Improve your PMP Exam Preparation with pm-prep35.com Dashboard

1. The pm-prep35.com dashboard is a nice utility to look and improve your pmp exam preparation.

2. The dashboard is accessible from the Chapter Tests page  when you are logged in, with your registered Email id.

3. Once you start taking the Chapter Tests, your scores are charted in the dashboard page.

4. The dashboard  shows chapter-wise performance.

5. Since the Chapter Tests have questions from each of the sections in the PMBOK®, You can look at the section-wise split-up of your scores too.

6. Based on your split-up, you know which are your weak areas and you can concentrate on those chapters and sections.

7. The questions in the Chapter Tests are intentionally first-level in order to make you thorough with the PMBOK®.

8. The Chapter Tests are also intentionally a bit critical in terms of picking specific lines from the PMBOK® just to ensure that you are thorough with the PMBOK® as such. They can be a bit nerve wrecking too.

9. This is mainly because most of the people who have had success with the PMP exam will necessary have to be thorough with the PMBOK® then, they are in a much better position to answer the scenario based questions.

10. The Chapter Tests simulate the actual exam with a timer at the top and giving about 1 minute duration for each of the questions.

11. It is good to have an average of 80% in all the chapters since in the actual exam you have to get 131 out of the 175 questions correct, which means you need to get about 75%.

12. Your chapter-wise percentage scored is also visible in the Chapter Tests page within a small box beside the Start Now button.

13. Prior to taking a test, the concerned box shows 80% , which is your pass criteria for the chapter.

14. Although there is a separate mock exam section, currently, the mock exam  is not integrated into the dashboard .

15. Take the Chapter Tests and benefit using the dashboard 

16. Good luck with your PMP exam preparation.

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Project Scope Management - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

Project Scope Management - Introduction

The Project Scope Management Knowledge area deals with collecting stakeholder requirements and then, defining the inclusions and exclusions for the project.

As important it is to include the right requirements, it is also important to not include requirements not stated by the customer. The scope statement takes care of the same - defining the project boundaries.

As part of defining the scope,  two aspects come to the fore:

1. Product Scope

2. Project Scope

Product Scope defines the characteristics and features of the product. Here, the product in the product scope is lop-sided. Since a project can create a product, service or result, the term product scope is meant to cover all these.

Project Scope not only includes the product scope but also the peripherals or other aspects involved in the phased development of the product - interim milestones, deliverables, processes, tools and techniques.

Note that collecting , defining requirements are all part of this knowledge area and gaining customer acceptance is also part of this knowledge area. Validate Scope process takes care of customer acceptance aspect.

Here are the processes in this knowledge area:

Planning Process Group:

1. Plan Scope management

2. Collect Requirements: Although many requirements might be collected from the stakeholders, only some of them can be included based on looking at different constraints like budget allocation, time factor etc. The defined project requirements become the scope.

3. Define Scope

4. Create WBS

Monitoring and Controlling Process Group:

1. Validate Scope - Monitoring 

2. Control Scope - Controlling

Introduction

Project Scope Management Processes

Product V/s Project Scope

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Free PMP Online Training - 5 steps to Free PMP 35 Contact Hours Certificate

1. Go through PMP Video and Audio Tutorials as well as PMBOK® Process ITTOs.


2. Register and take Up Chapter tests and score the minimal pass percentage of 80%.

3. Take Up at least one full-length Mock Exam and score 75%.


4. Check and Improve your weak chapter sections through the Dashboard:

Chapter Performance

Section Performance

5. Your 35 Contact Hours certificate gets auto-enabled for generation at pm-prep35.com if you score 80% in all the level1 chapter tests and 75% in one full-length mock exam.

Features:
- No Time Limits to Access
- Read at your own pace
- Improve your performance through the Dashboard

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Close Project or Phase - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

Close Project or Phase - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

The Close Project or Phase process is concerned with closure activities with regard to a project phase or the project as such.
This process is NOT concerned with deliverable acceptance since that is part of validate scope process and accepted deliverables become input to this process.
While deliverable acceptance can mostly be linked/interpreted to successful project completeion, Closure activities are followed even when the project is terminated or cancelled. The documentation in this case will be useful in analyzing the trend in future.
Ideally, phase closure is also called as stage gate, kill point , phase gate or milestone. There is normally a milestone attached to a phase closure. Milestones might be internal or external.
The main aspects of this process are to document lessons learnt , archive project work or deliverables and transition knowledge to the support or the operations team.
Understandably, this process is concerned with updating the organizational process assets albeit in the form of templates, process or any other form of archival.
Reusable components also become part of the archival process.

It is easier to come up with the OUTPUTS of this process based on the above description. So, here are the outputs first:
1. Organizational process assets Updates: Template updates, archival, process updates, lessons learnt document
2. Final Product, Service or Result transition: The 'knowledge transition' of the deliverable concerned with the project or phase to the team that is going to take over the next phase or the operations.

Tools and Techniques:
1. Expert Judgment: Like any other process, expert judgment is an important tool in deciding what process must be followed to make the process effective for future project work. Is closure process followed effectively as promised in the contract?
2. Meetings: Meetings with client to formalize the closure alongwith handing over of deliverables and process documentation for smooth transition.
3. Analytical techniques: Analyze future performance based on current performance metrics and see if future phases will be ontrack or what would be the variance.

Inputs:
1. Project Management Plan: The baseline document that will have details about the closure process tailored for this project.
2. Organizational Process Assets: What templates need to be used for transition documentation.
3. Accepted Deliverables: What deliverables are accepted by the customer so that the transition document can cover knowledge related to those deliverables.

Needless to say, a configuration management system to version and store organizational process assets is also an important tool for this process. Since tools like configuration management system, version control system are used in most of the processes and mainly play a prominent role in the planning and executing processes, the concerned tools are probably implicit and left out in case of this process.

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Define Activities - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

6.2 Define Activities

Define Activities

Define Activities Process:

The Define Activities process is concerned with decomposing the Work package into a list of relevant activities. In most of the projects, the Create WBS and Define Activities are done as part of the same process. In order to create a WBS that covers all the work packages within the scope, the whole team must be involved in the process. It is natural from there for the team to breakdown to the initial activity list. Also, when the project manager actually starts with the project schedule, the starts with the preliminary activity list and then goes onto relate those (with a project management software like MPP),  allocates, durations for each of the activities along with the resources to come up with a detailed schedule. So, most of the processes in the schedule management knowledge area overlap without distinct demarcation.

Define Activities Process - Introduction

Inputs:

1. Schedule Management Plan: The Schedule Management Plan has the process to decompose the WBS to an activity list relevant to the project objectives.

2. Scope baseline: The Scope baseline covers the scope statement, scope management plan and WBS. When coming up with the activity list, it is good to keep in mind what is the scope and the baseline is a good input to that effect.

3. Enterprise Environmental Factors: For all the planning processes, enterprise environmental factors are a vital input since the planning phase needs to factor the proper conditions under which work will be carried out.

4. Organizational Process Assets: Initial Process outline, process tailoring guidelines for this customer, context.

Define Activities Process Inputs

Tools & Techniques:

1. Expert Judgment: Expert opinion from team and SMEs is very important in order to define activities.

2. Decomposition: Breaking down the work package to one or more activities, while work package is assigned to a team , the activities are allocated to individual resources.

3. Roll Wave Planning: When the WBS is broken down to work packages and then the individual work packages are broken down to activities, not all of the work packages in the WBS are broken down, only work packages relevant to current project phase are broken down keeping the other deliverables at the high-level. This process is called roll wave planning. Plan what you want to execute in the coming next period say, a week or two.

Define Activities Process Tools & Techniques

Outputs:

1. Activity List: It is a list of activities for a work package. Each individual activity has an activity identifier and an activity description. 

2. Activity Attributes: Any further details useful while developing the schedule can be part of activity attributes -  any unique characteristics for each of the activity gets added as activity attributes.

3. Milestone List: While activities have durations attached during estimate activity duration process, milestones are pre-marked or they have zero duration. They are mostly delivery-related and are checkpoints.

Define Activities Process Outputs

Define Activities Process - Match the Following

Define Activities Process - Match the Following (Answers)

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Plan Schedule Management - PMBOK® Guide – Fifth Edition

6.1 Plan Schedule Management

The Plan Schedule Management Process is concerned with creating the schedule management plan. The schedule management plan is concerned with keeping the project schedule managed, monitored and controlled, in case of any changes to schedule.

6.1 Plan Schedule Management

The Plan Schedule Management Process has the "process" for -

1. Decomposing the WBS to an activity list. 

2. Documenting the activity interrelationships in the form of a network diagram.

3. Doing activity resource estimates.

4. Doing activity duration estimates.

5. Developing the detailed schedule

6. Controlling Schedule in case if there is a variance

The tools and techniques for the different schedule processes are also decided and documented in the schedule management plan looking at the project constraints and the competing objectives.

Plan Schedule Management - Introduction

Inputs:
1, PM Plan: The Project Management Plan is an important input to the plan schedule management process because, planning by itself is an iterative process. The PM Plan mostly starts with an outline for each section  and then, each of the sections get elaborated into a detailed subsidiary plan as the project planning gains momentum.
So, the subsidiary plans are an input to develop project management plan process and PM Plan is a vital input to each of the subsidiary plans.
2. Project Charter: The Project Charter is the most detailed document when the project enters the planning phase. It also has the high-level details with respect to all the knowledge areas. This is where it becomes a reference document in the first few iterations of project planning.
3. Enterprise Environmental Factors: What are the external factors influencing the project? Is the project being done by a virtual team? Are there are labor unions in the organization? What positive or negative impacts can the external environment have on the project?

Plan Schedule Management - Inputs - Part 1

4. Organizational Process Assets: Templates are very important input in the first iteration of planning. What is the process followed so far in coming up with a plan in previous similar projects?

Plan Schedule Management - Inputs - Part 2

Tools and Techniques:
1. Expert Judgment: Opinions from experienced managers or SMEs in similar projects are taken into account while detailing the plan.
2. Analytical Techniques: Brainstorming , delphi technique or taking surveys / polls and any other techniques relevant to collecting facts , data or opinions to analyze and come up with a well derived plan.
3. Meetings: The SMEs and the PM spend time in meetings during planning to walk through all objectives, gather opinions and come up with the best approach relevant to the project.

Plan Schedule Management - Tools & Techniques

Outputs:
The Schedule Management Plan is the output from Plan Schedule Management process and it has the details about how other processes within the Project Time Management Knowledge area will be performed and also how they will be monitored and controlled once the baseline is approved.

Plan Schedule Management -  Outputs

Plan Schedule Management - Match the following

Plan Schedule Management - Match the following (Answers)

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