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Do you think it’s easy to finish Procurement Knowledge Management area? You may think you never try to use terms like contracts, agreements, terms and conditions…etc in your projects. Most of the people who work on projects think it’s not their job to remember above terms. You may think failure of the project may result into familiarity to these terms and it’ll be handled by some other person in the organization or your legal department. In my aspect, everyone in the project team must be aware of the terms and conditions of the project.
Ask a question to yourself, “how many times you read the EULA (End User License Agreement) of Microsoft products when you install?”
At least once...I’m sure, 99.99% will not read it.
How many times you copied “terms and conditions” section into proposal documents when you send it to customers?
There is a strong reason behind it. The buyer and seller always want his project to be successful. Sometimes they may ignore few mistakes without reviewing the contracts, SLA s…etc. But it’s not the case in every project, which means every project will not execute in forgivable environment.
If I say buyer and seller, these terms may appear different for your project. You may call buyer as customer, if you work in product development / service oriented organization. Again customer may have another buyer if he gives project for sub contract.
All the above procedures you’ll be familiar when you complete Procurement Management knowledge area revisions (not in 1st study, remember the difference : - ) ).
Think about following points…
- Contract types
- Terms and conditions
- When do you plan for procurements?
- When do you conduct procurements and what are the tools?
- Is procurement manager different from project manager?
- Is procurement audit is different from the project audit?
- Is procurement closure different from project closure?
- When do you administer procurements?Do you need to mention about status reports in procurement documents?
- Can you buy the product instead of developing?;
- How can you select a seller? Remember you always need to think as buyer unless it’s explicitly mentioned any where in the problem.
A lot more, you must study RITA guide to understand all the information. Don’t try to memorize, have a logical conclusion on processes. Apply the knowledge in exam, because you never know what type of scenario will be described in the exam. PMBOK guide gives sufficient information which may or may not be helpful to visualize all scenarios in Procurement Knowledge Area.
Now my third revision of PMBOK and RITA guide is completed?
I still have 6 days to exam; my little hopes are increasing on pass result of the examination.
Project Human Resources Management revision was just completed. Most of the concepts appear as theoretical, but they are all practically proven by experience practitioners. If you involve in organization wide HR activities, concepts in this chapter would be very easy to interpret with real world scenarios. When you read through concepts, you must imagine yourself that you are leading very big division in the organization which contains 300 + employees; then you can find out the essence of activities specified in the Human Resources Management.
Important points in this knowledge area are…
- Develop human resource plan
- Develop staffing management plans
- Resource calendars
- Organizational process assets; your L & D department may provide programs for team building activities
- Enterprise environmental factors
- Conflict resolution techniques
- Leadership techniques; you might want to attend some leadership programs to understand these concepts in better way
- Negotiation techniques
- Observation techniques
- Understand when to update project documents and when to update project management plan
- What’s the importance of co-location? Project manager should be able to influence the enterprise environmental factors to get locations for his team at one place. This saves lot of time
- How to work with virtual teams?
- Project team offsite activities!!! Exploit the opportunities to meet different functional heads in these activities
- Revise concepts of organization structures; strong, weak and balanced...etc
- Revise roles and responsibilities of stake holders, team, sponsor, customer, project manager
- Understand all theoretical concepts specified in motivational theories
I’ve spent 6 hrs for 3rd revision and answered all questions at the end of the RITA PMP preparation guide.
Now, I’m just left with 3 chapters in 3 rd revision.
Project Risk Management knowledge area revision was completed. In small projects very rarely you may use the techniques specified in this chapter. All techniques specified in this knowledge area are absolutely necessary for large projects. Inputs/tools and techniques/outputs in this chapter are very critical in examination point of view. A project manager must be expertise to use the tools specified in this chapter to make their project successful. Important points to consider in this knowledge area are…
- Develop the procedures and methods for Risk Management
- If require tailor the process exist in your project PMP to meet project specific risk management plans
- Identify the risks and continuously update the risk register throughout the project execution as and when necessary
- Perform subjective evaluation of risks through Qualitative Risk Analysis process. This is frequently used process in most of the projects
- Obtain numerical assessments for the risks through Quantitative Risk Analysis process. This process is rarely used, but get familiar with probability and impact calculations
- Plan risk responses for threats and opportunities. Identify the techniques for negative risk responses; similarly identify the techniques for positive risk responses
- Continuously monitor and control the risk response plans, if necessary update the risk management
- Understand when to use contingency reserves and when to use management reserves
- You may need to perform change control process for the unexpected risks
- When do you provide workarounds for the unanticipated risks?
This is tough knowledge area; one should focus deeply on the techniques.
RITA exam preparation guide helps to interpret risk management techniques in more practical way.
In big projects, project manager life depends on how better he can plan for the risk responses.
I’ve just finished the Project Communication Management knowledge area. It’s very small chapter and critical for project success. Following are the important points to ponder...
- Understand “who are stake holders?”
- How to identify the stake holders and their needs?
- How do you plan communications management in big chapters, always assume you are heading 200+ group across the world
- What is N(N+1)/2?
- Communication methods, tools ...etc
- When to use formal written, formal verbal, informal verbal and informal written communication types?
- Tools and techniques of report performance
- Interpersonal skills
- Management skills
RITA exam preparation guide describes several scenarios that can be useful to handle the questions related to Project Communication Management knowledge area.
I just need to complete two more knowledge areas to complete third revision. Hope I can finish it by 30th evening.
Following points are very important in Quality Management knowledge area…
- Understand the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control
- Understand “Tools and techniques” of Plan Quality, Quality Assurance and Quality Control process areas
- Control charts, specification limits, control limits
- Flow charts
- Pareto chart
- Histograms
- Rule of seven
- Attributes of “conformance” and “non-conformance”
- Cost of quality
- Process improvement plan and implementation
- Statistical sampling
- When two points are mutually exclusive?
- What is quality check list?
- What are quality metrics?
- When to update PMP and when to update quality management plan?
- How many sigmas are there in quality management?
Apart from above all, it’s important to reconcile your organization’s quality process assets with this knowledge management area. In this way, you could remember several things very easily. RITA exam preparation guide helps to identify some additional tools and gives information about the quality principles stated by different experts. Think about the questions in the RITA exam preparation guide and apply your knowledge to answer them.
I’ve spent 5 hrs in third revision to apply techniques to real world scenario and answered questions at the end of the RITA exam guide.
As I’m approaching the exam date, things are getting more clear; I think it should be easy to pass the exam ; - ).
Project cost management revision is just completed and answered all the questions at the end of the chapter. Project time management and cost management are important concepts to deal with day-to-day activities in project management. I can say these are heart of the project management. Important things to consider in this chapter are…
- Earned value management: There will be few confusing terms which look same, but meaning is different. In exam, you may face questions to differentiate and apply this techniques to given problem.
- Understand direct and indirect costs. Similarly fixed and variable costs.
- Perform all the exercises specified in RITA PMP guide
- Understand cost performance baseline
- Understand in which process group, you may use EVM techniques
- Understand the terms “bribe”, “payment allowed”, “seek legal advice”...etc. These terms are part of professional and social responsibility factors.
- Estimation techniques are very important to understand and differentiate them. We use same techniques in Time Management as well.
Somehow I feel good to extend the exam date as I may need to find practical implementation of EVM techniques.
I’ve decided to revise Project Time Management and Cost Management techniques once again before going for the exam. This decision increased my confidence level that I can handle questions more accurately.
I’ve rescheduled the exam 9th time; now the date is on 7th June, 2010. This decision was taken after reading the time management chapter. Because it’s very important chapter and I’ve to implement some of these concepts practically with different exercises. Important points in this chapter are..
- Understand sequence of the scheduling activities in planning process
- Perform hands-on exercise to define activities and identify the difference between WBS and define activities
- Get familiar with network diagrams
- Get familiar with critical path, critical chain methods
- Get familiar with fast tracking the schedule by fast tracking and crashing
- Perform exercises on different types of estimation techniques
- Understand who does what?
- Team contribution is very significant in defining activities
- Know how to control the schedule and formal process to make the changes in schedules…etc
I've allocated 10 hrs for this knowledge are in third revision; I’ve performed extensive exercises.
I got relief from the exam date by postponing 7 days further. Hope it would be final reschedule of the exam. My confidence levels are slowly increasing towards the examination result i.e. “I can pass!!!”.
