplanned risks and monitoring identified risks for appropriate action.

PROFESSIONAL & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Review the PMI^® code of conduct. It’s pretty basic ethics, but it’s a must-know for the exam and as a “soon to be practicing PMP”!
• The 4 PMI^® core values: Responsibility; Respect; Fairness; Honesty.
• Ethics and common sense.
• Cultural Competence.

COMMUNICATIONS

• Plan Communications Management: Develop the communication management plan on whom, what, and how frequently we will communicate the project information.
• Manage Communications: Issue management with the stakeholders to ensure conflict/issues are resolved promptly.
• Monitor Communications: Collecting and communicating all the project performance. Forecasting project performance and taking corrective action as needed

PROCUREMENT

• Plan Procurement Management: Make or buy analysis. Creating the procurement management plan which advises on what type of contract we should negotiate. i.e., Fixed Price; Cost plus, and/or Time and Materials. Creating the CSOW, evaluation criteria, and preparing the procurement documents to the potential vendors. i.e., proposals, request for quotes/bids, etc.
• Conduct Procurement: Select sellers and awarding contracts. Contract negotiations.
• Control Procurement: Manage seller relationships, review seller performance, and manage contract-related changes. Close procurement.

INTEGRATION

• Develop Project Charter: Formal authorization of the project or phase.
• Develop Project Mgmt Plan: Document actions to define, prepare, integrate, and coordinate subsidiary plans into the project management plan.
• Develop Project Management Plan: Document actions to define, prepare, integrate, and coordinate subsidiary plans into the project management plan.
• Direct and Manage Project Work: Execute the work defined in the project management plan to achieve the scope statement’s requirements.
• Manage Project Knowledge: Using existing knowledge and creating new knowledge.
• Monitor & Control Project Work: Monitor and control the processes to meet the performance objectives.
• Perform Integrated Change Control: Reviewing change requests, approving change requests, and controlling changes.
• Close Project or Phase: Finalize all activities to close the project or phase formally.