Pmp Exam Summaries

7/27/2019 Pmp Exam Summaries

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David Geoffrey Litten

CasaBlanca Publishing Corp

Preparing For PMP

PMP EXAM Flash Summaries

Essential Exam

Aspects of

PMBOK



PMP Exam Flash Summaries Preparing For PMP

CasaBlanca Publishing Corp |© David Geoffrey Litten 2011 2

Hi and Welcome!

I thought long and hard about even producing this PMP Exam Flash Summaries product.

Believe me; I nearly tossed the whole thing in the trash!

You see, it’s a bit like naming your top ten favorite songs, my list would be different to yours,

and worst, you may claim that I missed out an obvious choice of your favorites.

My intention is to give you an easy read of the key PMP Certification Exam areas that you need

to know in preparing for the PMP Certification Exam, and if I was not careful, I could easily turn

my PMP Flash Summaries into an entire PMP topic list!

So I honed them down to just 65 essential PMP aspects…

So I resisted, and here is what I came up with. I’d recommend you skim through this using it

almost as an aide memoire – if you find yourself saying, know that, know that, hhhmmm, I’dforgotten that…then Great! I just nudged you to look into a topic further.

So despite my grand title, if you find this short document helped you to better focus on your

revision, then I’ve achieved my objectives.

You probably know that I have created my PMP Video Primer, and yes, that will give you the

finest training to prepare for your impending PMP Certification Exam.

But I’m not here to try to sell you anything, my intent here is to help you on your way to having

the PMP Certification after your name, and to that goal, I give you my very best wishes.

Stay Focused,

Author and creator of the PMP Primer

http://www.pm-primer.com/








The skills of a good project manager. Communication, problem

solving, budgeting, organizational, team building, team leading,

negotiation and influencing, are the skills of project management

excellence.

The difference between a project and business as usual (operations). A project is temporary

in nature with a definite beginning and ending date. Projects produce products (deliverables),

services or results. Business as usual is an ongoing activity and use repetitive processes that

typically produce a similar result time and again.

Name the five project management processes. These are initiating, planning, executing,

monitoring and controlling, and closing.

Name the nine project management knowledge areas. These are integration management,

scope management, time management, cost management, quality management, human

resource management, communications management, risk management, and procurement

management.

Be able to compare and contrast the different organizational structures and the project

manager’s authority for each of them. The main structures are functional, projectized, and

matrix. There are three variants of the matrix organization, the weak matrix, the balanced

matrix, and the strong matrix. While the matrix organization is a balance between the project

manager’s authority when comparing the other two, project managers have the most authority

in a projectized organization and the least authority in a functional organization.

The six needs or demands that can create a project. These are market need, business need,

customer request, legal requirements, social needs, ecological impact, or technological

advance.





Be able to calculate and describe the payback period. This is the

time-frame it will take the organization to recoup its investment

from the product of the project. The calculation involves the sum

of the expected cash inflows, compared against the original

investment, and to calculate how many time periods (typicallyyears), before the cash inflows equal the initial investment.

State the inputs for the develop project charter process. These are the project statement of

work, the contract (if this is appropriate), the project business case explaining why the project is

being undertaken, the problem that it will solve and the benefit cost analysis, the enterprise

environmental factors and the organizational process assets.

The different project selection methods. These measure the value of the product or service

that the project will produce and compare this against the benefits realized by the organization,

and they fall into two categories; benefit measurement methods and mathematical models.

You may find these also describes as decision models, which compares different criteria, and

calculation methods which calculate the value of the project. Both are used to aid project

selection decision making.

Mathematical models are complex formulas and algorithms, also known as constrained

optimization methods. Benefit measurement methods which you must understand andcalculate include benefit cost ratio (BCR), internal rate of return (IRR), economic value add

(EVA), present value (PV), net present value (NPV), payback period, return on investment (ROI),

opportunity cost, and return on invested capital (ROIC).

Make decisions based on NPV and IRR. Any project with an NPV greater than zero should be

accepted, and any NPV less than zero should be rejected. When comparing two or more

projects, the project with the highest IRR should be chosen. IRR is the discount rate at the point

when NPV is equal to zero, and therefore assumes reinvestment at the IRR rate.





Describe the project charter, its creation and purpose. The project

charter officially recognizes and acknowledges that the project exists,

it is created during the develop project charter process and it explains

the business need of the project. It names and authorizes the project

manager and is signed off by the performing organizations seniormanagement.

It contains the high-level project requirements, and a milestone view

of the project schedule. It will also have a summary level preliminary project budget. It is used

as a key input for the development of the project management plan.

State the purpose of the develop project management plan process. The project management

plan process defines, coordinates, and integrates all of the subsidiary project plans, and as suchspecifies the who, what, when, where, and how of the project. The project management plan is

progressively elaborated which means that it is developed in the first place and then refined,

revisited, and updated.

State the purpose of the project management plan . The project management plan consists of

the 15 component plans integrated together, and so will need to be assembled after these

component plans have been created. It describes how the project is to be executed, what is to

be monitored and controlled, and how it is to be closed. It therefore documents the outputs of the planning group processes, and the level of detail contained here will reflect the size and

complexity of the project.

Describe the project constraints and assumptions. Project constraints often restrict or dictate

future actions and they limit the options available to the project team. Classic constraints that

the project must work within are time, cost, and scope, although there may be others for

example the amount of risk that is acceptable or maybe quality or benefits constraints.

Assumptions are merely some future condition that at the present are presumed to be real ortrue. Assumptions may be the underlying cause leading to risks and as such should be

continually monitored and checked.





Define the purpose of the project scope statement. This provides a

common understanding of the project scope across all of the project

stakeholders. It lays out the project goals and objectives, project

requirements, the project products or deliverables along with their

quantifiable criteria, and any constraints, assumptions, and scoperelated risks. This document is used at the end of the project to agree

its successful completion, and therefore objective criteria must be

included for accepting the final product of the project.

Define the work breakdown structure (WBS) and its component parts. This is created in the

create WBS process and as such is a very important topic. The WBS is the hub of information

for the project and is used later to determine the project activities, costs, risks, quality

attributes, and procurement decisions.

It is a deliverable-oriented hierarchy, and the main inputs for its creation are the project scope

statement, the requirements documentation, and the organizational process assets (which

might include templates, tools, or previous project examples). It uses the projects products

derived from the project scope statement and decomposes them into logical and manageable

units of work. The lowest level of a WBS is called a work package.

The tool used to create it is called decomposition, and the WBS is accompanied by its WBS

dictionary providing detailed information for each WBS node. Another main output here is the

scope baseline which represents the combination of the project scope statement, the WBS, and

the WBS dictionary. As with all baselines, once the scope baseline is created it is placed under

change control as laid out within the scope management plan.

Describe the purpose of the communications management plan. Fundamentally, this plan lays

out the communication needs of the stakeholders, and for that reason it uses the stakeholder

register and the stakeholder management strategy document as the primary inputs. The

communications management plan describes who should receive project communications,

what those communications should be, how and to whom the communications should be sent

and how often it will be updated.





The plan quality process. Quality is planned in from the start and not

inspected in after the product has been constructed. Being able to

meet quality requirements, leads to an increase in stakeholder

satisfaction, lower costs, less rework and an increase in productivity.

The plan quality process is where the project identifies what suchquality specifications are, and how all of those will be met. Two of the

main outputs are the quality management plan describing how the

quality policy will be met and the process improvement plan which

covers how quality activities will be refined and improved.

Define the cost of quality (COQ). This is the total cost of all the work to produce the product or

service of the project such that it meets the required quality standards. The three costs

associated with the cost of quality are prevention costs – those associated by creating a defect-

free product, appraisal costs which are those associated with inspections and testing, and

failure costs – which are typically reworks costs so that the requirements are met, or failure

costs wants the customer has been using the product.

The tools and techniques of the plan quality process. These include cost-benefit analysis,

COQ, statistical process control (Control Charts), design of experiments (DOE), statistical

sampling, benchmarking and flow charting (e.g. Cause and effect diagrams).

The purpose of the scope management plan. This describes the process for determining the

project scope and facilitates the creation of the work breakdown structure(WBS). It also

describes how the project product or service is to be verified and accepted, and details how

changes to scope will be managed. This document forms part of the project management plan.

The purpose of the requirements documentation. This contains an understanding of what is

needed to satisfy the stakeholders, why each requirement is important, and it covers both the

project itself and the products to be created. It is a significant lever on determining the project

schedule, budget, quality specifications, risk factors and both human and non human resource

requirements. The requirements documentation is accompanied by the requirements

management plan, describing how the requirements will be managed, and that goes on to

define the team activities needed to gather and manage the project requirements.





Name the define scope tools, techniques and outputs. This

process uses the project charter, requirements

documentation, and organizational process assets as inputs.

The tools and techniques used are product analysis, expert

judgment, alternatives identification, and facilitatedworkshops. The two outputs of this process are the project

scope statement and the many project document updates.

These may include the requirements documentation, the

requirements traceability matrix, the stakeholder register, and changes or additions to project

risk and issues.

Key quality techniques. Phillip B. Crosby invented the zero defects practice and the quote,

‘doing it right first time’, Joseph M Juran coined the term ‘fitness for purpose’, and W Edwards

Deming was the major contributor of total quality management (TQM). Six Sigma focuses on

achieving very high levels of quality both by controlling the process and reducing defects. Also

be aware of continuous improvement, ‘Kaizen’, that advocates constant process improvement

via small changes in products or services.

The risk management plan purpose and definition. This describes how you will define,

monitor, and control risks throughout the project, and is created in the plan risk management

process. It does not define responses to individual risks. It defines what level of risk (risk

appetite) is tolerable, how risk will be managed, who will be responsible for risk activities, cost

and time to be allocated to risk activities, and how risk will be communicated. It also includes

how risks will be categorized, and a risk breakdown structure can be helpful in achieving this.

The purpose of the identify risks process. This identifies all the risks which may impact the

project and also to understand the characteristics or nature of each. The output from this

process is the risk register, containing a list of all known risks at this time, their causes, and if

possible, any responses that can be identified.





Define the risk register and its contents. This is an output of the

identify risks process, and for each risk, the following aspects should

be captured; the risk ID number, a description of the risk itself, the

chosen responses, the root cause of the risk, the risk triggers, the

risk owners, and what category the risk falls into.

Defining the perform qualitative risk analysis process. For each risk, its impact on the project

will be determined and the probability of that particular risk occurring. This process then ranks

each risk according to their impact on project objectives in rank order.

Defining the perform quantitative risk analysis process. This assigns a projected value to each

risk, normally specified in terms of cost or time. This can be done by pre-assigning numeric

probabilities to each risk and their potential impacts on the objectives of the project.

Defining the plan risk responses process. This creates the plan for how each risk will be

handled. Remember that a risk may have a negative impact or it may have a positive impact

(normally called an opportunity). They are both risks because they both have uncertainty.

Responses for negative risks or threats, are avoid, transfer, mitigate (reduce), or accept.Responses for positive risks or opportunities are, exploit, share, enhance, and accept (also used

for negative threats – it is the ‘do nothing’ option.

The purpose of the plan procurements process. This determines which products, components

or services of the project will be created internally, and which will be procured externally. In

addition the project manager must determine the most appropriate types of contracts to be

used for each procurement. The two main outputs from this process are the procurement

management plan; defining how procurement will be conducted, and the procurement

statements of work, which explains the relevant parts of the project scope to potential Sellers

to decide if they wish to bid for the working question.





Identify the contract types and their use. There are three categories of

contracts. Fixed price contracts (lump sum contracts), of which there are

three variances; firm fixed price (FFP), fixed price incentive fee (FPIF), and

fixed price economic price adjustment (FP-EPA). The second type are called

cost reimbursable contracts and there are two types of these; cost plus fixedfee (CPFF), and cost plus incentive fee (CPIF). The final type is a time

&materials contract, which is a combination of fixed and cost reimbursable

contracts.

The point of total assumption. This is the point within a contract where the subcontractor

assumes responsibility for all additional costs, and is therefore motivated to bring their work to

a swift conclusion because they have consumed all the costs, and any further spending will be

funded by themselves.

Name the outputs of the plan procurements process . These are the procurement

management plan, the procurement statements of work, make or buy decisions, procurement

documentation, the source selection criteria, and if needed, change requests relevant to

changes in procurement.

Name the tools and techniques of the conduct procurements process. These are bidder

conferences, proposal of valuation techniques, independent estimates, expert judgment,

advertising, Internet search, and procurement negotiations.

Name the outputs of the develop human resource plan process. This of course is the human

resource plan itself, and consists of three parts; roles and responsibilities, organization charts,

and the staffing management plan. The staffing management plan explains how and when the

project will be staffed, including their release, and if appropriate how they will be trained.

Name the purpose of the define activities process. This takes the WBS and decomposes it into

the activity list (each one should match that to a unique work package), it defines the activity

attributes such as resources needed and any procurement activities, and a milestone list.





Identifying the tools and techniques of the sequence activities

process. The main output here is the project schedule network

diagrams, which basically show the sequence and dependencies

between each activity but do not include start or finish dates. The

main tool is the precedence diagramming method (PDM) which is agraphical representation showing the correct order and sequence of

the various project activities. The dependencies between each

activity must be determined whether mandatory, discretionary, or external. Activity leads and

lags must also be incorporated. For similar previous projects it may be possible to use existing

schedule network templates.

Name the purpose of the estimate activity resources process. The purpose is to determine the

types of resource needed (human, materials, facilities, or equipment), and to determine how

many are needed for each activity. The resource availability must also be taken into

consideration, and all of these aspects will determine the duration of each activity.

Name the tools and techniques of the estimate activity durations process. These are expert

judgment, analogous estimating (top down estimating), parametric estimating (linear

extrapolation), three-point estimates (PERT estimates), and reserve analysis, also called

contingency which consists of extra time added to an activity duration estimate.

State the difference between analogous estimating and bottom-up estimating. Analogous

estimating is also known as top-down estimating, and is when the actual duration of a similar

activity on a previous project is used to help calculate the duration of an activity on this project.

This is combined with expert judgment to determine how similar the two activities really are.

Bottom-up estimating is where an activity is decomposed into small pieces of work and these

are estimated by adding them up to give a total estimate. It can be used in terms of work effort

and cost and also when developing the project schedule by summing the estimates given at

each activity level.





Calculate the critical path and its definition. This occurs in

the develop schedule process, and it is vital that you

understand how to do this using forward pass, backward

pass, and float calculations. The critical path determines

the duration – and hence the earliest finish date, of theproject. The terms float, early start, late start, early finish,

late finish, free float, and negative float need to be

understood. A critical path activity is a project activity with

zero float.

Describe and calculate three point estimates (PERT estimates). These use three data points

called the pessimistic estimate, the most likely or realistic estimate, and the optimistic estimate

for each activity. We then use a weighted average technique via the formula: pessimistic, plus

four times the realistic, plus the optimistic estimate, and divide the result by six.

Name and describe the duration compression techniques. There are two techniques; crashing

and fast-tracking. Crashing consists of adding extra resources to a project activity so that the

work can be shared so the activity will be completed more quickly. This normally increases

project costs. Fast-tracking entails reordering the sequence of activities so that some are

performed in parallel. This does not normally increased costs but often increases project risk

due to dependency rules being broken and multiple activities occurring at once adding risk and

complexity.

Name and describe the main output of the estimate costs process . The primary output here is

the activity cost estimates describing how much it would cost to complete each activity on the

project.

Describe the cost performance baseline. This is another term for the project budget, and it

shows not just the total cost but when such costs will be incurred. Since a traditional projectstarts off slowly and finishes in a similar way, when plotted as cumulative cost, forms a

characteristic S Pattern and hence is called an S Curve. As with all baselines, this is under

change control and is used to measure the cost performance of the project.





The characteristics of the direct and manage project execution

process. This is where the project work is performed, where the

team are executing the work packages, and the project products or

deliverables are being created. For this reason, most of the budget

is spent during this process.

Name the five stages of group formation. This is Alan Tuckman’s model of forming, storming,

norming, performing, and adjoining.

Define Maslow’s highest level of motivation. This is self-actualization and occurs when anindividual is living and working at full potential, and that all lower level needs have been met.

Name the five forms of power. These help the project manager maximize their ability to

influence and manage the team. These are reward power, expert power, legitimate or formal

power, referent power, and punishment or coercive power. The best forms of power are

reward and expert with punishment as the least affective form.

Compare and contrast senders and receivers of information. Senders must ensure that their

message is clear concise and complete, while receivers must ensure that they understand the

message correctly.

Name the six styles of conflict management. These are problem-solving, collaboration,

compromise, forcing, smoothing, and or withdrawal. The latter is not so much a resolution to

conflict but a means of avoiding it, so this is not the best method to use as the conflict is never

actually resolved.

Describe the purpose of the perform quality assurance process. This process is focused on

improving the activities and processes that are undertaken to achieve the project quality

standards, and should not be confused with perform quality control, which is about inspecting

the product for quality or measuring defects.





Describe the purpose of the monitor and control project work

process. This compares actual work results to the plan and then

makes appropriate adjustments to ensure that the two match. It

make sure that both the products, and the way in which they are

being produced, fall in line with the plan, it also looks at how theoverall project is progressing and takes any corrective action if

needed via change requests.

Name the tools and techniques of the manage project team process. These are observation

and conversation, project performance appraisals, conflict management, the issue log, and

interpersonal skills.

Describe the purpose of the manage stakeholder expectations process. This is an executing

process to ensure that the project stakeholders are actively managed and kept informed; it

focuses on identifying and resolving any stakeholder concerns in a timely manner.

Define the purpose of the report performance process. This process uses work performance

information and work performance measurements to report back to the stakeholders on how

the project is progressing against the plan and the various baselines (scope, time, cost, and

quality). The main output is the performance report.

Name the purpose of the perform integrated change control process. This process is where

you assess the change’s impact on the project, because whenever a change occurs in one area,

it must be evaluated for its impact across the entire project. This process is focused on

managing change to the project’s scope.

Define the purpose of a configuration management system. It describes how change requests

are submitted; it includes processes for tracking the changes and their authority levels. A

configuration management system must include configuration identification describing the

characteristics of each product, configuration status accounting to determine the true status of

each product, and configuration verification and auditing.





Describe the purpose of the control costs process. This process

monitors project costs to prevent unauthorized or incorrect costs from

entering the cost baseline. The focus here is on cost variance. It does

this by measuring what was executed against what was planned. If they

do not match, then go on to harmonize the planned and actual costs; thismay mean altering future plan forecasts or changing the way in which the

work is being carried out.

Be able to define and calculate earned value. There are 13 key formulas that need to be

understood and memorized. The technique continuously monitors the planned value, earned

value, and actual costs expended to produce the work of the project. There are performance

measures, performance indexes, and forecasting and variance analysis techniques.

Describe the purpose of the monitor and control risks process. This is performed almost

continually throughout the project because existing risks can change and new risks may arise.

The main outputs here are updates to the risk register and as a consequence may need new or

modified risk responses resulting in a change to the activities within the project.

Name the tools and techniques of the perform quality control process. These are cause and

effect diagrams (Ishikawa diagrams), control charts, and flowcharting, histograms such as a

pareto chart, run charts, scatter diagrams, statistical sampling, and inspection.

The purpose of the verify scope process. This verifies that the product, service, or result of the

project matches the documented scope baseline. Verify scope focuses on completeness and

acceptance of the product by the appropriate stakeholders.

The purpose of the close project or phase process. The focus here is to ensure that the project

or phase comes to a controlled shut down. This will typically create any appropriate

documentation and archive it, capture the lessons learned, and ensure the contract (if any), is

closed properly. The purpose of lessons learned is to document the project successes and

failures, make recommendations, and is used as information learned for future projects.





Be able to apply professional responsibility. The project

manager should deal with issues in a direct swift, open and

honest manner, and should act ethically and legally. The project

manager should act with integrity by a adhering to ethical

standards. If in doubt always do the right thing. Aspirationalstandards are those that we strive to uphold whereas

mandatory standards establish firm requirements that must be

adhered to.

Check out my other fine project management Video Training Products here:

Introduction to Project Management Primer

PRINCE2 Primer

APM Introductory Certification Primer

Project Board Governance Primer

PMP Certification Exam Primer

…and coming soon…

Microsoft Project 2010 Primer

Earned Value Primer

APM Primer

http://www.project-management-primer.com/


http://www.prince2primer.com/


http://www.apmic-primer.com/


http://www.directingaproject.com/









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