The PM PrepCast is your complete PMP training. With over 35 hours of in-depth video lessons it is a complete PMP online course. Please enjoy this free lesson:
Projects don’t have to be 100% complete to be valuable. Many projects begin accruing value at very early stages, and there are approaches that can help ensure value is realized as early as possible. This task is part of the Process domain and has three enablers.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
F03.01 Business Value
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome to The PM PrepCast™, your one-stop shop for all information that you need in order to complete your projects in time and on budget while delivering busines value. I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. Yeah, so projects don’t have to be 100% complete to be valuable. Many projects begin accruing value at very early stages and there are approaches that can ensure that value is realized as early as possible as well. This task is part of the process domain. It has three enablers, let us take a look.
[00:48] Executive Project with the Urgency Required to Deliver Business Value
First is assess opportunities to deliver value incrementally. Here, we want to plan for ways to begin seeing a return on investment sooner than later by delivering working components of the project as soon as they are ready. And this will provide value to your customers, revenue for your company, and possibly allow you to capture feedback as well to guide your next steps. Examine the business value throughout the project. Knowing the current value of your project will ensure that you are staying on budget and delivering a solution that truly benefits your customer. We will discuss the various types of value some of which are less obvious than others. And lastly, support the team to subdivide project tasks as necessary to find the minimum viable product. Otherwise known as the MVP, the minimum viable product, is the smallest set of working features that provides value to the customer. An MVP can be released quicker than a fully-featured solution and then analysis of customer usage can help you prioritize which features should be worked on next. That’s it for this quick overview. And we’re now going to discuss business value incremental delivery and minimum viable products in more detail and I will tie it together at the end with an example that you and I can very much relate to. However. We begin with an example that illustrates how a phased approach can give your users a working product quickly while the remainder of the project is still underway. Bridges like the one you see here. This can be built in a single phase or through an iterative development process. Here’s how.
[02:54] Single Bridge
Traditional thinking when building a bridge says: You build the bridge all at once. You could start from one side and build toward the other. Or, start from both sides and meet in the middle. Either way, the result is a single bridge that isn’t very useful until all the work is complete. Half-built bridges, they do not deliver any business value because nobody is able to cross the river. Once motorists, however, are able to drive across the bridge without falling off midway, then business value has finally been delivered.
[03:35] Twin-Span Bridge
But, let’s now consider a twin-span bridge. This is technically two smaller bridges, each one representing half of the original bridge’s throughput. In the first stage, we focus on building one smaller bridge using a fraction of the overall resources required in order to be completed. Obviously, it cannot carry as many vehicles at the same time as the full bridge would, but motorists can safely cross. This means, it has value already even though the work isn’t fully completed. Once Stage 2 completes, then the bridge will be at full capacity bringing the maximum possible value to motorists, who will likely have already been enjoying the bridge at half capacity. Even though it took a while to reach the final stage of the bridge, business value was delivered all along.
[4:34] Tangible Versus Intangible Value
Alright! So obviously, when we talk about business value, it’s easy to assume that we are talking about money. But, that isn’t always the case. There are many ways that something can bring value that might not be obvious. Tangible value is the most commonly thought-of type of business value. These are things that you can see or touch, and sometimes they are literally cash flow. Revenue is probably the first thing that, well yeah, comes to everybody’s mind. This is when cash is flowing into your organization for goods or services rendered. Sometimes cost savings are even higher than the revenue. This is typically the result of a project that improves efficiency in some way. Financial assets and facilities, these are the physical items and buildings that a company owns and operates. These are valuable in and off themselves. Market share, that could denote how successful a company or its products is compared to others who are selling the same product of service. A project that increases market share often increases other types of value as well. Intangible value is a bit less obvious at times. You can’t see or touch it, and you generally can’t associate it with a dollar amount. A project that enables new strategic options for a company’s future is valuable even if it doesn’t directly earn money. Improving the organization’s reputation amongst its competition; that is valuable. Similarly, trust and goodwill, doing something for the public good. Something that improves peoples’ lives in some way is quite valuable. It endears a company to the public in a way that could grow the customer base or maintain customer loyalty. And finally, intellectual properties, such as inventions, patents, and copyrights add value by protecting a concept that is critical to our organization. This can provide an edge in competition.
[6:52] Iterative vs Incremental Delivery
In our example with the bridge, we discussed how this bridge project could be completed all at once, and then we saw how it could be done in pieces to provide value sooner. Let’s now look at how we can approach dividing such larger efforts into smaller ones. The verb ‘to iterate’ means to perform repeatedly. So, when we say we work iteratively, we are saying that we will revisit previous work to improve on it. You can think of each repetition as a loop, and each loop aims to take what was done in the previous loop and improve on it in some way. It could be adding a new feature that wasn’t there previously. Or, it could be enhancing a feature that already existed. In Iterative development, once all the project has been completed through iterative evolution, the final product is now ready for release. Incremental development and deliveries suggest, on the hand, that a project be broken into pieces such that each piece can now be released on its own. Work is divided into these cohesive pieces like the first half of the twin-span bridge in our example. This could be seen as the first of two increments that we deliver. Just like in the iterative approach, each increment could be an enhancement over the previous. But the key difference between these two is that incremental results can be provided to users prior to the project completion. This way, business value can be earned much sooner in the project life cycle.
[8:44] So What’s The Difference?
To better explain the difference, allow me to take you to our PrepCast discussion forum where our student, Tahar, asked the following: I am struggling to understand what difference there is between iterative versus incremental life cycles? Well, luckily, we have a really great discussion forum, and we also have 12 community moderators and here are two responses that Tahar received. First, we have Steven Mudrinich, who responded with this explanation: “The main difference between them is that an iterative process makes progress through continuous refinement, while an incremental process makes progress through small increments. So, if I am a project manager for a software project, an iterative approach would be to initially build the overall product, and then refine the weak areas. While an incremental approach would be to build each individual area one at a time. Generally, an iterative product will get to market before an incremental product. But, the incremental product will be more complete when it is initially released.” And then second, Luke Ho gives us this example here: “An example of an incremental life cycle is developing a fully-functional website. There is a new functionality being added to the website for each iteration, but the full website is delivered to the customer at the end of the project. As for iterative life cycles, think of a demo, a prototype of that website that you build and then let the customer decide to proceed with the full-blown product.”
[10:40] Iterative + Incremental
Well, yeah! And now that we know what iterative and incremental approaches look like, let’s imagine how we can benefit by combining the two. The iterative incremental approach allows a project to benefit from the best of both worlds. Work is still being performed in feedback loops. Each iteration still improves on what came before it. But now, the result is delivered to the user after each iteration. This means, the project team can receive feedback from customers very early on in the project life cycle and the information that is gained can help steer the course and correct it. The entire trajectory of the project may be different in the end. It is always possible that internal stakeholders are not aligned properly with the customer needs. So, what better way to maintain that alignment to the customer than by presenting your customer with a working solution as quickly as possible? Yeah, and in order to accomplish this though, each iteration needs to deliver a working product increment. It won’t have all the bells and whistles yet, but it gets the jo done. And at that point, we can more confidently say that the project is already providing business value while the product is still under development.
[12:12] Minimum Viable Product
Remember how I said that the information that is gained from iterative and incremental delivery can help steer or course correct the entire trajectory of the project? Well, this is the key premise behind the idea of an MVP, the minimum viable product. So, a minimum viable product is a product with enough features to attract earlier-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle. Because the Agile methodology is built on validating and iterating products based on user input, the MVP plays a central role in Agile development. MVPs allow a product team to collect useful feedback from customers about the product without having to build the entire product. Once the MVP is launched, initial feedback is collected and based on this feedback, the team will reiterate to fix the bugs and introduce new features that those early adapters suggested.
[13:27] The MVP Approach
A company might choose to develop and release an MVP because it’s product team wants to attract early adopters and release a product to the market as quickly as possible giving them a competitive advantage. They might also want to test an idea with real users before committing a larger budget to the products full development. Makes sense, right! Who wants to waste time and resources working on a product that nobody wants and will not succeed in the market? If your new product or service fails fast and cheaply, you will have the time, energy, and resources to try something else. And keep trying until you have a hit. And a product team may also want to release an MVP in order to learn what resonates with the target market and what doesn’t. In turn, the team can work effectively towards developing a fully-fledged product that integrates user feedback and user suggestions. Henrik Kniberg, who is a certified Agile and Lean author and coach, came up with a metaphor to help illustrate the MVP concept. Now, imagine that your customer orders a car, but you don’t just build a car. Instead, you focus on the underlying need that the customer wants to fulfill. Let’s say the underlying need is: I need to get from point A to point B faster. And a car is just one possible solution to that. Remember, a car is just a metaphor. Think of any customized type of product or development situation.
[15:21] [Product Development]
So, in response to that need, your team delivers the smallest thing that they can think of that will get the customer testing things and giving you feedback. In this case, a skateboard. The skateboard is actually a usable product that helps the customer get from point A to point B. But, is the customer happy? Well, no, not really. He still wants a car. But in the meantime, he is usually using this product and giving you feedback. As you continue to release iterations and gather feedback, the product morphs into a scooter, then into a bicycle, then a motorcycle and ultimately, it becomes a car. A car that actually meets your customers’ needs. This is the value of doing iterative and incremental product delivery. Maybe you were initially planning on building a large gas-guzzling SUV. But along the way, you learned that your customer is environmentally conscious and appreciates a car with good fuel economy and reduced emission. So in fact, we ended up with an electric car. We just saved ourselves and the customer a ton of time and money and deliver the better product in less time. Well, and now you may be thinking: But shouldn’t we already have known what the customer wanted by collecting the requirements upfront? That’s a good point. But in most real-life product development scenarios, it’s not so simple. You’d be surprised how often a company will put the final product into the hands of their customers and then discover that many of the assumptions turned out to be just plain wrong. We call this scenario the innovator’s nightmare. Gathering requirements upfront is important. But, don’t rely on that alone. Start prototyping and releasing instead. That’s where the real learning happens.
[17:34] [Quote]
Ultimately, your goal is to introduce a product, service or solution that fits the market’s needs. Like Alberto Savoia said: “Make sure you’re building the right ‘it’ before you build ‘it’ right!”
[17:53] Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
You’re maybe wondering what all of these looks like in practice. Well, here we go. Before the first incremental release can happen, some planning needs to take place. Around what exactly should be included as part of the release? Customers or other stakeholders may have dozens or even hundreds of features in mind for the product. And not all of them can or even should be developed in the first iteration. The project team and relevant stakeholders, they need to discuss the features and determine which ones are absolutely needed to deliver the product or service or result and which ones simply improve on it. The project team can then develop a prototype to rapidly test the basic ideas and assumptions behind the product. Now, this might sound eerily similar to a minimum viable product, but in essence, a prototype is the foundation for what will become the minimum viable product. The MVP is created once you have tested out any hypothesis through prototyping and gotten proof of the concept. So, an MVP is a prototype at heart but further along in the product development process. Then the set of features that are the only ones completed necessary can now be bundled together in a first release. Yeah, the MVP. Remember, the goal of the MVP is to do the least amount of work that is required in order to deliver the product and validate the product idea with early adopters. The MVP has no fancy balls and whistle. It’s often isn’t really pretty and that is why it is sometimes called a walking skeleton. Here you go! And almost certainly, it doesn’t have hundreds or thousands of hours of perfection applied to it. It simply gets the job done as directly as possibly, but most importantly, it can be placed into customers’ hands. Since it is a usable version of the product with just the core features or features that are ideal for testing, you will want to share with the biggest number of people. And if that isn’t feasible, then testing on even a single user will teach you more than doing nothing. Alright. And then the final product is released in the market only after getting sufficient feedback from the products’ initial users. But we can see in this graph, an MVP can provide business value long before the product is mature, as well as before work cost climbs higher and higher and higher. When it comes to timing, these phases are pretty flexible and there are no ideal length for each phase. For instance, sometimes an initial concept is entirely obvious and you can move quickly to prototyping and MVP development. Other times, you might spend months doing market and customer research before you proceed to the next step.
[21:15] Example: The PM PrepCast
And now, as promised, let me give you an example that will bring everything together. An example, you and I know very well, of a product that used iterative, as well as incremental, and then also an MVP at the same time. Because you’re watching it right now. It is this product here, the PMP Exam training course called The PM PrepCast. So, first of all, we recorded a prototype lesson like you’re watching right now and we sent that out to a focus group. And then, we got feedback from the focus group. And for example, they said: ‘Your background needs to be better. It was very plain.’ So I improved my background. They also said: ‘Cornelius, those headphones that you are wearing,’ I used to wear this really big headphones with a microphone like this here, ‘that doesn’t work. You really need to get rid of those.’ So, we did. As you can see, the background has changed and I am now using this much, much smaller microphone here, alright. Then, we rerecorded the prototype and we showed it internally to our other stakeholders. And one of them said: ‘Why don’t you have a mystery object back there?’ That was actually me who suggested that. Why don’t we put a mystery object behind you, a little bit of gamification there in the process as well. So, it’s something different to look at behind me all the time, and wonder: ‘What is that today?’ Alright! So, there’s that! And then we just continued doing that until we had the final look and feel of the lessons as you see them now, okay. And then, we moved on to the MVP. The project manager and I decided that our minimum viable product is going to be the people domain. So, we want to record all the lessons, about a dozen or so, within the people domain and publish them and get them out as the minimum viable product. And once the minimum viable product is released, we will then continue incrementally to record, publish, and repeat every lesson that is not part of the people domain. Now, you might be thinking to yourself: Ah, so this lesson here is part of the process domain. That must mean it was recorded after the minimum viable product was completed. Well, wouldn’t it be nice if everything always worked out the way you had it planned? It wasn’t. because this lesson that you’re watching right now was finished before the MVP was done. I still have a couple of lessons to record for the MVP. So, we’re recording out of order, completely, right? We don’t record these in order. We record whatever lesson is finished, and this lesson here just happens to be finished before the MVP was finished. So, it became part of the MVP and from where I’m sitting right now, it will be released as part of our MVP. So, there you have it. An example that includes iterative, incremental, and MVP that you hold in your hands.
[24:49] Takeaways
Yes! And this concludes our lesson on business value. Do keep in mind that many projects can deliver value to customers prior to project completion and start realizing benefits sooner than later. Value comes in many shapes and sizes. Organizations undertake projects with any combination of tangible and intangible values in mind. Most commonly, however, revenue is being sought but intangible benefits like goodwill and intellectual property can change a company’s trajectory. Iterative and incremental development processes are powerful tools on their own. But when combined, they form a method of repeatedly improving upon a solution while continually delivering that solution to customers, and the early feedback from those customers can shape the future of the project. The goal of the first release should be the minimum viable product. It contains only what is needed to attract early adopter customers and validate a product idea early on the produce development life cycle. Building towards an MVP will place the product in customers hands much, much sooner and allow for value to be realized well ahead of project completion. And that, brings us to the end of our discussion on business value. Thank you for joining me today.
Until next time.
[End of transcript]
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
Free PMP Training: Build a Shared Understanding
The PM PrepCast is your complete PMP training. With over 35 hours of in-depth video lessons it is a complete PMP online course. Please enjoy this free lesson:
One of the first goals in onboarding a team for a project is to ensure that they build and maintain a shared understanding about the project’s desired objectives and outcomes. In this’s lesson, we’ll discuss how to do this most effectively.
Something you may notice is that the enablers of this ECO task have an implication that building a shared understanding is all about fixing issues and misunderstandings that have already occurred. But in truth, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," as the old saying goes. Building a shared understanding needs to happen from the get-go, as early as your project kick-off meeting, and ultimately comes down to having good written documentation, efficient communication, regular meetings, and proper feedback. This will help prevent misunderstandings. As such, our lesson will focus on communication theory to identify and avoid misunderstandings, and on facilitation techniques for finding consensus in order to get to a shared understanding in a project.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
F02.10 Shared Understanding
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome to The PM PrepCast™, where we communicate the concepts, tools, and techniques that you’ll want to understand while learning about project management, and I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. One of the first goals in onboarding team for a project is to ensure that they build and maintain a shared understanding about the project’s desired objectives and outcome. So, in today’s lesson, we’ll discuss how to do this most effectively. Build a shared understanding falls within the people domain, and it has four enablers.
[00:49] Build a Shared Understanding
First, break down situations to identify the root causes of a misunderstanding. So, when a problem arises, you’ll need to gather the team and work to identify the source of any misunderstandings and its consequences. Misunderstandings can easily escalate to conflict. So, it’s important to act quickly. Root cause analysis, conflict management, and team meetings are just a few of the many tools and techniques that can be leveraged. Survey all necessary parties to reach a consensus. We should be able to work with all the people involved in our project to create common ground. Surveys, brainstormings, voting methods, these can all be used to generate ideas and make decisions about different aspects of the project and achieve a consensus where possible. Support the outcome of the parties’ agreement. When a new project commences, the team must decide on a set of desired objectives, outcomes, and processes. Documenting these agreements in a project charter or a team charter helps to keep team members accountable to one another. Investigate potential misunderstandings. The ultimate failure to build shared understanding is conflict. Conflict often arises from a misunderstanding, that leads to a perceived mismatch in needs, desires, and values or perspectives. By finding the causes for a misunderstanding, we can try to avoid similar issues in the future. Something you may have noticed is that these enablers all have an implication that building a shared understanding is all about fixing issues and misunderstandings that have already occurred. But in truth, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as the old saying goes. So, building a shared understanding needs to happen from the get go, as early as your project kickoff meeting, and ultimately comes down to having good written documentation, efficient communication, regular meetings and proper feedback. This will help prevent misunderstandings. As such, our lesson right now will focus on communication theory and how to identify and avoid misunderstandings and on the facilitation techniques for finding consensus in order to get a shared understanding in a project. Let’s get going.
[03:47] [Quote]
So, to build a shared understanding, we need to take a look at how we communicate. A lot of communication feels like common sense, but how you communicate is one of the biggest critical success factors on a project. There are some key concepts to understand, but much of this topic may seem like just normal business practice. And that’s a good thing. Nevertheless, don’t underestimate the importance of good communications. If you mess up your communications, you will likely mess up your project.
[04:24] Communication
That’s why I want to start our discussion with some communication basics. All communication regardless of the type of media we are using, either via devices or face to face, follow the same pattern --- sender, message, medium, receiver. Or, to translate, someone, the sender, sends a message to someone else, the receiver, through some kind of communication medium. That doesn’t always go well, however. The act of communication can be derailed by what Shannon and Weaver described in their model of communication as noise. Noise also called interference distorts the message between a sender and a receiver. Noise can be anything, internal or external, that interferes with the transmission of a message or an acknowledgement. For instance, distance, unfamiliar technology, lack of background information, a mental distraction, or language. I’ll give you an example. Have you ever been on a website or a blog trying to read something, perhaps a recipe or something, and then suddenly, you’re interrupted by a pop-up ad? Well, that pop-up ad is noise. And isn’t it really annoying and distracting when that happens? I hated when companies do that. I would never think that low.
[6:00] How to Avoid Misunderstandings
So, what can we do then to avoid misunderstandings from the get go? It helps to have a common glossary. If everyone is using the same definitions and terms on the project, many misunderstandings can be avoided. Having a common language in project management is not to be underestimated. It’s one of the reasons why terminology is crucial for exam success, by the way. Another way to mitigate the risk of misunderstanding in project communication is to have clearly delineated roles. When everyone knows what’s in scope and what is out of scope in regard to their role, definition and responsibilities, then communication, they often go much, much more smoothly. Responsibility assignment matrix can be used to clarify roles and responsibilities in cross-functional departments and projects, and also within processes. A third good practice for avoiding misunderstandings, especially if there is already a conflict due to miscommunication, is to involve a third party such as a mediator, arbitrator, auditor, or another person who can support the process with their neutrality, expertise and experience. And then lastly when it comes to avoiding misunderstandings, it is extremely important to consider the context of any communication, which occurs between people understanding why and in which situation something is communicated helps put that communication into perspective, and makes us less likely to misinterpret it.
[7:53] Communication Methods
Next, I would like to take a look at communication methods with you. There are three rather broad ones to begin with. Push communication is where you push information to others. It’s a one-way street. The drawback is that the sender has no way of ensuring that the recipient has, indeed, received the information and consume the information, let alone understood the information. But the advantage of this approach is that you can push the information to a large number of recipients at the same time. And the recipients can access the communication content at their own discretion. Common examples of push communication include reports, voice mails, email, press releases, blogs, memos, letters, and if you are still using them, telefaxes. Pull communication happens when the recipient of the information has to pull the information from its location. Again, you don’t really know if the recipient has, indeed, sorted out the information, absorbed it or understood it. However, the advantage here is that you can place large volumes of information into a repository, and then the recipient can choose what to pull. Pull communication can include things like web portals, wikis, internets, bulletin boards and e-learning tools such as, well, right here, The Project Management PrepCast that you are using right now. The PM PrepCast is an excellent example of pull communication, from your perspective. I have uploaded it to our learning management system, and you pulled it out of there and you are not consuming it on your device, whatever it is that you may be using. Interactive communication is where you have a multi-directional exchange of information in real time. Only the people needed should be involved in this method of communication. But all participants must be available at the same time to communicate. The volume of information that can be exchanged is limited but the advantage is that feedback can be given right away. And I’m sure you have used interactive communication before. Common uses would be, for example, instant messaging, phone calls, video conferences, or any direct face-to-face communications like meetings.
[10:30] Major Forms of Communication
In addition to these three general communication methods, you will also need to consider and define the major forms of communication that you will use in your project management plan. Here are five to consider starting with interpersonal communication, which is generally face to face like a one-on-one meeting with your colleagues. Then small group communication where you involve a group, typically three to six people like a team meeting. Public communication for example giving a presentation to a large group of people. Mass communication where you share information with a large group, but there is little connection between you and the people receiving the message like sending an email newsletter to the whole company. And lastly, social networks and computer-driven communications such as LinkedIn of Twitter or Slack might be an appropriate use for your project if it helps meet your communication needs. All of these are different methods to communicate with stakeholders on your project. Don’t forget to document these approaches in the communications management plan.
[11:45] Communication Mediums
Let’s also take a brief look at what kinds of communication mediums are at our disposal. A medium in communication is a system or channel through which a speaker or writer addresses their audience. It can include written, verbal, or non-verbal elements, and can either be virtual or physical. It may address either an individual or a group of people or contain more than one element or communication type. Some common types of communication mediums in the workplace include face-to-face communication such as voice and body language, social media communication and remote communication, for example, email, phone or video conferencing. And there are, of course, many more, and I’m sure you can think of some others. And then lastly, using the right medium to communicate your message allows you to contact the right people in the way that best serves your communication goals. For example, you might choose to do an in-person presentation to train a group of new employees, so you can reach a large audience while also providing immediate opportunities for the participants to ask questions for clarity. By comparison, sending an email maybe better for a less urgent communication context, or if you’re communicating with someone remotely.
[13:17] The Communication Method
But let’s not forget whatever tool and whatever method you choose, it must be appropriate for the person receiving the message. Make sure that you understand your stakeholders’ communication needs, and then align them with the necessities of the project.
[13:36] Tips for Choosing a Communication Medium
And now, here are six things to consider when choosing the right medium for your communication beginning with urgency. It is an emergency or can your message wait? People, in general, tend to respond faster to face-to-face communication versus written forms of communication. So, if you’re trying to contact a team member outside of work hours regarding an urgent matter, then they maybe more likely to respond to a phone call rather than an email. Next, we have formality. Some types of communications may be more formal than others. Emails and text messages, in general, tend to be more informal or semi-formal, while a memo or report is typically very formal. For example, if you need to deliver a serious message to someone, then a face-to-face meeting maybe preferable to sending a text. Taking the time to meet with that person shows additional effort and consideration, whereas a text message or other informal communication mediums will not show that effort. It also depends on the context, of course. Third in our list is purpose. Knowing the purpose of your message can also help you choose the right communication medium. Therefore, if you want your audience to be able to ask questions or provide a detailed response to your message, then having a phone call or a face-to-face meeting might be more appropriate than sending a text or an email. And don’t forget your relationship because your relationship with your audience can influence what type of communication medium is most effective. For example, when asking your boss a question, you might send a semi-formal email, whereas, you may use an informal chat message to contact a PM. Also consider how easily your audience can access your message based on your chosen medium. If you work for a company with many remote employees, hosting an in-person meeting may not be possible. Or, if you work with an in-person team, it may be quicker to have an impromptu in-person meeting rather than emailing or scheduling a video conference. Finally, you want to consider the information type. Some types of information are more easily expressed through search and mediums. As an example, if you’re trying to share data with your audience, that includes complex charts and graphs, it might be better to use a visual medium like PowerPoint or a written report, that will make it easier for your audience to comprehend the data.
[16:32] A Good Rule of Thumb
And with the communication you use, how can you make sure that the motivation of your colleagues and team members is maintained and supports building a shared understanding? Well, when talking to your project team members, a good rule of thumb is praise in public, and criticize in private. So, in most cases, let everyone hear when someone did something well and you think they deserve praise. However, if you are not so happy with what someone did or how they performed, it’s often better to choose one-on-one setting to deliver that message and clarify the situation. That way, you avoid public embarrassment in your colleague and you give everyone the chance to settle matters more privately. In any case, criticism should, of course, be respectful and constructive. This can lower the risk of the other person reacting defensively and keeps the confrontation on a more factual level.
[17:40] Finding Consensus
When building a shared understanding, it is helpful to see how much consensus exists among team members and other stakeholders with regards to priorities and other important project decisions. We can support this process by using voting techniques such as Roman voting. This is the classical simple and fast ‘thumbs up – thumbs down’ gesture. Then, there is fist of five. Here, you hold up a number of fingers and depending on how many fingers people in the room are holding up, it becomes clear who is supporting the decision and who isn’t. And lastly, dot voting. Dot voting, an especially democratic way of voting in favor or against a decision. Especially helpful when there are several options for a group to choose from. In dot voting, participants vote on their chosen option using a limited number of stickers or marks with pens. You know, dot stickers, those are most common. Participants are each given a set number of dots. Maybe, you give each one five. They place dot stickers next to the options that are presented to them. Once that they like, they may place any number of their dots on any number of the options. So, if you look option one really well, you put all five dots right next to that. And those options with the most dots at the end of voting, well, they win. This is a great technique to use for ranking ideas after brainstorming them.
[19:14] Integrative Thinking
Oh, and speaking of making decisions, an important aspect of building a shared understanding both with the project team and with other stakeholders is defining priorities and common goals in projects. To support this process, Roger Martin developed a theory of integrative thinking claiming that it is helpful to know what customers want, what is technically feasible and what someone in charge of creating these desirable and feasible things can actually afford to invest in. And what you want to do is to try and find the sweet spot there in the center of these three aspects. This is where you want everyone’s understanding to focus on. You want a solution that is viable, desirable, and feasible.
[20:10] Project and Team Charters
Project charters and team charters can be useful in building a shared understanding both with the project team and with other stakeholders by defining priorities and common goals on projects. A project charter, that’s a document issued by the project sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project and authorizes you, the project manager, to apply resources to your projects’ activities. A project charter is developed prior to project planning. Therefore, a project charter helps stakeholders very early on to gain a common understanding of the project milestones, deliverables and roles and responsibilities. A team charter can also be helpful as it may specify how a team chooses to handle certain issues and disagreements when they arise. As we know, achieving consensus is not always possible so it’s better to come up with ground rules in advance about how conflicts and disagreements will be handled. Though, this tend to be informal documents, project charters and team charters still act as a contract holding everyone accountable to the agreements that they have made. This reduces the likelihood of future conflict or misunderstandings.
[21:34] Vision Statement
Another way to help build a shared understanding amount of project is to create a vision statement. A project vision statement often developed along with the project charter is a description or declaration of what an organization or a project team wants to obtain or accomplish upon the completion of a project. So, it is the desired end-state. It answers why we’re doing, what we’re doing and gives project team members a reason for contributing. It clarifies the project’s purpose, eliminates confusion, unifies the team and inspires them to do their best. Unlike project requirements and project activities, which are subject to change especially if you’re using an Agile approach, a vision statement serves as a more consistent guiding light for the project. Even as projects change or adapt, the over-arching vision for the project usually remains the same. And then when formulating your own project vision statement, try to create one that is simple, specific, actionable and collaborative. That last one is especially important. Don’t just create a vision statement on your own. Solicit input from many stakeholders including your team members and customers. This will not only produce better ideas, but will help them own and agree to the vision.
[23:15] The PM PrepCast™ Vision
Let me give you a real, live example, the project vision statement here for the PM PrepCast, the course that you are watching right now. I have taken this from our project charter. Here we go: “Assist PMP candidates around the world in reaching their goal of becoming certified by offering a range of PMP prep products that are based on PMI’s Exam Content Outline,” that’s the ECO, “and help prepare them for the most current Exam.” So, you can see that we have a clear idea of what we want to do, in general. We want to assist you to help prepare you for the most current exam. But, we’re not specifically saying how. We knew we were going to create a recorded course with lessons like the one you are watching right now, and we also had our exam simulator. But at some point, we realized, you know what, our PMP Exam Formula Study Guide is really not up to date for the most current exam. So, we updated that and we created a new version of our Formula Study Guide. And in case we find any other types of products that would be helpful to assist you and help you, we would also be able to develop those because our vision statement is pretty broad in regards to what the final output is going to be.
[24:46] MoSCoW Prioritization Method
Sometimes, despite our best efforts in planning, our team may not always agree on priorities, which can lead to conflict and misunderstanding. An easy way to decide between conflicting views and priorities is the MoSCoW Prioritization Method. It also helps to reach a consensual agreement of work to be done, and in which order it should occur. MoSCoW has four categories and they are, first of all, ‘must have.’ Are there any requirements, which have to be fulfilled to the degree that you or your stakeholders cannot do without them? Because it’s so important or simply because it is necessary. For example, if a customer’s checkout procedure cannot be finished without the customer registering first, a functional registration option is a must-have before finalizing the checkout implementation for your shopping chart. Then there are the ‘should haves.’ Everything that stakeholders and the project team thinks is important, be it not a must. These items are second priority but still high. Then we have the ‘could haves.’ Any work prioritized as could have, could also be called nice to have. They are the cherry on the cake and can lead to a higher customer satisfaction, but not doing them will also not result in a real catastrophe. And lastly, we have the ‘won’t haves.’ And, this might actually be the most important category in this list of four here to have for the team. Make sure you know and communicate what not to do. Keep it simple. Keep it manageable. Some things will consciously not get implemented, and it should be okay. They might be added to a wish list for later on maybe.
[26:53] Using MoSCoW in UX Research
Let me give you two examples of what ‘must, how, could’ look like in real life. My thanks go to Eva Schicker, she is a user experience specialist and blogs about this and she has gone to two very well-known website and in hindsight, she has done a MoSCoW analysis of the must haves, you see those at the top left corner there; should haves; could haves and won’t haves in a clockwise around the quadrants there for this website. So, my question for you is: What website is this? You know it. It’s probably the best known website in the world. And if you look at the top left there with the must-haves, right. This is so minimal, so small. There is so little there. There is a search field, the secondary search field. Maybe, a tertiary profile access. And then at the top right, we have some services, store, about. So, this very, very little on the page and which page do you know that has very little on them? Well, this is MoSCoW analysis of Google. You can clearly see at the bottom left there, won’t have --- sports event, infographic, ticket sales, background graphics, right. So, this is the way that if you were designing Google. Now, you would obviously do this ahead of time, and you would create this list of ‘should have, must have, could have, won’t have’ features before you design it. Here is our second example using the same approach. This was done retroactively. Again, another well-known website. You can already see that at the top left, in the must-have corner there, a lot more features. So, this is a much more feature-rich website --- headlines, daily lead stories, secondary stories. Based on that, you can already tell, this has got to be some sort of a news portal, stock market, hyperlinks, scroll bar, listed stories, embedded videos, right, that we have at the top. What won’t we have at the bottom right there, bottom left, excuse me --- emojis, chat rooms, e-voting, right. So, what could this be? Any idea, other than what, it could be a new website? Well, this is in fact, the New York Times MoSCoW analysis of their website.
[29:28] Eisenhower Matrix
Having clear priorities is extremely important when building a shared understanding in a project. In 1954, former US President Dwight Eisenhower made history by citing a university professor of his with the following words: I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent. This seems to be the reason why the Eisenhower Matrix for prioritizing work has been given its name. It consists of four quadrants --- high importance, low importance, low urgency, and high urgency. And then in 2012, Stephen Covey interpreted the Eisenhower Matrix as you can see here on the right. It can be used as an aid to project scope and work prioritization as follows: Do everything with high importance and urgency first. Plan for things with high importance and low urgency, so that you do not forget them. Delegate tasks with high urgency but low importance. And lastly, eliminate any tasks with low importance and low urgency. Those things, we’re just not going to do at all.
[31:04] Kano Modeling
In 1984, Noriaki Kano defined customer requirement prioritization criteria, which could be mapped to the MoSCoW categories. First, let’s look at the must-be features. Similar to the must-have features in the MoSCoW model, the customer expects these basic features often as going without saying. So, they must be included. Meeting them is not satisfactory for the customer. But, not meeting them makes the customer angry. For example, being able to send text messages with your phone or having seatbelts in your car. I mean, I’d be pretty upset if I bought a phone that doesn’t have SMS. Next, we have the one-dimensional features. These are features that give you a proportionate increase in customer satisfaction as you invest into them. One example would be increasing battery life for a cellphone. Dr. Kano described this type of feature as one dimensional because of the direct linear correlation between how much you invest in it and the amount of customer satisfaction that it delivers. And then finally, there are attractive features, which bring delight and make the customer smile. If you don’t have these attractive features, which Dr. Kano calls delighters, customers might not even miss them. But, if you do include them and continue to invest in them, you create happier customers. You can also think of these features as the unique innovations and surprises that you include in your product. For example, a phone coming with a built-in app for digital well-being and screen time limitation can surprise and delight customers, who in turn want more. They come back and they tell their friends. And they in turn, become customers. There is even a special Kano questionnaire for the identification of these levels. And, there is also a rule about how these features shift from delighters to basic needs. Let me show you.
[33:31] [Kano Model Graph]
As customer expectations change with the level of performance from competing products, attributes can move from delighters to performance need, and then to the basic need. You can see this is symbolized here by these two big, red arrows right there. So, we have the delighters here. This is this thin, red line here at the top. So, we have all the features that are delighters here. But overtime, these delighter features, well, they move down, especially if all your competitors also have these delighters. They move down and now, your customers move here to the thin, green line. These are the basic needs. And everybody expects these. So, what used to be a delighter in the past, moves down and is now pretty much just a basic need. Let me take you back to the example of the phone charge because back in 2009, mobile phone charges would last 12 hours. As each new mobile generation improve battery life, the attribute of having a 12-hour battery life has shifted to delighter to, well, probably not even a basic need. This is less than a basic need. Or, think about the camera on your phone. Nowadays, you simply expect to take pictures in the megapixel range at an outstanding quality. Ten to fifteen years, this would have been up here, right. But right now, it’s down here. This is a basic need. And yeah, for the even older ones among us, you might still remember a time when having a rear-view mirror in the car was a delighter. Well, I think would agree that today having rear-view mirrors in a car, that’s just a must have. So, what is attractive at one point, overtime will become one dimensional here in the middle. And then it will come a basic need at the bottom. Whenever this happens, new delighters should and often can be found in order to stay competitive.
[35:42] Takeaways
It’s time for this lesson’s takeaways. Communication is essential for project success. Project excellence requires your whole project team to have a common understanding of what you are doing. Without the team members and stakeholders, we’ll all be pulling in opposite directions. The ultimate failure to build a shared understanding is conflict. Building a shared understanding requires good communication tailored to the situation at hand and the people involved. Learning about different communication methods and mediums can help you choose the right one for your message and the right one for your stakeholders. Vision statements, project charters and team charters are all documents to help capture the intent and vision of the project and prevent misunderstandings between stakeholders. And lastly, make priorities clear, and try to create consensus whenever possible in order to build a shared understanding with all relevant stakeholders. Helpful tools to support this among others are the MoSCoW Prioritization Method, the Eisenhower Matrix, and the Kano Model. And with that, we conclude our coverage of building a shared understanding. Until next time.
[End of transcript]
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
Free PMP Training: PMP Exam Lessons Learned
The PM PrepCast is your complete PMP training. With over 35 hours of in-depth video lessons it is a complete PMP online course. Please enjoy this free lesson:
Join me in this webinar packed with PMP exam lessons learned from those who took the exam.
Joining me is Dana Domnisor, PMP, a recent exam passer who will share her experience taking the PMP exam at home. Learn how she overcame several obstacles and what she would do differently if she took the exam again.
The PrepCast team has been closely monitoring online PMP exam forums to help you better prepare with insights from successful exam takers and their actual test-taking experience.
Topics for this webinar include question types, question style, language, COVID-19 hurdles, formulas to expect, insecurities about passing or not, question length, question content, question difficulty, exam duration, and dealing with question vagueness and self-doubt during the actual exam.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
F00.40 PMP Exam Lessons Learned
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome back to the Project Management PrepCast™, everyone. I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. And this lesson is recorded with a live audience on Facebook and YouTube. And today, as you can clearly see, we are going to do a Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam lessons learned round. Hello, everybody! So, yes! PMP Exam lessons learned is the topic of the day. Let’s take a look at the agenda together here.
[00:40] Agenda
And surprise! We’re going to start with lessons learned. Then, we have a live guest who wrote to me, oh three days ago and said: ‘Hey! I just passed the exam, one of your students, why don’t I come on Monday.’ So, we have rearranged everything, and you can welcome Dana Domnisor, PMP in about 10 minutes or so. Then, we’re going to go back into a few more lessons learned and we are going to have some take action at the end for you to know. As always, Qasim is the first to say: ‘Hello!’ Hello to you as well, Qasim.
[01:20] It’s Easy…No! It’s Hard!
The first lessons that I have for you is this one here. “It’s easy…No! It’s Hard!” Okay so, this is kind of a contradictory lessons learned and that s intentional.
[01:35] Lessons Learned?
So, this is what I have found in the last five days on the internet, okay. This is also why it has a question mark after. But it’s lessons learned, really? ‘The test was more difficult than I expected.’ And somebody else says: ‘The test was easier than anticipated.’ In my opinion, the bottom line here is this: Don’t believe one or the other. You won’t know until you have taken the exam whether in hindsight it’s going to be appearing easier for you. Obviously, if you prepare well, and you’re really a go-getter and a studier, it’s going to appear less hard to you. But if you’re just kind of play it by ear, and you don’t study all that well, you’ll probably going to say: ‘Oh my God, this was a really, really hard exam,’ right. So, instead of worrying about whether your exam is going to be easier or hard, why don’t you look at this as an opportunity to study up on the latest project management theories, principles, processes, techniques, and become a better project management in the process, right. Preparing for the PMP should be more than just adding these three letters behind your name. It’s a point in your career where you can decide: ‘I am going to step up my career.’ Yeah! That’s about it! Hello also to Kevin and hello also to Suleiman here, who have joined us on Facebook and YouTube today.
[3:17] Question Vagueness
The next one is question vagueness. This is a big one.
[03:23] PMP® Exam Lessons Learned
Because we get this almost every week. The questions on the exam are vague, really, really vague. And you have to be prepared. You can’t be prepared for this, but in your mind, you have to prepare yourself for these questions are going to be really vague. I’m going to be confused by them, okay. If you go into the exam with that attitude, you are good to go. Alright!
[03:48] Lessons Learned
So, here’s a longer one, right. This person was genuinely shocked at the difficulty and vagueness of the questions. This person has used Rita Mulcahy’s exam simulator and says: ‘Well, on Rita’s simulator, I was fine, right. But on the exam, 90% of the questions on the exam, I felt uncomfortable with.’
[4:16] Lessons Learned
Next one is very similar situational, pick the best option, not maybe like real life, right. ‘I honestly was not sure of a lot of my answers as the situations were unique and I had to use my best judgment.’ Again, the vagueness here. And then this one here: ‘In general, the question was shorter than in the PrepCast Simulator, more vague.’ ‘We have more references to specific process names, the exam was more vague.’ Welcome to the wonderful world of managing an exam simulator and developing questions for this. I can tell you this: If we, in our simulator, if Rita, if anybody in their simulators had questions that were as vague as on the real PMP Exam, you would be writing to us and say: ‘Your questions stink. How am I supposed to answer these? They are so vague. You’re not giving me enough information. I really don’t know why you’re putting questions this bad out there.’ Then you take the exam and you come back to us ang you go: ‘I’m really sorry. You were right. The vagueness of the questions in your simulator was correct.’ But we don’t want that to happen. So what we and everybody else does is, we give you more in our exam simulators. So, in our exam simulators, you get a little bit more information, a little less vagueness but on the exam, it’s going to be there. You’re going to be surprised at the vagueness in the exam.
[05:53] Question Types
Alright! And then question types. This is important for you to know because PMI has traditionally only had one question type. A question, four answers A, B, C, D. You have to select the best one.
[06:12] Lessons Learned [5]
Alright! But they’ve changed that. They now have matching questions as you can see here. Multiple answers, that’s where you have five or six answers. And then, it’s your choice to select two, select three, questions where you have to click on a chart, okay. More in terms of the format, I got matching, multiple response, 20 questions were like that. For fill in the blank, you have to type the letters, A, B, C, D. So as I said, there’s a question and you have to select A, B, C, D. But there’s also what PMI calls the limited fill in the blank. So instead of clicking A, B, C, D, you literally have to go to your keyboard and you have to type A, B, C, or D into this. I asked PMI why do you this, and they said, to give some variety. If you only have to click, click, click, click, click, that gets boring. So if you suddenly have something where you have to type on your keyboard, then that changes the cadence and gives you a little bit of variety on your exam.
[7:14] Lessons Learned [6]
And here also, there were several drag-and-drop questions. One click on the diagram question, oh, click-on-the-diagram question. Those are the ones where maybe they show you a diagram of an S curve of a budget and then the question maybe something like: Where in this diagram is most of the money spent? And then you have to go to the diagram and you have to go click. This in the diagram is where I think most of the money was spent. So, that’s the click-on-the-diagram kind of a situation. And then choose three, choose two and the important thing here is: If it says choose two, you have to choose two before you can go to the next question. You cannot leave it incomplete. So if you’re not sure, you want to flag them and then later on go back.
[08:09] Dona Domnisor, PMP [Interview]
Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! And now, it is time for our guest, Dona Domnisor, PMP, who joins us today from Luxembourg. There she is. Hello, Dona! Welcome! Dona Domnisor: Hello, Cornelius. Thank you for inviting me. Hello, everyone, from over the raining Luxembourg. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, thank you so much for offering. I mentioned this to you before we started. This is actually the first time that any of my students has come to me and said: ‘I would like to be here. I would like to talk about my lessons learned.’ You only took it a few days ago, right? Was it last week or two weeks ago? Dona Domnisor: Last week on Friday actually. A long Friday for me. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah. So let’s see, Friday, we are Monday. That’s like four days. Dona Domnisor: Four days ago, yeah.
[8:59]
Cornelius Fichtner: This is really brand new that you have been a PMP. So, tells us about your experience because I remember if I read your lessons learned, you said: “I have taken it at home on my computer. And looking back, I would now probably go to the test center.” Why did you say that? Dona Domnisor: It’s true, it adds extra stress on you. And you don’t really need the extra stress. You are under pressure enough because of the exam itself. And the logistics and everything that you have to pay attention to because of the online tool, it puts extra pressure. It can be difficult to handle. Cornelius Fichtner: And by the online tool, you are referring to their online system, right, and a system check and all of that. You did the system check before the exam, right? Dona Domnisor: Exactly. I got an email with two links --- one for the system check and one for logging in for the exam. And what they didn’t tell me or it wasn’t there in the email is that after you do the system check and you actually install something on your computer, on the day of your exam, you should launch this application and start from there the exam, not just click on the link, which will bring you back to checking the system. On the day of the exam, I had to check again. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, so, you also mentioned, you’re in communication and these kinds of things drive you crazy. It’s not communicated properly, right. Dona Domnisor: Yeah. And I was supposed to be there 30 minutes before the real exam started. So at 9AM for me, and it’s six of seven minutes past nine, still nothing happened. There was nothing happening. My button was not active. I could not click on Start Exam. And I started to panic a bit. I found a call center number, which was not directly embedded in the email or on that page, I have to look on their website and find the number for me. I called London, and they guided me through the process. They asked me to restart my computer. And then, my phone didn’t quite work to take, you need to take photos of yourself, of your working space, so that they see you don’t have anything under the table or around the corner. And they actually managed, I think, 9:33, 9:34, I was starting my exam. Then another exam administrator, I guess, started to talk to me. And he asked me to throw away everything. Cornelius Fichtner: When you say, he started to talk to you or she, is that live? So, you’re on your loud speakers? Dona Domnisor: Yes, yes. I could not write. But I could hear. And I could see him. And he told me that I’m not allowed to have even a white piece of paper or pens on the table that I wasn’t aware of. I thought I could have a scrap paper so that I mark something on it. And I started the exam, I think the first part is divided in three. So after the first 60 questions and after you revised everything, all the questions marked up for review, you have the option to take a break. Cornelius Fichtner: Right! So, you take the 60 questions and when you feel I’m done with those, take a break. Dona Domnisor: Yes. After question number 60, you are prompted to a screen asking you to review all the questions. And after you review them, they ask you if you want to go on a break or not. I chose to go on a break and it was something, a note on the screen, something like: The rules of the exam still apply during the break. And I was not sure, am I allowed to go to the toilet at least? Can I go for two minutes? Because I really need to go and to grab a coffee or something. And then I started to have a chat window with the option to contact the exam administrator, and he wasn’t very prompt. He kept on writing me: I’ll be back with you in a minute.’ Yeah, I don’t know for sure, something like that. Just not sure. But actually, he allowed me to leave the room. But you have to be back until the break ends, in 10 minutes. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. To summarize, at the end of 60, you push a button that says: ‘I’m now taking a break.’ You are allowed to leave the room, but you have to be back before the 10 minutes are up. Dona Domnisor: Exactly.
[14:04]
Cornelius Fichtner: Now, before we move on to the second part here. There is a question from Kevin Reilly. And Kevin asks: “Were you able to do a Brain Dump” of some sort? Now, you already said they told you every paper has to be gone. So, you couldn’t write anything down. Did you use the whiteboard that they had to do a brain dump? Dona Domnisor: No, no, no, no. I was concerned about managing my time and I had a small plan in my head that every 30, each set of 30 questions have to be within 35 minutes, so that I can manage everything. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, you opted not to do the brain dump? Okay! Dona Domnisor: I opted not to, but I think I marked up for review many questions, much more than I usually did with your tool. Because indeed they are a bit vague. Cornelius Fichtner: So, they are vague, right, like I said earlier. So, do you think that the vagueness of the question made you mark, mark, mark, mark for review more often? Dona Domnisor: Yes, that as well. But I also wanted to be more thorough to take another look even when I was inclined. I usually had two choices and I was not sure if it’s A or C maybe, but I’m strongly inclined to one of the two, but I still marked the question for further review.
[15:28]
Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! We have a question here from Alex, because you had to take the paper away. “Can you have water in the room?” Assuming the room isn’t good enough, you probably have to have it right there with you. Can you have water right there with you? Dona Domnisor: Yes, I think I had one in the computer of water during the exam and coffee. Cornelius Fichtner: What I know, you have to have it in a transparent container. So, it has to be a glass and water bottle where you can see through. So, my tea cup here and my teapot, that wouldn’t work because you cannot see into it. Dona Domnisor: The coffee was in a mug. It was in a normal mug. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you had a normal mug? Dona Domnisor: Yeah. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. That seems to have changed. Dona Domnisor: No one told me anything about it.
[16:20]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, during the first set, what were the question types that you had. I talked about the multiple choice, multiple correct drag and drop, point and click, fill in the blank where you had to type A, B, C. Dona Domnisor: I didn’t have that. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you didn’t. You didn’t need to be typing, okay. Dona Domnisor: Not at all. But I had to drag and drop, and this pairing type of questions, which were easier than yours. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, so pair one to the other? Dona Domnisor: Yes. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Of course, we’re not allowed to say what exactly you had to pair. We’re not going to go into the details. Dona Domnisor: I don’t even remember. Cornelius Fichtner: As an example, as an example, you have an action and an action in a process, for example, quality. And then, you have to drag this action to and say: This is an action for quality. This is an action for risk management. This is an action for budgeting. Dona Domnisor: And you have to drag above the others. So from the left to the right. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, so it’s an overlay. Dona Domnisor: Yeah! Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, okay, got it! Alright! How did it continue for you, part two? Dona Domnisor: Part two, I think, it was pretty smooth. Nothing spectacular happened. But in the third part, when I was at question 175, my computer crashed. Cornelius Fichtner: So, that’s five questions before the end, right? Dona Domnisor: Yes. And I knew the answer to number 175. So actually, there were five more, and I got a blue screen. I never got a blue screen on this computer I was using. Cornelius Fichtner: How much time did you have left at that point? Dona Domnisor: I think around 20 minutes. But I had a lot of questions marked for review because I think for me, the third part was a bit more difficult than the others. Also, because I was tired at that point. That’s normal. Cornelius Fichtner: I was just going to say, yeah. Dona Domnisor: Yeah, and I had quite a few questions marked for review. When I saw the blue screen, I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. What is it now? What is going to happen? Are they going to let me in again? Are they going to allow me to continue? With this 175, is it good enough to pass it or no? And I got back, I think it took me three, four minutes to get back. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, you still had about 15 minutes or so, yeah. Dona Domnisor: Yes. But I couldn’t revise all the questions I had marked. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, there wasn’t enough time. Dona Domnisor: No. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: I was almost there but I couldn’t go through. Everything I just got the message on the screen, I was ready for any type of message. I was so scared. Cornelius Fichtner: So, you make sure that once you started the computer back up again, you were able to log back in, and you were able to continue so, you could add 75, 76, 78, and 90, okay. Dona Domnisor: Yes, yes. I was at 175.
[19:18]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, did you leave any question in the exam unanswered? Dona Domnisor: No. Cornelius Fichtner: Every single one is answered, yeah. And, that is the way to go. Because there is no penalty for incorrect answers. But as soon as you do not answer a question, it is considered incorrect. So, there is a penalty for not answering. Therefore, you always want to, every single one, check them out, alright.
[19:44]
Dona Domnisor: One important point about it. Because I realized when I restarted the computer: Check if you have applications running in the background, because their program takes control of your computer and they can see what else is running and I wasn’t aware that Microsoft Teams and Skype were running in the background in my computer. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, okay. Dona Domnisor: And then, it prompts you to close this application, that I wasn’t seeing on the screen. And in my desperation to be back again, to be back on in the exam, I uninstalled Skype. Because I couldn’t close it. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, before you go to the exam, turn off all auto-starts, in case when the computer crashes and you’re restarting, these background applications don’t fire up. I mean nowadays, yes, you have Skype. You have Microsoft Teams. Maybe, you have Slack. Maybe you have another application, some messenger app that’s running. Everything’s running in the background these days. Let’s see, what do I have running in the background right now? Yes, I have Teams. Microsoft Teams is running. I didn’t even know it’s running. I have Google Drive. I have Google Drive running. I have Slack. So yeah, without me knowing: Why is Microsoft Teams running? I didn’t even notice, right. Dona Domnisor: And when I was back online, the administrator asked me what happened. I don’t know. My computer just crashed and now, I’m back online, sorry. And then, he said it’s okay. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, allowed you to continue. Dona Domnisor: Yeah Cornelius Fichtner: The reason why PMI has this 60-break, 60-break, 60 is it is very hard to concentrate for 3 hours and 50 minutes straight. And, if you drink water, it’s very hard not to go to the bathroom during that time. So, they have to give you time to leave. So, this was like five minutes, five questions before the end, which he could probably see. I don’t know what happens if you have a crash right at the beginning. What happens then? Will they allow you to continue, yes or no? I haven’t heard any stories like that. Dona Domnisor: I’m not even sure that the crash was not their fault, something that they… Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you think their application or the server, or…okay. Dona Domnisor: Yes. Because I never had this kind of blue screen with the message “Computer unable to…”
[22:24]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. When it comes to Pearson Vue, you get everything. So, you get from left to right, you get the people who say: ‘Perfect! I had no problem. I tested my system. It worked.’ All the way over to: ‘I tested my system. Everything was fine. Nothing worked. I couldn’t log in. Nobody spoke to me. It was terrible. It crashed constantly.’ So, you get all of it. The number one recommendation that I have definitely is use your personal laptop and not your business laptop. Because business computers, they are always locked down --- firewalls, virtual private networks, intrusion alerts, background applications that must run, you’re not an administrator, you cannot turn anything off. So, do use your personal computer. Now, let me test this theory: Dona, did you use your personal computer? Dona Domnisor: Yes, I did. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, alright! Dona Domnisor: And in the same room, I tested it with the same connection, nothing special. Cornelius Fichtner: So, you’re done. You just finished. How long does it take until the message shows up on the screen? Dona Domnisor: Immediately, because my time was up. I actually didn’t get to push the button “End Exam,” or something. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh, you didn’t! Dona Domnisor: Yeah, because I was going through the review questions, review questions and then at some point: “You have five minutes left,” I think, it was a message at some point. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: Maybe, also: “You have 1 minute,” but I’m not sure. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: But five minutes, for sure. Cornelius Fichtner: There is a countdown clock, right? Dona Domnisor: Yeah. It’s big on your screen: “There are five minutes left.” Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, yeah. Does the countdown clock change color? Like it’s white normally, and it goes red for the last five minutes? Dona Domnisor: No, I don’t remember. No, I don’t recall. Cornelius Fichtner: But there is a message that says five minutes, okay. So you did. Does it just stop, you’re done? Dona Domnisor: Screen appears with a short message, two lines: “Congratulations! You passed the PMP Exam.” And I screamed. I didn’t jump from the chair because I saw on your forum that someone’s husband… Cornelius Fichtner: This is very important. Dona Domnisor: I was on the chair and I jumped and screamed. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the celebration is fine. Once you done, don’t do this. Wait, I’ll go the other way, there. Don’t go out of the camera. Because now, if you’re out of the camera, they may cancel your exam, right? So, stay put. “Yeah, I passed!” And did you get an email? Was there anything else? Dona Domnisor: You have a questionnaire from Pearson Vue and a short one from PMI. I’m not sure about the order. Cornelius Fichtner: You’re exhausted. You’re tired. Dona Domnisor: It’s a very bad time to ask for feedback. I wouldn’t do that if I were Pearson Vue, or I would repeat the survey later on when people are not that exhausted and maybe disappointed or…
[25:27]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Since we’re at the very end, let me take you back to the very beginning. Is there a tutorial? Dona Domnisor: No. I think, there’s none, no. I was very stressed at the beginning because I couldn’t start the exam, and you have three bullet points. If you don’t start it, maybe it’s not time yet. It’s longer than 30 minutes. Or maybe you already failed to log in to your appointment. You are too late. Then they’ll start to check if this is the CDs and what time is my exam. But, I don’t remember having the tutorial. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah! Now, let’s go back to the end. No, wait! Let’s bring up this question here from Nivedita, who says: “While reading vague question, my min starts panicking more, putting me even further away from understanding it.” Did you ever have a situation where you read a question. A question made you panic? You go: “I don’t understand what’s going on.” Dona Domnisor: When I don’t understand what’s going, I usually get angry and I click something and I mark it for review. And at some point later, I come back to it. Cornelius Fichtner: You come back to check it. Dona Domnisor: Yeah, with a clear mind. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So, best choice in this situation Nivedita is make a choice. Mark it. Come back. Don’t let it get to you. That’s the important thing, right. The questions are vague. The questions are confusing. If you let it get to you, it will affect your exam. So, at that point, you have to realize what’s going on in your own head. Breathe in. Breathe out. D, mark, next. Dona Domnisor: Exactly!
[27:27]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, got it! So, at the end, you get the message “Congratulations.” When you are at the testing center, you can now get up. You can go out. They give you a printed piece of paper with your result. What did you get? Did you get anything from Pearson Vue? Did they send you an email or..? Dona Domnisor: They sent me an email one hour after the exam finished. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Dona Domnisor: It was “Congratulations, You Passed” and that I was above target in all three areas. Cornelius Fichtner: Right. So was that above target from Pearson Vue or was that from PMI, or was that sort of a combined? Dona Domnisor: It was from Pearson Vue and from PMI, it came Saturday afternoon, so one day, 24 to 48 hours, yeah. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. And, have you already checked online if your name is in the online registry on PMI’s website? Dona Domnisor: I didn’t check today. I think I checked yesterday, and it wasn’t. But I can download my certificate, and I saw today the exam’s score in more detail.
[28:45]
Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! According to PMI’s Exam Content Outline, 50% of the exam is Agile and Hybrid, and the other 50% is plan-driven Waterfall. And this is the question that we have here from Miguel Escribano Nuño. He asks, in your perception: “What was the percent of Agile, hybrid, Waterfall” questions on the exam? Or did you not pay attention to that at all. Dona Domnisor: I think at some point, I told myself it’s a bit more Agile than expected. So, I think it was more than half. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. Yeah, to me, this is something that many of my students tell me that they feel there is more Agile in the exam than Waterfall. I don’t know how to explain it because the Exam Content Outline says 50-50. So, 51, 52%, I will be okay, right? That’s just a small variation, whatever. But some people say it’s 75% Agile. Dona Domnisor: I don’t think so. Around 60, maybe. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, and this could, of course, also be if you have a Hybrid question. PMI says: Yes, this is a Hybrid question, but it’s primarily Waterfall, primarily plan-driven. So, they count that as plan-driven, but in our heads: Oh, this is Hybrid, right. So, how do you assign them versus, how does PMI assign it. Question from Andrey: “Is it possible to go back to marked question from the beginning when you are in your last…?” So, you get 60-break, 60-break. Can you go back to the previous ones? Dona Domnisor: You cannot. No, no. The first 60 are gone. You can’t go back. Cornelius Fichtner: So, if you are in the second, you cannot go back. Dona Domnisor: If you are only in the third part, or in the second part, and you don’t have access to others. And I think that’s the point, because you can’t go to the toilet and check a formula because you marked a question. Cornelius Fichtner: Kevin asks: “What materials did you use to study?” Dona Domnisor: I used Rita’s Tenth Edition, your Exam Simulator, and I discovered some YouTube videos from David McLellan in my last week of preparation actually. It’s seven hours video on YouTube, and this is it. I never read the PMBOK actually. Cornelius Fichtner: You never read the PMBOK? Dona Domnisor: Uh-uh.
[31:25]
Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, well, congratulations! Alright! What would be your number one recommendation here for everybody, sort of, in closing as a takeaway. If you had to do this again, what would you do differently? What would you tell our audience: Here’s what to focus on? Dona Domnisor: The stress that the administrative part of the exam puts on you is out of the question. It’s there and you have to deal with it. And don’t let the stress get you. Cornelius Fichtner: Don’t worry about it. This is live. I’m surprised that my cat hasn’t joined me yet today. Dona Domnisor: No, my cat also wanted to join the PMP Exam. Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! Don’t let the stress get to you. I think this is a.. Dona Domnisor: The administrative part that you are too late, or that you don’t have a pen, or that the connection is, it belongs to it. Focus on your exam. This is part of life. It’s not always, you cannot have control over it. It’s a separate thing but yes, it adds to your stress. Cornelius Fichtner: Alright! Dona Domnisor: And practice. I think the fact that I did three more exams from your simulator helped me a lot. It helps you learn how to be concentrated, how to be focused for four hours on the exam. Cornelius Fichtner: This actually answers this question here from David: “How many simulation exams did you write?” Did I hear you correctly? You said, you took three, right? Dona Domnisor: Yes. Actually, I had an attempt to take the ITTO, and I got bored. So I abandoned it. Cornelius Fichtner: Understandable, yes. ITTO, no longer on the exam. This is really strange. If we take the ITTO exam out of our simulator, people complain: Why don’t you have any questions about ITTOs? When we put it into the Simulator, people complain: Why do you have questions about ITTOs? So, you can’t, there is no way we can do it right. Okay, so you took three exams. Dona Domnisor: So, I took three, two weeks before the real exam. So, the first one was two weeks before the real exam, and I had scores between 72 and 76%.
[33:54]
Cornelius Fichtner: That’s about, that’s about the recommended target that we give to people. Alright! Dona, thank you. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us. Dona Domnisor: Thank you! Goodluck, everyone. Cornelius Fichtner: Yeah, and giving us your recommendations. Thank you! Bye, bye! Dona Domnisor: Thank you, bye! [End of interview]
[34:15] [Interview Closing]
Alright, everybody! That was our guest, Dona Domnisor, PMP, who just passed her exam a few days ago, four days ago. Alright! What we want to do is we want to continue a little bit here, and we want to take a look at a few more lessons learned.
[34:38] Formulas Are Still On The Exam
And this one here in particular, because people say: Formulas are no longer on the exam, and I can tell you within the last five days, I have seen a number of lessons learned that talk about formulas on the exam. So: “Formulas are still on the exam.”
[35:02] Current Formulas Questions
But, they have changed, okay. And they have changed because we as project managers, we no longer use calculators and have to do things on our own. We don’t really have to calculate all these in-depth formulas. But, we have to know how to interpret these, right. So, you have to know how to interpret charts. You have to know how to interpret results. And you can maybe expect one easy calculation. So, within the last five days, this is what I pulled off the internet. I had one calculation, and three to four questions on the SPI, the CVs. No calculations, the one there. One EVM with calculation, the third one, and three EVM without calculation. So, this is all interpretational. So, if other words, if I give you a number and tell you: CPI on your project is X. What do you do now? That is the type of question to expect. Or, you see a burn down chart or a burn up chart or a budget, or some sort of a graph that says: This is what’s going on in your project from a cost perspective, for example, what do you tell your sponsor? What actions do you take to correct this? Do you take any corrective actions? Those are the type of questions about formulas that you need to know.
[36:46] Not Sure If I Passed
Now, Dana, earlier said: I knew exactly that I passed because I had this message on the screen there that said: “Congratulations, you passed.” However, interestingly enough, many people say: ‘I’m not sure if I passed.’
[37:01] Lessons Learned
Here you go! There’s one: “I just finished my exam 10 minutes ago. I heard about other people being unsure if they passed, not in the end. So, I took it slow. I read everything once finalized. I read a page that says: Congratulations, and celebrate” or something similar. But, it was confusing if it said: Congrats to finishing the exam, or Congrats to passing the exam.” Okay.
[37:28] Recommendation
Same thing with this person here. This is exactly what actually what Dana had: “You will first receive a Pearson Vue email one hour or two after doing the exam. You will see your provisional score. Then one to five days later, email from PMI. Do not worry. You can also search Pearson Vue and PMI to see your scores.” There are a ton of people out there who have explained, you know, step by step if you are not sure where is your actual score both in Pearson Vue and on the PMI website. So, you can search for those as well.
[38:04] Lesson Learned
There you go, the third one: “Blank blue screen at the center for two minutes after I had finished. And then, “Congratulations!” I got so nervous,” right. And this person did it in the testing center, and when they got to the front desk, they got a printed result. And this is by the way, a tip for everybody. If you are at the testing center, do not leave the testing center without the printed copy of your test result. Very important, about four years ago, I think, a student of mine got their printed results and never heard back from anybody. Not from Pearson Vue. Actually, back then, it was still Prometric, and PMI. So he called them up, and they are like: We have no record of you ever taking this exam. The reason was, he was one of the last people at that testing center and then they moved the testing center, and somehow, the data got lost. But he had the printed version of this exam. He could prove that he had passed the exam, and therefore, he is now still PMP. So, make sure you get that printed version there.
[39:21] Questions Length
Next, I want to talk a little bit here about the question length. Because this is also one complaint that we often get on exam simulators. Your questions are too long. PMI’s questions are much shorter. Well, good news, bad news.
[39:42] Questions Are Getting Longer
The questions are getting longer, okay. “The length of the question this person says, caught me off guard. I spent almost more than two minutes staring at some of the fluffy questions and began to panic when I spent 80 minutes for the first 60 questions.” So, be potentially prepared that the questions are a bit longer that they are more like what you can find in our Exam Simulator.
[40:12] Rumor Has It
I also have this one here, but I want you to take this with a ton of salt, okay. So, this is completely rumor. I cannot guarantee that this is in fact true. They say that, this person said: “I had very wordy questions in the first 60, then it was easier, shorted in the middle, and then once again, wordy in the last, which is especially great when you’re exhausted by that point.” So, take this one with a grain of salt. There is no guarantee that this is in fact the case. I would be very surprised if PMI did this, but I wanted to share this particular lessons learned with you anyway. But, what I think we can get from this particular lessons learned is: When your brain is mushy by that point, be prepared for the whole duration, okay, and that it just drags on and on and on and tires you. So, using an exam simulator, being able to sit for 3 hours and 50 minutes in front of the computer and having done three or four tests, sample exams like Dona did, that is the way to go.
[41:25] Self-Doubt
Which takes me to this here: Self-doubt, okay. You’re in the 30, the 30 last questions and self-doubt begins to creep in. It can creep in even earlier, right. Do not think about pass or fail when you’re in the exam. Focus on the question in front of you. If you start to worry about: ‘Oh my God, I do not know this question.’ And, ‘How am I going to tell my friends about this?’ This is distracting you. This is not the way to take this exam. Breathe in. Breathe out. Count to 10. Move on, right.
[42:01] Lessons Learned
You also want to take each question one at a time. Answer the question. Go to the next one. Answer the question. Go to the next one. Don’t go: ‘Oh, I’m not sure about the previous question,’ or ‘I’m not sure about this one. I’m not sure about this one. I’m not sure about this one either.’ If you do that, you are just going to drive yourself crazy, okay. So, don’t do that.
[42:27] Lessons Learned
And this is I think a good summary: You will feel you failed on almost every question. But, at 180, when you thought your pockets were about to be a couple of hundred dollars later, because you have to pay the retake fee again, and you’re embarrassed to tell your family after all the hard work you put in, and you feel alone and you are cold, and then: “Congratulations” shows up on the exam.
[42:55] Expect To Reach A Point
So, as I have said a couple of times already today here. Expect to reach a point at which self-doubt starts to creep in. Everybody has that. I had that back when I took my exam. So, I knew for sure I had failed my exam. I was actually surprised that I passed, right. Everybody has that. Everybody goes through that. You have ups. You have downs. You have lows. You have valleys. You have peaks. That just happens. If you are in a low, breathe in, breathe out. Continue. That’s the only thing you can do. Focus on the here and the now, not the past, not the future. Read the questions. Read the full question. Read the full answer and move on. Make your selection, and go to the next one.
[43:48] Take Action
Yeah, and with that, we have come to the end of our lessons learned. There are more lessons learned coming up, just a second here. I’ll talk to you about that. But before we do that, I want you to take action. More lessons learned are available at www.pm-prepcast.com/ll as in Lessons Learned, okay. That’s where you want to go if you’re interested in reading more and current lessons learned. Have a few new ones there. There’s the one from Dona as well, and you can put your own lessons learned there if you have passed. Okay. And I mentioned there are more lessons learned coming up, yes.
[44:33] More Lessons Learned
We are going to do about two more of these lessons learned live streams. As you can see here, there’s a lot that I haven’t talked to you about today. I want to talk about the Exam Content Outline, Agile and Hybrid, definitions, ITTOs, question content, question difficulty, exam technology, the whiteboard, taking the exam, exam duration, time management, taking breaks, and ending the exam. All of that, all of that is coming up in upcoming; it’s coming in upcoming live streams where we talk about lessons learned together. And with that, it’s time for us to part ways today. So, thank you so much for joining me. And of course, until next time!
[End of transcript]
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
Free PMP Training: PMBOK Guide Principles 1-4
The PM PrepCast is your complete PMP training. With over 35 hours of in-depth video lessons it is a complete PMP online course. Please enjoy this free lesson:
This webinar is the first of three in which we explore the following four project management principles that were introduced by the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition:
The webinar is based on our original article "12 Project Management Principles Explained by Experts" and is neither a rehash nor is it a derivative of the PMBOK® Guide. Instead, you can expect to go beyond. Illustrated with quotes from experts and examples from real life not found in the guide, you will learn the concepts behind the principles in terms you need to understand as you prepare for your PMP exam. We even review one sample PMP exam prep question (taken from the PrepCast Simulator) for each of the principles and give you a chance to see if you can spot the correct answer.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
F00.21 PMBOK® Guide Principles 1-4
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome back to the Project Management PrepCast™. I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. And this lesson is recorded with a live audience on Facebook and YouTube, and we are going to take a look at the four project management principles. Hello, everybody! Thank you so much for joining me today. So, the four project management principles are our topic today. Here they are.
[00:38] Three Parts
Just so you know, this is Part One of three in which we want to review these 12 project management principles that got introduced with the publication of the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition. Today, we want to review stewardship because taking good care for what you have been entrusted with should be at the forefront of our thinking. A team, building a solid team culture is important, the better the team is, the more successful you can be. Stakeholders, because engaging stakeholders will bring success. And the fourth one we’ll look at today is value, because we need to deliver what’s important. But, I want to make one thing clear from the very start here. This lesson is not a reading or even a by-product or a derivative of the PMBOK® Guide. While we follow the 12 principles in the same order and use somewhat the same language, this lesson is based on our content and on our own research.
[01:54] Based on our Article
“12 Project Management Principles Explained by Experts,” that is our article, which is published on our PrepCast website. In this article, we have taken the 12 principles as a starting point. And then, we go above and beyond and we explain them with input and quotes and examples that we have gathered from a dozen experts.
[02:20] Agenda
With that out of the way, here is what we’re going to be looking at today. Generally speaking, we have two sections. I want to start with: What is principle-driven project management? Why are we doing principle-driven project management? And then, we will review the principles 1, 2, 3, and 4, and then a quick take-action and takeaways there at the end.
But today, this is going to be more of a conversation because in the article, we have examples of what does it mean to be value-driven, okay. And I have these examples here for you. But, I want to hear from you as well. So, those of you who are joining me live today, hello again. I will ask you to type into the chat your ideas and your thoughts about what it means to be value-driven, to follow that principle. I’m also going to do review of four exam sample questions. So, for each of these values, we have an exam sample question taken from my Simulator. And I want you to give me your answer there. So, you’re going to get about 15 seconds or so, during which you can type in A, B, C, or D. And I’d like to see how many people get this right. Okay, so!
[03:44] Principle-Driven Project Management
So, what is principle-driven project management? Well, principle-driven project management definitely differs from process-driven, okay. Because there is more emphasis today on making your own choices. You lead the project following a set of core concepts, which guide and shape the work. And this shift has happened because it’s not really possible anymore to mandate every last process and expect them to work for every single project. Processes need to be drawn from Agile, hybrid, and predictive ways of working. So, we project managers, we have to be free to choose the best processes for our projects and following these principles will then help us select the correct processes, okay.
Here is a definition, right, of this. The principles give you the ‘what.’ So, you look at the principles to learn about what core concepts are important for me as a project manager and project leader. And, I need to remember as I manage the project. Whereas, the processes, that’s really the ‘how.’ How do you plan a project? How exactly do you create a schedule and how do the processes work for doing exactly that? So, the process for creating a schedule, how does that work, right? So, that’s the process-focused.
Are you noticing something here? I’m talking about the principles give you the ‘what’ and the processes give you the ‘how.’ They are not exclusive, mutually exclusive, right. You can’t just use only the principles. You can’t just use only the processes. You cannot manage project without missing one of them. You need both of them. So, this is a very important to know. Let me show you here.
[06:00] You Still Need Processes
I have this high-level conceptual graphic here. The intent is to show you that we have this overarching principles there at the top, and they tell you the ‘what,’ And, when we work in the processes, we use these principles as guidance, right, so they are overarching.
For example, the three principles on leadership, engaging with stakeholders, and team culture are what you will use as your guide once you get to the ‘how to execute’ all the processes around building a team and developing a team, or leading a team. You go back to these principles and you say: What does the principle say? And what I should be doing? And then, what does the process say in regards to how I should be doing? The principles, they are universal. That’s also one important thing to remember. The principle is valid whether you are doing a plan-driven, an Agile or a hybrid kind of model. So, you use the principle to guide you as you are actually executing your project. So it’s different, plan-driven versus Agile versus hybrid.
[07:23] You Still Need Processes [Graph]
So, let’s take this and take a look at it from the PMBOK® Guide’s perspective. What you see here is the, sort of the evolution of the PMBOK® Guide. You can see that it got bigger and bigger and bigger there with the page numbers, until the sixth edition, that’s the largest bar that we see here. And then, it dropped down to 350 pages for the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition. Don’t just look at the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition as you are managing your projects. You need what was in the sixth edition. The sixth edition gives you the processes, gives you the ‘how.’ The PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition gives you the ‘what are the principles of good project management.’ Yeah, and with that out of the way, sort of explaining what principles do in project management is. Let’s take a look at our first four principles here. Doesn’t want to move on. Wait. Click again.
[08:20] Four Principles - Stewardship
There we go! Alright! So, we have four principles to look at today --- one, two, three, and four. And, we begin with stewardship where you want to be taking care of your project. What is this all about?
[8:38] Stewardship
Well, being a steward means to take care of something. In a project environment, that means to look after your project and to act with its best intentions in mind at all times. To put in another way, your company has entrusted you with the project resources --- people, money, machines, computers, and so on. And, it is your job to take care of these resources in such a way that they are employed in the best interest of the project and your organization. Stewardship should be part of your project management practice. It matters because the project manager is the person who knows the project better than anyone else. You can steer the project in the right direction and make sure that decisions are made that are beneficial to the organization. It’s a way of ensuring that personal politics do not interfere with whatever is the right thing to do.
Okay. So, what you will notice is we’ll have sort of this introductory slide for every single one of the 12 principles. And then, the next slide is a quote from an expert. What I want to get out of the way here is this: When we originally wrote this article, my team said “You got to be an expert as well, Cornelius, and we want you to be the first expert.” So now, the quote that you’ll see now is my quote as we developed this article. So this is not because I have such a big ego that I have to go first. No, no, it was the team who said, you have to be our first expert in all of these.
[10:23] [Quote: Cornelius Fichtner]
And with that much said, here is a quote from an expert, myself, right. “In a stewardship role, project managers need to act with integrity, so that their decisions are above reproach.” Honesty, it goes without saying, right. It’s important that stakeholders can trust what you do as a project manager, as a project leader, and that they have confidence that they are hearing the truth from you.
As an effective steward, you should demonstrate the values of integrity, honesty, fairness, and responsibilities. I said this because I also believe that fairness and responsibility are essential values for a project manager. Taking a stewardship role for her or his project. As a leader, you need to step up and make sure ethical practices are the norm for your team however tricky that might be from time to time. It’s really important to always remember stewardship, while it is something that everybody on the team has to join in, has to buy-in and has to be a steward, it starts with you. You want to model good stewardship to your team. Alright.
[11:49] In Practice
Then, in practice, this is what this can look like. It looks a lot like careful thinking, negotiating, conflict, negotiating conflicting requirements, and considering ethics in your dealings. You want to stand up for what’s right even if that is the more challenging route to follow. You, obviously, want to follow the code of ethics, and pay attention to the small details and diligently follow through on requests to ensure quality results.
And in regards to when do you apply this, well, you need to use this principle to guide your actions throughout the whole project. So, this is from start to finish. It doesn’t matter what methodology you are using --- plan-driven, Agile, hybrid, any of those. This particular principle here applies throughout the whole project for you. You want to be a good steward. You want to model good stewardship to your team. It will help your organization get the results that it deserves from the project that you lead.
[13:08] Use Your Professional Judgement [Quote]
And of course, you want to use your professional judgement to do good in the world and treat your colleagues and customers like you would want to be treated. That is not my quote. This quote from Elizabeth Harrin from www.rebelsguidetoprojectmanagement.com. She is also one of our experts. You’ll hear from her in another, in another principle later on. Okay. Now, let me give you some examples here.
[13:41] Some Examples
Right. And, this is the moment when this becomes a conversation, okay. I’m going to go through these examples briefly with you. But then, I’d like to hear from you. Stewardship, what does it mean to you? How do you apply good stewardship on your projects? Please go ahead. If you’re joining me live right now here on Facebook and YouTube, please type your ideas into the chat. I’ll bring them up. I’ll show them to everybody. And if you are watching this recorded, then don’t just sit back and let us talk at you. Think along. What does it mean to you? How do you, today and tomorrow, apply the principle of good stewardship on your projects?
Alright! So, the first one, good stewardship: Adhering to the budget because the finances are always important. Your company wants to make sure that your project is a financial success. Therefore, it is probably your number one responsibility when it comes to stewardship, the finances, okay. We want also, this is becoming more and more important, right. This is also something that is becoming more important in quality. Lowest possible environmental footprint. So, you want to have a green project, a sustainable project. That’s kind of the way to go.
You want to make sure that you uphold reputation of team and company. You want to treat resources carefully and you want to ensure that your product is safe to use. And ensure that your product is safe to use. Think about it. This means, it’s going beyond just your project. So, you’re not just doing this as part of a project. You’re thinking beyond your project. Your project, your product, your output is safe to use. Which means that the end-user doesn’t get hurt. So, you’re a good steward of their livelihood as well long after your project is done and you have delivered what it is that you had to deliver, right.
There we go! We got one from Georgia Karanasiou: “Resource management -soft skills, carry food and water - social skills.” Right. And then, we have another one here: “Monitoring scope, schedule, cost, audits, and reviews.” I think this is a good one. I think from a process perspective, Georgia, this is definitely important. Make sure that you are within scope, that you’re not gold-plating, that you’re staying to the schedule, to the cost, and that you follow audit and review requirements of your company. Thank you for bringing this with us.
We continue our conversation here. These were just some of the examples. Thank you for joining in. and, we are now going on and we are opening my PrepCast Exam Simulator right here. There is a sample question. Don’t worry, I’ll make it bigger in just a moment. If it ever shows up. There we go, okay. I’m going to read the question for you and then, I’m going to give you 15 seconds or so for you to provide an answer. Again, just type it into the chat. And if you’re watching this recorded and you need more time, please do press the pause button.
[17:07] [Sample Question 1]
Here we go! The development team completed 24 of the 28 planned story points for the sprint. During the sprint review, the customer approves the completed deliverables. But he admonishes the team as being lazy and incompetent for failing to complete the entire sprint backlog. How should the Scrum Master or project manager read into this, whatever you like? How should the Scrum Master respond?
A, meet with the customer in private and challenge them to be more respectful to the team. B, discuss the reasons for the failed sprint during the next daily standup meeting. C, encourage the team to commit to completing fewer story points for the next sprint. Or, is it D, challenge the team to work on their days off until they cover the shortfall. Okay, everybody. Please type your answer into the chat --- A, B, C, or D. I’ll give you about 15 seconds.
So, we got one participant. Oh no, no, no, they’re coming in. They’re coming in. So, we have Shelbi who says A. Raghu says B. Dover says B. Georgia says B. Hans says B. Keith here is A. So, what will it be? Which one do you think it is? The correct answer is in fact, A. Meet with the customer in private and challenge them to be more respectful to the team.
Remember, we are right now talking about being a good steward, right. The customer is definitely entitled to be disappointed and frustrated with the project team for failing to meet their commitment. However, as a steward, we as project managers, we have an obligation to challenge stakeholders. Customers are project stakeholders, and to consider their words and actions to be empathetic and respectful of others. It is never appropriate to be disrespectful in the way that it has been identified here. It might be a difficult conversation, but the project manager has an obligation to challenge the customer to consider their words and their action with others. Alright! If you didn’t get this one right, don’t worry. We have three more coming up in just a moment. But first, we are moving on from the first principle here, stewardship.
[20:08] Four Principles - Team
We are moving on to the principle of Team, where we want to ensure that we build a culture of accountability and a culture of respect.
[20:22] Team Here are three points to consider for you. First, projects are delivered through teams. And ultimately, we project managers, we are responsible to ensuring that the team members work well together. So, as leaders, it is important for us to understand how to make the team work as effectively as possible. We are mixing principle and process somewhat, obviously. But because the principle of developing a collaborative team environment means that we must know and understand the concepts of team leadership, team development, coaching, mentoring and so on. These are the hard tools that you will apply in order to embrace and implement this principle of team culture. But at the core, we strive to develop a positive environment for everyone to flourish. And all of that starts with a culture of accountability and respect. And this is when I want to bring in our next expert’s opinion, because this is not me who said all of these that you have just heard.
[21:33] [Quote: Michael Tanner]
Instead, it is Michael Tanner from www.credibleleaders.com. So, he is the founder of Credible Leaders. He is also the creator of the Leadership Calculator. He defines team accountability like this: “Team accountability isn’t about a single person,” leader, project manager, or otherwise. Holding every other team member accountable, right. “Team accountability is about every team member holding every other team member accountable. It’s a culture of accountability.” In other words, everyone on our team has a responsibility towards our team culture of accountability. But it’s up to us project managers to facilitate this and help the team self-organize. Great teams do have a positive work culture and that helps the project progress with less disruption. And lack of team accountability, that leads to misalignment, he says. A misaligned team may eventually achieve their goals but never as efficiently and effectively as a well-aligned and a well accountable team.
Alright! So, that’s kind of the theory. But, let’s take this into practice. Let’s see what Michael has to offer in regards for tips for us here.
[22:58] Tips from Michael Tanner
So, we got these four. These, you can apply in practice to adapt these project management principles, right. First, hold yourself accountable as the leader. Again, it starts with you. Your team must see you doing what you say you will do. So, you lead by example. Very similar to what we have just learned from the stewardship. You must be willing to give and receive constructive criticism. And, the combination of these three means, you can hold your team to a higher standard. So, if you take the first three tips, that should lead to your team following your lead and you raise the standard within your project and within your team.
He also recommends this book here”The 4 Disciplines of Execution” by Chesney and Covey. And, he does this because it defines a couple of extra ideas that are useful for team leaders. First is the use of a score card that indicates if the team is winning or losing. And second, it’s about conducting regular commitment meetings where each team member reports on prior commitments and makes new commitments to achieving the team goal. I have to admit, I haven’t read this book. But, I know it is an older book. And, the second tip here, the commitment meetings sounds very much like the daily standups that we have in Agile approaches. So, definitely, give this a go. Recommended by him.
[24:50] Culture of Trust and Efficiency
Other than that, accountability also fosters a culture of trust and efficiency. When you hold all members accountable, team members trust one another as they share an understanding that each one is fulfilling the roles that are assigned to them. Aside from this, as a project manager, you will be able to ensure or you are now able to ensure rather that no energy or time is spent on activities that won’t benefit the project, right, sort of the principle of the value of the work is not done. As a group, you achieve deliverables more efficiently in this way.
[25:36] What It Looks Like
So, what does this look like in real life? And again, how do you do this? How do you apply the principle of developing a good team culture in your own projects? So, here are the four ideas from Michael, right. This is his vision of what a culture accountability and respect should look like with these examples here. So, make sure that all voices are heard and all opinions are considered.
Embrace conflict as a positive force that helps you get better result. Do respect others and call out moments when that respect is not given to ensure that everyone’s experience of the workplace is a positive one. And his fourth suggestion: Make it a regular habit to provide constructive feedback about your team member’s strength, weaknesses, and opportunity, okay.
Also unsurprisingly, this is once again a principle that goes from start to finish all the way through the project life cycle. So, you do this at the beginning all the way to the end. This is not something that is focused on just maybe planning stages of your project. So do we have anybody who has a suggestion here in regards to how they do it? I don’t see anything. So, no input here from our visitors. But please, don’t forget to think this through yourself. Yeah, how do I do this? How do I build a culture of accountability with my project teams? These four here are good place to start.
[27:25] [Sample Question 2]
Moving on: We have another sample question from the PrepCast Exam Simulator. During a sprint retrospective, an issue is raised that some project team members are slow to respond to inquiries resulting in degraded project performance. The identified team member becomes defensive and claims that no standard had been established for response times. What might the Agile leader do differently going forward to improve project performance? Is it A, establish a standard that all inquiries must be responded to within 24 hours? Report the underperforming team member to their functional managers for disciplinary action. Update the lessons learned register with the delay caused by the slow responses. Or D, at every subsequent retrospective, review the team’s social contact and revise as needed. Again, I’m going to give you about 15 seconds or so to answer this. Press pause if you’re watching this recorded and you need some more time.
Alright! I have a couple of answers have come in here. Raghu says D. We have another D. We have another D. Before I give you the answer, I’m going to go back one slide to the previous slide where we had this here. Because we have an input from Hans, who says, you know, what this looks like in real life: “Allow errors and corrections to otivate.” I would say “motivate” is probably what you wanted to say. And I think that’s a good idea, right. Again, everybody is heard. Errors and corrections are motivators. It’s not a downer. You want to give people the opportunity to make errors and that is not a bad thing. Quite in the contrary, it’s a motivation to move forward. Oh, we got another one that’s coming in here from Venkadesh: “Team accountability starts with welcoming suggestions on daily activities, providing room to provide solutions in critical situations.” Thank you, both, for that input.
Back to our question. So it is A, B, C, or D? Most people have answered D. We have a few A’s here. We have a few B’s here. So, we got a lot of input here from everybody. Thank you for participating here. The correct answer in this particular case is D. At every subsequent retrospective, review the team’s social contract and revisit as needed. So team agreements, these are sometimes referred to as team charters or social contracts. They should be established at the start of the project. So, together with your team, you create a team charter, maybe even a vision and mission statement. And you define in this charter, in this team charter, how do we work together on this project?
But, it may be necessary for the team agreements to evolve over the course of a project to address new issues and adapt to the ever-changing work environment. And as part of creating a collaborative project team environment, the project leader, we, we should ensure that the project team develops a set of team agreements and yeah, it’s not uncommon. You have unforeseen conflicts that have not been addressed in this social contact. And this just happens as your project progresses. So, you want to revisit these agreements on a regular basis. And revise them as necessary. It might be helpful to addressing new concerns and establishing norms for team member’s behavior going forward.
Important thing to note here is when you read the question again, you’ll notice that we don’t know what the problem is and why this has happened, right? Not important for this particular question. You will only get what you get in the question Our questions tend to be a little bit more robust, to be a bit more clarity. The real Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam is said to be extremely vague. But in this case, we didn’t bother saying why exactly this happened. Not needed in order for you to answer the question correctly. So, be prepared sometimes, you know. There are things that you just don’t know and won’t know.
[32:16] Four Principles [Stakeholders]
That’s it for our second principle --- Teams. Now, we’re moving on to Stakeholders. Because stakeholders bring success, right. The important thing here is engaging stakeholders. You do not manage stakeholders. You engage with them on the project. You cannot really manage them. People are people, and managing people is sometimes, especially on a project, very difficult.
[32:42] Stakeholders
Right. So your stakeholders, they will have an active part to play in the work. And you probably want them to take some kind of action. And this why engagement is important and you will learn as you engage with them about them, about their concerns, and once you understand their motivation, it’s so much easier to deliver successfully as a team. And the words ‘as a team,’ is important here.
While you as the project manager, again, are driving this, stakeholder engagement is everyone’s job. It’s kind of like saying everybody in our company is a sales person, right. So, everybody on our project is a stakeholder engagement advocate. If you are designer, then you will probable engage with the customer or the end-user, to understand what they would like things to look like. If you are tester, then you may engage with an external development team. Those are all stakeholders. And since you work with them, you need to engage with them, right. So, it’s everybody’s job. Everybody does this. Everybody engages, right. But to be on the safe side, let’s review what a stakeholder is.
[34:04] [Stakeholder Definition]
Here is the definition for the stakeholder. Stakeholder is someone who is interested in or impacted by the project. Each stakeholder expects something from the project. And it’s important to fully understand their needs, so that you can tailor the engagement to be most effective, alright. And now, it’s time to bring in another expert. You’ve already heard from her previously.
[34:30] [Quote: Elizabeth Harrin]
This one is from Elizabeth Harrin. She is the author of “Engaging Stakeholders on Projects – How to Harness People Power.” And she says that there are many ways that you can engage stakeholders. From simple newsletter, gamification, and there are many tools you can use to create engagement within the project. At first, you want to gain clarity on stakeholders’ involvement and why the project matters to them. And then you can better understand their perspective and build a trusted relationship. Makes sense, right? You engage with me. You talk with me. You learn about me. You learn about my concerns. I talk to you about the project. And we build a relationship. Through this relationship, I begin to trust you as the project manager and to believe that what you’re saying, well, if you follow all the principles, what you are saying is the truth and that you truly want the best for the project and also what is best for me. Or, if you cannot take my input into consideration, at least you are being upfront with it and you’re telling me why that my concerns in this particular case have to stand back because there are bigger concerns coming in from somewhere else. So, it’s an engagement. It’s a matter of knowing people and getting to them. Obviously, this may not be the case in highly public and highly politicized projects. But on most projects most of the time, this is the way to go.
[36:19] Tips from Elizabeth Harrin
Some tips from Elizabeth here. She has a few tips to share. Make sure you know what you are engaging them in. What is it that you want your project stakeholders to be doing on the project? Are they involved in some of the processes? Do they have to do something with the deliverables? Are they just providing expertise, subject matter expertise, right? Yeah. Once you have defined and understand their role, now, you can make sure that your communication and interactions that you share the message also in the most appropriate way. In practice, engaging stakeholders looks a lot like talking and communicating. But with specific goals in mind, that drive the project closer to a successful outcome. Alright! So, these are the tips from Elizabeth.
[37:18] Practical Application
What does this again look like in practical application? Again, please do join in the fun here. If you have an idea, this is how I engage with stakeholders, what this looks in real life. Please do type it into the chat. So in practical situations, this could be all about initiating a dialogue early, early on during project planning. Because that avoids misses that could drain your resources. You want to maybe facilitate the workshop and making sure that all voices are heard. And you want to, as the project manager, resolve a conflict between stakeholders who don’t share the same view what should be in scope, what should be out of scope as an example, right.
And working with a team of end-users, so that they are involved, which helps reduce resistance to change redistance, that’s a new word that I have just come up with. Hans shares an idea: “Avoid to push aside the unpleasant.” I think this is something that is very important for us, project managers. We have to see where the problems are. Don’t sweep the problems under the carpet. Bring the problems out into daylight. Talk them through, right. Georgia says: “Identify stakeholder register, responsibility assignment matrix, RACI chart, team-building activities.” I think all of that helps in engaging stakeholders. And, do you notice something? I think the last one, the team-building activities, that goes for both principles, right? If you have a tool and a technique, and a process, it’s not like ‘Oh, this is only for stakeholder engagement.’ No, no, no, this can be helpful across the board with many of the activities that we do will support many of the principles. There’s another that just came in from Georgia: “Negotiation, win-win.” Yes! Always go for the win-win. Make sure that everybody come out of negotiations feeling like they have achieved what they want to achieve.
[39.37] [Quote: Elizabeth Harrin]
Oh, and don’t forget, these principles applies the whole way through the project from the initial idea, all the way to project closure. Your stakeholder community may change as you through the project. So: “Make sure that you are continually reviewing your plans and engaging the right people.” Coming back here to what Georgia has said: Identify them. Use the stakeholder register. Responsibility assignment matrix, those are important tools to use at this point.
[40:19] [Sample Question 3]
Alright! We continue with another PMP Exam sample question taken from the PrepCast Exam Simulator. Here we go! An organization wants to undertake its first Agile project that will incorporate scrum methods. An Agile consultant is advising the organization on how to transition from a predictive framework to Scrum. The recently hired developers are all well-versed with Agile practices, but the broader internal stakeholder community is unfamiliar with Scrum. How might the Agile consultant address this knowledge gap?
A, no action is needed because the developers are well-versed with Scrum. Is it B, have the stakeholder attend the daily Scrum meetings and ask questions about Scrum? C, conduct a seminar with relevant stakeholders covering Scrum at a high level. Or is it D, submit a change request to access contingency reserves to cover Scrum training costs? Again, give you about 15 seconds. Press pause if you need more time. Please do type your answer into the live chat.
Ah, let’s see. We have a C, a B, a C, a C, a B, a C. Yeah! It looks like I’m getting more C’s here than I’m getting B’s. But B and C, those seem to be the ones. It’s either B or C, I can tell you that. The correct answer is in fact, drum roll please, C, conduct a seminar with relevant stakeholders covering Scrum at a high-level. This is correct because in order to effectively support the project, it is reasonable to assume that some internal stakeholders outside of the development, they will need at least a high-level understanding of the project management approach. And in this case, it is Scrum; it is Agile. So, as a project manager, as a Scum Master maybe, you make provisions to provide introductory Scrum training for the relevant stakeholders.
Now, B, in my opinion, is not such a good choice or the less good choice. It can work, right. If C didn’t exist, I would probably have gone for B as well. Because during the daily standup meeting, that is reserved for the development team. Only the development team should speak during that meeting. So, B, not such a great option. But, if this question did not offer C, right, A and D definitely not. But if C weren’t here, and were another bad option, I would probably go for B and say, Yeah, okay, better than nothing, right. Let me take you to the daily Scrum. Ask questions there and we’ll help you out. But that is not the intent of the daily Scrum. C here, definitely the much better answer. Alright!
[43:38] Four Principles - Value
And with that out of the way, we’re moving on to our fourth and final principle here for the day --- Value, delivering what’s important.
[43:50] Value
Here we go! This principle, this is all about value. In particular, to focus on value so that we can deliver value to our customers. So, it’s a focus. It’s a mindset. It’s a ‘how can we deliver value?’ Value in project management is the balance between the benefits that we gain from the resources that we spend.
For example, you spend money so we can buy building materials and hire construction workers, so that we can deliver to you the value of owning and being able to live in a beautiful house with a beautiful life and then you may ask yourself: ‘How did I get here?’ And I apologize to everybody who got this really silly reference here to a talking head song. So, live in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. You ask yourself: ‘How did I get here?’ Well, you got here through proper project management, alright? Anyway.
The perception of value differs between stakeholders. So, it’s important to understand what value means to your stakeholder community. For example, my understanding of what makes a beautiful house is probably different from yours. So, whoever designs and builds your house must understand your perception and perspective and not mine.
[45:28] Value of a PMP Study Plan
Let me give you another example here. If you are creating a PMP study plan, you’ll put the topics into your study plan that would have the most value for your learning. Let’s say I’m creating one too. Then I would include things that are different to yours. I would get value of different topics because my past experience is completely different. Maybe, I was working in a very cost-centric type of environment. So, to mee, cost is very easy. Whereas you, you’re in a procurement-heavy environment. So, procurement to you is easy. So, you wouldn’t take that into your PMP study plan, right. So your plan, your value. My plan, my value. So, you want to make sure that you want to get that in.
Georgia also mentions the “definition of done.” Yes! At the end of this, you know, when do we know that we are done? And I think in both cases, no matter which plan you take, your plan or my plan, right, the definition of done at the end is probably this, right: Your first name, your last name, comma, P-M-P. I think that would be a clear definition of done for both of these study plans that we have whether it’s yours or mine.
[46:50] [Quote: Jennie Fowler]
Another expert quote, this one is from Jennie Fowler: “From an Agile perspective,” she says “one of the best ways to focus on value is the benefit.” Don’t overthink this, right. We’re not talking about a ton of mathematics, right. It’s really simple for program or product road map that you are working on. “The goal could be just a single sentence.” And she suggests a sentence that can look like in kind of the following format here.
[47:24] [Single Sentence Format]
“We are moving from X to Y [by a certain date] with a project benefit of [and then a financial value or some other benefit]” She says to pick items from our backlog that help us move the needle towards this benefit. This particular goal with a shortest-path mindset.
And also in addition to this, you can also assign all backlog items to a simple benefit, whether it is financial or, but in most cases, you know, you should be able to assign a financial value to things. As you work on the project then, focusing on value means that making sure that you take into account what is important for the customer at any given time. And if all the items in your backlog have such a value assigned to them, that becomes much easier. It becomes a sorting criteria really, right. And you can say: ‘Well, backlog item number 25, much greater value than backlog item number 27 and 28 together. So, should we do 25 before we address 27 and 28?’ Now, it of course becomes a question of working with the product owner and the customer to define is it true that this value is more important and we need to do this first. Now, that’s when negotiations happen and you want to go for the win-win.
[48:52] Some Practical Ideas
Some practical ideas here. Once again, last chance to join in here. This is our last principle. Please do share your thoughts how does value, the application of value, delivering value, defining value, what does it look like in your own organization on your own projects?
For Jenny, being value-driven could look like this here. You hold regular meetings with the stakeholders to ensure that the project will continue to meet their needs. So yes, meetings to ensure that we’re still meeting the need. Backlog grooming, you want to prioritize the highest value items for delivery in early iterations because the sooner you can deliver value to the customer, well, the happier they will probably be. Regularly reviewing the business case to ensure that the benefits are going to be delivered and collaborating with team members to help them determine the status of the project and accurately estimating where are we truly at. And also instilling into them value as something that is a mindset and we really need to think along this way. The metrics, are we focusing on the right value here. Do we have anybody who had something? We have Hans who says: “Cost benefit analysis.” Absolutely. If you know that one item gives you a greater benefit for the same cost, that’s probably the one with the higher value, you want to go with that. Georgia says: “Backlog, prioritize user stories, deliver the most important ones as early as possible, meetings with customers, engage with customers early on in the design.” This is very much the Agile mindset that we’re seeing here coming through in this particular statement.
[50:56] Different Life-Cycles
Alright! In the previous principles, I said that these were all --- stewardship, team, and stakeholders --- we have learned that we need to apply these throughout the whole project. So being a good steward, building the team properly, and engaging with stakeholders, that’s all throughout the project. But in this particular case, now that we are talking about value, it depends, it depends. It may apply differently depending on your development approach, the delivery approach, the life cycle. If you are doing something plan-driven, here on the left, then the principle really applies more during the planning and execution phases of your project because that’s when you will be aligning what you will be delivering to the customer goals. So do this early on during planning, during executing. Think about value and how to deliver this.
Whereas, if you’re using an Agile approach on the right, these approaches, they encourage you to be value-driven at all times. This is where the prioritized backlogs and user stories deliver most important as early as possible, that’s all from Agile. That’s where this comes on. And I didn’t call this an Agile mindset in this particular instance. I changed it to value mindset. It’s part of the Agile mindset, but it now definitely focused on the value. Right. Thank you, everybody for joining in and being active participants in our webinar here. One last chance for everybody.
[52:49] [Sample Question 4]
We have another PrepCast Exam Simulator sample question here. The product owner along with input from the project team defines and prioritizes the project backlog calculates the total story points, and based on the preliminary estimate of velocity determines an anticipated date for software development projects. Senior leadership is concerned that the estimated release date will not meet the urgent business need. What is the best course of action for the product owner?
A, use the WBS to determine what features have the highest value? B, work with the project team and relevant stakeholders to determine the minimum viable product (MVP)? C, use a burndown chart to track progress against required release date? Or D, submit a change request to update the schedule baseline to coincide with the desired release date. A, B, C, or D, you get 15 seconds. Please press pause if you need more time. Please do put A, B, C, or D in the chat.
Alright! I am getting the first answers in here. We have B. We have more B’s. C here. We got more B’s, more B’s. So, we got lots of B’s coming in here, yes, thank you, everybody. And B is indeed the correct answer here. Before I give you the reasoning, two things. Did you notice the sort of the grammatical issue here in this particular question? It was “determines an anticipated delivery date for software development project.” If you look at that, it’s not perfectly grammatically correct, right. This can happen on the exam as well. We sometimes do this intentionally in the Exam Simulator, to make you go: ‘There’s something wrong with the sentence.’ Don’t let that bother you. That’s part of an exam simulator to do it this way. And also, you may have notice, this is a question about the product owner and not the project manager. Doesn’t matter. The answer is the same whether this is for the project manager, the Scrum Master, or the product owner. The correct answer here in this particular case is B. Yes! In order to meet the urgent business need, yeah, the project team will need to deliver working software as quickly as possible by identifying the MVP, the minimum viable product. The project team can deliver a working product with an earlier first release. And if additional features are still desired, then they can be included in future delivery. So, we have learned today that project teams need to focus on delivering value. This question indicates that it’s unlikely that the entire project backlog can be completed in time to meet that particular need. So, the project team will need to develop a strategy to deliver value in time to meet the urgent business need. Now, one way of doing that would be to add more people to this. We can’t do it all. Well then, let’s bring on more people. Let’s spend more money. But that is not one of the given answers here. We don’t have that. So, without adding resources, the only realistic option and based on the answer choices here is to reduce the scope for the initial release and that option is here in the disguise of a minimum viable product. So, the minimum viable product takes your complete backlog and says: ‘Okay, what is the minimum that we can deliver?’ So, you’re reducing the scope. You have no choice to no adding people, no adding money. They’re not an option here. But reducing the scope, that we can do. And that is why, B here is the correct answer. And again, let me state. Even though it says product owner up there, don’t let that get you confused. The role of who does this selection does not affect which answer is correct.
There are something that I forgot to mention. Did you think that these questions are easy. Do you know it’s obvious in this case that it was B? Here’s the thing. We look at the principle. I give you a question about that principle. We look at the next question. I give you a question about that principle. So, you are in the mindset of that particular principle. So, if this seemed easy for you, then don’t worry on the real PMP Exam, it won’t seem easy for you because you have just taken 132 questions. Everything looks and start sounding the same, and suddenly this question comes up. You have no idea what principle this is. You’re getting tired. It has been 2 hours and 10 minutes already. ‘Oh my God! I only have 20 minutes left.’ So, in this environment, this becomes a very hard question to answer.
[58:31] Take Action
Take action, okay! So, here is what I want you to do. This is kind of the ‘duh’ type of take action. But I want you to download the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition, the PDF from PMI. You have to be PMI member in order to do that. So, please go to www.pm-prepcast.com/pmbokdl PMBOK download, DL. It will take you to the PMI page. It’s just a formatting link, nothing more, and then I would like you to review the principles 1, 2, 3 and 4 as they are described within the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition.
[59:24] Takeaways
And before I say goodbye today, the takeaways, yes. In addition to what you have learned about the principles of stewardship, team, stakeholders and value, here is what I would like you to remember. The processes are still important. Just because the PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition only focuses on these principles and also the eight performance domains, the processes are needed to manage a project. You cannot manage a project just on principle alone without having a schedule. That doesn’t work. The principles, however, they illustrate good project management behaviors. This is the way that we want to do it. So, the process-focused approach still very much needed to deliver the project results.
By the way, I have choses these Swiss Army knives. I think it’s a fake Swiss Army knife actually, to symbolize this a little bit here. So, the principles, they tell you how to hold the knife, maybe how much grip to apply, sort of what angle you hold it. But, the process-focus tells you whether you use the large blade, the small blade, or even if you need to use the scissors.
Right! Thank you again for joining me, everybody, today! Appreciate your time. Appreciate your participation in our live event here today. Thank you for joining me.
Until next time.
[End of transcript]
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
Free PMP Training: Welcome Lesson
The PM PrepCast is your complete PMP training. With over 35 hours of in-depth video lessons it is a complete PMP online course. Please enjoy this free lesson:
The PMP® Exam Content Outline (ECO) is the most important document for the PMP exam that nobody knows about. This is because all questions for the PMP exam must be developed based on the tasks described within the ECO and not the PMBOK® Guide. Therefore, not understanding the ECO, means that you are essentially flying blind into your PMP exam.
Join me and review the ECO together to prepare your exam success. At the end of this webinar you will know why the PMP exam is not based on the PMBOK® Guide but the ECO, how the ECO is structured and influences the exam, and how you can use the ECO to guide your studies to the max. More than that! At the end, Cornelius will give you a clear list of actions so that you can get the most out of the ECO within just a short time.
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM President, OSP International LLC
Transcript
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
F00.10 PMP Exam Content Outline
[00:00] [Introduction]
Hello and welcome to the Project Management PrepCast™. I’m your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner. This lesson is recorded with a live audience on Facebook and YouTube, and we look at the most important document for your Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam called the PMP® Exam Content Outline. And even though I just said the most important document for your PMP Exam, many people actually don’t know about it, and that’s what we are going to be changing today. Here is our agenda.
[00:48] Agenda
So first, we’re going to be talking a little bit about the history and the development of the ECO. Then, the biggest statement, the PMBOK® Guide is not the PMP Exam. If you only walk away from this webinar today, remembering that second bullet point there, then I have achieved my goal for what we are doing here today. Then, we’ll jump into the ECO itself. And at the end, as always, I want to make sure that you know well: What do you want me to do now, Cornelius? I have a couple of suggestions for take action, things you can do now with the ECO and the takeaways.
[01:36] PMP Exam Content Outline
If you don’t know what the PMP Exam Content Outline is, then let’s start with this here. So what is it? Well, it is a document that PMI has published, and it defines the syllabus of the PMP Exam by describing domains, tasks, and enablers. Basically, in this document, PMI describes what’s going to be on the PMP Exam. Here are all the things that you need to know for the PMP Exam. This is what you will be tested about. And that much said, this is now a very important statement here, and the statement is quite easily this: “The PMP Exam is not a test of the PMBOK® Guide.” Let me repeat that: “The PMP Exam is not a test of the PMBOK® Guide.” Instead, the questions on the PMP Exam are based on the Exam Content Outline, and the PMBOK® Guide is only a reference document that PMI uses to look at and say: Well, we have a question. C is correct. Why C is correct. Well, because the PMBOK® Guide says XYZ on page 263, okay? That’s how the PMBOK® Guide is used for the PMP Exam.
[03:11] PMP Question Development
Let me show this to you in a little bit of a flow here, right? So at the top there, we have the Exam Content Outline. Based on the Exam Content Outline, the questions are then developed. And, following that is quality assurance of the exam, and of the question that was developed, that has been added to the exam. And then, we have reference books there at the bottom. And I’m just now realizing that this was actually animated. So, here we go! So it starts with the Exam Content Outline. Based on that, questions are developed. There’s Q&A added to the exam. And then, only then will the reference books come into play, where the person who develops these questions actually has to go and open up one of the 10 reference books that PMI, it’s actually two, and say: Okay, I’m saying B is correct. B is correct because book one says so, and book seven says so, okay. There we are.
[04:24] The PMP Exam Content Outline [History]
So, here is a bit of history of the Exam Content Outline. It was first published in 2005. And the latest version was published in 2021, and it came into effect back then. It kind of looks like it’s getting smaller, doesn’t it? Yes. You can see there is all that in 2005, like six or seven lines of what’s in the Exam Content Outline. And now in 2021, we have but four. Well, is it getting smaller? No. In my opinion, there is such as a substantial difference between the one from 2015 and the one from 2021, that is actually twice as big. Yes! Even though on this slide here, it looks like 2021 is smaller than 2015. In my opinion, the PMP Exam has doubled in what you need to know. And we’ll take a look at that in just a moment. So, how is this PMP Exam Content Outline developed? Here we go.
[05:35] The PMP Exam Content Outline [Development]
So, it starts with research. PMI does what is known as a global practice analysis (GPA). And this GPA, PMI uses to determine any number of trends that they want to identify. Things that need to be addressed in the PMP Exam. Then from there, they do a job task analysis (JTA). And by doing that, they ensure that, you know, all those new trends that we have found is truly something that project managers do, and this job task analysis, by the way, that’s all done globally. They are basically looking at what is it that we project managers do? Do we work on this? Do we not work on that? For example, one thing that PMI has found that we now do is we not only do Waterfall projects. We also work quite a lot in Agile-related projects. But on the other hand, when it comes to legal stuff on our projects, we are not the legal experts. We don’t have to have a 100 percent understanding of all the legal intricacies. That’s what the lawyers are for. But we have to know enough and understand the whole business environment enough to assist the lawyers with helping us come up with appropriate legal documents, okay? And then, ECO is reworked. And the new ECO is published in the end.
[07:13] [Statement About Research]
All this research really ensures that the PMP exam tests you about the work that project managers actually do, right? You don’t want to be tested on something like from the 1940s what project managers did back then. You want to be tested on all the things that we do today.
[07:34] ECO Structure
Here is the structure of the Exam Content Outline. It has Domains, Tasks, and Enablers, okay? And Domain, PMI defines this as the high-level knowledge area essential to the practice of project management. The domains, as you will see in just a moment, are People, Process, and Business Environment. I’ll talk a bit more about that. Then within the Domain, there are Tasks. So, what are we as project managers responsible for within these areas? And then PMI also gives us these Enablers, which are just examples of the work that we do within each of the tasks. There is one question that has just come up that says, Calvin says: “Why enable?” It probably wants to ask “Why enablers?” Why are they called enablers? I’ll give you that answer in a little bit. Give me just a sec there, Calvin, okay?
[08:36] Three Domains
Moving on. These are the three domains. This is important for you to understand, okay? Because within the People domain, there are 14 tasks and you can expect 42% of the questions of the PMP Exam to come from the People domain. Things like leading a team, working with stakeholders, that’s part of the People domain. 42% of the questions come from there. Then Process, 17 tasks are from processes. Well, how do you do quality assurance? How do you do integration? And, all of that. And then 50% of the questions come from the process. And new, this is one of the things that PMI has added to the PMP Exam. It’s the whole Business Environment domain. Four tasks are from there, but only 8% of the questions are coming from there. And now, this question here from Mhr T. ITani: “But Agile is being asked more.” You’re absolutely correct. This is actually the one reason why I say: The PMP Exam now is twice as big as it was back in 2015 with the previous Exam Content Outline because, here we go.
[10:01] Predictive – Agile and Hybrid
The PMP Exam consists 50% of predictive and 50% of Agile and hybrid questions. So, in this current PMP Exam Content Outline, PMI added everything from Agile on top of it without removing anything. So, if you took the PMP Exam a few years ago, everything that you had to know back then is pretty much still on the exam. So that 100% is still there, okay. But that 100% is now only half of the exam. The other half is everything Agile and hybrid. So literally, 50% more of the exam. And that’s why I say: It’s twice as big, okay. So, with that much said, what does this mean? If I go back one slide here. So out of those 42, 50, and 8%, half of it will be about predictive, Waterfall, a plan driven-type projects and the other half will be Agile and hybrid, okay. So, keep that in mind that you must really be well-versed in Agile. You must understand predictive and plan-driven.
[11:30] Three Domains
Now then, let’s jump a little bit deeper. This is it for the, this is it for these here. Let me go just quickly bring up this question here from Sandeep: “Is the exam now based on PMBOK 6 of PMBOK 7?” Sandeep, go back to my opening statement. The PMP Exam is not based on the PMBOK® Guide. It is based on the document we’re reviewing today. It’s based on the Exam Content Outline, okay. And by the way, we are going to be discussing a more in-depth answer to that question in one of my future live streams. So, this is an upcoming topic that I will be discussing next time. But, your question as such is incorrect because the PMP Exam is based not on the PMBOK® Guide. It is based on the ECO, the Exam Content Outline, which we are looking at right now. So, 50%, 50-50. Now, let’s jump deeper into this. We looked at the three domains.
[12:32] Sample Task/Enablers
Now, let’s take a look at one of these tasks, okay. So, within the PMP Exam Content Outline, we have the domain of People. And within that People domain, we have the task “Lead a Team.” This is one of the major things that we do as project managers --- we lead a team in order to have a successful project at the end, okay. So that first bullet there, that is the task. We have to know about leading a team and PMI will ask you in the PMP Exam about your job of leading a team. And if you then set a clear vision and mission, that enables you to lead a team. If you support diversity and inclusion, that enables you to lead a team. So these sub-bullets, these are the enablers that we heard about previously there, right? So, this is what Calvin asked earlier: Why do we call these enablers? Well, if you value servant leadership, that enables you to lead a team. If you determine an appropriate leadership style, that enables you to lead a team, and so on. I think you get the idea here, right? So you have the Domain at the very top. The domain is People. Within the People domain, we have to lead a team and by applying all these enablers, that enables you and me to lead a team. Alright, let’s take a moment and let’s take a look at a sample exam question. Here we go.
[14:26] Question 1
And those of you who are joining me live here on Facebook and YouTube, please feel free to type in your answer in a little bit here. Question: You have just been assigned an upcoming Agile project. As part of pre-project work, you review all of the organization’s policies and procedures regarding compliance. You realize that only some of them may be applicable to your project. So what should you do first? Is it A, switch to project management approach from Agile to traditional? Is it B, incorporate all compliance polices and procedures in the implementation strategy? Is it C, ensure that compliance activities are included in the project schedule baseline? Or is it D, classify the compliance categories to determine the expenditure of project resources? I’m going to give you about 10 seconds or so. Those of you who are joining me live, please type in A, B, C, or D and those who are watching this recorded, type it into your head. Okay! I’m getting a few answers here. I’m getting B’s. I’m getting D’s. I’m getting C’s. More B’s here coming up. We have a C-D coming. One person says, it’s both C and D. We have D, and so on. So we got a little bit of everything that is happening there. So what is the correct answer?
[16:19] Question 1: Answer
The correct answer is actually D. In this situation, you should classify the compliance categories to determine the expenditure of project resources. Many of you are now going to go: Cornelius, that is a totally unfair question. This is such as an obscure topic. What are you talking about? I have never heard of compliance categories. What on earth is that? And why would the PMP Exam have such as question? This is an unfair question. This is not a good question. You should never have asked this. If this question is in your Simulator, then you have a bad Simulator, and so on. I’m getting all of these kinds of responses to the questions that we have in our Simulator. Well, I have to tell you that you are wrong because this question is 100% based on the Exam Content Outline, okay.
[17:23] Domain III – Business Environment 9%
Here we go. This is actually part of the new domain --- Business Environment, Task 1 ther: Plan and manage project compliance. This is what this question tests you on. Do you understand how to plan and manage compliance on your project? And the enabler that we are focusing on here is: Do you know how to classify compliance categories, okay? So, if your training for the PMP Exam included this, then you would be golden. You would be probably one of the people who chose D. But, if you have never heard of this, if you have never been asked about this, then you may not be able to answer this question correctly.
[18:17] Use ECO to Determine
So, now that you know that all of the questions on the exam, all of the knowledge that we need for the exam is based on the ECO, here are the two things that I want you to do with the Exam Content Outline: You have to read it. We’ll get back to that at the end, don’t worry. It’s one of my recommendations for you. You have to read it in order to understand what topics could I be asked about on the exam? Things like compliance categories as we have just seen in this sample question. And then you can also use it to determine where do I need additional training? Okay! So what I want you to do is I want you to take out your highlighters, right. So, get yourself a copy of the ECO.
[19:13] Review and Highlight ECO Tasks
I have a link in the back at the end, and print it. And I literally want you to take a green, yellow, and red highlighter, and I want you to go green-yellow-red. Obviously, green in the Exam Content Outline, that’s everything that you say: I know about this. I’m golden. I understand this. I’ve heard about this. It was in my training. Yellow ones: Yeah, I have heard about it. There was something in the training. I may not be a hundred percent solid on it. But, I think I’m okay. Maybe, I need a little bit more about it. Read something on it. Maybe find an article about it or something like that. And then red: I have no idea what’s being talked about here. For example, before the new Exam Content Outline was published, that enabler we just looked at, classify compliance categories, that was new to me as well. So we as project managers, we don’t have the full spectrum. But as we go for the PMP Exam, you need to have the full spectrum. That’s why I’m saying: Print this. Highlight things. Make sure that in the end, everything is turning green for you here. Wait! That was the wrong button that I pushed. There we go, okay. So this is what I want you to do. And, than you very much, KKidd1108: “Great tip!” Yes, it is indeed a great tip. There is one more thing that you can do with the Exam Content Outline.
[20:53] Use ECO to Determine
So, we just talked about the fact that you use the Exam Content Outline to determine what could you be asked about on the exam, where you need additional training, you know, take out the highlighters, and then last but not least, you can also use it to determine whether you even qualify for the PMP Exam. I said last but not least. First and most importantly is probably the right thing to say. Do I qualify for the PMP Exam? This is also something that you need to have, that you can do with the Exam Content Outline. It takes about half an hour to explain how that is done. So, please do look for a separate webinar on YouTube and Facebook about that. We have question coming in where Calvin asks: “Why are there no books published based on the ECO framework? …Are organized around the old PMBOK 6, 10 chapters structure?” This is historical, I would think, Calvin. So, in the past until last year, okay, the PMP Exam had a strong focus on processes, and process-driven approaches. Agile was only added starting last year. The ECO completely changed the way from the five domains that are very similar t the old PMBOK® Guide domains to these three new domains. So, it will take some time, but overall, you know, people are shifting away from this process-focus to the more principles-driven, conceptual-driven. The focus on understanding what the ECO is actually asking about. Our training is also shifting. We are also shifting from this approach of teaching process-oriented to more ECO-oriented training. That’s what this here is all about. Okay, let’s open up the ECO a little bit more together, right? So, these are the three things that you can do with this. What else will you learn in the Exam Content Outline?
[23:17] PMP Info in ECO
The Exam Content Outline also talks about the eligibility requirements. So, you need 35 hours of training and 36 months of experience. It talks about how to record your experience and training on the application. For example, one thing that many people have a hard time understanding is those 36 months that I have to show I was a project manager, well, I had two projects that were at the same time, right, that gives me two months. No, it isn’t. It’s got to be unique and non-overlapping. So, wait, there you go. If these are two projects and they are kind of overlapping like this, it doesn’t count as two months. They have to be like this, separate. So, one project ends, new project starts. You can have five projects running at the same time. A day worked on your project is still a day. It doesn’t, you know, suddenly turn into five days of work, okay. Then next, education options: How do you get training? And one of the big things to understand: PMI is hiding this more and more on their website. One of the big things to understand is you do not have to necessarily take the official PMI training. PMI accepts training from multiple sources. I believe there are five sources. And one of those sources is companies like my own, which deliver, you know, self-study, on-demand distance learning where you can download things to your phone. Where’s my phone? My phone is not even here. So, you can have a podcast on your phone and watch your training in that way. It talks about the certification fees. It gives you exam information, and also about retaking the exam. Calvin asks: “Why are two tasks very similar? Lead a team versus building a team?” They’re actually quite different, Calvin. Leading a team means guiding the team through the process of managing the project, getting the work done. Pointing them into the right direction and telling them, this is where we are heading. This is where we are going. This is our goal. Whereas, building a team means, you know what? I noticed that you don’t have 100% of the skills to actually do the work. So, we are sending you to training, okay. So that’s basically, on a very high level the difference between building a team and leading a team. Right! So, here we go. These are all the items that you will find in the PMP Exam Content Outline.
[26:19] Take Action
As always, during my webinars, I want to make sure that you know where to go next. Here are my recommendations for your taking action today. So, I want you to download the Exam Content Outline. As I said in the opening: This is the most important document for the PMP Exam that many people actually do not know that it exist, and how important it truly is. I want to change that with you today. Then I want you to read pages 2 to 15 of that document, and just so you know, yeah, that’s pretty much the whole document, right. So, you don’t necessarily have to read page one. It’s kind of the history and how it was developed and all that, but pages 2 to 15, that’s the rest of the document. Very important that you read it because on the one hand, you get to learn all about the syllabus, what’s on the exam, and you will also get to see all those, all those items here, the PMP Info on the Exam Content Outline. So, that’s important for you to read that document. And, I want you to take a red, green, and yellow highlighter, and I want you to highlight everything that you already know about in green, things that you go: Yeah, well, not too sure in yellow, and everything that you say: I have never heard of this, ‘I need training’ in red. Download the Exam Content Outline at www.pm-prepcast.com/pmpoutline. That’s just a redirect that takes you to PMI’s official document. But PMI has a tendency to change their website regularly. So, I have this redirect link. If PMI changes it 10 years from now, hopefully, this link will still work. Alright! So much for the takeaways that we have here. Calvin asks: “Why do parts of the PMBOK® Guide map…” or “Which parts of the PMBOK® Guide with the ECO?” Actually, none of them do. Again, the PMP Exam is not a test of your understanding of the PMBOK® Guide. The PMP Exam is a test of the ECO. The PMBOK® Guide is just one of the many documents that will help you learn about all those topics for the PMP Exam. The best thing, as always, is to look for a solid training provider, who will deliver to you a PMP training that is 35 hours minimum in duration, and that covers the spectrum of topics that you need to know. PMI makes a big point about the fact that the people who develop the PMP Exam, and the people who develop the PMBOK® Guide are independent. There is no collusion between them to make sure that this match. Because the PMBOK® Guide is not the test, or is not the basis for the PMP Exam. Alright! That’s it for our take action.
[30:01] [Closing]
In closing, I would like to give you the takeaways. The PMBOK® Guide is not the PMP Exam. If you take anything away from today, that’s the number one thing I want you to take away from it. Don’t ask why is the PMP Exam, why is the PMBOK® Guide? How about the PMBOK® Guide and the PMP Exam? All those questions are incorrect. You have to understand that the ECO, the Exam Content Outline is what defines and designs the PMP Exam. The PMBOK® Guide is an important document, but it is not the PMP Exam. So, read the ECO, read the Exam Content Outline. Understand the Exam Content Outline, and use it to ensure two things by reading pages 2 to 15. You use the highlighters to ensure that your training is complete. Everything ought to be green. And, you want to make sure that you read, I think it’s about pages 12 to 15, okay, and you want to know about that. Getting a few questions here that talk about Agile: “How hybrid and Agile development approach change domain 1 in ECO?” PMI clearly states that 50% of the exam will be about hybrid and Agile. And, they also clearly state that it’s throughout. So, you will be asked questions about the People domain, the Process domain, and the Business Environment domain, where you have to understand how does Agile do things differently with People, Process, and Business Environment than plan-driven, okay. Then next question: “What about the Agile Practice Guide?” Yes, the Agile Practice Guide is an important document. Not the focus of today’s discussion here. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it at all. I will, however, talk about the Agile Practice Guide when we review the PMBOK® Guide in a separate webinar. That’s when I’ll be talking about that. And, we have this one here. Mhr asks: “Is there a way to map the ECO tasks to chapters to the PMBOK® Guide?” No, there isn’t because they were developed by separate teams who did not work together to make sure that this is together. PMI wants to clearly make the difference that the PMBOK® Guide and the PMP Exam are not the same. ECO drives the PMP Exam. The PMBOK® Guide is a guide to help you understand principles, domains, concept, processes, approaches of how project management is done for most projects most of the time. Alright! And that’s it from today, from today, that’s it for today! Thank you very much, everybody, for joining me in today’s webinar about the Exam Content Outline. And, until next time.
[End of transcript]
Please note that the transcript is provided for promotional purposes only. Transcripts are not provided for other PrepCast lessons.
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