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Overview of Exam Questions of PMP, Examination Question pattern of PMP

Overview of Exam Questions of PMP, Examination Question pattern of PMP

The format of the test is multiple-choice, with four (4) answer choices per question. The questions come from
the following Process Groups plus Professional Responsibility:

PMP ?s PMP % CAPM ?s CAPM %
Project Initiation 23 11.6% 14 9.3%
Project Planning 45 22.7% 33 22.0%
Project Execution 55 27.5% 40 26.7%
Project Monitoring 42 21.0% 32 21.3%
Project Closing 17 8.6% 14 9.3%
Professional and Social Responsibility 17 8.6% 17 11.3%
Total 200 100% 150 100%
Passing 106 of 175 60.5% 86 of 150 57%

Time Limit 4 Hours 3 Hours

Examination Fees of PMP Exam

Exam Fee
PMP
Initial Certification Fee (member of PMI) $405.00
Initial Certification Fee (non-member of PMI) $555.00
Re-examination Fee (member of PMI) $275.00
Re-examination Fee (non-member of PMI) $375.00

CAPM
Initial Certification Fee (member of PMI) $255.00
Initial Certification Fee (non-member of PMI) $300.00
Re-examination Fee (member of PMI $150.00
Re-examination Fee (non-member of PMI $220.00

PMI Membership Fee
Annual PMI Membership Fee $119.00

CAPM Exam Requirements

The requirements to take the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) exam are listed in the CAPM Handbook located on PMI’s website at
http://www.pmi.org/prod/groups/public/documents/info/PDC_CAPM.asp. The CAPM certification is a newer certification; currently, approximately 1,500 people have attained the CAPM certification (as of October 2006). It is designed for practitioners who do not have enough PM work experience to meet the PMP qualifications, yet still allows them to obtain some sort of certification while they are gaining the necessary experience.
Applicants with a high school diploma or equivalent must meet the following requirements:
• Minimum 1,500 hours of work on a project team
OR
• Minimum 23 contact hours of PM instruction

As with the PMP process, once your application has been approved, PMI will send an authorization letter, allowing you to schedule your exam. Once the authorization letter is received, you has one year to take the exam.

PMP Exam Requirements

While the requirements necessary to be eligible to take the PMP exam are listed on PMI’s website at http://www.pmi.org/prod/groups/public/documents/info/pdc_pmp.asp, they are also covered here to provide all the pertinent information condensed and in one place. This site provides a PDF of the PMP Handbook, which contains the requirements to qualify to take the PMP exam and the application form. Even if you intend to submit your application on-line, which is the preferred method, I suggest using the paper form to compile and organize the information beforehand. Once it is compiled, actual entry of the information goes very quickly.
Applicants with a bachelor’s degree or global equivalent must meet the following requirements (a masters degree or higher does not decrease the following requirements):
• Minimum 4,500 hours PM experience
• Minimum 36 months PM experience within the prior 72 months
• Minimum 35 contact hours of PM instruction


Applicants who do not have a bachelor’s degree, but instead have a high school diploma, associate’s degree, or global equivalent, must meet the following requirements (notice the only real change is to increase the PM experience needed and, of course, the time allowed to get that experience):
• Minimum 7,500 hours PM experience
• Minimum 60 months PM experience within the prior 96 months
• Minimum 35 contact hours of PM instruction
Contact hours can be obtained through a university or college, by a course offered by a PMI-recognized Registered Education Provider (REP) such as Global Knowledge, by employee-sponsored classes, or by a training company or consultant.
Some potential applicants misunderstand the requirement for PM experience. This includes not only experience as a Project or Program Manager, but also experience working on projects from other vantage points, such as in the role of a team member, Subject Matter Expert (SME), Sponsor, etc. PMI’s newer terminology states that candidates have experience leading and directing project tasks, the details of which are explained in the PMP Application section below.

You are performing a project management audit in your company and find that most of the project plans are neither consistent nor up-to-date.

You are performing a project management audit in your company and find that most of the project plans are neither consistent nor up-to-date.
Which of the following statements is not true?


  • Projects should never be executed without a valid, updated and working project plan.
  • The project plan is secondary because it is only the results that matters.
  • A great deal of effort is required to develop and update a project plan, but the benefits include less pressure on all stakeholders and a resulting product that will satisfy the requirements.
  • Poor planning is one of the major reasons for cost and time overruns.

What is sometimes referred to as Global Literacies?

What is sometimes referred to as Global Literacies?


  • The ability to read reports written in many different languages.

  • The ability to succeed in a cross cultural environment.

  • The ability to develop internationally accepted contracts.

  • The ability to communicate using drawings and pictograms which are understood all over the world.

With your team you are using judgment from subject matter experts to identify and analyze project risks. There is a small number of experts available,

With your team you are using judgment from subject matter experts to identify and analyze project risks. There is a small number of experts available, but some of them have long been in a teacher-student or manager-assistant relationship.
Which of the following techniques can ensure best that there is no dominating opinion during an expert review?


  • Peer review
  • SWOT analysis
  • Delphi technique
  • Monetary value calculation

Underestimating the complexity of the problem in Project Management

Businesses still struggle to define their requirements well enough that app dev will be able to judge how rich the functionality will have to be. As one systems development EVP explained, “The most frequent problem I find in projects going wildly astray is people who define requirements at a level that doesn’t permit understanding of the complexity.” When app dev doesn’t properly understand how functionally complex the implementation needs to be, the project fails to meet business needs, but this is often not discovered until the project is nearly complete. The project then executes an unplanned iteration: The business elaborates further on the requirements, and app dev builds what was missing in its first attempt. Schedule and budget end up far exceeding initial estimates. Shops that use Agile processes are less likely to suffer from this problem, as they expose early deliverables to business customers, find out quickly whether they’re on track, and change course instead of remaining wedded to the original trajectory.

Circumventing the app dev organization altogether

Sometimes, a business unit funds a project out of its own pocket without including the application development team. One business unit at a major consumer products manufacturer selected a vendor to install and customize a Web-based app. This choice seemed expedient and safe: The vendor’s staff would be responsible for customization, so there didn’t seem to be a need for corporate IT. The corporate IT director related, “By the time my team was called in, the project had progressed to user acceptance testing — but nothing was working.” Because it had excluded its own in-house technical experts, the business unit failed to ensure that the vendor’s technology could integrate with existing systems. And nobody in the business unit likely had the expertise to manage a systems integration project. Even when outsourcing or package acquisition is the right choice, app dev must be involved to manage the technical risks.

Freezing the schedule and budget before the project is understood well enough.

For planning purposes, it makes sense to pre-allocate budget dollars and sketch out a timeline based on a rough idea of a project’s expected effort. However, these initial estimates are obsolete shortly after the project launches. If the business forces the project to live within the initial time and cost estimates, the project will likely go off track: IT will scramble to make do with insufficient resources, cutting features or lipping the schedule — or both — to satisfy constraints. One PMO director told us that his organization used to pre-allocate funds for ill-defined projects, but now, it funds a short, upfront investigative project to learn how long the full project will take and what it will cost. Why do IT shops makes this mistake? They erroneously believe that scope can change while time and budget remain fixed. If time and budget must be predetermined, stakeholders should expect to revise scope.

Controlling Processes in Project management

  • Project performance must be monitored and measured regularly to identify variances from the plan.
  • Variances are fed into the control processes in the various knowledge areas.
  • To the extent that significant variances are observed (i.e., those that jeopardize the project objectives), adjustments to the plan are made by repeating the appropriate project planning processes.

Facilitating processes These are are performed intermittently and as needed during project planning

  • Quality Planning —identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them.
  • Organizational Planning —identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
  • Staff Acquisition —getting the human resources needed assigned to and working on the project.
  • Communications Planning —determining the information and communications needs of the stakeholders: who needs what information, when will they need it, and how will it be given to them.
  • Risk Identification —determining which risks might affect the project and documenting their characteristics.
  • Qualitative Risk Analysis —performing a qualitative analysis of risks and conditions to prioritize their effects on project objectives.

Core processes of Project management

  • Scope Planning (5.2)—developing a written scope statement as the basis for future project decisions.
  • Scope Definition (5.3)—subdividing the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components.
  • Activity Definition (6.1)—identifying the specific activities that must be performed to produce the various project deliverables.
  • Activity Sequencing (6.2)—identifying and documenting interactivity dependencies.
  • Activity Duration Estimating (6.3)—estimating the number of work periods that will be needed to complete individual activities.
  • Schedule Development (6.4)—analyzing activity sequences, activity durations, and resource requirements to create the project schedule.

Planning Processes of Project management

  • These processes are subject to frequent iterations prior to completing the project plan.
  • For example, if the initial completion date is unacceptable, project resources, cost, or even scope may need to be redefined.
  • In addition, planning is not an exact science—two different teams could generate very different plans for the same project.

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE AREAS

  • Project Integration Management
  • Project Scope Management
  • Project Time Management
  • Project Cost Management
  • Project Quality Management
  • Project Human Resource Management
  • Project Communications Management
  • Project Risk Management
  • Project Procurement Management

Project Management Processes for PMP

  • Projects are composed of processes.
  • A process is “a series of actions bringing about a result”.
  • Project processes are performed by people and generally fall into one of two major categories:
  • Project management processes describe, organize, and complete the work of the project.
  • Product-oriented processes specify and create the project’s product.
  • Product-oriented processes are typically defined by the project life cycle
  • Project management processes and product-oriented processes overlap and interact throughout the project.
  • For example, the scope of the project cannot be defined in the absence of some basic understanding of how to create the product.

SOCIAL-ECONOMIC-ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES

  • socioeconomic influences include a wide range of topics and issues.
  • The project management team must understand that current conditions and trends in this area may have a major effect on its project
  • A small change here can translate, usually with a time lag, into cataclysmic upheavals in the project itself.

Influencing the Organization in Project management

  • Influencing the organization involves the ability to “get things done.”
  • It requires an understanding of both the formal and informal structures of all the organizations involved—the performing organization, customer, partners, contractors, and numerous others, as appropriate.
  • Influencing the organization also requires an understanding of the mechanics of power and politics.

KEY GENERAL MANAGEMENT SKILLS

  • Finance and accounting, sales and marketing, research and development, and manufacturing and distribution.
  • Strategic planning, tactical planning, and operational planning.
  • Organizational structures, organizational behavior, personnel administration, compensation, benefits, and career paths.
  • Managing work relationships through motivation, delegation, supervision, team building, conflict management, and other techniques.
  • Managing oneself through personal time management, stress management,and other techniques.
  • General management skills provide much of the foundation for building project management skills.
  • Examples of the skills are Leading, communicating, problem solving, and influencing the organisation.

Matrix Organisation

Strengths
  • Project objectives highly visible
  • More support from functional organization
  • Maximum utilization of resources which are scarce.
  • Has better co-ordination
  • Horizontal and vertical dissemination of information is better
  • Team members have a Home

Weaknesses

  • Extra administrative personnel makes it not cost effective
  • It is more complex to monitor and control
  • Has tougher problems with resource allocation
  • Needs extensive policies and procedures
  • Has higher potential for conflict and duplication of effort
  • Functional managers may have different priorities than project managers.


Strong Matrix Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages
  • A reasonable to high power to PM
  • Management of a part-time to nearly full-time project team
  • Full time role as Project Manager
  • PM has full administrative staff to help expedit the project.


Disadvantages

  • More complex to monitor and control
  • Sometimes more resources than are assembled for the project

Projectised Organisation Weak Matrix Organisation Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages

  • Closely maps to Functional Organisation
  • May have part-time administrative staff to help expedite the project


Disadvantages

  • PM has limited authority
  • Management of a part-time project team
  • Project role is part-time
  • PM may be called as project coordinator or team leader

Functional organisation Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages
  • Team members need to report to only one superior
  • Easier management of specialists
  • Enduring organisational structure
  • Clearly defined career paths in areas of work specialisation
  • Similar resources are centralised, companies are grouped by specialities


Disadvantages
  • Project Managers role is part-time and he may be known as Project coordinator or project leader and has little power.
  • Project team is part-time
  • No career path in project management
  • People place more emphasis on their functional specialty and this may be detrimental to the project.

Project Phases and the project Life Cycle

  • Project life-cycle definition can be used to link the project to the ongoing operations of the performing organization.
  • The phase sequence defined by most project life cycles generally involves some form of technology transfer or handoff such as requirements to design, construction to operations, or design to manufacturing.
  • Deliverables from the preceding phase are usually approved before work starts on the next phase.
  • Cost and staffing levels are low at the start, higher toward the end, and drop rapidly as the project draws to a conclusion.
  • The probability of successfully completing the project is lowest, and hence risk and uncertainty are highest, at the start of the project.
  • The probability of successful completion generally gets progressively higher as the project continues.
  • The ability of the stakeholders to influence the final characteristics of the project’s product and the final cost of the project is highest at the start and gets progressively lower as the project continues.

Project Phases and the project Life Cycle

  • Projects divide each project into several project phases to improve management control and provide for links to the ongoing operations of the performing organization.
  • Each project phase is marked by completion of one or more deliverables.
  • The conclusion of a project phase is generally marked by a review of both key deliverable and project performance to date.
  • These phase-end reviews are often called phase exits, stage gates, or kill points.
  • Subprojects within projects may also have distinct project life cycles.
  • The project life cycle serves to define the beginning and the end of a project.
  • Project life cycles generally define:
  • What technical work should be done in each phase (e.g., is the work of the architect part of the definition phase or part of the execution phase?).
  • Who should be involved in each phase (e.g., implementers who need to be involved with requirements and design).
  • The project life-cycle definition will also determine which transitional actions at the beginning and the end of the project are included and which are not.

Examples of Projects in PMP

  • Designing a new product or service
  • Converting from one Platform to another
  • Building a new Software Technology Park
  • Moving from one building to another
  • Organizing a political campaign
  • Designing and building a new airplane
  • Design and construction of an air purifier

PROJECT MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

PROJECT

  • TEMORARY WITH A BEGINNING AND END
  • PERFORMED BY PEOPLE
  • CONSTRAINED BY LIMITED RESOURCES
  • PLANNED, EXECUTED AND CONTROLLED
  • CREATES UNIQUE PRODUCT
  • DONE FOR A PURPOSE
  • HAS INTERRELATED ACTIVITIES
  • IS PROGRESSIVELY ELABORATE


Examples of projects

  • Developing a new product or service.
  • Effecting a change in structure, staffing, or style of an organization.
  • Designing a new transportation vehicle.
  • Developing or acquiring a new or modified information system.
  • Constructing a building or facility.
  • Building a water system for a community in a developing country.
  • Running a campaign for political office.
  • Implementing a new business procedure or process.

PM activities in Closing Phase

Closing Phase
  • Procurement audits
  • Product verification
  • Financial closure
  • Lessons learned
  • Update records
  • End of project performance reporting
  • Formal acceptance
  • Project archives
  • Release resources

Others
  • Influencing the organisation
  • Leading
  • Solving problems
  • Negotiating
  • Communicating
  • Holding Meetings
  • Stakeholder management.

PM activities in Controlling Phase

  • Integrated change control
  • Project performance measurements
  • Performance reporting
  • Scope change control
  • Quality control
  • Risk monitoring and control
  • Schedule control
  • Cost control
  • Scope verification
  • Ensure compliance with plans
  • Project plan updates
  • Corrective action

PM activities in Executing Phase

  • Execute the project plan
  • Manage project progress
  • Complete work packages
  • Distribute information
  • Quality assurance
  • Team Development
  • Hold progress meetings
  • Identify changes
  • Use work authorization system
  • Manage by exception to the project plan

PM Exam activities in Initiating Phase

  • Select Project
  • Collect Project Information
  • Determine project objectives
  • Determine high level deliverables, estimates
  • Determine high level constrints and assumptions
  • Determine business need
  • Develop product description
  • Define the Responsibilities of the project manager
  • Determine high-level resource requirements
  • Finalize the project Charter.

What you must do to pass PMP Examination

  • Study PMBOK thoroughly.
  • First time you may not understand much.
  • Go through the chapters, and reread the materials after the training.
  • Understand the concepts, that is more important than memory.
  • You will have to remember all the process groups, knowledge areas, key inputs, key outputs tools and techniques for all the knowledge areas.
  • You will have to remember the sequence of activities in each of the process groups, as otherwise you may not be able to answer a couple of questions.
  • Remember all the formulae used for Earned Value calculation.
  • You will have to know how to calculate critical path, slack time, early start and early finish , estimates using PERT.
  • You may have 12 to 15 numerical problems, and for most of them you may not need calculator for many of them. Writing them on paper should do.
  • Work out all the problems in Ritas book, and stop only when you can score above 90% in each of the chapters.
  • Understand that you have to answer in the context of PMI and not as per your experience.
  • Answering questions in Professional responsibility, follow ethical practices, think what you would have done and answer. You should have very little problem.

Reference Material For PMP Examination

  • PMP Exam Prep: A Course in a Book By Rita Mulcahy, 4th Ed. RMC Publications
  • PMBOK 2000 Edition, PMI
  • Project Management Professional Study Guide by Joseph Phillips, Tata-McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2004
  • PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide, By Kim Heldman, BPB Publications, New Delhi, 2003
  • PMP: Project Management Professional Workbook by Claudia Baca and Patti Janse
  • PMP Final Exam Review Authors: Kim Heldman PMP, Sybex Released 15 April, 2004
  • Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Exam, Second Edition by Michael W. Newall
  • PM FASTrack PMP Exam Simulation Software Authors: Rita Mulcahy Released: 15 April, 2002
  • Pmp Certification for Dummies By Peter Nathan, Gerald Everette Jones Paperback / 360 Pages / John Wiley & Sons Inc / March 2003
  • PMP Certification for Dummies by Peter Nathan (Author), Geral Everette Jones (Author) Publisher: AMACOM; 2nd edition
  • PMI Online library resources.

Method of Tackling the PMP Exam

  • Answer the questions from PMI’s perspective and not the perspective you have acquired from your life experience
  • Watch for the words “except”, “includes”, “not an example of” , read the question carefully and understand what the question is asking.
  • Practice reading the question and all four choices when you take the practice exam.
  • Eliminate quickly 2 obviously incorrect answers and get 2 plausible answers to get to the best answer faster.
  • There may be more than one “correct” answer to each question but only one “Best” answer. Practice looking for best answer.
  • Do not follow the old rule that the longest answer is the right one.
  • Look for distracters which distract you from the right answer.
  • Clearly read the question. Look for words like “fist”, “last”, “next”, ”best”, “never”, “always”, “except”, ”not”, “most likely”, “less likely”,, “primary”, “initial”, “most” etc.
  • Watch out for choices that are true statements but not the answer to the question.

How to answer PMP questions

  • You must understand the PMBOK guide, how they are used in the real world and how they work in combination with each other
  • You should have real-world experience using all major project management techniques.
  • Read the PMBOK guide carefully, revise and rerevise.
  • Understand the areas PMI emphasizes.
  • Eliminate the 2 wrong answers, eliminate the other and get to the correct answer
  • Practice interpreting ambiguous and wordy questions.
  • Get used to the fact that there will be questions you cannot answer.
  • Plan how you are keeping track of time. Move on to next question if you are spending more than 1 minute. Revisit it after completing all questions.
  • Understand that scoring above 90 % which you were doing in college is not feasible.

Types of PMP Exam Questions

  1. Situational questions- These questions require that you must have experienced such situations.
  2. Two right answers: Watch out for situations like this
  3. Extraneous information: Realize that not all information included in a question will be used to answer the question.
  4. Out of the blue questions: There may be some questions where you have no idea what the question is asking.
  5. Words you have never heard before are sometimes used as possible choices. For example perk is an abbreviation for perquisite.
  6. Where understanding is important: Memorizing is not enough. You must understand all topics.
  7. New approach to known topic: You have never thought about in the way question describes

PMP Exam Details

  • PMP Exam tests knowledge, application and analysis
  • You should be able to apply the information and analyse situations involving this information. Do not expect straight forward questions or definiton type questions
  • PMP exam deals with real-world use of project management
  • It contains about 125 “ What should you do in this situation” which are situational questions.
  • In some questions same set of data is used for additional questions later . Only a few questions require you to Memorize the step-by-step PMBOK Guide processes
  • There may be 10 to 12 questions on Earned value questions, and 8 to 10 formula related calculation questions in the examination.
  • Most acronyms should be spelled out (WBS for work breakdown structure)
  • Most candidates feel uncertain for 40 out of 200 questions and most require under 3 hours for completion.

Distribution of Questions in PMP Examination

PM Process

No. of Questions

% of questions

Project Initiation

17

8.5

Project Planning

47

23.5

Project Executing

47

23.5

Project Controlling

46

23.0

Project Closing

14

7.0

Professional Responsibility

29

14.5

Total

200


PMP Examination

  • 90% failing in exam do so because they have not had Project Management Training that uses PMI Terminology.
  • Real-life experience or just reading the PMBOK Guide is not enough for passing the examination.
  • The answers to questions should be as per PMI methodology and not your life experience in your projects. Please remember this.
  • Understand the five Project management processes
  • Understand 9 knowledge areas
  • Practice and remember Input, Output, Tools and Techniques for each 39 processes. There will be 15 to 20 questions on this.
  • Understand the Terms in the context of PMI definition. Example: Project, program, project and product life cycle etc.

PMP Exam Structure & Format More Details

  • Exam duration: 4 hours
  • Total No of questions: 200
  • No of correct answers for pass is 137.
  • Questions are of multiple-choice
  • The exam is written psychometrically and hence there are set of questions that even experts find it difficult.
  • Don’t get frustrated
  • Book for exam as soon as you get authorization letter from PMI.
  • When submitting an application, you do not need to send any documentation. However, PMI uses a random auditing process to check applications. If you are selected for a random audit, you will receive a letter via 1st class U. S. Mail, with the instructions and forms needed to complete the audit.

Eligibility Requirements for PMP Exam

Baccalaureate/equivalent university degree.4,500 hours of Project Management Experience. 3 years of Project Management Experience within the past six-year period prior to the application. 36 unique (non-overlapping) months of Project Management experience.35 contact hours of Project Management education. Cost: $555.00 U.S. Dollars - non-members of PMI$405.00 U.S. Dollars - members of PMI

Application can be sent on-line
Once your application has been processed, if eligible, you will receive an eligibility letter containing detailed scheduling instructions to take the PMP or CAPM examinations. Test candidates have 1 year from the date their application is approved and processed to take the exam. Candidates may take the exam once within each eligibility period. The candidate’s eligibility expiration date is printed on the 1st page of the eligibility letter the candidate receives if their application is approved.

Developing a Plan for the Test of PMP

Based on respondent ratings, an examination blueprint, clarifying exactly how many questions from each domain and Task should be on the examination, was developed. Those domains and Tasks that were rated as most important, critical and relevant by survey respondents would have the most questions devoted to them on the examination.
Another aspect of PMI’s leading-edge examination development practices is introducing an enhanced examination development activity. Pretest questions will be randomly placed throughout the new examination to gather statistical information on the performance of these questions, in order to determine whether they may be used on future examinations. These 25 pretest items are included in the 200-question examination, but will not be included in the pass/fail determination; candidates will be scored on 175 questions. The pretest items will allow PMI to monitor the question performance better, prior to including the questions in the final databank of test questions.
Results of the study indicated that the 175 scoreable questions on the test should be distributed among the domains as shown in the below table. As previously noted, the remaining 25 questions will be disbursed throughout the domains as pretest questions and will not count in candidates’ scores.


Domains

% of Items/Domain

I. Initiating the Project

11

II. Planning the Project

23

III. Executing the Project

27

IV. Monitoring and Controlling the Project

21

V. Closing the Project

9

VI. Professional Responsibility

9

100%

Number of Questions

Number of Scoreable Questions

175

Pretest Questions

25

Total

200


Dos and Don'ts in Managing Global Projects

• In managing global projects, it is essential to develop cultural self-awareness. The first, and most important, step is becoming aware of your own cultural orientations and the impact they can make in managing projects across cultures. You must prepare for cross-cultural project encounters with purpose and thoroughness. Here are a few dos and don'ts to consider.


DO
• Develop your cultural self-awareness.
• Set realistic expectations for yourself and others.
• Accept that you will make mistakes, but remain confident.
• Be patient.
• Slow down. Make relationships.
• Keep your sense of humor.
• Keep your integrity.
• Stay objective. Minimize blame.
DON'T :
• Assume similarity.
• Try to adopt the orientations of the other culture. Adaptation does not mean adoption.
• Dwell on comparing the other culture with your own.
• Evaluate the other culture in terms of good or bad.
• Assume that just being yourself is enough to bring you cross-cultural success.

things you can do to help develop multicultural excellence in Project management

• Multiple languages: Recruit core team members who speak multiple languages
• Multicultural experience: Provide core team members with multicultural experiences.
• Cross-cultural experience: Arrange cross-cultural experiences for extended team members.
• Continuous improvement: Acknowledge the continuous need to improve cross-cultural experiences for all team members.

How to Develop Multicultural Excellence in Global Projects

As we rapidly evolve into a global community, many project managers find themselves managing project teams across vast geographical landscapes. To improve your success probability in such environments, it is essential to develop multicultural competencies.

Diplomacy & Persistence

Any experienced project manager will tell you that effective project management deals primarily with people, not with software tools or hardware or project schedules. It takes a diplomatic project manager to smooth out the people problems that invariably arise among team members and among all stakeholders, in general.


Persistence is essential when managing the various obstacles in a software development effort and is often overlooked as a contributing factor in the success of a project.

A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected – a well-planned project only twice as long as expected! Experienced project managers will tell you that this popular quote is only half in jest. Project management effectiveness is as much needed as meeting milestones and deliverables on time. There are many factors that make a project manager effective, and paying attention to all of them is essential in ensuring the success of software development efforts, particularly when they're outsourced.

Problem Resolution Effectiveness Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Problem Resolution Effectiveness Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Problem resolution skills will be called upon on a daily basis in any software development project. Good project management depends upon proactive and quick resolution of these problems, greasing the skids for the development teams to do their jobs properly.

Project Leadership Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Project leadership consists of a variety of skills and qualities: communication. leadership, ability to motivate, ability to negotiate, organizational skills and conflict resolution skills. Projects can be successful only in as much as the project manager uses all of these skills.

Outside Contractor Facilitation Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Outside Contractor Facilitation Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

This is particularly relevant when parts of or the whole development effort is outsourced. Project management effectiveness takes on additional complexity when it involves another organization with its own priorities.

Stakeholder Responsiveness Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Stakeholder Responsiveness Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

The project manager needs to be responsive to a number of stakeholders, the development team, business sponsors, peers, partners such as sales, marketing, human resources, end users (if it is an internal application) and customers (if it is a software product). All of these stakeholders may have different priorities, and the project manager has to juggle all of these priorities effectively.

Development Team Facilitation Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Project Management Effectiveness Criteria :
One of the key functions of the project manager is to remove obstacles in the way of the development effort and the team members. How well the project manager facilitates the work of the team makes a lot of difference in the eventual success of the project.

Responsiveness to Changes in Business Goals Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

Changes in business goals are inescapable, especially in projects that have long development cycles. The project manager needs to make sure that these changes in business goals are effectively translated into appropriate adjustments in the technical direction. Many projects may meet every milestone and deliverable on time and on budget, but if business goals have changed, the efficiency achievements may not mean much. The software developed will be off the mark because of changes in business goals.

Business Goals Effectiveness Project Management Effectiveness Criteria

One of the primary functions of project management is to translate the business goals of a software development effort to a set of technical goals. The entire effort will be successful only if the business goals are effectively translated.

Rubbing the palms together is a way in which people non-verbally communicate positive expectation.

The dice thrower rubs the dice between his palms as a sign of his positive expectancy of winning, the master of ceremonies rubs his palms together and says to his audience, ‘We have long looked forward to hearing our next speaker’, and the excited sales person struts into the sales manager’s office, rubs his palms together and says excitedly, ‘We’ve just got a big order, boss!’ However, the waiter who comes to your table at the end of the evening rubbing his palms together and asking, ‘Anything else, sir?’ is non-verbally telling you that he is expecting a tip.
The speed at which a person rubs his palms together signals whom he thinks will receive the positive results that are expected. Say, for example, you want to buy a home and you go to see a real estate agent. After describing the property you are seeking, the agent rubs his palms together quickly and says, ‘I’ve got just the right place for you!’ The agent has signalled that he expects the results to be to your benefit. But how would you feel if he rubbed his palms together very slowly as he told you that he had the ideal property? He would then appear to be crafty or devious and would give you the feeling that the expected results would be to his advantage rather than yours. Sales people are taught that if they use the palm rub gesture when describing products or services to prospective buyers, they should be certain to use a fast hand action to avoid putting the buyer on the defensive. When the buyer rubs his palms together and says to the sales person, ‘Let’s see what you have to offer!’ it is a signal that the buyer is expecting to be shown something. good and is likely to make a purchase.

Dominant and Submissive Handshakes Patterns

Considering what has already been said about the impact of a command given in both the palm-up and palm-down positions, let us explore the relevance of these two palm positions in hand shaking.
Assume that you have just met someone for the first time and you greet each other with a customary handshake. One of three basic attitudes is transmitted through the handshake. These are dominance: ‘This person is trying to dominate me. I’d better be cautious’, submission: ‘I can dominate this person. He will do as I wish’, and equality: ‘I like this person. We will get on well together’.
These attitudes are transmitted unconsciously and, with practice and conscious application, the following hand shaking techniques can have an immediate effect on the outcome of a face-to-face encounter with another person. The information in this chapter represents one of the few documented studies of handshake control techniques.
Dominance is transmitted by turning your hand (dark shirt sleeve) so that your palm faces down in the handshake. Your palm need not be facing the floor directly, but should be facing downwards in relation to the other person’s palm and this tells him that you wish to take control in the encounter that follows. Studies of fifty-four successful senior management people have revealed that not only did forty-two initiate the handshake, but they also used dominant handshake control.
Just as the dog shows submission by rolling on its back and exposing its throat to the victor, so the human uses the palm-up gesture to show submission to others. The reverse of the dominant handshake is to offer your hand with your palm facing upwards. This is particularly effective when you want to give the other person control or allow him to feel that he is in command of the situation.
However, though the palm-up handshake can show a submissive attitude, there may be mitigating circumstances to consider. For example, a person who has arthritis in the hands will be forced to give you a limp handshake because of his condition and this makes it easy to turn his palm into, the submissive position. People who use their hands in their profession, such as surgeons, artists and musicians, may also give a limp handshake purely to protect their hands. The gestures that follow the handshake will give further clues for your assessment of that person – the submissive person will use submissive gestures and the dominant person will use more aggressive gestures.

Palm Power HOW TO LEARN BODY LANGUAGE,

One of the least noticed but most powerful non-verbal signals is given by the human palm. When used correctly, palm power invests its user with a degree of authority and the power of silent command over others.
There are three main palm command gestures: the palm-up position, the palm-down position and the palm-closed-finger-pointed position. The differences of the three
positions are shown in this example: let’s say that you ask someone to pick up a box and carry it to another location in the same room. We assume that you use the same tone of voice, the same words and facial expressions, and change only the position of your palm

INTENTIONAL USE OF PALMS TO DECEIVE

The reader may ask, ‘Do you mean that if I tell lies with my palms visible, people will believe me?’ The answer to this is yes - and no. If you tell an outright lie with your palms exposed, you may still appear insincere to your listeners because many of the other gestures that should also be visible when displaying honesty will be absent and the negative gestures used when lying will be visible and therefore inconsistent with the open palms. As already noted, con men and professional liars are people who have developed the special art of making their nonverbal signals complement their verbal lies. The more effectively the professional con man can use the non-verbal gestures of honesty when telling a lie, the better he is at his vocation.
It is possible, however, to make yourself appear more credible by practising open palm gestures when communicating with others; conversely, as the open palm gestures become habitual, the tendency to tell untruths lessens. Interestingly, most people find it difficult to lie with their palms exposed and the use of palm signals can in fact help to suppress some of the false information others may give. It also encourages them to be open with you.

TERRITORY AND OWNERSHIP

Property owned by a person or a place regularly used by him constitutes a private territory and, like personal air space, he will fight to protect it. Such things as a person’s home, office and motor car represent a territory, each having clearly marked boundaries in the form of walls, gates, fences and doors. Each territory may have several sub-territories. For example, in a home a woman’s private territory may be her kitchen and laundry and she objects to anyone invading that space when she is using it, a businessman has his favourite place at the conference table, diners have their favourite seat in the canteen and father has his favourite chair at home. These areas are usually marked either by leaving personal possessions on or around the area, or by frequent use of it. The canteen diner may even go so far as to carve his initials into ‘his’ place at the table and the businessman marks his -territory at the conference table with such items as an ashtray, pens, books and clothing spread around his 46centimetre intimate zone border. Dr Desmond Morris noted that studies carried out into seating positions in libraries show that leaving a book or personal object on a library desk reserved that place for an average of seventy-seven minutes; leaving a jacket over a chair reserved it for two hours. At home a family member might mark his or her favourite chair by leaving a personal object, such as a pipe or magazine, on or near it to show his or her claim and ownership of the space.
If the head of the house asks a sales person to be seated and the sales person quite innocently sits in ‘his’ chair, the prospective buyer can become inadvertently agitated about this invasion of his territory and thus be put on the defensive. A simple question such as, ‘Which chair is yours?’, can avoid the negative results of making such a territorial error.

HOW TO LEARN BODY LANGUAGE

well as acquiring a conscious awareness of your own gestures. A good reading ground is anywhere that people meet and interact. An airport is a particularly good place for observing the entire spectrum of human gestures, aspeople openly express eagerness, anger, sorrow, happiness, impatience and many other emotions through gestures. Social functions, business meetings and parties are also excellent. Having studied the art of body language, you can go to a party, sit alone in a corner all evening like a wallflower and have an exciting time just watching other people’s body language rituals! Television also offers an excellent way of learning nonverbal communication. Turn down the sound and try to understand what is happening by first watching the picture. By turning the sound up every five minutes, you will be able to check how accurate your non-verbal readings are and before long it will be possible to watch an entire program without any sound and understand what is happening, just as deaf people do.

How To Tell Lies Successfully

The difficulty with lying is that the subconscious mind acts automatically and independently of our verbal lie, so our body language gives us away. This is why people who rarely tell lies are easily caught, regardless of how convincing they may sound. The moment they begin to lie, the body sends out contradictory signals, and these give us our feeling that they are not telling the truth. During the lie, the subconscious mind sends out nervous energy that appears as a gesture that can contradict what the person said. Some people whose jobs involve lying, such as politicians, lawyers, actors and television announcers, have refined their body gestures to the point where it is difficult to ‘see’ the lie, and people fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
They refine their gestures in one of two ways. First, they practise what ‘feel’ like the right gestures when they tell the lie, but this is only successful when they have practised telling numerous lies over long periods of time. Second, they can eliminate most gestures so that they do’ not use any positive or negative gestures while lying, but this is also very difficult to do.
Try this simple test when an occasion presents itself. Tell a deliberate lie to an acquaintance and make a conscious effort to suppress all body gestures while your body is in full view of the other person. Even when your major body gestures are consciously suppressed, numerous microgestures will still be transmitted. These include facialmuscular twitching, expansion and contraction of pupils, sweating at the brow, flushing of the cheeks, increased rate of eye blinking and numerous other minute gestures that signal deceit. Research using slow motion cameras shows that these microgestures can occur within a split second and it is only people such as professional interviewers, sales people and those whom we call perceptive who can consciously see them during a conversation or negotiation. The best interviewers and sales people are those who have developed the unconscious ability to read the microgestures during face-to-face encounters.
It is obvious, then, that to be able to lie successfully, you must have your body hidden or out of sight. This is why police interrogation involves placing the suspect on a chair in the open or placing him under lights with his body in full view of the interrogators; his lies are much easier to see under those circumstances. Naturally, telling lies is easier if you are sitting behind a desk where your body is partially hidden, or while peering over a fence or behind a closed door. The best way to lie is over the telephone!

FAKING BODY LANGUAGE

The human mind seems to possess a fail-safe mechanism that registers ‘tilt’ when it receives a series of incongruent non-verbal messages. There are, however, some cases in which body language is deliberately faked to gain certain advantages. Take, for example, the Miss World or Miss Universe contest, in which each contestant uses studiously learned body movements to give the impression of warmth and sincerity. To the extent that each contestant can convey these signals, she will score points from the judges, but even the experts can only fake body language for a short period of time and eventually the body will emit signals that are independent of conscious actions. Many politicians are experts in faking body language in order to get the voters to believe what they are saying and the politician who can successfully do this is said to have ‘charisma’.
The face is used more often than any other part of the body to cover up lies. We use smiles, nods and winks in an attempt to cover up, but unfortunately for us, our body signals tell the truth and there is a lack of congruence between our body gestures and facial signals. The study of facial signals is an art in itself. Little space is devoted to it in this book and for more information about it I recommend Face Language by Robert L. Whiteside. In summary, it is difficult to fake body language for a long period of time but, as we shall discuss, it is good to learn and to use positive open gestures to communicate with others and to eliminate gestures that may give negative signals. This can make it more comfortable to be with people and can make you more acceptable to them.

This mouth-covering gesture

This mouth-covering gesture becomes even more refined in adulthood. When the adult tells a lie, his brain instructs his hand to cover his mouth in an attempt to block the deceitful words, just as it does for the five-year-old and the teenager, but at the last moment the hand is pulled away from the face and a nose touch gesture results This gesture is nothing more than the adult’s sophisticated version of the mouth-covering gesture that was used in childhood. This is an example of the fact that, as an individual gets older, many of his gestures become sophisticated and less obvious, which is why it is often more difficult to read the gestures of a fifty year-old than those of a much younger person.

Factors Affecting Interpretation

A man who has a ‘dead fish’ hand shake is likely to be accused of having a weak character and the chapter on hand shake techniques will explore the reason for this popular theory. But if a man has arthritis in his hands, it is likely that he will use a ‘dead fish’ hand shake to avoid the pain of a strong one. Similarly, artists, musicians, surgeons and those in vocations whose work is delicate and involves use of their hands generally prefer not to shake hands, but, if they are forced to do so, they may use a ‘dead fish’ to protect them.
Someone who wears ill-fitting or tight clothing may be unable to use certain gestures, and this can affect use of body language. This applies to a minority of people, but it is important to consider what effect a person’s physical restrictions or disabilities may have on his or her body movement.

The V Sign in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain

Winston Churchill popularised the V for victory sign during World War II, but his two-fingered version was done with the palm facing out, whereas the palm faces towards the speaker for the obscene insult version. In most parts of Europe, however, the palm facing in version still means ‘victory’ so that an Englishman who uses it to tell a European to ‘get stuffed’ could leave the European wondering about what victory the Englishman meant. This signal also means the number two in many parts of Europe, and if the insulted European were a bartender, his response could be to give an Englishman or an Australian two mugs of beer.

The Thumb-Up Gesture Ok Sign

In Britain, Australia and New Zealand the thumb-up gesture has three meanings; it is commonly used by hitch-hikers who are thumbing a lift, it is an OK signal, and when the thumb is jerked sharply upwards it becomes an insult signal, meaning ‘up yours’ or ‘sit on this’. In some countries, such as Greece, its main meaning is ‘get stuffed’, so you can imagine the dilemma of the Australian hitch-hiker using this gesture in that country! When Italians count from one to five, they use this gesture to mean ‘one’ and the index finger then becomes ‘two’, whereas most Australians, Americans and English people count ‘one’ on the index finger and two on the middle finger. In this case the thumb will represent the number ‘five’.The thumb is also used, in combination with other gestures, as a power and superiority signal or in situations where people try to get us ‘under their thumb’. A later chapter takes a closer look at the use of the thumb in these particular contexts.