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First. You can pass (or fail) a large number of questions by knowing (or not knowing) the positive from negative in Earned Value calculations. SV = EV - PV, CV = EV - AC, SPI = EV/PV, CPI = EV/AC so for variances a negative number is BAD and for indexes a number less than 1 is also BAD. We all know that bad means you are spending more or taking longer than planned. Frankly I was shocked by the number of questions on this simple topic.
Second. This experience validated my thesis that it is possible to pass the exam solely using the Guide to the PMBOK as your reference material. There may be a few minor questions which are outside the PMBOX but if you follow up on the references in the appendix then you likely have things covered.
Third. Read the questions. I've worked on a couple of certification exams and believe me that writing the questions is as hard as answering them. There are often many acceptable answers so the person writing the question will have to put limiting words or scenarios into the question so that there is one right or best answer. Look for those words as they will help you choose the answer.
Fourth. Read the answers. Just as writing the questions requires limitations, writing the answers also requires putting something in to make an answer false. There were certainly some answers which were "half-right" but were negated by addition of something irrelevant or incorrect. This and the last point are probably sufficient to pass a quarter of the questions even if you have no idea what the correct answer really is.
Fifth. Cramming apparently works. Psychrometrically the test is supposed to determine if you are a real project management professional, but I think if you have a good memory you can pass this test.
Sixth. Some people advocate a brain-dump technique to write down all the formulas etc. before you start the test. I think this creates unnecessary stress. There were few formulas needed in the test, and if you can remember them long enough to get to the test center, you can certainly hold on to them for another hour or so. In my opinion this is just superstition. That said, the act of writing things down does cement items into your memory, so take notes while studying, but there is no need to worry about carrying all the stuff around with you and barfing it out on paper just before the test.
I hope to continue my series on preparing sometime soon...
Until then, good luck!
]]>I'd expect that they would be on MSDN at the May 12 date as well if history is any guide.
To keep sales from completely stalling while people wait for the next version, Microsoft has also announced a "tech guarantee" which will give you a free copy of the 2010 version if you buy a 2007 version after March 4, 2010. Details are here: http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/
]]>First in a series of reviews of Project Management web resources. For the full list click here
Herding Cats is Glen Alleman's blog about Project Management. The sub-title "Ideas, Comments, and Resources about Project Management from field experiences" fits pretty well. Glen focuses heavily on the experiential side of things and likes to write about what is proven to work in his years of experience - primarily in large and expensive projects.
There are a few common themes to Glen's articles. First is setting clear scales of measurement. You aren't talking with Glen unless you hear "What does done look like?" a few times. For this reason, you will often finding him tilting with Agilistas who are a bit more flexible (if that is the right word) about what the end state might be.
A second constant is data. He likes what works and is sceptical of things with no strong track record. Data about the efficacy of Project Management methods and processes is hard to come by, but claims about them flow like water. Glen's background in science makes him critical of mis-applied statistics and bad math in general.
The final theme to mention is discipline. I think Glen's own words speak to this best:
"Project estimating, and project management is hard work. Software development is fun work. Still hard but fun. Project Management is hard work, with almost no fun."
What I like best about his blog is that there is always something for me to both agree with and disagree with. I haven't figured out how I'm going to map all of the sites I'm planning to review, but if I place myself at the center, Glen would be orbiting somewhere off near Mars. Not a gassy bloated planet. Not hot enough to melt lead. Firm and solid with a regular orbit. Interesting enough to send a probe to.
Here is my rating based on a number of statistics:
In that time a lot has changed. Blogs have come and gone. Twitter was invented. Communities have died and new ones have been born. So with the 5 year anniversary coming up in April I thought it would be good to explore and remap the landscape.
I'm approaching this in a random fashion. I'll review a site, then ask the owner which site they like best, and continue until I reach a barrier or run out of energy. I'll also inject a few of my favorites as I go along if no one else brings them up. This post will be updated with a list of all the posts.
If you would like to suggest an inclusion, please make a suggestion in the comments.
Here is this blog's monthly growth chart for the first 5 years. I didn't start measuring until it was about 6 months old.
People from colder climates come to the Bay Area and claim that we don't have seasons here. But that is not true. You can almost tell the day of the month from some of the trees around here. This Magnolia (I think it is Magnolia × soulangeana) in particular is like clockwork in the month of February. If I can remember to keep it up, I'll post something for each month.
This one lacks the delicate pink coloring because I dragged out my 64 year old 4x5 speed graphic to take the shot on black and white film. Click the image to go see a larger version.
]]>Active - Used to designate if a task is active or inactive. A great new way to deal with conditional schedules, agile development, what-if analysis. I'm working up a post on this.
Task Mode - Used to determine if a task is to be manual scheduled or whether they should follow the built-in CPM scheduling algorithm.
Scheduled Start - Used for Manually scheduled tasks. Start, Finish and Duration are optional for manually scheduled tasks.
Scheduled Finish - as above
Scheduled Duration - as above
Warning - Used with manually scheduled tasks if the timing or sequencing of tasks would be considered an issue (ie: dependency issues, summary doesn't match subtasks etc.) - See my webcast in the previous post for an example of using this field.
Ignore Warnings - Pretty much what it says....
Baseline Estimated Start 0-10 - Estimated Baselines are how manually scheduled task information is stored in a baseline. Regular baselines are used for automatically scheduled tasks.
Baseline Estimated Finish 0-10 - as above
Baseline Estimated Duration 0-10 - as above.
Note that the Active field is a Project Professional only feature, so if you have Project Standard you may not be able to do anything with it. I'm not sure how Project Standard will handle reading a file from Project Professional which uses this feature but I'm sure we will find out when it is released.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx?tab=Webcasts&seriesid=51&webcastid=12426
It covers how you can best use some of the new functionality in Project 2010 including the new interface, the team planner view, the timeline view and using active tasks to do scenario-based planning. Active tasks fill a big hole in Project and allow you to do what-if analysis in a quick and intuitive way.
Go take a look!
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I'll post the slides after the presentation.
]]>Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions – Gary Klein
This book covers the topic of what Klein calls “Naturalistic Decision Making” which is defined as making decisions in a “natural” setting – one with which departs from the ideal by being under time pressure, with high stakes, inadequate information, ill-defined goals, poorly defined procedures, context (Klein gives the example of conflicting goals and stress), dynamic conditions and team coordination. Klein uncovers what he calls sources of power – intuition, mental stimulation, metaphor and storytelling. It sounds pretty soft, but these often are the real factors behind how decisions are made. If you want to influence an organization and help them decide to change, you would do well to read this book.
On the critical side, it is attractive to think of yourself as an experienced decision maker and this book justifies the use of your “intuition”. In the hands of the anti-analytical this could be dangerous, but on the other hand, it makes them no more dangerous than they already are.
 | Check reviews at Amazon: Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions |
To help with this I've put together a spreadsheet:
It has two tabs. One for the project and contact information. Fill it out for each project to make sure you have the information at your fingertips.
The second tab is for the experience hours. It breaks them down into the same domains that the on-line form uses and contains the descriptions. You can start using this even before your exam application to see how close you are. The spreadsheet then totals the hours and offers a sanity check of hours entered against the time that you spent on the project. For example, if you worked on a project for two and a half months, the spreadsheet will calculate the number of working hours and compares that against what you have entered as individual hours.
You can download the spreadsheet here:
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But don't worry, I'll come up with something which is mine alone! Look for it the day the sun returns to work.]]>
I've been digesting a lot of claims and ideas about the future. Things like cloud computing and Project Management 2.0 come to mind. One of those is a technology, a capability which may allow new practices. The other is a bit more foggy with a shifting definition. From Andrew Filev at Wrike software comes the Project 2.0 Definition 2.0:
Project Management 2.0 is an approach to managing projects that is brought to life by the use of Web-based, emergent, collaborative project management software and that focuses on collective intelligence, productivity and project leadership as the basic factors of project success.
Personally I think this definition misses at least one of the critical success factors that I've seen in projects. So I'm going to leap over 2.0 and start in with my derivation of Project Management 3.0. .
If you are familiar with my blog, you know I that I use it to help solidify my thoughts. So don't expect a manifesto at first, just some apparently random thoughts. The first is to reveal that the one basic factor of project success which went unsaid in the 2.0 definition is Trust.
]]>Here I get to rant about two things. First, what is it with the whole name of cloud computing? Sure, it is easy to draw the cloud on a whiteboard, but it appears to be some sort of magic word these days and people are getting remarkably excited about something which has been around for a long long time (in tech-years).
The second rant (or maybe it is a lesson) is that when the cloud evaporates there is nothing left. Just blue sky and the sun - or should that be SUN(TM).
If you are running your business in the cloud you should certainly take backing up or otherwise arranging for that rare sunny day when the clouds disappear. Every cloud has a silver lining, so it would seem that there is a business opportunity for an on-the-premises system which backs up everything as it goes into the cloud so you can support yourself in sunny weather. Something sitting at the edge.
