PMP Exam: Part – 6

More pointers :

–           Your Director calls you and asks you for an estimate on the phone. You have done similar project before. What type of estimating would you use?

–           How would addition of costs/resources impact CPI/SPI ? Look at the equation.

–           During the life cyle of a project, where is Quality, scope have major impact on the project?

–           Study definitions and differences for QP, QA, QC

–           If you are looking for visual representation of PMBOK, head to nearby Borders/Barnes & Nobel and refer Headfirst PMP book.

–           Newell’s book does not focus much on inputs/outputs/tools and techniques per se but after you write the exam, you might find that the book might have helped you in some way, shape or form. That said, refer the book and take notes of the topics which are not covered in PMBOK. Don’t spend too much time- have a cursory look to know what a topic means. A case in point is split costs/financial measures! Check out pages 172 thru 176.

–           Do some questions where you will find practical applications of risk response strategies.

–           Fun part – Contract types. Which contract to use for which project’s. What are the parameters that would impact your decision to pick a contract type –from both perspectives (Buyer and Seller)

–           Make or buy. Are you comfortable in forming a simple algebra equation?

–           Professional responsibility. Know ethics, policies play important role. Know how to apply to particular situation. Let’s say you are going for an office paid conference and you are about to purchase a flight ticket. The company policy states: use the company travel agents and you find out the cost is $1000. You check expedia/hotwire and the price is $500. What would you do? Purchase ticket from hotwire and while submitting your expenses indicate on the form that you saved company $500 for the company?

– Yes, approved changes and sometimes others too. Take the example of cost control – if variances are too high what would happen? You might end up with re-baseline if you want to be pragmatic.

-Do you know why changes occur in a project? Remember when you forget to add something /add new tasks to scope, you would end up with changes, which then goes to CCB.

-On a side note, the words Authority and Responsibility make significant difference in choosing an answer.

– read value engineering,

– Importance of communication plan is to focus on needs of stakeholders

– Assume you are interviewing for a large critical project. The person’s resume says he/she is a PMP. The interview goes on very well and he joins your organization as a contractor. Later, the organization finds this PM as a very valuable resource, sponsor applauds him, stakeholders like him. The project status is excellent. Your company starts negotiations to hire him. However, during the hiring process you find out that he is not a PMP. What is the first thing you would do?