My PMP Exam Lesson Learned

I would like to share my experience on passing PMP exam. I will divide it into 4 parts: preparation, self study, exam, and after exam

• Preparation

As a prerequisite, an exam candidate must have certain eligibility prior to enrollment, i.e. bachelor degree, 4500 hours in lead role in project(s) and 35 hours of project management education OR high school degree, 7500 hours in lead role in project(s) and 35 hours of project management education.

In my case, I have a bachelor degree, more than 4500 hours in lead role in projects but lacked the 35 contact hours. I filled the gap by taking a PMP preparation combo by DCOptima, arranged and supported by the company I’ve been working to, PT. Mitra Integrasi Informatika (arrangement and certain agreement about this gap fulfillment is not discussed here)

I spent a 5 days course starting with 3 days project management essential knowledge plus 2 days exam preparation. The course gave me ways a PM can look and manage projects as well as the downside of overlooking a project. Furthermore, the course also gave me a glimpse of PM roles in many working background such as offshore mining, banking, telecommunication, and general back office (administrative) management. These roles were shared by other candidates taking the course for the same exam preparation purpose.

I felt the time passed so fast when I was in the course yet many concepts were not covered in the course such as negotiation skill, influence in a project, change request simulation, and team building simulation. After the 5 days course, I will have to prepare further by self study and this topic will be covered next.

•  Self Study

The first week after completing the 5 days course were the most ineffective days which I spent nothing on exam preparation. Felt a little bit guilty at that time, but enjoyed the moment as it passed by. Back to the preparation, I gathered myself some eBooks about passing the PMP exam and further reading materials. I got Project Management Body of Knowledge by PMI (PMBoK), PMP In Depth by Paul Sanghera, and HeadFirst PMP 2^nd Edition. Next I spent some time making my study plan.

In self study, I got help by a senior that is already a PMP; he is also the owner of atharjanuar blog, Mr. Athar Januar. He conducted many sessions for knowledge sharing in which gave me some practice questions and tips and tricks to answer the tricky questions I might find in the real exam. I joined his sessions with other candidates as well but since I was targeted as the first to pass the exam amongst other candidates, he extended his time and availability to help me explore ways to cover all knowledge.

As it turned out, compared to sessions answering many practice questions, I enjoyed more about knowledge discussions, i.e. process of recalling what I have had in mind, concepts I have learned, and then construct mnemonic words to relate those concepts into rhythmic words I thought amusing and easy to recall later in the exam. I believe it would have turned differently ugly if we kept the sessions into answering practice exams all the time. Those sessions helped me keep track of what I must remember, what might raise challenge in the exam, and which part to focus, e.g. brain-dump material: 5 process groups, 9 knowledge areas and the 42 processes covered within

• Exam

I scheduled the exam at July 24, 2012 which is approximately 2 months after the 5 days course. Prior to get exam eligibility, random applications will be selected for audit and lucky for me I didn’t have to go through such audit; I automatically received exam eligibility and was grateful about it.. J

I took the exam in the Indonesia International Education Foundation (IIEF), Menara Imperium 28^th Floor. I followed the usual exam drill, i.e. the exam rules, signature on the some papers, put my belongings to a secured locker and was directed to my seat to take the exam.

I used the 15 minutes to do brain-dump on given papers; the 15 minutes was supposed to help me get used to the exam application.

The exam was timed decreasing from 04:00:00 (4 hours exam) and I began my exam keeping in mind that I might not be able to answer all the questions and there were some questions specifically designed not to be marked whatever answer I gave;

Well, I spent 4 hours doing 200 questions exam, the longest time I have spent stationed on a desk so far (for an exam). The time given was adequate, but I would have complained that the unscheduled breaks should have been taken as a factor to the total time.

I only had enough time to answer the questions including visiting marked questions which answer I doubt. I did not have enough time to revisit all the questions just for the sake of making sure I didn’t answer it incorrectly. I spent 3 hours and 45 minutes including unscheduled breaks.

• After Exam

Taadaaa… 3 hours, 45 minutes has passed, judgment was due, and there was one more step to complete before I got to know my exam result: a survey. The survey was about overall satisfactory level I had experience taking the exam, the exam application performance, and the IIEF location, seat, exam arrangement, and some comments I might add for possible improvements

There it went, I submitted the survey and… and the result was shown on the screen;

CONGRATULATION on passing PMP Exam bla bla bla.. Almost gave me small heart attack though, but I was happy, my effort didn’t go to waste, and expectations from people around me fulfilled, although negative expectations went unfulfilled of course.. J

I got a paper showing which process groups I am proficient based on answers given in the exam. I had only 1 proficient in the Planning and the rest stay on Moderately proficient level; no process group below proficient level. It meant my score was around average compared to other PMPs

I passed the exam, and would like to recite a phrase used in the movie “Mechanic”: Amat Victoria Curam (Victory loves preparations). The same works for exam preparation and I personally will tell other candidates to prepare it well too, hoping they might perform a better result compared to mine

Project Closure

The final process in a single-phase project is project closure; Multi-phases project also has each phase's closure and will automatically be a trigger for the next phase's initiating process. In the project closure process, a project manager is expected to coordinate with stakeholders and verify the project's documents and deliverable(s) to make sure what has been planned (in planning process) is now materialized and ready for hand-over.

To help the PM in the verification, he/she needs a project management plan to which shows what the expected outcome mentioned during the planning process is/are, the product/service/result itself, and supporting documents for hand-over used in the performing organization. If necessary, a PM might need to assist stakeholders in reviewing the deliverables in detail such as fundamental and technical components, project files and record their feedbacks

Furthermore, in the process, it is important for the PM to get formal acceptance/approval document signed by stakeholders so that they acknowledge/confirm all requirements have been met/completed, and verify that the product/service/result is/are accepted in a timely manner. Aside from the user acceptance, a PM also responsible to update documents and report to Project Management Office (PMO). Those documents include project closure document, product acceptance document, project files archive, and lessons learned. 

After all these legal procedures have been completed, a single-phase project can be labeled completed and the resources initially committed for the project can be released back to resources pool while a multi-phase project is now ready to start the initiating process all over again.

"We expect the closure will have some impacts, but because we draw customers from all along Route 1 and the coast region, we remain optimistic." -- David Fleming

Integrated Change Control

As the project progressing, there are many possible changes to occur reflecting the changing business needs of the performing organization. A project rarely run exactly by the defined project plan and that is why a change control need to be introduced. Changes itself may arose from different sources such as request from stakeholders and preventive and corrective actions from Quality Assurance (QA) team. Regardless of where the changes are originated, they share the same paradigm, i.e: to be submitted to Change Control Board (CCB) which then will process the requested changes using expert judgment. The result expected from the CCB is either approved or rejected (please note that only the approved changes may be implemented).

It is expected for a project manager to proactively involved in identifying and managing changes; Project manager is an agent of change, he/she will be the first person to identify changes and submit those changes to the change control board. If those changes are approved, the project manager will then monitor the changes to make sure that the changes are implemented in a timely fashion with respect to the scheduled activities prior to the submission of those changes. 

This is not an easy task to do since he/she must always maintain the integrity of project baseline while incorporating those changes, document impact analysis, update affected documents and/or plan for those changes might require more resources/more time/more cost to complete.


"It would certainly increase our comfort level to have better and quicker monitoring." -- George Hodgson

Direct and Manage Project Execution

The main purpose of direct and manage process is to make sure that the project outcome satisfy the project quality definition and while the project is executing, to make sure that the project itself is managed in a good fashion. Managing a project is not only limited to producing high quality deliverables but also covers implementing prevention actions, repairing defects, and distributing information.

The key in this process is implementation which directly implying the implementation of the project management plan. Since the plan covers every single knowledge areas, i.e: integration, quality, risk, scope, communication, time, cost, procurement, human-resources, it can be used as a basis of the implementation, to keep it on-track in order to satisfy the planned requirements.

Other than the project management plan, there are other factors that is quite influential in directing and managing a project, i.e: enterprise environment factors and organizational process assets. Company infrastructure, culture, administration, and facilities are a good example of enterprise environment factors that can influence the project's direction and be part of consideration factors in order to manage the project. On the other hand, project standard guidelines, project's documents such as communication documents are a good example of organizational process assets to which can be used by a project manager to direct and manage the project execution

While the project is executing, there will be situations to which changes occur and inevitable and since a project manager is an agent of change, these changes must be managed well in order to keep chaos devastating the project he/she is managing. As mentioned in a book by Dr. Paul Sanghera, PMP: "CAPM In Depth" page 74-75, these changes are grouped as follow:

• Change Requests
  These changes issued/approved by Change Control Board (CCB) and usually reflect the changing or emerging business needs. 
• Defect Repairs
  List of defects found during Quality Assurance (QA) process that have been approved by the CCB. The list might include defects that were repaired but the repair was not acceptable
• Corrective Actions
  In order to improve quality, QA might issue corrective actions for CCB approval. These changes are expected to ensure project performance conforms with project management plan
• Preventive Actions
  QA might issue preventive actions in order to minimize the negative consequences associated with project risks
  

 

By performing direct and manage project execution, there are other outcome expected other than the high quality deliverables, i.e: Work Performance Information or usually called Project Status that will be distributed among the stakeholders. The following points are some of many points included in the project status:

• Schedule Performance (Completion percentage and estimation to complete)
• Costs Performance (costs spent compared to planned costs)
• Resources Utilization (resources availability compared to planned tasks)
• Quality Performance (how well the deliverables compared to planned quality)
• Update to Knowledge Base (additional information)
  

Briefly, direct and manage project execution is a high level umbrella process which implementation requires the project manager to perform other processes as well such as distributing information, performing quality assurance, etc.



"The Road to Success is Always Under Construction" -- Anonymous

Project Management Plan

As initiating process completed with a project charter as its output, the next process is planning. As all processes have their own output, the planning process itself also have an output: Project Management Plan. 

Project management plan is an integrated plan of all other subsidiary plans in their own respective knowledge area, e.g.: risk management plan, quality management plan, etc.

For futher reference, a definition by wikipedia, "A project management plan, as defined in the PMBOK Guide Third Edition, is a formal, approved document that defines how the project is executed, monitored and controlled. It may be summary or detailed and may be composed of one or more subsidiary management plans and other planning documents. The objective of a project management plan is to define the approach to be used by the Project team to deliver the intended project management scope of the project."

Because projects are unique, each project might require different level of details provided in the project management plan. Some complicated projects might need a full planning processes included in the plan while simple projects might only need several planning processes included.

Based on the definition, a complete project management plan (includes all knowledge area) might be used to address the following points:

1. What the implementation/integration processes are
2. What quality to be expected and how to validate it
3. How much risks involved
4. To what extent the scope of the projects covered
5. How the information is distributed amongst stakeholders
6. How long the project will last
7. How much will it cost
8. To what extent the procurement is
9. How many resources dedicated to the project

Project Charter

A project charter is a document used to authorize a project including naming a project manager responsible to the project and to what extent his/her power is. Even though the document is not fully a responsibility for a project manager, he/she might help the creation of the document.

To create the document, a project statement of work (SOW) is mandatory. The SOW includes an initial description of the expected outcome (product/result/service) by running the project. In general, SOW document's content refers to business needs to which a project is proposed, it can be from internal (performing organization's business needs) or external (via procurement).

Please note that the SOW will cover a product scope, not project scope. A product scope is a general characteristics of the outcome expected to be delivered by running the project whereas project scope is about amount of work required to successfully deliver a project's outcome.

The project charter may contain assumptions and constraints which must be validated throughout the project life cycle since assumptions are considered true naturally without any verification; these assumptions represent risk(s). Usually, assumptions recorded in the document are like the availability of the labor and/or skills set required for the project is already in place. In the other hand, constraint recorded in the document might be a limited cost and magic number/schedule (a predetermined management-specified-date to which a project's outcome is expected to be launched/delivered)

Referring to a book by Dr. Paul Sanghera, PMP: "PMP in Depth" page 69-70, a Project Charter contains: 

1. The project justification
2. A high-level project description
3. A high-level project requirements
4. Project objectives and success criteria
5. High-level risks
6. Milestone schedule
7. A budget summary
8. Project approval and acceptance requirements
9. An assigned project manager and specified responsibility and authority level for that project manager
10. Project sponsor

"Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." -- Stephen R. Covey

 

Organizational Process Assets

Organizational process assets are tools (usually document or database) that can be used as template, guidance or reference toward current project. These documents are like policies, standard or procedures or maybe best practice of the company in order to run a project. An organization might keep a good interest and more likely to run similar projects with the last successful (proven track record) project; that's why it is a good idea to reuse the document template in order to start the next project.

Despite of storing only referenced files from last projects, an organization process assets also include the current running project's documents such as Project Charter and scope statement. That is why the collection of organizational process assets is usually called Knowledge Base of the project. All of predecessor process group's output will be stored in the knowledge base, e.g.: after finishing Initiating Process Group producing Project Charter, it must be stored into knowledge base. Since there is a rapid need to access the knowledge base, it must be stored in a media flexible enough to keep project's documents and to make such documents retrievable/accessible for update or just merely for reference.

=====

Trivia

=====

Now that both the enterprise environment factors and the organizational process assets have been explained, what's the difference between those two?

Answer: 

Enterprise environment factors are about the way an organization perform its business; the overall condition to which the business operated while organizational process assets are about the way an organization run its project. 

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." -- Peter F. Drucker