The PM Instructors

Welcome to The PM Instructors new blog site! Through this site, we will be providing you with news, updates, and resources to help you get certified for your project management exam! Currently, we are providing support and information for the PMP, CAPM, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, and CompTia Project+ exams.

If you have a question relating to one of the above exams, please submit your questions to q@ThePMInstructors.com, and we will do our best to respond within 48 hours by posting the answer on this blog site! As always, your suggestions, requests, and feedback are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for tuning in!

-Vanina

Recently, I attended a local PMI annual conference in sunny Southern California. What a wonderful event. As an exhibitor, I had a chance to meet several attendees as they passed by my company’s booth. We were attending to promote some upcoming PMI-RMP and PMI-SP exam prep courses. The credentials themselves are still fairly new. In fact, we are just closing in on their two-year anniversary (PMI launched both in June of 2008).

One thing that I have noticed when attending similar events and speaking to individuals is the level of confusion about the credential benefits and who should pursue them. Having taught a handful of these exam preparation courses, I’ve met many credential candidates. These individuals are specialists in their field, and the credentials have given them a way of recognizing their knowledge and experience in risk management or scheduling. I thought I would help further clarify the benefits of these credentials by offering my perspective as an instructor, and as someone who has met many credential candidates:

Certification benefits of the PMI-RMP and PMI-SP credentials

1. Recognizes an individuals’ level of experience within their specialty (risk management or scheduling)
2. Validates an individual’s level of understanding and working knowledge of globally recognized best-practices within their field
3. Creates and promotes a common language within a “niche” field
4. Expands recognition of the credential’s “niche” within project management
5. Continues to expand project management as a field that contains areas of specialization

Consider for a moment how far project management has progressed as an industry over the past ten years. Organizations like PMI and CompTIA have played a big role in making this happen. The PMI-RMP and PMI-SP credentials provide evidence of a profession that is becoming more specialized, more recognized and respected on a global level.

I applaud PMI for providing ways of allowing professionals to showcase their level of experience and knowledge in a field that is continuously evolving. I also look forward to seeing what else is in store for us in the near future!

I had the opportunity recently of serving as a technical editor for Kim Heldman’s latest book – CompTIA Project+ Study Guide: Exam PK0-003, published through Sybex and co-authored with Bill Heldman. I’m a huge fan of her work, so this was a wonderful treat and experience. This book prepares you for the latest version of the exam, which became effective in April 2010 (you can still take the old version of the exam through October 2010). Expect several great examples of real-world scenarios, practices questions, and a nice smooth writing style.

If you aren’t familiar with CompTIA, I highly encourage you to visit their website. CompTIA is a vendor-neutral non-profit trade association. As an association, they’ve done some incredible things, particularly through their educational foundation.

A CompTIA Project+ certification demonstrates your knowledge of managing all aspects of a project, as well as understanding of the overall project life cycle. While they are vendor-neutral, I found the exam to be aligned with many of the standard practices of the PMBOK Guide. This certification does not require an application and never expires (although I am in strong agreement with their recommendation of having at least one year of hands-on project management experience before taking the exam). You can read more about it here.

If you are an auditory learner, keep your eye out for my upcoming virtual course that will be released through The Virtual Training Company (VTC), in June of this year.

Best of luck!

Whenever a new credential emerges, finding study material can be extremely challenging – after all, who said it was easy being one of the pioneers?! The latest PMI exams (PMI-RMP and PMI-SP) are no exception. We’ve posted PMI-RMP tips for those that prefer to go the self-study route, and now, we’d like to share a few tips for the PMI-SP certification exam. This should get you started by answering the question: how do I prepare for the PMI-SP exam?

Those that have struggled the most with this credential (and the PMI-RMP, for that matter) are non-PMPs. The reason is that you need to have a foundation of the PMBOK Guide. After all, scheduling doesn’t occur in isolation, right? Achieving the credential states that you have hands-on experience as a scheduler, and that you have a working knowledge and understanding of PMI’s scheduling practices and processes. This means that, as you are preparing for the exam, your experience will be key, BUT… you need to open yourself to learning the PMI standards and guidelines. Each company approaches scheduling differently, so imagine speaking the same lingo across multiple organizations – it’s very efficient! Now that you have been properly prepped, let me share the following tips:

1 – Review and understand the PMBOK Guide. Focus on Integration and a high-level understanding (I recommend becoming a PMP first if you are not already, although it is not required). You should be familiar with the 5 process groups and the 9 knowledge areas. Don’t overwhelm yourself – focus on the high-level concepts.

2 – MASTER the Time Management Knowledge Area in every sense. Know and memorize the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs of each of the 6 processes: Define Activities, Sequence Activities, Estimate Activity Resources, Estimate Activity Durations, Develop Schedule, and Control Schedule.

3 – Understand the processes that interact with the above 6 time management processes. For example, in order to generate the Activity List out of the first process (Define Activities), you must have generated the WBS. What is the WBS, and where does it come from? You should know this.

4 – Study the Control Costs process. Earned Value Management (EVM) is used as part of controlling the schedule. In the PMBOK Guide, EVM is covered in detail within the Control Costs process, out of the Project Cost Management Knowledge Area. That means knowing the following EVM formulas: SV, SPI, CV, CPI, EAC, ETC, TCPI, VAC. Know how to read the results.

5 – For network diagrams, practice calculating a forward pass, backward pass, total float, and free float. This includes calculating network diagrams that contain start-to-start (SS) and finish-to-finish (FF) logical relationships with leads and lags. In class, we go through many examples of calculating these. Expect to see a few on the exam.

6 – Study the Communications Management Knowledge Area. If a good project manager spends 90% of their time communicating, wouldn’t you say that a scheduler also communicates as much? Remember that communication is part of all people interaction, including the distribution and sharing of reports.

7 – Read the Practice Standard for Scheduling. Familiarize yourself thoroughly with the schedule model and understand the component terms.

8 – Preparing for the exam is not just about mastering the content. It’s also about test-taking strategies. Go through as many practice questions as you can get your hands on from reliable sources. We offer a $25 full length practice exam that also contains an additional 120 questions (that’s almost 300 practice questions). In addition to this, there are several other good sources out there that you can take advantage of – but again, make sure they are reliable.

I hope this will get you started in your quest to get PMI-SP certified! Best of luck!