How to Pass the PMP® Exam?

Anyone who is working as a Project Manager will have considered getting a qualification for the role. This is because most of us became Project Managers based on our work in project teams and, having had to study hard for our previous roles, we feel a little uncertain about working in an area where we […]

10 Key Questions To Ask Before Starting Any Project

If you are contemplating managing a project, you first need to know that project management is not a zero-time task. It takes effort and energy and time. All of this should be repaid in wastage avoided during the project, but you need to be sure you can commit the time needed for the management task. […]

Great Expectations

Anyone who is a fan of (or has been dragged along to) romantic comedies will appreciate that, for women, the ultimate romantic hero is not one with the physique of Conan the Barbarian, the mind of Stephen Hawking and the soul of Seamus Heaney. No, the guy that gets the girl is the one who […]

Project Communications Management

If you work in a very small organization, it is likely that everyone in the place will know about your project – most likely, every employee will have some contribution to make to it. However, as the organization grows, your project becomes less visible and that can be a problem. For example, two projects may […]

Analysing Stakeholders

The Project Management Institute’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) is precisely that – a guide. It lists tools and techniques that are recommended as best practices for project management, but they are not explained in any great detail. For instance, the PMBOK® Guide recommends that we identify stakeholders in the initiating process group and […]

Responsibility Assignment Matrix

For a farmer, it is a male sheep. For a “Good’Ol Boy” from Texas, it is a Dodge pickup. But to a Project Management Professional (PMP)®, a RAM is a Responsibility Assignment Matrix. This is a great tool to help with Project Resource Management, because it identifies everyone involved in an activity, not only the person who […]

What if Project Activities Go Wrong?

The controversial motoring journalist, Jeremy Clarkson, is very fond of playing a game he calls “Fuel Light Bingo”. He likes to drive with his fuel tank as close to empty as possible. Clearly, Mr Clarkson cannot be described as risk averse. For most of us, carrying around a full-ish tank of fuel in our vehicles […]

Make Decisions with Expected Monetary Value Analysis

As a project manager, you will often be called upon to make decisions. How you make them really shows the difference between the amateur and the Project Management Professional (PMP)®. In your early days, you probably relied on gut instinct or made choices based on nothing more than Option-1 has a prettier cover than Option-2. […]

Risk Prioritization with Failure Mode and Effect Analysis

One of the difficulties students have in our PMP® courses is relating their experience to the terminology used by the Project Management Institute. Experienced project managers will have encountered most of the concepts detailed in the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), but they are unlikely to be familiar with the names […]

Schedule Management for Projects | Velopi

For many, project management is all about scheduling and for some, scheduling centres around Microsoft Project and Gantt charts. But Project Management Professionals (PMPs)® realise that there is a lot of work to do before a Gantt chart can be considered. Thanks to their PMP® exam training, professional project managers know that Project Schedule Management is based on Project Scope […]