With my knowledge in Project Management i tried to capture the PMP certification process.
Getting PMP certification is not a simple process. But with an exam strategy it would not be that impossible. You also need to have certain educational standards and Project Management experience. A major misconception is that Project Management experience means people think that they need to be Project Manager all along. But Project contributor experience is also valid for the certification. PMI doesn’t look for Manager title, but the real Project contribution experience is sufficient. That means a Senior Developer or Business analyst who contributed to projects are eligible for PMP certification.
Lets look into basic requirements:
35 contact hours of formal Project Management education
If you have High School Diploma:7500 hours of Project Contribution experience
If you have Bachelor’s Degree:4500 hours of Project Contribution experience
Then Steps that you need to finish to appear for the exam:
Register yourself at http://www.pmi.org
Then fill-in online application
Once PMI reviews your application and approves it, you will have 1 year to write the exam
From PMI.org you can apply for the exam. Pay the fee on pmi.org web site. Then they will send you confirmation number.
Links will take you to Prometric.com web site. Using the confirmation number you can schedule your test at a center near to you.
Appear at the Prometric center and finish the exam in 4 hours.
About the exam
PMP exam will be based on PMBOK guide 3rd edition. So need not to say 2nd version is no longer valid. Please don’t follow 2nd version books at all. There is hell lot of terminology change in 3rd edition
It will be 4 hour exam and will have 200 questions in it. Out those you will be marked only for 175. The trick part is that you will not know which are those unwanted 25 questions.
Tips to fill-in your application
PMI categorized all project management processes in to 5 groups. Those are Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring, and Closing.
When you submit your application you need to categorize your experience in to these 5 process groups.
Typically we have 2000 working hours in a year. Aproximately 500 hours in a quarter. You have spread those hours across the 5 process groups.
For example in software industry if you are a developer or lead most of the time you spend on Implementation. So Executing will occupy majority of your project. If you are a Business analyst most of the time you spend on Initiating and Planning. If you are Coordinator or Project Manager you will spend mostly on Monitoring.
You have to think about your projects and calculate hours you spend across these process groups. If you calculate those figures on working sheet, then you can fill your application with ease.
In software industry Projects roughly have 10%, 30%, 20%, 30%, 10% of division across 5 process groups. This is just rough division.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Limitations of Project Management Software
No one can doubt that project management software is a great tool to help PMs save a significant amount of time. As every other software, applications like MS Project or Primavera are just tools. They do not execute the entire job for the PMs. It is unacceptable to expect a computer to manage the project, it just manages the vast amount of data that large projects require to store. Any PM software has three major limitations.
1. Incapable of establishing project objectives
2. Does not define define project tasks or dependencies
3. Does not determine and manage project constraints
4. Does not perform the risk analysis
As the significance of having a proper statement of work (SOW) becomes more and more apparent, project management software should consciously take a secondary role in a project system since their power can only be exploited when the project is defined correctly.
So PM tools can only help you do the work efficiently and effectively but will not do the work for you. Learn to use them but dont expect them to replicate the "Project Manager".
1. Incapable of establishing project objectives
2. Does not define define project tasks or dependencies
3. Does not determine and manage project constraints
4. Does not perform the risk analysis
As the significance of having a proper statement of work (SOW) becomes more and more apparent, project management software should consciously take a secondary role in a project system since their power can only be exploited when the project is defined correctly.
So PM tools can only help you do the work efficiently and effectively but will not do the work for you. Learn to use them but dont expect them to replicate the "Project Manager".
Does the PM have to be a technical expert?
10 years ago, most organizations felt their project managers had to be the most expert member of the project team. The PMs were the technical gurus and the theory was they would have influence to direct the team due to their technical mastery. This didn't work too well when the team was bigger than 2-3 or when they involved people from non-technical areas who thought the guru was a geek.
This thinking provided a nice career path for subject matter experts but far too often the technical experts wanted to do the technical work of the project. This was just fine on very small projects with one to three people. However, as the size of the project team increased the technical guru had to move into the people management business and deal with other functional areas. Very often the gurus were not too good at cross-functional stuff and did not want to manage people in the first place.
Today, many organizations have suffered through the mis-management and failed projects led by technical gurus. They recognize that project management is a separate set of skills and that a project manager can control a team made up of people who are more technically expert in their disciplines than the PM.
So I'm a strong advocate of having PMs who are expert in managing projects and don't feel they need to know more than everybody on the project team.
In simple words a balance should be achieved between technical and managerial skills to become an effective "Project Manager". What do you think has made Saurav Ganguly the most successful captain? Any answers!!!
This thinking provided a nice career path for subject matter experts but far too often the technical experts wanted to do the technical work of the project. This was just fine on very small projects with one to three people. However, as the size of the project team increased the technical guru had to move into the people management business and deal with other functional areas. Very often the gurus were not too good at cross-functional stuff and did not want to manage people in the first place.
Today, many organizations have suffered through the mis-management and failed projects led by technical gurus. They recognize that project management is a separate set of skills and that a project manager can control a team made up of people who are more technically expert in their disciplines than the PM.
So I'm a strong advocate of having PMs who are expert in managing projects and don't feel they need to know more than everybody on the project team.
In simple words a balance should be achieved between technical and managerial skills to become an effective "Project Manager". What do you think has made Saurav Ganguly the most successful captain? Any answers!!!
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