Getting PMP certified in 2022

Are you planning on getting your Project Management Professional (PMP)® accreditation this year? The Project Management Institute (PMI)® revised its exam format for 2021 and replaced its Registered Education Provider (REP)® program with a new initiative called the Authorized Training Partner (ATP)® scheme. This is more than a simple rebranding exercise. Instead of training providers, like Velopi, creating our own training […]

Strategy in Program Management

For those of a certain age, the first time we heard the word “strategy” was during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) that signalled the start of the end of the Cold War. Strategic referred to long-range. Younger readers will probably associate strategy with long-term business planning. But strategy is a much more subtle concept […]

Situational Questions On The PMP® Exam

So you are a project manager and have been for quite some time now. But you have reached the stage when a certificate in project management would be welcome. Maybe you have been passed over for a promotion because you have no project management accreditation? Maybe your company is looking shaky and you might be […]

The To-Complete Performance Index

One of the difficult things for Project Managers and students attending PMP® exam preparation courses to understand is Earned Value Management. While the mathematics involved is pretty basic, getting a conceptual understanding is hard. This is because we seem to be using one measure – Earned Value – to track both time (schedule) and cost […]

Should Meetings be Included in your Schedule?

On this page: The Question of Including Meetings in Project Schedules One of our students posed a question recently: should meetings be included in your project schedule? Our first thoughts were no, there is enough in the schedule already. But then we said: hang on, maybe there are some meetings that represent vital milestones – […]

Catch the Next Generation Project Managers Young

Since its inception, Velopi has been working with practicing Project Managers in order to help them achieve Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification. Helping our students in their studies of the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) has been very satisfying for us, particularly when we learn that they have passed the PMP® exam at […]

Communicating with Project Management Artefacts

Anyone who has studied for the Project Management Professional (PMP)© exam will be aware that communication is vital in project management and we all need to be good at it because we can spend up to 90% of our time communicating. On this page: The Importance of Planning Communication But how should we communicate effectively? […]

Project Management and the Balanced Scorecard

Many organizations seem obsessed with gathering metrics and, for the front-line staff, these often make no sense at all. Even at the Project Manager-level, it is often difficult to appreciate why certain things have to be measured. How many times have you presented project status to your stakeholders, only to find them forensically examining one […]

Words of Wisdom for Project Managers

Back in 1988, Tom Gilb wrote a witty book entitled “Principles of Software Engineering Management”. Reading through the long list of principles provides much food for thought for the practicing project manager, the PMP® exam student and those who have no interest in software engineering whatsoever. On this page: Project Scope Management You cannot get […]

Principles of Equipment Qualifications (EQ)

***** CAUTION **** This article may no longer be accurate *****Notes on Equipment Qualification Equipment Qualification is the final series of inspections and tests to ensure that critical requirements necessary for related product quality are satisfied and that documents and procedures necessary to properly operate and maintain the system are in place. Critical requirements may […]