Search Your Query..

Custom Search

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