1. Can an assumption become a risk? When?

1. You are a PM for a huge construction project. You are approaching deadline for a task in the critical path; unfortunately the supplier says the material he has sent has been damaged midway in an accident. An associate of yours suggests same material from a company he knows which provides cheaper material and assures of good quality and describes them as reliable and you can meet your deadline. What would you do first?

1. If you are a PM and you are asked to select a team for the project, what would you do?

1. During which process would you decide whether the item is to be made in-house or outsourced? What would be the inputs for making this kind of decision? Think from PMI perspective.

1. Your vendor takes you out for a wine & dine at the costliest restaurant in the town. Would you go?

1. Which formula do you use to calculate PV ? For instance as a PM, you are building a Mall. The project involves 10 stores, costing $20,000 per store and would take 40 weeks. After 10 weeks, you look at your performance reports and find that only 2 stores were built. How much work was planned (in dollars) by the end of 10 weeks?

Technorati Tags: Building, Business, Construction, Cost, Critical path method, Programming, Restaurant, Wine

Risk – High ——- Decreases as project progresses

Uncertainity -High ——- Decreases as project progresses

Ability to make changes by SH’s -High

Cost -low ————- Increases, constant and decreases.

Impact-low ————- Increases as project progresses.

CV (-) , SV(+) —> crash

CV(+) , SV(-) —-> Not enough resources applied

Cost Control — Forecasting, EVA, Perf Measurment Analysis

Residual risks —remain after risk response strategy is implemented. In questions if you encounter anything “unexpected” happening, see whether you have risk response plan as answer. Now relate this to secondary risks.

Technorati Tags: Business, Business and Economy, Cost Control, High Cost, Management, Project Management, Risk analysis, Risk Management

-           Your Director calls you and asks you for an estimate on the phone. You have done similar project before. What type of estimating would you use?

-           How would addition of costs/resources impact CPI/SPI ? Look at the equation.

-           During the life cyle of a project, where is Quality, scope have major impact on the project?

-           Study definitions and differences for QP, QA, QC

-           If you are looking for visual representation of PMBOK, head to nearby Borders/Barnes & Nobel and refer Headfirst PMP book.

-           Newell’s book does not focus much on inputs/outputs/tools and techniques per se but after you write the exam, you might find that the book might have helped you in some way, shape or form. That said, refer the book and take notes of the topics which are not covered in PMBOK. Don’t spend too much time- have a cursory look to know what a topic means. A case in point is split costs/financial measures! Check out pages 172 thru 176.

-           Do some questions where you will find practical applications of risk response strategies.

-           Fun part – Contract types. Which contract to use for which project’s. What are the parameters that would impact your decision to pick a contract type –from both perspectives (Buyer and Seller)

-           Make or buy. Are you comfortable in forming a simple algebra equation?

-           Professional responsibility. Know ethics, policies play important role. Know how to apply to particular situation. Let’s say you are going for an office paid conference and you are about to purchase a flight ticket. The company policy states: use the company travel agents and you find out the cost is $1000. You check expedia/hotwire and the price is $500. What would you do? Purchase ticket from hotwire and while submitting your expenses indicate on the form that you saved company $500 for the company?

- Yes, approved changes and sometimes others too. Take the example of cost control – if variances are too high what would happen? You might end up with re-baseline if you want to be pragmatic.

-Do you know why changes occur in a project? Remember when you forget to add something /add new tasks to scope, you would end up with changes, which then goes to CCB.

-On a side note, the words Authority and Responsibility make significant difference in choosing an answer.

- read value engineering,

- Importance of communication plan is to focus on needs of stakeholders

- Assume you are interviewing for a large critical project. The person’s resume says he/she is a PMP. The interview goes on very well and he joins your organization as a contractor. Later, the organization finds this PM as a very valuable resource, sponsor applauds him, stakeholders like him. The project status is excellent. Your company starts negotiations to hire him. However, during the hiring process you find out that he is not a PMP. What is the first thing you would do?

Technorati Tags: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Business, Contract, Engineering, Ethics, Project Management, Project management plan, Quality assurance

Technorati Tags: Business, Construction and Maintenance, Consulting, Cost management, Project Management, Quality assurance, Technology, Work breakdown structure

Slack/Float = Critical Path – Sum (Duration of that Path)
ES = Sum of Predecessors +1
EF = ES +Duration -1
LS = ES + FLOAT (Remember FLOAT = LS- ES which is a transpose of LESS)
LF = LS+Duration-1

Dummy activity has zero duration
PV = %Complete x BAC (This is for schedule)
EV = %Complete x BAC (This relates to work)

PTA = Target Cost +( CP – TP) / % of share of cost overrun

How much will it cost = EAC= BAC/CPI
How much MORE will it cost = ETC =BAC/CPI

Given CPI, EV, BAC, PV how will you calculate the EAC or ETC or SPI ?

Example:

Target cost/price/profit all relate to fixed price incentive.
Target cost – Actual cost = savings —- Remember it could be loses too!

Now this savings plays the major role in this contract. The incentive is based on these savings. Hence more the savings , more the seller gets!
So if there are savings, then seller would get the cost plus his fee plus %of savings.
Target price 20,000 Target profit 2,000
Target price 21,000 Ceiling price 22,000

Share ratio 80/20.

If actual cost = 18k then Amount to be paid to the seller by the buyer equals ?

What if actual cost = 20k

What if actual cost = 23k

Technorati Tags: Business, Construction and Maintenance, Consulting, Consumer price index, Contract, Critical path method, Fixed price, Target price

-You cannot stop the timer during exam. So keep that in mind if you want to go for restroom or something like that.
- If you are well prepared, 3. ½ hrs should be sufficient to go over questions twice (2nd pass is for Marked questions only)
- You have to start the Demo module first – it goes on for 15 minutes. You can exit out whenever you want to start the exam.
- When the Demo module starts, brain dump the following on the given papers
- Formulas for Cost equations, Float, LF/EF, PTA, Seller fees, PV on 1 page
- Cross chart of the knowledge Area & process group on 1 page
- Know AC, EV, EAC, EV, SV, CV, SPI, CPI very well. I almost had 10 numerical questions or so.
- Look at these below: Do you see an easy way to remember the CV/SV/CPI/SPI ?
- CV AC EV PV SV
- Develop Mnemonics to create the knowledge Area & process group on 1 page.
- If you can remember inputs, outputs, tools and techniques, that would be great but I could only remember few of them.
- There are questions on inputs/outputs. But if you look at the cross chart you have developed and understand them, you can narrow down the choices to 2. That means 50% probability of hitting the right answer.
- There were plenty of situational questions – PM should not do things with a knee jerk reaction. Don’t run to the customer/Sponsor FIRST. Evaluate options/impact FIRST.
- Read delegation.
- Know when WBS and scope statement is an tool/input.
- What changes in the project will impact which plans: For instance say there is an upgraded version (which fixes most of the bugs and conforms to other customer requirements) of a software available from the vendor; but due to the relationship with the vendor he/she is willing to give that version for free and it would make no difference in cost or schedule. However since this is a version which is of improved quality, which plans get impacted?
- Expected value calculations
- Probability ( Remember how dependent and independent events are evaluated)
- Read theory on NPV/IRR; not just higher the NPV select the project kind of thing.
- Problem Solving is the nirvana.
- Motivational Model –direct questions
- Which conflicts happen in which phases and why
- Risk response strategies
- Know the impact of resource leveling on the project.
- Understand Ethnocentrism, how multinational projects are managed to deal with cultural issues.
- Know quality control definition and understand it word by word!
- If you know direct and indirect costs, then read also about Fixed/Variable.
- Critical path – longest path, shortest time
- Administrative closure is not just at the end of the project. Really?
- Contract closeout is not just product verification. So what else?
- Which changes lead to re-baseline?
- Why is scope verification and control important?
- What are the functions of CCB?
- Why do you want to use value analysis or function analysis?
- Know staffing management plan and tools needed
- Know the components and importance of performance reporting.
- Know the use of control charts, scatter diagram and Pareto charts.
- Conformance = Prevention plus Appraisal
- What are the disadvantages of matrix structure’s?
- Secondary risks are from following a risk mitigation strategy.
- If a project is terminated due to starvation what would you do?
- Understand when you would use PERT vs CPM.

Technorati Tags: Brain, Business, Critical path method, Expected value, Net present value, Program Evaluation and Review Technique, Project Management, Quality control

(i.) There are different ways of framing questions, and one of them is double negatives…Read those questions carefully. I have seen people rewrite them; for instance, all the following are right(wrong) except…. Adjectives, which will play an important role in the questions.

(ii.) Scenario questions “give” you some information and expect you to arrive at an answer. Read what is “given” to you in the question carefully; the reason is that you will find an answer closely related to the already “given” info and many times we fall prey to that replica – that answer might be a twisted version of the “given”, which might not be the right answer. An example was given in the question bank forum recently. Give some thought before you answer those questions. Split them into 3 phases and then attack – what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen.

(iii.) Lengthy questions describe what is “given”; but most of the time, it would be immaterial. Few ways to handle them – quickly browse the answers first and then read the question or read last line before the question ends; or Use “Z” technique to scan the question.

(iv.) When you see a diagram or a formula related question, assign an additional page or two just for these solutions. They will come in handy as the exam progresses.

(v.) First identify which process/knowledge area a question is referring to…Then look at the keyword (FIRST/MOST/…). Those keywords will direct you towards an answer. For instance, if you have a question that is asking for the most beneficial thing to do, and one of them is to approach the customer right away – think twice. You are a PM and you don’t stir a hornet’s nest; do your homework/discuss with teammates/evaluate facts. If you have taken Operations Research class, then the chapter on decision-making process is the right one – assign probabilistic values to arrive at the impact, evaluate the options and pick the one with the least impact and greater benefit.

(vi.) Last but not least, during your dry run, use the matrix sheet and use it to arrive at the answers. Do not do it for the first time at the exam!

(vii.) Think about these kind of questions….When I started on my handwritten notes, I thought how a question could be framed on a topic. I would sometimes ignore which were direct but would think about the cumulative questions as shown below. Try to frame questions on topics discussed in the LLs in this forum; If you cannot, then don’t worry. When you do questions from other sources, think how a question on this topic could be more difficult or at least correlated to other topics.

(viii.) Can an assumption become a risk? When?

(ix.) You are a PM for a huge construction project. You are approaching the deadline for a task in the critical path; unfortunately the supplier says the material he has sent has been accidentally damaged in transit. An associate of yours suggests same material from another company he knows which provides cheaper material and assures of good quality and reliability so you can meet your deadline. What would you do first?

(x.) If you are a PM, and you are asked to select a team for the project, what would you do?

(xi.) During which stage /process would you decide whether an item is to be made in-house or outsourced? What would be the inputs for making this kind of decision? Think from the PMI perspective.

(xii.) Your vendor wants to take you out for a wine & dine at the costliest restaurant in town. Would you go?

Technorati Tags: Area, Ask an Expert, Construction, Decision making, Operations Research, Question, Risk, Wine

It is ironic that the PMI is unable to get the brightest PMs into their membership of PMPs. This is very often due to a lack of proper preparation for the exact requirements of their exams by prospective PMP candidates. If you have crashed an exam, then that’s that and there is nothing that can be done now except to learn from the past mistakes and forge ahead to succeed the next time. If you know that you didn’t fare too well at your exam even to scrape through, at least you can now have the satisfaction of knowing where you bungled most and prepare anew to give the examiners a good run this time. When you are armed with that sort of frame of mind, there are many options that you can take to ensure success the next time. The first thing you must do immediately on coming home after the exam is to do a thorough brain dump and take all possible steps to make the best use of your past experience with the crashed exam and use your failure as a launching pad to future success. 

Try to relax and think back with a fresh mind to make an honest assessment of what actually went wrong and what factors stood between success and failure. If I may suggest a few from my own experiences and those of many others of attacking examination papers (although I never had the fortune or misfortune to do any exam a second time!), one of the most common blunders that students make is not reading or understanding questions properly or getting confused over choosing the correct answer out of a choice of few suggested answers that look very much alike at the examination hall. Some even go and deliberately pick on the wrong answer! Don’t just stare at me in disbelief. Yes, it does really happen; especially when you are clueless about the question or the correct answer and then deliberating hang on to some answer assuming and trusting to luck that it would be the correct answer. 

Now look at all the above possibilities and truly put your heart and soul into trying to visualize how best to deal with each situation. You don’t need a top psychologist to tell you that you are prone to pounce on a wrong answer even while knowing what is correct, when under stress. 

Under such circumstances there is a strategy that really works for many. Your action plan should be to keep repeating “No, it is not possible” to the first answer that your eyes take you to. If you wonder why I am telling you to do such an unorthodox thing, it is because that switches on another vital part of our brain to take command of the situation and make the correct decision. Whether you believe it or not, it won’t hurt you to try out this technique a few times and see for yourself. If you find that PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) and Rita are somewhat beyond your comprehension, Head First, should be a good option for you. Head First is the technique of using images to explain concepts. 

Don’t let the repetitive process of reading the same notes and chapters over a second time make you bored and disinterested. If it is real success that is your ultimate goal, keep focused on your objective continuously without wavering in your determination. It is also very important that you keep your cool at this point without making any ill conceived decisions or making haphazard changes of a drastic nature in your action plan for your renewed preparations. Treat this the way you would make preparations for childbirth. It has to take its own course of several months that you cannot shorten. It is not something that holds true only for the first child, but for the second, the third and even the nth as well. There can of course be exceptions to the rule. 

Your next endeavor should be to nurture you preparation with all due care that includes reading, validating, testing and finally planning and executing. Maintain a chart of the daily tasks planned and the proportions completed as a percentage. Halfway to the exam, pick up Raja Rani to have cursory check as to what extent the notes have sunk into your mind. Then try to relate what you have studied up to now to the Raja Rani notes.

Practice what is called “relativity” by putting down your own notes and thoughts right next to the relevant sections in the RR notes. This would be very advantageous to your effort. Simultaneously, keep habitually looking at your brain dumps from the previous exam especially with regard to ITTOs, and formulas. Your preparation is and should be a continuous and cumulative process that includes revision of the earlier chapters as well. Make provision for variances, for the unexpected always happen. Complete whatever is planned for a week within the week itself. If not, catch up on lost ground during the weekend or the subsequent week, the latest. A chart plotted of your planned preparation and the achieved progress should go parallel to each other. If your achieved progress takes a downward curve at any point of time, make sure it comes back to its expected trajectory at the earliest opportunity and maintains a parallel path to your planned preparation.

You could do some fully fledged tests from the PMHUB as well as some other sources; taking care to be very careful in the choice of tests you select. It is tests with credibility that you must always go for. As already suggested, you may try some IOs on a single paper with revisions every morning and evening. Reading LLs will help you to learn the important aspects you need to keep focused, besides some useful “do”s and “don’t”s that will improve your chances of success. When you read, try to read between the lines too. My last (but not the least) advice to you is to firmly believe in your success and never doubt it. Always believe in something positive, and never negative. Just believe in something without being an atheist!

Technorati Tags: PMI, PMP, PMP exam guarantee, PMP exam tips, PMP Exam tricks, PMP questions

PMHUB is a non profit making body of professionals and their website has some very useful tips, tricks and related material for aspiring PMPs to help them get through the prestigious PMP examination which many PMs find extremely hard to crack at the first attempt itself. PMHUB has a registered membership of 43,000; and I reproduce below a feedback given by Admin – PMHUB on one of my contributions to the PMP community: 

“This is an LL with one of the most detailed discussions that gives all aspirants a very good insight of what happens at PMP exams and how to cope with it. This LL (lessons learnt) is written by Nagesh who is an active contributor, a PMHUB moderator and an active donator to PMHUB funds. PMHUB has collected in its archives thousands of Lessons Learned, since 2001. I have selected here 6 Lessons Learned that were all written after 2005 on exams based on PMBOK 3rd edition. I consider these LLs as the best of the best in their depth and uniqueness in covering each aspect of the PMP learning process and the PMP exam itself. I strongly suggest that you carefully read each LL and then take advantage of the treasure of information, tips and tricks and the kinds of questions that will appear on the exam. I really regret that I took my exam before these LLs were written.”

The PMP is indeed a very hard examination to crack and it is not by any means a mere cakewalk. You have to be persistently at it and put in a lot of hard work if you are to pass this exam. All concerned should be very grateful to PMHUB for their efforts in hosting a great website in the caliber of www.pmhub.net. It is like a bible for many PMPs. I also have been a very grateful, though silent observer myself for sometime, but I believe the time has now come for me too to give something back in return. So I have started contributing regularly to their forum. On the whole, I hold mixed feelings about the exam. It is definitely not the easiest of exams to crack; but nevertheless, I am glad to tell you all that hard work you put in really pays at the end. I believe that I got through with a good percentage due the hard work I put in.

My preparation for the exam spanned a total period of around 3 weeks of which the last 2 were at a more intensive level. By then I was already holding a MBA and with valuable experience as a Project Manager. Looking back, I know that the above learning and experience gave me an edge at the preparation stage though not necessarily at the actual exam. The extents of advantages gained through your past qualifications and experience could of course vary from one individual to another. 

The questions reproduced below from PMHUB are meant to serve as a sample to set your thinking process in motion; and the tips and tricks from PMHUB reproduced at the end of this write up should provide you direction in getting organized on your preparations for the exam. Honestly, in my opinion, it was the recap of important aspects from the notes handwritten by me that really came mostly to my aid at the exam. 

As for my handwritten notes, they came from 3 books by McGraw Hill, Andy Crowe and Newell respectively. I found Self-test Software/Transcender of immense help for my Tests. Most of the questions asked at the exam comprised of 1 or 2 lines, and were very much similar in format to the questions I got for my practice tests from the Self-test/Transcender. 

There are two very important lessons that I learnt by doing these tests: they are, if you just confine your studies to what is obvious on the surface without trying to collate the information, then you are sure to get stuck in the questions. This is of special significance to your preparation for the exam; for it gives you a timely warning and a pre-taste of what to expect at the exam. 

Just to cite an example, in the chapter on Time, I studied Precedence and Arrow diagrams without delving into the aspects of trying to compare and contrast between the two; and similarly with regard to Bar and Gnatt Charts too.

Technorati Tags: pmhub.net, PMI, PMP, PMP exam guarantee, PMP exam tips, PMP Exam tricks, PMP questions