I was likely a simple change to add this to the scale’s UI, but it has saved me and others lots of time. It’s a reminder to strive for continuous improvement, and to frequently check products for simple changes that might make a big difference to consumers.

Design Thinking is a way of designing by using prototyping. Marty Cagan advises that instead of detailed technical specifications (of which I have myself written several), functional prototypes should be used. Design Thinking brings this step closer to the beginning of the development process by incorporating prototyping into the actual design of products, services, or ideas. By getting the customer or client involved early in the process, and by having tangible prototypes – even in the form of simple Post-It notes – available for customers to see, touch, move around, or play with, designs can be evaluated and improved upon without the need to spend money to rework or redesign things that are already well underway in the product development process.

In other news, some friends and I went on the Tron Lightcycle Power Run ride at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom last week, and it was pretty neat! I must admit, having just read a lot about Design Thinking during the previous days, I spent a little extra time wondering about the design of the experience, and finding little details that interested me!

Then this evening came around. I was tired. I’d eaten dinner not too long ago. And to top it off, it had rained during the afternoon, and if I went out, it looked like I might get rained on. I really didn’t want to go. But I did it anyway. I put on my exercise clothes and running watch, headed for the park, and completed my full run. And I did end up getting rained on.

While on my run I listened to an audiobook, as I often do. Today I listened to Stephen R. Covey narrate his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where he cited a book called The Common Denominator of Success by Albert E. N. Grey. In his book, Grey sought “the one denominator that all successful people share”. It didn’t end up being intelligence, hard work, or an innate skill in human relationships. The one denominator was this:

Successful people have the habit of doing things failures don’t like to do.

This doesn’t mean that successful people thoroughly enjoy doing the things unsuccessful people don’t like to do. It means they do them anyway. They complete the tasks that need to be completed in order to achieve their goals.

Doing things you don’t want to do builds willpower. The more you subject yourself to performing uncomfortable tasks, the more you will be able to accomplish important things when you really need to get them done in order to achieve success.

In the end, I was glad I went on my run. I felt better afterward. And to be honest, learning that doing things you don’t want to do was the thing that separated successful people from unsuccessful people made me feel kinda good about my choice!

Maybe you have some things you’ve been putting off that will help you move forward with your goals? If so, I invite you to join me in getting them done – even if you just don’t wanna.

By the way, I took the picture on this page while on my run in Folimanka Park, Vinohrady, Prague.

I have never been one of those people who can work toward a big, nebulous goal… it seems I can never find momentum toward fulfilling my dreams if I try to work with a big goal in mind. Instead, I allocate a time block every day to something that will help me to achieve my dreams, and then I do that thing every day, without fail – be it writing fiction, learning a foreign language, studying business, or working out every day to ensure my future health. Keller mentions that there are different types of people in this world; some people are able to get a lot of work done by setting big goals for themselves, but other people (such as myself) achieve their dreams more effectively by setting small goals – even daily goals – and working toward them every day. Basically, whatever method works for you is the correct method.

Reading Keller’s book got me thinking about the future goals I’ve been working toward, and how I should be prioritizing them. And I found that I was asking myself this question:

Once I achieve my goals, am I going to enjoy the results?

Here’s what I mean by this. Imagine you’re attending university, studying to become a chemist. Now imagine you’ve graduated university, and you’re an apprentice chemist working in a laboratory, performing chemical work – a lot of it routine. Now imagine that you’re older, still working in a lab, performing important chemical research, attending conferences, and overseeing junior chemists as they complete their work. Perhaps you have a Masters degree or a PhD. You have built yourself a fulfilling, respectable career.

This sounds great… but really imagine that you are now this “older self”, and that this is your daily job. Now ask yourself… is this really what I want? It’s something that a lot of people want, true. For some people, it is their dream job. But is it yours?

Everything you do is moving you toward something. Your actions today will result in what your life looks like tomorrow. If you’re working toward your dream job, make sure that when you imagine what your daily life looks like while working at your dream job, it’s something you really want. If your dream career is to be a writer, you should remember that working as a writer means hours of tedious work sitting by yourself in front of your computer. Having the fame and accolades of being a New York Times bestselling author is one result of becoming a successful writer, true. But sitting down and writing every day is another – and in fact, that’s the one that will take up 99% of your time. Can you imagine yourself enjoying that life?

I’ll write more about this later, but for now, I just wanted to get this concept across. If you’re not working toward doing something you want to be doing every day, it may be time to change course!

In my example, there are only three results, one of which does not contain the word Christmas in its title. But trust me, usually when I initiate a search like this, I get dozens of results, the vast majority of which are not useful to me! In order to find the result I need in such a search, it takes considerable effort to go through the files in the results to find the one I’m looking for.

By trial and error, I figured out how to get around this problem. If you type “filename:”, or even better, simply “name:” before your search, only the files with your keyword specified in their filenames will be included in the results. For example, here is a search for “name:Christmas”:

And that’s it! That’s how to search for a file with a specific keyword in its filename, and not a keyword that might be found anywhere within the file. And if you’re anything like me, with tons of different files on your computer, wading through such results can be very time-consuming.

I hope this helps you with your Windows searches!

When Josh was 19 years old, he moved to the big city after growing up in the country. Upon his arrival in the city, one of Josh’s new neighbors invited him to a fancy annual dinner party. Josh hadn’t had any experience with any sort of fancy social event before, so much so that he didn’t even realize that some preparation for the dinner might be wise. So he put on his best clothes and headed to the dinner.

At the dinner party, Josh was the only person not wearing formal clothes. He grabbed a seat at a nearby table before it was polite to do so, gaining disapproving glances from the other, more civilized partygoers. When dinner came, he used the dinner for for his salad, drank wine from his water glass, and had his elbows on the table much of the time. And truth be told, he probably drank a little too much alcohol, since that was what he was used to when he attended social events with his friends back in his tiny village.

The other partygoers were quick to judge Josh on what he had done. Why did he not prepare for this dinner? Did he not realize that this was a fancy engagement? How could he behave like this? What a horrible, uncivilized person.

Fast forward a few months. After socializing in the big city for a little longer, Josh came to realize what he’d done wrong at the formal dinner party. He studied etiquette. He asked a lot of questions. He bought some really nice formal clothes. He learned proper table manners.

Exactly one year later, Josh was invited back to the very same party, attended by the same guests. He dressed properly. He socialized properly with the other guests. He used the correct utensils. And this time, having learned the error of his ways, he chose not to drink a drop.

So here’s the question. Should the guests at the party continue to judge Josh based on how he behaved when he was 19 years old, before he even realized that he should act a certain way at a formal dinner party? Or should they instead judge Josh based on how he behaves today… or, even better, not judge him at all? After all, Josh was a good person who came from a village full of good people who hadn’t grown up attending fancy dinner parties in the big city.

That’s 19-year-old me in the picture at a hotel in Chicago. To my knowledge I’ve never used the wrong fork at a fancy dinner party (or maybe I have and nobody told me!) but there were certainly plenty of things that I was ignorant of back when I was a teenaged university student. And when I say I was ignorant, I don’t mean it as an insult, as some people like to use the term today – I mean there were plenty of things I legitimately had no knowledge of or experience with, and I behaved accordingly.

When I was a kid, like many of my friends, I would say things like, “that’s so gay”. That was before I had actually met a person who identified as gay. The first gay person I knew was my friend Chris at the University of Waterloo. We’d been friends for a while when one day he showed up at the campus cafeteria wearing a little pink triangle pin on his jacket. “What does that mean?” I asked him. In a level voice, he answered, “it means I’m a fag.” I laughed, then said, “no really, what does it mean?” “That’s really what it means,” he answered. “Today is Coming Out Day”. That day I started to learn about people with different sexual orientations from my own, and I haven’t stopped learning.

What about racism? Have I said racist things in the past? Yes, I have. I grew up in Canada, so I was surrounded by multiculturalism from a young age, and I like to think I benefited from that. Even so, I said and did some things as a teen and young adult that I am not proud of, and probably hurt some people in the process. Would I take those things back if I could? Of course I would. I am sorry I did those things. Since I’ve said and done those things, I have learned a lot about different people, their cultures, and the places they’re from. I’ve toured the world in a musical group, performing community service in the various cities we visited. I’ve made friends from all over the world. I’ve lived in numerous countries. I studied Chinese as part of my MBA program in grad school, and recently I’ve studied both Chinese and Japanese for a half hour each, every single day, for over six months. From ignorance grew deep respect and admiration for different people, places, languages, cultures, and traditions across the globe.

I believe that when people change for the better, we should celebrate the people they’ve become, not berate them for the transgressions they committed in the past. And if someone is doing things that are racist or sexist because they are ignorant, we should not be so quick to fight with them. Instead, we should find out why they feel the way they feel, and start to educate them, so that the ignorance can melt away and they can start treating other people – all people – the way they deserve to be treated.

“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Have you been asked this question during interviews? I have. It’s a tough question to answer.

Some people recommend answering this question with “perfectionism”, as it sounds like a strength as well as a weakness. But perfectionism that stops you from achieving your goals is much more of a weakness than a strength. Perfection is an ideal, and if you’re always waiting for your work to be perfect, you will constantly be spinning your wheels, as ideals by their definition are impossible to meet.

It took psychotherapist Dr. Robert Glover six years to write his book No More Mr. Nice Guy. He found himself stuck in a constant cycle of adding, revising, and removing information. Eventually he realized that worrying about creating a polished “publishable work” was keeping him from creating anything at all. Only by changing his perspective was he able to finish his book. He had this to say about his change of perspective:

“I realized that I had gotten away from my original goal — to write a few insights that would help a few men live better lives. Once I let go of the burden of having to get published, be a best-selling author, and appear on Oprah, everything changed. I went back to my original agenda. From then on when I wrote, I only asked myself one thing: “Will this help my clients find answers to their problems?” I also kept reminding myself that my clients would never get a chance to benefit from my insight if I never finished the book.”

I’ll be the first to admit that I have the same issue as Dr. Glover had while writing his book. A lot of times I won’t even start a task because I don’t think it will be “good enough”. I have several books that I’ve written and had stashed away for years, and I’ve never even tried to even find an agent for any of them. It has also hurt me professionally – the desire to “do great” has sometimes overwhelmed my desire to do anything at all, which frequently means I’ve missed amazing opportunities to do useful (if not perfect) work.

There are also the dreaded “have tos” that can keep you from achieving your goals. If you’re a professional blogger, you might say yourself, “I have to post every day… if I can’t post every day, why bother?” “I have to find the perfect photo for this blog post… until I find the perfect photo, I can’t publish it.” “I have to cater to my target audience with my post. If I’m not reaching my target audience, this post will be a waste of time.” These are poisonous thoughts that will trick you into believing that creating nothing is a better option than creating something that isn’t perfect. This, of course, isn’t true.

Instead, strive to create something that’s good enough. Create something of value. If it’s a bit rough around the edges, that’s fine. And do it from a place of personal passion, not from a place of worrying about what other people will think about you or your work. After finishing his book, Dr. Glover realized:

“Trying to do it right only sucked the life out of No More Mr. Nice Guy! Letting go and letting it just be “good enough” set me free to embrace my passion and create something of lasting value.”

I’ve been reading Dale Carnegie’s classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People, which contains some surprisingly modern advice considering it was first published in 1937. What I find especially fascinating is the various stories and examples Carnegie uses, many of which are from his personal experiences working with people as a writer, researcher, and self-improvement expert during the 1920s and 1930s.

Benjamin Franklin, who died in 1790, was obviously not one of those people. But Carnegie’s very first principle, Don’t Criticize or Complain, features an important quote by the Founding Father:

“I will speak ill of no man. . . and speak all the good I know of everybody.”

That’s a bold statement. Speak ill of no person? I wouldn’t say that I am a malicious person, but I can’t cop to never speaking any ill of anybody. But in his book, Carnegie has some great examples about why criticism simply doesn’t work, and will in fact come back to bite you. “Let’s realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons”, he says. “They always return home. Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return”.

I’m going to make a habit of never speaking ill of people, and see where it gets me in my personal and professional life. And meanwhile, if Carnegie’s words about criticism don’t convince you, there’s always this quote by John Wanamaker:

“I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.”

Senior Project Manager: We do precision guess work based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge

I see where the T-shirt maker was going with this, but it frustrated me to think there are project managers out there who might share this attitude. In my opinion, it is a poor project manager that questions the knowledge of the people on his or her team. That’s because as a project manager, you aren’t outputting a whole bunch of project deliverables on your own. It is your team that is doing the majority of the work on project deliverables. If you don’t trust the knowledge of your team members, and if you can’t find ways to work with them to provide reliable project data, then you’re going to be a pretty poor project manager.

It’s crucial as a project manager to get to know and appreciate your team’s strengths and weaknesses and to learn to work with your team members to create a schedule for deliverables that your team is realistically able to accomplish. If the data that you are receiving from your team members is unreliable, then it’s up to you to find ways to help your team members provide reliable data. The same principle applies when it comes to working with customers or clients. If your clients are providing you with unreliable data, then you should work with them to provide realistic data that will allow you and your project team to get the expected work done in a predictable and efficient manner. This will make everybody happy…. except for maybe the T-shirt makers.

One feature that this particular sonic toothbrush has goes as follows: every 30 seconds, the toothbrush stops operating for a split second so that you will know that it is a good time to switch “zones” in your mouth (front right quadrant, back left quadrant, and so on). They do this to encourage users to brush for a good two minutes, allotting 30 seconds per zone.

This particular feature of the toothbrush really bothers me. For a while I couldn’t figure out why that was. After all, it only shuts off for a split second, and then continues brushing as normal – until 30 seconds later, that is, when it will shut off again to let you know that another 30 seconds have gone by.

This morning while brushing my teeth I finally realized why this feature really bothers me. I bought this toothbrush for one reason, and one reason only – to brush my teeth. Shutting off that function, for no matter how short a time, goes directly against the core function of this product. I didn’t buy the toothbrush as a toothbrushing timer, I bought it so that I could clean my teeth. You can add extra features, sure, but don’t do so at the expense of the core function of the product.

My toothbrush shutting off for a split second every 30 seconds is akin to having a car that stops moving every 30 miles to let you know you’ve driven for 30 minutes, or a phone that mutes every 30 minutes to let you know you’ve been talking for 30 minutes. Maybe you care about knowing how far you’ve driven or how long you’ve talked on the phone for, but if you do, you probably have another way of tracking that. You don’t need your car or phone to do it for you at the expense of your driving or communication.

Although my toothbrush is a pretty good one, when it comes time to replace it I won’t be getting another one like it. I’ll get one that does what it’s designed for and lets me worry about the rest.

For many years, my father has been interested in project management. He’s PMP certified and has dedicated a great deal of time to project management consulting for a variety of different organizations. He also regularly conducts a series of webinars to help people understand the ins and outs of proper project management.

One of the more interesting ideas my dad has come up with is the idea of the Virtual Project Management Office (PMO). An effective PMO is important to successful project management within an organization, but many companies are of smaller size or do not have the funds required to maintain a proper PMO. The Virtual PMO and Action AC serving Temecula is a way to have a PMO without a PMO; all of the various PMO operations within the organization are organized in a virtual manner.

My father has created a webinar to explain the Virtual PMO, how it works, and some valuable information about managing PMOs in general. It’s free on YouTube, and in my opinion it’s definitely worth watching. You can find it here:

Please check it out and let us know what you think!

I’ve met many project managers in my career, who manage their projects using different styles and abilities. Some of these project managers were not, in my opinion, responsible project managers. If a member of their project team were to do something wrong, or cause the project to be delayed in some way, these project managers were quick to “throw them under the bus”.

This is not a helpful practice. For one thing, if you constantly throw your project team members under the bus, they’re going to lose trust in you. And if the project team doesn’t have faith in their project manager, you’re not going to have a cohesive team, and you’re not going to be able to work together to accomplish important goals. For another thing, blaming your project team for the problems with your project is not going to look good for your clients or stakeholders, even if it happens to be true.

In one of my jobs, I worked as a project manager for a large, very important project with project team members located all over the world – Europe, North America, and Asia. We had some consultants working for our team from a big name consulting company. We had an important goal coming up, and during our daily project team meetings I would ask them how the project is going, and whether or not we’re on track. The answer would always be “yes, we’re on schedule.”

… right until the day before the due date of the work. That was when these contractors suddenly realized that they would need at least another week to get their work done.

This, of course, is not acceptable. It also taught me a thing or two about how to track the progress of my project team members… “are you on schedule” is not enough; you need more detail to ensure that you can make the call whether or not the work is properly on track each day. But lessons learned aside, I had a big problem on my hands… the client was expecting work to be done tomorrow, I had told them the day before that the work would be done tomorrow, and then all of a sudden it is a week late.

You might think this would be a good time to explain to the client the problem I had encountered with our contractors. But that would have several negative consequences:

• It would make it look like my company didn’t make good choices with hiring contractors
• It would make it look like I was pointing fingers (with good reason)
• It would make it look like I didn’t have good control or insight over my project team’s work (in this case, this was at least partially true)
• Most importantly, it would not solve the problem.

So I accepted responsibility for what had happened, and immediately offered potential solutions to resolve the problem. I left the project team out of it. Of course, internally we dealt with the problem with our contractors, and they ended up leaving the project, find more info at http://www.thelockboss.ie/. But that was something that did not involve the client or the stakeholders.

It wasn’t easy. Accepting responsibility for something you do not feel is entirely your fault is difficult. But as the project manager, you are responsible. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you are at fault for all of your project’s ills, but at the end of the day, you are the person who is responsible over the project, problems and all. And as a project manager, you willingly accept that responsibility and all of the joys and pains that come with it.

If you remember this, it will make you a better project manager. You’ll have the trust of your project team, and the respect of your clients, stakeholders, and managers.

Do I have enough work experience to take the PMP exam?

In order to apply to take the PMP examination, applicants need to have acquired 4,500 hours of professional work experience leading and directing projects. This doesn’t necessarily mean “work as a project manager”, but the Project Management Institute (PMI) wants their PMP-certified project managers to at least have experience working in all five PMI process groups before applying to take the PMP examination.

When I am asked the question, it is usually accompanied by an amount of time someone has worked at a position – three years experience, for example. Many times the person is not technically a “project manager”, but does fulfill some of the project management roles in his or her organization. A lot of times the person has no project management experience at all.

The thing is, it’s pretty much impossible for me to say “yes, you have enough experience,” or “no, you don’t”. I don’t know what aspiring PMP applicants do during their day to day jobs, or how many hours per day they spend doing it. It’s up to the person who is applying to the exam to figure out for his or herself whether or not he or she has met the work experience requirements to apply to take the PMP examination.

So here is what I recommend doing:

1. Make an educated guess whether or not you realistically have enough project management work experience to meet the 4,500 hour requirement. If you are pretty sure you don’t, there’s no use going through the next steps. If you do, you’ll have to do the next steps anyway to report your work experience to PMI. If you think you might be pretty close, go ahead and take the next steps.
2. Fill out a spreadsheet with your professional work experience leading and directing projects. You will notice I’ve linked to a spreadsheet that I have included for download on this site that you can use to accomplish this.
3. Figure out whether or not you have the required work experience to sit for the PMP exam. If you do, you’re good to go! You can apply to take the exam, and file your work experience as required on PMI’s PMP application form. If not, you can look for ways to get project management work experience without having PMP certification.

It makes me happy to receive questions on this site, and I try to be as helpful as I can, but I just can’t see into anyone’s day to day work life to figure out whether or not they’ve got the proper work experience to get PMP certified. So if you’re wondering whether or not you do, go ahead and find out! Just remember that the work experience has to be 4,500 hours of professional work experience leading and directing projects – simply “working on projects” that are managed by other people won’t do.

Good luck!

With this change, PMI has increased emphasis on PDUs in the category of Education in response to employers demanding up-to-date project management skills from their PMP-certified project managers. 60% of PDUs are now required for this category. In addition, there is now a minimum number of PDUs required in the Technical Project Management, Leadership, and Strategic and Business Management categories.

Meanwhile, the maximum number of PDUs that you may earn in the Giving Back to the Profession category has been decreased. The activities in this category have not changed; they are: Volunteering, Creating Knowledge, and Working as a Professional.

PMI has supplied a useful infographic that gives a rundown of the various maximum and minimum number of PDUs that you need to earn in order to renew your PMP credential. It is worth reviewing. This graphic also applies to PMI’s PgMP, PfMP, and PMI–PBA credentials.

PMI’s new PDU requirements

Here is a quick rundown of the new system:

• A total of 60 PDUs must be earned each three-year cycle
• A total of 35 PDUs must be earned in Education
  • A minimum of 8 PDUs must be earned in Technical
  • A total of 8 PDUs must be earned in Leadership
  • A total of 8 PDUs must be earned in Strategic & Business Management
• A maximum of 25 PDUs can be earned in Giving Back
  • No more than 8 PDUs may be earned in Working as a Professional

As mentioned, the various PDU categories and the items within them have not changed since the previous iteration was introduced.

PMI’s new PDU requirements effective change date

According to an email I received from PMI, it appears that any PDUs filed before December 1, 2015 may be filed under the old system. Any PDUs filed after that date need to be filed according to the PMI Talent Triangle skill areas—technical, leadership, strategic and business management.

If you’re a PMP-certified project manager, best of luck with earning and filing your PDUs!

It turns out that project management professionals are doing well in 2015. Economic growth around the world is up, and project professionals are commanding competitive salaries in specific sectors in each country.

Project manager salary highlights

Here are the median project manager salaries earned in different countries around the world, in United States dollars:

• Australia: $134,658
• Brazil: $58,963
• China: $27,156
• India: $27,052
• Mexico: $44,763
• Nigeria: $35,707
• United Kingdom: $90,666
• United States: $108,000

Do you like charts? Of course you do. Here’s that information in chart form:

Maybe we should all consider moving to Australia…?

One quick note – while Canada was not featured on this list, I was interested in finding out how much money Canadian project managers have been making. On December 19th, 2014, PMI posted that Canadian project managers made about $98,517. At that time, United States project managers were making $105,000, so you might assume that Canadian project managers are making over $100k USD in 2015.

PMP project manager salaries

While the article doesn’t specifically mention how much PMP certified project managers are making in comparison to non-certified project managers, the 2014 article referenced above indicated that in the United States, project managers with PMPs made about $14,500 more than their non-certified peers. That’s no small chunk of change!

After all, if you are simply “improving”, you may think you’re doing a great service to your organization, but in fact, you may simply be spinning your wheels!

In order to really and truly improve, you need to know a few things:

• What needs to be improved
• What you are actually improving compared to what needs to be improved; whether or not you are improving the right things
• The impact of your improvements; whether or not your improvements are doing any good
• The cost of your improvements in time, budget, and resources; whether or not it’s worth doing the things you’re doing, and what the opportunity costs of improvements are in terms of projects or other improvements

Looked at it this way, actually improving things in your company is a very small step, and depending on what you’re improving, it may actually be the wrong step! Continuous improvement requires a great deal of commitment in both planning, execution, and monitoring and controlling.

But if you’re an experienced project manager, then you are well aware that someone who has experience managing projects and who has earned their PMP certification might very well not be an effective project manager. Even someone without the skills required to lead and direct projects can coast along as a project manager for a few years, and eventually have the required education and work experience to sit for the PMP exam.

One skill that project managers need to have to be an experienced project manager is the human touch. Project managers who sit behind their data and make calls based on project statistics are not going to be effective when it comes to managing projects. Project managers need to have a handle on the human relationships involved with bringing different people with different skill sets together to achieve the remarkable.

Project managers need to:

• Be able to handle drama. Often difficulties will arise – conflicts, often of the human variety – that project managers will need to understand and, if not help to resolve, work around. Issues like these are hard to label as risks, and if you try to indicate these risks in a risk register, people may be offended. But they are certainly risks. Only by managing the people involved with the project can you move forward in this situation.
• Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each individual team member. I often see people named as “resources”, and treated as interchangeable.
  • We’ve got a consultant coming in, so he can simply take over your lead developer’s role, and you can get the job done.”
  • “If you take this software developer off of this project and stick him on this other one, you can simply transfer his 8 story points’ worth of work from this project to that project.”

  If you’re an experienced project manager, you know that this is simply not the case. People have different skills and, quite honestly, some people are simply more skilled than others at certain jobs. If you know your resources well, you can better predict the outcome of projects and better manage budgets and timelines.

There are plenty of other examples of ways that knowing the human side of project management is of crucial importance. If you can think of any others that you have experienced in your own project management career, please be sure to let me know!

Things have changed, however, and nowadays kids are given much better resources to create their science projects. This is a very good thing – for students, and also for their stressed-out parents!

I’ve written two posts about our experiences with our son’s science project:

• How our son created a prototype of what his eventual science project display would look like
• How our son managed his science project like an actual Information Technology (IT) project.

It was interesting to me how these school science Red Truck Fire projects were organized much like the projects that I have managed during my project management career – with proper schedules and timelines, milestones, resources and materials lists, and deliverables. I hadn’t thought about it before, but doesn’t this make perfect sense? Science projects are, after all, projects. Students should manage them as such! In this way, not only they are learning about science, but also about proper project management techniques – skills that can help them in any subject later in their educational or professional careers.

Did you know that you can earn up to 45 PDUs per 3-year cycle by sharing new project management knowledge that you have created? This means that if you have an outlet to provide others lessons, tools, templates, insights, stories, or other project management goodies that they will be able to use to advance their own project management careers or aspirations, you can earn PDUs each cycle. You don’t earn these PDUs by attending project management seminars, workshops, or classes… in a way, you are the project management class!

Once you’ve created your blog posts, tools, or templates, you can go ahead and file your PDUs on the PMI web site. Click on the Report PDUs button in the Certification Status box on your myPMI Dashboard page. In the menu that shows up, select Category D: Creating New Project Management Knowledge. Fill out your description, date range, hours, and contact information, and then enter your blog’s web address in the box labeled URL. If PMI wants to double check the work that you’ve completed on your blog, they can head on over to your site using the address you have provided.

Sharing your own project management knowledge and experience is a fun and rewarding way to earn PDUs, and I also find that teaching and sharing information with others is a great way to learn more about your own project management knowledge and to enhance your own skill set. I highly recommend it!

• He has no idea what they do. On his team, the project managers don’t seem to perform any technical work (such as implementing solutions), nor can they contribute any nontechnical information (such as requirements, wireframes, deadlines, or edge cases).
• They don’t know what he’s doing. The project managers on his team have limited technical knowledge and experience, and when asked questions about the project, they are unable to provide satisfactory answers.

This web developer is not alone. I’ve frequently heard complaints about the perceived distance between certain project managers and their technical teams. In order to avoid or rectify these problems as a project manager, you should endeavor to do two things:

Let your team know what you’re doing

Project managers have a duty to report to their stakeholders and management. But they also have a duty to report to their team. If your team does not know what you’re doing, they won’t know why they are doing what they’re doing, which will make them less motivated and perhaps steer them in the wrong direction. Without that proper motivation, or the knowledge of why they’re performing the tasks you’re having them perform, they will get the wrong work done at a slower pace.

There is also the fact that if you’re a well-paid PMP certified project manager, and your hard-working team doesn’t know what you’re doing, they’re going to be upset that you’re making so much money while they’re doing all the work. Of course, you know how hard you work, and the things you have to do to keep projects on track and on budget, but your team doesn’t. You should fill them in, let them know how management feels about the project in process, and make sure that you are as accountable to your team as they are to you.

Know what your team is doing

At the last company I worked for, the very best project managers were those who had technical knowhow. Some of the very best of the very best were the ones who had once worked as business analysts or solution engineers, installing the software packages we were managing.

This doesn’t mean that project managers have to have technical knowhow, know how to program computers or configure systems, or anything like that. In fact, as a project manager you probably want to distance yourself at least to some degree from the work, so that you can concentrate on the ongoing project at a higher level. But if you have no clue what your technical team is doing, you are going to be less able to see upcoming risks or developments, and you are probably not going to have as high a level of respect from your team.

Having some technical experience is a great asset for a project manager. If you’ve worked as a software developer or as a business consultant, having been “in the field” can go a long way. You will understand what your project team needs, why they’re doing what they’re doing, and importantly, you’re going to have a much more realistic view of time and work estimates. Visit https://monderlaw.com. Many project managers expect unrealistic deadlines from their teams, and are then genuinely surprised when their teams don’t meet those unrealistic deadlines. Having a more realistic view of the technical work involved with a project can make a project manager a better champion of his or her project.

I hope this has been a helpful post! If you have any questions or comments for me, please feel free to leave them below. I always appreciate hearing from others working in the field.

“I’m a specialist in such-and-such a domain, living in such-and-such a country; is it worth it for me to get PMP certified in my field or profession?”

I have significant work experience – even project management work experience – in numerous different fields, but unfortunately I don’t have experience in all fields! And while I’ve worked extensively in the international arena, I’m certainly not the most seasoned business traveler there is. If you’re working in the domain of residential construction, or commercial marketing, or hospitality, or banking and finance, there is only so much advice I will be able to give to you regarding PMP certification. If you’re working in India, or Japan, or the Middle East, there are only so many things I can tell you about the value of various project management certifications in your region, and most of that information comes to me second hand. I do know for a fact that in the United States and Canada, PMP certification seems to be particularly of value in the fields of Software Development (SD) and Information Technology (IT), fields I have worked in for the majority of my career. Outside of those areas, things start to get a little hazy.

The good news is, I do have some good suggestions for people that you can reach out to to get the information you need!

Your Human Resources department

Want to get some advice from people who see a lot of resumes on a daily basis, and whose job it is to keep track of trends in education and certification? Talk to the specialists in your Human Resources (HR) department.

Often, employees will talk to the people in their Human Resources department only once… when they get hired on at the company. This is a mistake. Your Human Resources department was in charge of getting you hired, sure, but they’re also at least to some degree responsible for helping you with your continuing career at the company. Normally, Human Resources specialists in any given company are approachable with questions regarding how you might choose to grow professionally both at the company and as an individual.

If you want to know if PMP certification is valuable at your company or in your field or domain, your Human Resources department would likely know. They might also be able to tell you about any perks or benefits at the company that can help you get PMP certified – some organizations will pay for certain employees to go through a PMP prep course and will also pay the fees to get them certified. Why not try – it can’t hurt to ask!

Your manager

Your manager is in charge of you as an employee. If you’re interested in getting PMP certified, you might ask your manager whether he or she thinks it would be a good idea and whether or not it would add value to your team and company for you to get certified as a professional project manager. Good managers will encourage you to grow in your professional careers, knowing that the more skilled and satisfied their employees, the more and better quality work they will produce. Ask your manager what he or she thinks of the idea.

You might also see if your manager can find ways to have your company pay for your formal project management education and your eventual PMP certification. Again, it certainly can’t hurt to ask.

Your co-workers

Your co-workers probably aren’t too concerned about your career or your growth as a professional. But they’re probably very concerned about their own careers! If project management certification is becoming a useful asset in your field, some of your co-workers have likely already considered it and weighed some of the pros and cons. Talk to your co-workers to find out what they think. I’ve had plenty of co-workers approach me to ask me about PMP and ScrumMaster (Agile) certification. I’m always happy to share my experiences and give advice to those who seek it.

Your local PMI chapter

If you’re working in a good-sized city, you likely have a local Project Management Institute (PMI) chapter, and that local PMI chapter likely hosts a variety of PMI meetings, monthly or otherwise. In most places, you don’t have to be a member to show up at a meeting, learn what PMI is all about, and perhaps join as a member. Find contact information about your local PMI chapter and speak to your local PMI contact about coming to a meeting. You’ll meet plenty of project managers working in a variety of different fields, many of whom will have valuable advice for you regarding whether or not you should get PMP certified. And since they’re working in your city or town, you’ll be able to gauge whether or not PMP or other certifications have value with the companies operating in your area.

Yourself

At the end of the day, you’re the one who is going to be spending the time (and probably the money) to get PMP certified. Ask yourself – is this something you really want to do? Do you want to learn about project management and get certified for your own personal or professional reasons, independent of what the people around you seem to think about it? If so, go ahead and do it. There are plenty of good reasons to get PMP certified. If you’re a project manager, and have attained the 4,500 hours (with a Bachelors degree) to apply to take the PMP exam, then you’re already in good shape in your project management career. Even if you don’t think the PMP credential can help you right now, perhaps it can help you down the road? Visit https://www.maidthis.com/denver/. Getting certifications opens doors in your career, some of which you haven’t yet stumbled across. So this is a good reason to at least consider it!

I hope that this has been a helpful post. If you have questions about PMP certification in your particular domain or geographic area, go out and ask! It can’t hurt, and you may learn some valuable advice and meet some valuable new contacts in your company or town in the process.

Proof of project management work experience

In my post about gathering work experience, I included some special cases that might arise when you’re tallying up the hours you have spent leading and directing projects. Even though I’ve listed these out, I still get many people interested in applying for the PMP credential who ask me:

What if I don’t have sufficient proof of my project management work experience?

This is a great question. When applying to take the PMP exam, there’s a chance that you might be selected to undergo a PMI audit. During an audit, PMI (the Project Management Institute, who officiate the exam) want to make sure that you have been honest about the work experience and project management education that you have listed on your application. Normally, you can document those hours, and then pass those hours by your manager to make sure that he or she would approve them in the case of an audit. Though I’ve never experienced a PMI audit myself, from what I’ve heard, it’s a pretty straightforward process.

However…

In some cases, you might work for a top-secret organization such as the FBI or the CIA, who do not allow you to list the projects that you have worked on as they are top-secret projects. Perhaps you’ve worked for the American military on highly sensitive defense projects – I know of plenty of project managers in this situation. Or you might operate your own company where you do not have a manager or supervisor to report to – it’s all you! In this case, your wealth of work experience leading and directing projects can’t necessarily be “passed by” anyone. For your particular organization, the buck stops at you.

Reporting your work hours for the PMP

If this is the case, I have a simple solution…

Be up-front and honest about the work you have completed.

If you are ethical and honest about the work you have completed, then even if you do undergo a PMI audit and don’t have sufficient proof of the projects you’ve managed, at least you know that you are in the right. This is important, because I personally believe that when you’re in the right about something, you can convince someone of it… or at least in this case, get PMI to understand what work experience you’ve got under your belt!

In some cases, perhaps you can talk about your projects in abstract terms… that is, explain the work that you have completed, but do not go into detail about them (in the case of high security clearance or top secret projects). Or maybe you can scrub your project artifacts to remove any information other than the timelines… that way, PMI could see that you’ve worked on projects, but won’t know any details about them. Of course, you’d want to make sure this process was okay with the company you’re working for before doing it.

If you have any documentation or artifacts from projects you have managed in your own self-managed start-up company or enterprise, such as project schedules, project charters, or Work Breakdown Structures, this information can certainly help to demonstrate to PMI the work you’ve legitimately completed. Or perhaps you can have some of the clients that you have worked for (if you are working as a consultant without a manager or hierarchy to report to) vouch for the work you have completed managing projects for their organizations in the past.

In general, remember this:

PMI has seen it all!

If you’re working for a company managing sensitive projects, or working as a solo consultant; if your company has gone under, been acquired, or your managers have left the company or even passed away since you’ve worked there… PMI has seen it all. They will be used to these special cases where it may be difficult to show that you have worked on the projects you’re indicating that you have. Just remember that honesty is the best policy – stay strong and work with PMI to demonstrate to them your breadth of professional work experience. I am sure that, with perseverance, you’ll make it through and be able to sit to take the PMP examination.

Best of luck to you!

St. Patrick’s Day is a fun holiday for me and many others; for me, part of the reason I like the day is because I finally get to wear my ridiculously green Guinness polo shirt that I bought the last time I visited the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. It’s not the kind of shirt you can really wear on many other days. I’ve already written one post about how people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the United States, so this is post number two on the subject on this particular blog. I found it fascinating that St. Patrick’s Day seemed to be a bigger deal in the United States than in Ireland, the country that the day is meant to celebrate.

The reason for this post is that I created a separate post for a St. Patrick’s Day limerick at Mixminder, our elementary school teaching blog, but the real version of the limerick as I originally wrote it had beer in the poem. I of course like it better with the part about the beer, but it’s not the sort of thing you might wantto tack onto the wall of an elementary school classroom, so I made a non-beer version over there and decided to upload the beer version here. I figured, why not? The more limericks the better!

At any rate, here is the poem… you can click on it to get a larger JPG image of the limerick, or you can download the PDF version here. Either way, I hope that you have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day!

And by the way… don’t forget to wear green!!

If you’ve decided you’re going to go for it and get PMP certified, your next step is to figure out when you want to take the PMP examination, and how you’re going to prepare in advance of that date. If you are facing these questions, then why not use the project management experience you’ve amassed over the past several years and treat your PMP certification process like a project?

Here’s how I would go about doing it:

Create a project charter

Draft a project charter that outlines the goals of your project management certification, the general timeframe you’re interested in following, and some of the constraints that you think you might face on your way to attaining the credential. This will get you thinking about the various work packages that you’re going to need to include in your eventual project plan.

Perform some research on PMP certification and understand why it is that you are interested in becoming a certified professional. With a strong project charter, when you’re feeling frustrated with your studying or filling out your PMP application, you can refer back to this document to remind yourself why you’ve decided to go through the process. It can help keep you on track all the way to your test date.

Draft a project plan

Use your project charter to come up with a strong project plan. Schedule the activities that you plan to complete. You can create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) where you can detail all the various work packages you need to finish to apply to take the PMP exam, and also what specific tasks you need to complete in order to achieve a thorough understanding of PMI’s five process groups and the various processes that fall within them. This can help you to time-box your activities into manageable chunks. For example, on any given day, you might plan to spend an hour reading and memorizing the information from a chapter in a PMP exam test guide, or spend that hour memorizing the Earned Value formulas that you will need to know for the examination and going through some practice questions.

Next, you can place the various chunks of work that you need to complete onto specific dates. You can draft as aggressive an approach as you like – you can study once a week, twice a week, on weekends, or every single day! The beauty of having a plan like this available is that you won’t have to panic… if you know how much work you need to complete and how long you have to complete it, you won’t face a time crunch as your test date approaches.

Make sure that your project schedule is realistic… it can be a challenging schedule (most of the schedules we create as project managers tend to be at least somewhat challenging!) but if it’s not realistic and achievable, you will end up failing your project. Be sure you understand exactly what you need to do in order to become PMP certified, and make sure that you have enough time in between the day you start your application process and the test date in order to get it all completed. Include all of the various book chapters you need to study, the practice tests you need to complete, the formulas you need to memorize, and anything else you feel you need to get done in preparation for the exam.

Follow your project plan

You should now know exactly what you need to do in order to complete your PMP application, and the tasks you will need to complete in order to understand the world of project management according to the Project Management Institute (PMI). The next step is the easy part… follow your plan! Make sure that you do follow the plan if you want to stay on track… it’s easy to put off something that isn’t part of your day job, or to get some much-needed sleep instead of studying for your upcoming test, but if you really want to become a PMP, you’re going to need to do the work. Look back at your project charter to remind yourself of some of the reasons you want to become a certified Project Management Professional if you find yourself wanting to slack instead of put in the time to get the job done properly.

Revise the project plan if necessary

If you follow the project schedule you’ve created, you should be well on your way to getting the information you need to pass the test into your noggin. If, however, you’re seeing gaps in your knowledge, or feel that you need extra time to go over some of PMI’s content, you can always revise your project plan to take into account the changes. Remember to keep your plan realistic! You may need to schedule some more sessions on what used to be free days on your way to the examination date.

Take the PMP exam

When you’ve completed your project plan, you should be ready to take the exam. Make sure to get a good night’s rest the night before the exam, and eat a good (but not too filling) breakfast before making your way to the test center.

Good luck!

Celebrate your success

If all goes well, with the help of your project plan you will have achieved your goal of becoming PMP certified. Now is the time to do what we members of project teams always do whenever we achieve something worthwhile… celebrate the success! Go ahead… you’ve earned it!

A lot of people can see the impact that a thorough understanding of project work has up the chain. Clients, in-house senior managers, and other stakeholders need a clear vision of the project from start to finish – they need to know when it will be completed, how much it’s going to cost, and how it’s tracking to key milestones. They don’t care too much about who is doing what tasks day-to-day; the big picture is much more important to them.

However, having an understanding of who is doing what day-to-day work helps out more than just the customer or senior management; having a clear picture of what needs to be done day-to-day is a great asset to those people doing the work. Knowing your tasks for a given day or week can relieve a lot of stress and uncertainty from your job and give you a clear picture of your obligations and by when you need to achieve them.

Weekly project schedule communication

When I’m managing projects, I like to create a weekly task breakdown for the entire project team every week, including both in-house and client developers if applicable. This task breakdown breaks down the work by team member for each weekday they will be working on the project. For a given day, it might look something like this:

Monday, September 16:

• Ryan: Develop web user interface
• Emily: Code web API
• Brandon: Create user documentation for software application
• Meredith: Document UAT tasks for e-commerce module

These tasks are already broken down in the project schedule that I am managing using Microsoft Project (on waterfall projects, at least); it is not difficult to simply pull from the project what team members are going to be working on, and when, and then creating a simple email every Monday morning to explain the tasks for the week. True, project members could simply look at the project schedule themselves to see what they’re going to do, but by delivering it to them in this manner helps keep them focused on their tasks and out of the weeds, and gives them an opportunity to approach you with questions about their work if need be. It does something else, too: it implies agreement with the tasks. If you lay out your team’s weekly tasks in front of your developers and communicate it to them, if they do not come back to you to discuss specific issues with these tasks, it is implied that they will be completed by the end of the week. When you send out this email, you should include a note that if there is any chance a team member can not complete the designated tasks identified in the email by the end of the week, they should contact you ASAP to discuss options.

I find that communicating project tasks to the project team in this manner helps to get the job done, and when Friday afternoon comes along, there are fewer surprises regarding what tasks have been finished and what tasks are still lingering. Knowing what work they have to do also relieves the project team of stress; I’ve worked with some team members who start to panic when they don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, or which tasks are of greatest priority. It is your job as project manager to help your team members understand their work so that they will have the greatest opportunity to complete it successfully.

Note that if you’re competing projects using Agile Development and Scrum, creating these sorts of lists is not as crucial. Under an Agile Development framework, team members have a clear view of the current sprint and a thorough understanding of their obligations that they themselves committed to during sprint planning. This, of course, is one of the benefits of using Agile Development.

Planning out your own weekly tasks

As a project manager, it is my job to know what everyone on the project team is doing and when, how long it’s going to take, how much it’s going to cost, and what risks are involved with the work. However, I have noticed something interesting about my job as a project manager: I’m not often held accountable for understanding my own tasks on the project.

The tasks of developers, software testers, and documentation writers are normally accounted for in the project schedule, but the majority of project management tasks are often free-floating and not documented anywhere. Sure, creating project plans, weekly project statuses, or other solid deliverables are normally planned out and agreed upon, but project managers (at least, the ones I’ve worked with) don’t normally have their weekly tasks laid out in the schedule. Part of the reason for this is because project managers often have to perform a lot of project monitoring and controlling, attending client meetings, communicating project status, and firefighting – lots of firefighting. These tasks are difficult to implement in a project schedule.

However, I’ve noticed that I’ve managed to accomplish more work, and work of higher priority, when I’ve laid out my own obligations for the week. I don’t normally communicate this list of tasks to the project team, or even to my management; a breakdown of this granularity is not something that they care too much about. But getting my own deliverables completed and delivered to the proper stakeholders on time is critical, and knowing what tasks are of greatest priority helps me hammer down on getting those tasks completed even when there is a lot of firefighting or troubleshooting to be done on a project. Laying out your priorities for the week means that when you have time visit https://maidwhiz.com at your computer to get your work done, you’ll get the most important work done in the order that it should be completed.

Understanding my own tasks and their priorities also helps to relieve my stress. Being a project manager or a business consultant can be overwhelming, with lots of high-priority items to be done in a very short period of time. Simply knowing what those items are, and where they fall on your list of priorities, can help you to focus on one item at a time and to push the others out of your mind. Stressing about everything at once won’t help you get your job done.

What is a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)?

A Work Breakdown Structure is a document that illustrates the work involved in a project, and shows how that work relates to other work on the project. By viewing a WBS, project stakeholders can visualize and understand the individual work packages that must be completed in order to finish the project and achieve project closure. These packages comprise the totality of the project scope.

The Work Breakdown Structure is important to complete before starting work on the project schedule because it is critical that project managers understand the work involved with a project before attempting to schedule it. A WBS helps project managers and project team members break down the work into estimable tasks. Once those tasks are subsequently understood and estimated properly by members of the project team (the people who will be doing the work), work on the project schedule can begin in earnest. It is a frequent mistake for project managers to jump into project scheduling without first achieving a proper understanding of the project work. This usually leads to scope creep and inflation of the project budget down the line.

The WBS on the PMP exam

The Project Management Institute (PMI) likes the WBS to take the form of a graphical representation, with a flowchart-like display of boxes containing the various work packages to be completed in a project. The boxes at the top of the chart contain the higher-level work to be completed; below these boxes the work is broken down into the individual work packages. These work packages are broken down to a level of granularity where project work packages can be properly understood and estimated. It is this format of WBS that project managers will find if they choose to become Project Management Professional (PMP) certified by taking the PMP exam.

A spreadsheet-based WBS

While I appreciate PMI’s version of the WBS, I find I need to gather and understand more information about a project before I start work on the project schedule. It is for this reason that I often employ a spreadsheet-based WBS for the projects that I manage. The same information you would find on the graphical WBS can also be found on the spreadsheet version, but on a spreadsheet you also have the option of adding more information relevant to the project resources, time, and cost. This spreadsheet-based WBS can accompany a graphical WBS for maximum effect; however, you might also choose to stick with one version or the other if you don’t want to have to edit two separate documents if the project scope happens to change once the project is underway.

Creating the WBS

Creating the WBS will require work by the project manager, project stakeholders including client representatives, and members of the project team. The goal is to break down the work on the project into estimable chunks, or work packages. I find I like to be more granular rather than less granular when it comes to breaking the project into chunks, because more granularity makes project team members (for example, the software developers or business consultants who will be doing the actual work on the project) think more carefully about how long it will take to complete individual tasks. I, and most other project managers, find that work is most frequently underestimated rather than overestimated, and as such projects frequently face time crunches. By working with smaller-sized work packages, the risk of this can be mitigated.

Once these work packages are created, information about each package should be gathered. For my own WBS spreadsheet, this information includes:

• Project task: what the project task is, and the work it comprises.
• Time estimates: the time it will take for a developer or business consultant to complete the task. Testing may or may not be included.
• Resource constraints: what type of resource can do the work. I like to indicate a minimum level of competency for this task. For example, some tasks can be completed by a junior developer… someone straight out of college or new to the company. Other tasks will require a senior developer or a practiced systems architect to handle. By indicating the minimum level of skill required to take on a task, you can assign resources depending on your project team, and can also take into account changes to the project roster should they occur in the future.
• Resources: which resource or resources will do the work. This takes into account who is currently on the project team. This field may change in the future, which is why it is important to also know your resource constraints. Should your resource change in the future, you will be able to pick a new resource based on skill level found in the resource constraints. Remember to consult your project team before assigning work. I like to discuss upcoming project tasks with the team members who will eventually be completing them before finalizing an official WBS or project schedule.
• Project area: the high level box you would find on a graphical WBS. For example, infrastructure, or the name of the component or module the task belongs to.
• Predecessors: what work needs to be completed before work on this specific task can begin.
• Critical path: whether this work is or is not on the project’s critical path, meaning that if this task slips, the entire project runs a risk of slipping.
• Priority: it is handy to know what parts of a project are of greater priority than others. If changes need to be made to scope down the line, it is good to know which parts of the project are most likely to be pushed.
• Client involvement: to what degree will the client be involved with the task? This may require some added scope or time management, and these tasks may also be harder to move in the future should changes to the project schedule occur due to client resource constraints.
• Cost: I’ve left this last, but for most stakeholders, this is the most important information… how much is the project going to cost? Once you know what resources will be completing the project tasks and how long it will take them to complete these tasks, you can find out how much that individual task will cost (cost per day * days per task). With a completed WBS, you can add up the costs of the individual tasks to find the total cost for all of the tasks in the project. That plus any additional overhead will be the cost of the project, at least from a work perspective. You can also find a way to work any materials costs or other costs into the WBS if you choose.

Remember to make sure that your WBS comprises the entirety of the project scope according to the project plan. Anything that is not found in this WBS should be treated as scope creep once the project is underway.

Benefits of a comprehensive WBS

Once I’ve created my WBS spreadsheet, I receive two important benefits. The first is that I give myself a comprehensive view of the project. All of the important information (for the project manager or project directors, at least) about project tasks, resources, time estimates, and costs according to the project budget can be found in a single document. The second is that if you do this work right, another project manager can take your document and create a schedule out of it. Even with no knowledge of the project, another project manager should be able to step in and create a project schedule for your project, because your spreadsheet-based WBS has all the information needed about resources, predecessors, and the critical path to be able to create at least an initial schedule.

Using a resource modifier

As you become a more experienced project manager, you will start to notice some important things about your projects that most stakeholders don’t seem to think about. One of the most important things you will learn is that all resources are not created equal. Some people can complete tasks very quickly, and with great quality. Others are not as quick to complete tasks, need extra time to go over the work they’ve done once they’ve finished it, or need to be allocated more time to learn how to complete tasks as they work on them.

This is important because when you create a project schedule, you can’t simply swap out resources and expect the same result. For example, if you create a task for one of your senior architects to complete in five days, and during the project you find out that because that architect is going on maternity leave you have been assigned a new consultant from a different consulting company who does not have experience with your project, you can’t expect the new consultant to also be able to complete that task in five days! It might happen… but it likely won’t.

It is for this reason that I like to add modifiers to my resources. These modifiers take into account whether a project team member is quick, average, or slow, or if the team member is being mentored on the job or learning to complete tasks as they go. In this manner, when you assign a team member to a task, that modifier is taken into account… so for some people, a five day task may become a seven day task. You should also add a field that indicates whether or not you choose to use the modifier for that task, as some tasks will take a certain fixed amount of time to complete regardless of skill level.

Using modifiers like this can also help you to run scenarios on possible project team configurations. You can switch resources around and see if your changes will cause the project to take longer to complete or inflate the project budget.

Using the WBS on your project

Once the WBS is completed you can use it to complete the project schedule. You will have a tremendous understanding of the project scope, the tasks to be completed, and who can best complete them. You will know how long it will take to finish the project and how much it will cost. Furthermore, once the WBS is created, the project manager will no longer need to ask project team members for information about project tasks or how long they will take to complete… that information will be available to the project manager on the WBS so that the project manager can make decisions based on schedule and schedule impacts while leaving the project team members to themselves to complete their tasks. No project team member wants a project manager constantly hounding them with questions about the schedule while they’re being held to a deadline to finish their tasks. This is not to say that you shouldn’t ask project team members important questions when they arise; however, if you can, find out all this information before the actual project work begins so that you can minimize the amount of time you require from your project team members for administrative tasks.

As changes occur to the project scope, you can indicate these changes on the WBS, and work with the time estimates and available resources to see what impacts these changes will have. These changes can then be moved over to the project schedule. It is important to keep your WBS updated throughout the project; be sure to keep previous versions of the WBS handy so that you can look back and see how changes have impacted the project over time.

I hope that this has been a helpful introduction to Work Breakdown Structures. If you are a project manager with your own views to share about Work Breakdown Structures, I’d be happy to hear them, even if they contradict with my own views. It is by sharing our views and discussing our own experiences that we can learn and grow as professionals. Be sure to leave any questions or comments below. I appreciate it!

I frequently get asked questions about whether or not PMP certification is worth getting… I answer those questions on my post about the pros and cons of PMP certification. I’ve been a PMP certified project manager for a number of years now, and I have found that having the letters PMP behind my name has afforded me some great career opportunities and enhanced my credibility as a project professional.

The PMP is not an impossible certification to get… with careful preparation and diligent studying, the test is more than passable. However, it is not the test that I find most PMP wannabes have issues with… it’s the considerable amount of project management work experience that you need to have under your belt in order to apply to sit for the examination. First you need to earn the work experience; then, you need to record it for the PMP exam application. Many people find attaining those hours of project management experience difficult, especially considering that many employers require PMP certification of people before they give them the opportunity to manage projects.

Lately, I’ve been fielding questions about another certification that has been growing in popularity called the CAPM – the Certified Associate in Project Management. The CAPM does not require the project management work experience that the PMP does, and the multiple-choice test candidates must pass in order to become CAPM certified is not as difficult to pass as the PMP exam.

What is the CAPM?

The CAPM is the Project Management Institute (PMI)’s entry level certification for project managers or people who are interested in entering the field of project management. It is based on PMI’s project management framework as explained in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), in its fifth edition as of January, 2013.

The CAPM is a relatively new credential, introduced in 2003 (the PMP, on the other hand, was introduced in the United States in 1984). The CAPM exam features 150 multiple choice questions that must be completed in a three hour time period at a registered testing center (like Prometric in the United States).

If you are considering applying to get CAPM certified, you might be wondering whether or not it is worth the time, cost, and effort to do so. As I have already done for the PMP examination, I’ll outline a few of the pros and cons that I personally perceive about PMI’s CAPM certification.

CAPM certification pros and cons

The pros of CAPM certification

You do not need project management work experience to take the CAPM

In order to apply for the CAPM you do need to have certain qualifications; however, these qualifications are not as rigorous as those required in order to apply to take the PMP examination.

In order to qualify to take the CAPM, you must have:

A secondary diploma (high school or the global equivalent)

AND

At least 1,500 hours experience OR 23 hours of project management education.

As you can see, while the PMP requires that applicants have attained several thousand hours of professional project management work experience, the CAPM simply requires “experience”… to me, this seems to indicate that applicants only need to have some work experience under their belts before applying to take the exam. And not only that, if they don’t have that work experience, all they need to do to qualify for the CAPM is to have 23 hours of project management training. To apply, this would mean coursework or for-credit courses; self-study does not apply in this case.

The CAPM does not require post-secondary education

Not only do you not need to have experience leading and directing projects in order to apply for the CAPM, but you also do not need to have a college degree. While the PMP has different requirements for people with bachelors degrees or associates degrees, the CAPM does not – all you need to apply for the CAPM is a secondary education (high school or the equivalent). This means that people who are currently enrolled in college or university and want to have project management certification before they graduate so that they can start applying for jobs can get CAPM certified before graduation. This might help these individuals score entry-level project management jobs upon graduation.

The CAPM shows recruiters or current employers that you are dedicated to a career in project management

While CAPM certification does not show managers or recruiters that you have experience leading and directing projects as does the more powerful PMP certification, it does show that you have at least some degree of dedication to a career in project management. If you weren’t dedicated to the career, you wouldn’t go through the time and effort to apply and study for the CAPM exam, nor would you pay the costs associated with it.

Human resources professionals who know about the CAPM and what it stands for will realize that your being CAPM certified does not mean that you have experience managing a wide array of projects… but they’ll already be aware of that just by having gone through the work experience section of your resume or CV. However, seeing CAPM certification on your list of credentials will show them that you are genuinely interested in a career in project management and not simply applying to a project management job opportunity on a whim. This, coupled with a strong interview, can go a long way toward helping you secure a project management position or take on a role where managing projects or parts of projects will be in your job description.

Going through CAPM certification will help you gain knowledge of project management

While the CAPM exam is based solely on PMI’s framework as explained in the PMBOK, by going through the process of getting CAPM certified, you will gain some important knowledge about project management. While PMI’s processes do not represent the entirety of what it means to be a project manager, PMI’s framework does focus on some important aspects of the role. For example, PMI places great emphasis on sticking to processes, and PMI is also keen on breaking down a project into work packages and planning the effort associated with these work packages accordingly. I have found that placing emphasis on these facets of project management – ensuring that you adhere to proper procedure, and that you develop a strong Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) – can go a long way toward achieving project success.

This extra knowledge about project management can help you in a job interview, even if the subject of CAPM certification does not come up in discussion, and also even if you’re not applying for a job as a project manager! Knowing about proper project management processes and about how to manage time and effort are both valuable professional skills.

The CAPM exam is not a difficult exam

The PMP exam is often considered to be quite tricky. The multiple choice questions on the PMP exam have been designed to stump people who do not have experience in project management… these questions are designed to test both PMI’s project management framework and whether or not you have experience managing projects. The CAPM exam, on the other hand, is designed solely to test PMI’s project management framework. This means that if you study this framework, you will not have to worry about getting zinged by tricky questions that require project management experience to answer… you should be well-prepared for the exam.

By studying for the CAPM, you will also be studying for the PMP

If you study PMI’s framework to take the CAPM exam, you will also be studying the same framework that is needed to pass the more difficult PMP exam. In order to study for either exam, you will need to know PMI’s framework according to the PMBOK. This means that time and effort spent on studying for the CAPM will not be wasted if you also eventually want to become PMP certified.

The cons of CAPM certification

The CAPM is not as recognizable or as well-respected as the PMP

While many organizations have heard of PMP certification and what it stands for, not as many organizations have heard of the CAPM. While recruiters in companies that deal with project management may have heard of the credential, there is a good chance that non-human resources professionals in the organization will never have heard of it.

The CAPM is also not as well-respected as the PMP. The reason for this, I believe, is that those people who are aware of both of these certifications understand that if you had the work experience required to get PMP certified, you should always get PMP certified and not CAPM certified. Put another way, by telling someone you are CAPM certified, you are also telling them that you do not yet have the proper requirements to get PMP certified. Even if you don’t say this in words, it is understood.

I realize that this is probably not always the case… there are likely some professionals who have the requirements to get PMP certified who choose to get CAPM certified instead. But I would seriously question why anyone would choose to do this. I can think of no good reasons why you should ever get CAPM certified when you already have the requirements to undergo PMP certification.

The CAPM does not hold the same weight in industry as the PMP

In tandem with the fact that the CAPM credential is less respected than the PMP, the CAPM also does not hold the same weight as the PMP in industry. The PMP, in the domain of Information Technology (IT) especially, is sought after, and many jobs require PMP certification of candidates who wish to take on roles as project managers. The CAPM does not have this sort of weight… for those jobs that require PMP certification, the CAPM is not good enough; you sill won’t be able to apply for those jobs.

Recruiters seeing the CAPM credential on your resume won’t give it the weight that they would give the PMP if they saw it there instead. They might give it some weight if they were deciding upon whether or not to give you a chance at managing projects due to your interest and having gone through some study on the subject, but it won’t help you get jobs to the same extent that having the PMP would.

For this same reason, CAPM certification is probably not useful outside of the domain of Information Technology. If you’re in construction, sales, or industrial engineering, for example, the chances of recruiters or hiring managers having heard of CAPM certification drop significantly.

The CAPM does take some effort to study for

While the CAPM exam is certainly not as difficult to pass as the PMP exam, it does take time and effort to study for. In order to pass the multiple-choice test for the CAPM you will need to understand PMI’s project management framework. PMI’s framework consists of five process groups – initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling, and closing – within which are numerous interlinked processes. In order to study for the CAPM exam you will need to know these processes (their inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs) and understand how the outputs for certain processes become inputs for other processes.

When I was preparing for the PMP examination, I found that Rita Mulcahy’s PMP exam prep book was the most effective study guide of the bunch. The questions posed in her book were quite comprehensive, and the level of difficulty of the questions posed in the book most matched the level of difficulty of the questions I found when I went to sit for the PMP examination. Rita’s company also has a guide available for people studying for the CAPM, and while I have not personally undergone CAPM examination (it did not exist when I was a novice program manager), I’m quite sure it is equally as effective as the PMP exam prep study guide. If you’re interested in a comprehensive way to study for the PMP exam, I would recommend studying both the PMBOK and Rita’s CAPM Exam Prep book.

The CAPM is expensive considering it is not a powerful certification

According to PMI’s CAPM Handbook, the computer-based training (CBT) test for the CAPM costs $225 USD for PMI members and $300 USD for non-PMI members. This is a fair amount of money considering the CAPM is not an especially weighty credential. You might also have to pay to renew your CAPM certification in five years (though hopefully by that time you’ll already have your PMP, at which point there will be no reason to renew your CAPM certification).

There are other certification options available for new project managers

If you do not have the work experience to attain PMP certification, that certainly does not mean “it’s the CAPM or nothing”. There are numerous other options available to you if you are interested in learning about project management. In fact, many people believe PMI’s framework, which is based on the waterfall methodology of project management, is quite dated and not as effective as other current project management frameworks.

One such option is ScrumMaster certification, where you will learn about Agile Development using Scrum. Agile is a very popular methodology where projects are completed in iterations. Agile has an agreed-upon Agile Manifesto to which Agile project management principles are based. I have used this project management methodology myself and found it both effective and scalable.

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of practices for IT Service Management (ITSM) that offers a wide range of certifications. While these certifications are currently more popular for practitioners in the United Kingdom than they are in the United States or other parts of the world, they are also worth investigating if you are interested in a career in information technology.

Finally, there are other options available for you to get project management training that might help you to secure a project management job. For example, you might take a project management course at a college or university, or work part-time on a Masters in Project Management. This sort of education will help you learn all about different project management methodologies, and will also help you on a resume even after you eventually do get PMP certified. The CAPM, on the other hand, becomes virtually useless once you have your PMP – there is no reason to list both these certifications on your resume, as the PMP effectively overrides the CAPM.

Is it worth getting CAPM certified?

I have outlined some of the positives and negatives toward getting CAPM certified, so now it is time for my personal recommendation as to whether or not it is worth undergoing the process.

In my opinion, CAPM certification is not worth getting if you have the means to eventually get PMP certified without it. That is to say that if you already have a way that you can get those 4,500 hours of professional experience leading and directing projects that you need in order to take the PMP exam, you should wait until you have that experience, then go for your PMP. There is no reason to get the CAPM if you can see a clear path toward getting your PMP.

If, on the other hand, you are encountering difficulties getting project management work experience and don’t see a clear path to getting PMP certified, you might consider the CAPM. Getting CAPM certified will help you to learn about project management and may convince recruiters or managers to give you the opportunity to manage some projects. Plus, the knowledge you learn while studying for the CAPM will also help you when you finally do have what it takes to apply for the PMP exam, so the time you spend studying for the CAPM certification will not be time wasted.

As I have never personally undergone CAPM certification, I would appreciate any feedback on the pros and cons in this post, and if there are any other points that I haven’t made for or against the credential. Please let me know in the comments if you can think of any. And if you are someone who is reading this post that does decide to go for your CAPM certification, let me be the first to wish you the best of luck!

Among other things, this reading stressed the importance of habits in human life. Without habits that we can rely on day after day, even simple tasks like making lunch or getting ready for bed would seem confusing or even life-threatening. With a little bit of initial effort, however, we can form useful habits that, after being formed, can enrich our lives and help us to dedicate our mental energies on matters more pressing than simple daily living.

Incorporating good habits into our daily lives

I’ve always been interested in good health and proper nutrition, so over time I’ve experimented with different changes in my diet and exercise regimen, including vegan, vegetarian, paleo, and gluten free diets. What I discovered from trying those diets is not the focus of this post, though I’d be glad to discuss health and nutrition with anyone who is interested. The focus of this post is how I incorporated those changes into my life over time.

I found that making an initial change is difficult. Take adopting a gluten-free diet, for example. If you’re going to cut gluten out of your diet – this includes items like wheat bread, pasta, noodles, pastries and much more – you may initially find it very hard to do. Your body is expecting gluten, because you’ve been eating it every day in your sandwiches, cookies, crackers, cakes, and breakfast cereal. It’s such a huge part of your life that the thought of cutting it out may seem preposterous. How could one possibly live without eating any of those things? Surely you’d starve!

Those initial few days are hard. You have to work to seek out substitutes for the things you’d usually eat, and discover new dishes to prepare that don’t contain gluten. You need to step out of your comfort zone to try new dishes – plant-based dishes like fruit and vegetable medleys, for example – that may not be what you’re used to. At first you might not like the taste of these dishes, for several reasons – for one, your body is not used to eating them, and for another, you’ve never cooked them before, so you may not yet be very good at it!

But after a few days, your body starts to change. The habit of not eating gluten becomes your reality. You find that you’ve become adept at creating gluten-free dishes, and your body comes to expect gluten-free nutrition every day. After a while, the thought of eating gluten is the thought that seems strange to you. Would your body be able to digest the gluten? Wouldn’t eating that big hunk of bread or piece of cake make you feel bloated or stuffed?

And there are many other changes that you can make to your lifestyle that will seem difficult at first, but will quickly become habits. Exercise is one. If you’ve been sitting on the couch every evening for the past several months watching TV, your body is not going to want to get up and go running around the block a few times. The thought seems alien to the sedentary lifestyle that your body has become accustomed to. But if you start going running every day at, say, 4:00 PM, after a little while, when 3:45 PM starts rolling around, your body is going to be in the mood to go and get some exercise. In fact, if you don’t go running, that’s when your body will start to feel strange.

Changing your habits to be more productive at work

If you’re working as a professional, there are many ways that you can incorporate daily habits into your working life. If you find that you often don’t arrive to work on time, or feel groggy and unfocused when you do arrive at the office, you can make a habit out of waking up early or eating something lighter and more nutritious for breakfast every day. If you find that you are unorganized, you can make a habit of taking 15 minutes each morning to take stock of your day and figure out what tasks you need to accomplish and when they should be done by. If you feel you’re not productive enough, you can make a habit of not checking your email for stretches of an hour or two each morning and afternoon, or of not checking Facebook or Twitter until lunchtime. You can also unbreak bad habits… if you are in the habit of checking Facebook every 10 or 15 minutes, it will be hard for you to get any work done throughout the day, as your mind and body will continually want to switch into “play mode” after only a few minutes of work.

Making habits to achieve personal goals

Creating effective habits is also a great way to achieve your dreams. For example, if you’re a project manager who is interested in getting PMP certified (a frequently discussed topic on this blog), creating habits around a study schedule is a terrific way to get there. When you first look at all of the steps needed to become a PMP certified project manager – gathering work experience, applying to take the examination, and then studying and mastering PMI’s project management framework – it can be rather daunting. But if you make a habit of spending half an hour every day preparing for the exam, after a few weeks have passed, you’ll be well on your way. If you study for only half an hour a day, after two months you will have studied for 30 hours! After half a year – 90 full hours of study! With this sort of preparation you’ll be well set to sit for the examination.

There are lots of other personal goals you can accomplish by applying daily habits. Writing a book, learning a computer programming language, mastering a musical instrument, trying out new recipes, volunteering to help others, or understanding more about your spirituality and self are some examples that come immediately to mind. If there’s something that interests you, sit down and figure out how and when you can incorporate it into your daily routine. When that time rolls around every day, ignore your body’s desire to do what you’ve always done instead. Force yourself to create the habit, and eventually it will become a comfortable part of your lifestyle.

Sticking to the habit

Remember that making habits is going to be frustrating for the first few days or weeks. Your mind might want to make a change, eager to get and stay healthy or to achieve personal or professional goals, but your body is perfectly happy doing what it’s been doing comfortably for the past several months, years, or even decades. In order to change your “body’s mind” you’re going to have to work hard, and it’s going to be very frustrating and seem unnatural at first. Just stick with it, and eventually those habits will become second nature. When that happens, it will be easy to stay on the path toward a better you.

I hope that you’ve found this post at least somewhat informative! If you have any habits that you’ve adopted that you’d like to share with me, I’d be pleased to hear about them. Good luck!

4,500 hours (36 months) of professional work experience leading and directing projects if you have a bachelor’s degree, or,

7,500 hours of work experience (60 months) of professional work experience leading and directing projects if you have an associate’s degree.

Some people find there is a bit of a Catch-22 when it comes to getting project management experience to take the PMP exam. On one hand, you need to amass this project management experience in order to apply to take the test. But on the other hand, many project management jobs require that applicants be PMP certified project managers before they are even considered for the role. So how do you go about getting project management experience to apply to take the PMP exam if you are not already a PMP credential holder?

Here are a few ideas:

Get a job as a project manager without a PMP

Even without PMP certification, it is possible to get a job as a project manager. Some project manager jobs do not require certification; find those, and give it your best shot landing one of those jobs.

Smaller companies may be more open to hiring someone without a great deal of project experience if they show that they are an intelligent, positive, and hard-working candidate. Startups and similar small companies will be more likely to hire non-PMPs than might government or military organizations, where long lists of credentials and industry work experience are highly valued.

Work some project management experience into your current job

If you’re working as an engineer, software developer, quality assurance analyst, or some other technical profession, it might not be too difficult to get some On-the-Job Training (OJT) in project management. Volunteer to manage small projects for your organization, or ask to serve as an assistant or associate project manager.

You might also speak to your manager or human resources department about project management mentoring; if you can shadow an experienced mentor, you can learn a great deal about leading and directing projects. In turn, you can take some of your mentor’s workload away from him or her, which will likely be appreciated – project managers usually have a lot to do!

Finally, you can work as a team lead in your current position. While being a team lead might not equate to actual project management experience, you will still be managing people, timelines, and potentially budgets, which will be great experience that you can put on a resume and later talk to recruiters about when it comes to applying to project management jobs.

Be a member of a project team

Even just working on a project team can be quality experience for a future project management career. Technical experience is very important for project managers; in fact, I find that engineers, developers, and other technical employees make some of the best project managers. Getting quality experience as a technical member of a project team will, in my opinion, make you a much better project manager than someone who does not have a technical background or experience working on a multitude of different types of projects.

While you are working on projects, keep track of how the projects are going, and of what PMI process groups you are working in – initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling, and closing. Knowing what areas of the project you’ve been working on will help you to “talk the talk” when it comes to applying for project management roles.

Get involved with your PMO

An company’s Project Management Office (PMO) offers project governance, advice, and templates for the entire organization. If you’re working in a company that has a PMO, why not step up to help out with some of this governance? This will give you a broad degree of project experience, and will show you what methods are used to manage projects in your company. And if your company doesn’t have a PMO, you might speak with your manager about getting involved in starting one up. Your company might appreciate someone who can serve as a central point of contact for project management information.

Take some project management courses

If you have the time and energy to do it, you might seek out some project management education. In order to get PMP certified, you will need 35 contact hours of project management education, so you will need to get it at some point! Why not get it sooner rather than later?

There are plenty of courses, both online and offline, that offer project management training, and if you are serious about being a project manager, you might consider getting a Masters degree in Project Management. While this still does not equate to project management work experience, having such a degree will certainly give you a leg-up against candidates who have not had any formal project management training.

Get CAPM certified

If you don’t have enough professional project management experience to get PMP certified, you might consider getting CAPM certified. CAPM stands for Certified Associate in Project Management, and it is designed for people who are interested in becoming project managers and are just getting started with their project management careers. You do not need to have any professional work experience to earn the CAPM credential; the test is based on PMI’s framework, as is the PMP, though the CAPM test is not as rigorous as is the one for the PMP.

As I believe that the PMP is a much more respected certification, I am not normally an advocate of CAPM certification. However, if you are having a lot of trouble finding a project management job without the PMP, perhaps the CAPM can help you to demonstrate to recruiters or the people in your human resources department that you are serious about becoming a project manager. Plus, by going through CAPM certification, you will learn about PMI’s project management framework, which is something you will need to know anyway if you do plan to eventually take the PMP exam. I’ve written a post about the pros and cons of getting CAPM certified here that you can check out to see if CAPM certification might be right for you.

Another option you might choose is to undergo a different, non-PMI certification. The two that spring to mind are the ScrumMaster and ITIL Foundation certifications. Agile Development using Scrum is very popular these days, and by undergoing an Agile certification you will learn how to manage iterative development projects using Scrum. Meanwhile, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a British certification focusing on IT Service Management (ITSM) that is popular and respected, in the United Kingdom especially, but also in Canada and the United States.

Stay positive

My final piece of advice is… stay positive! When you’re walking into an interview, don’t focus on your lack of project management work experience, and any potential negatives that being inexperienced entails. Focus on the positives, and on all of the great things that you can do. Even if you don’t have professional project management experience, you probably have managed projects at school, as a volunteer, or even in a club or at church. Prove to your recruiter that you are an accomplished problem-solver, a team player, and a dedicated worker. If you can give recruiters a glimpse of the amazing project manager that you will one day become, they might decide to take you on to help you begin your journey.

Good luck!

For one particular project, I managed a team of people who were working in one country for a project that was located in a different country on another continent. Meanwhile, I was living and working in a completely different country on a third continent! In all, including client stakeholders and peripheral Support and Services project team members from my company, this team had members located in six countries on three different continents. It took a lot of effort to manage communication among the members of this team, and through the process of doing so I came up with a few tips on how to improve communication with your team members when team members are working remotely.

1. Schedule meetings to maximize member involvement

Team meetings are important. But when you’re working with an international team, team meetings can be a challenge to schedule and facilitate.

It is quite common for project team members to work from a variety of different locations… you might have team members in the United States, Canada, Germany, and India all working on the same project. Of course, the people living in these countries work different hours from the people living in others, so getting everybody together to hold a discussion can be a challenge. Most meetings you hold will take place over an international conference line; I previously covered some of the tips you can use to improve your international conference calls in this post.

When scheduling project meetings, make sure that you either pick a time that works well for everyone, or alternate meeting times so that it is not always the same person or group of people having to attend meetings very late in the evenings or early in the mornings. One week, you might hold a meeting very early in the day in the United States, but at a reasonable hour in the afternoon for your partners in India; the next week you might schedule your meeting later in the morning in the United States, but during the evening in India. Make sure that all project team members understand the reasons for attending the meetings you are holding. This will maximize member involvement and keep team members feeling valued.

2. Ensure team meetings are timely and efficient

Whether you are conducting meetings over the phone, over a video conferencing system, or using Voice Over IP (VOIP), make sure that your meetings are timely and effective. There are several ways to achieve this:

• Start your meetings on time and end your meetings on time, and make sure that members are committed to joining the meeting at the appropriate time. In some countries, it is completely acceptable to arrive at meetings ten to fifteen minutes late… but in other countries, this behavior is seen as showing a lack of commitment and respect. Remote team members should understand the rules of your meetings and how they will be followed.
• Distribute a meeting agenda so that all invited attendees know what the topics the meeting will comprise. A strong agenda will help to keep the meeting moving along, and will also help busy people prioritize their daily schedules.
• Stay focused during the meeting. Don’t let individual issues or conflicts take over the meeting, swing it off track, and prolong things for everyone. If there are any important issues that should not be discussed during a team meeting, table those issues and schedule follow-up calls for the appropriate parties afterward.
• Send meeting minutes to team members after the meeting so that everyone understands what was said during the meeting and why, and so that absentees can catch up on the material that was discussed during the meeting. Keep minutes to the summary level unless more detail is appropriate; bullet point lists are often most effective for meeting minutes.
• Realize that daily project team meetings may not be possible. Agile Development using Scrum emphasizes daily scrum team stand-up meetings. However, if you have team members in, say, India, the Netherlands, Canada, and Australia, daily stand-up meetings among scrum team members may not be feasible. In this case, make sure that you meet as often as is required; alternatively, think about spinning off smaller teams with different product backlogs in different locations or continents, or holding daily stand-up meetings at different times in different locations for team members who are living and working in those places.

3. Communicate with team members individually when possible

While project team meetings are an important focus for project communication, constant dialogue among individual team members is also critical. Make sure that you schedule one-on-one meetings with your team members periodically to understand their progress with project tasks and to make sure that they are enabled, comfortable, and receiving whatever information they need from you, the client, and the rest of the project team in order to get their work completed on time. Also ensure that project team members are comfortable contacting each other to communicate, and that you don’t end up playing the middleman for all team discussions.

4. Use instant messaging services

Tools like AIM, Google Talk, XMPP, and in-house communication systems make it easy to share messages, files, and other project information with team members throughout the globe. Take advantage of these services to chat with team members without having to pick up a phone or initiate a video conference… these services are easy to use and very effective. Most instant messaging software includes the ability to start impromptu group chats with other team members, so one-on-one chats can grow to become larger project discussions if necessary. Don’t be afraid to turn off your instant messaging service if you need to get work done… sometimes, all those little windows popping up on your screen can be distracting!

5. Remember that you have a life

When you’re working with team members from across the globe, you’ll find that people will be looking for chunks of your time at all hours of the day and night. While it’s important to be there for your team and to work hard to ensure that project tasks are completed on time and on budget, it’s also crucial to remember that you’re just one project manager, and that your personal life, family, and health are key to your productivity and job satisfaction. If you’re stressed out and sick, you won’t be a very effective project manager! Take time to exercise, eat right, and stay healthy, and dedicate your free time to your family, your friends, your community, and yourself.

I hope you found these tips helpful. If you are working with team members from all over the world, I hope you are enjoying your experiences and learning new things about different people and places every day! If you have any tips or stories of your own to share about working with international teams, I would appreciate hearing about them in the comments.

I myself am both PMP and ScrumMaster Certified, and the short answer that I give is that I believe they are both worth getting. If you’re going to be managing projects for a wide variety of companies and clients, it’s in your best interest to know and understand a wide variety of project management frameworks that you can apply in different situations. I’ve worked on projects suited to Agile methodologies, projects suited to waterfall methodologies, and projects that have benefited from a combination of different approaches. The deeper your knowledge of different approaches, the better you and your team will be suited to tackle a wide range of problems.

That said, it can’t hurt for me to explain a little bit about the differences between the two approaches, and take a closer look at some of the trends in the popularity of each framework.

Waterfall vs. Agile methodologies

PMI’s framework is based on a waterfall methodology, while the ScrumMaster Certification is based on Agile. Both of these methodologies comprise very different approaches to software development.

Here’s a short summary of some key differences between waterfall and Agile methodologies:

Waterfall methodologies

• Waterfall methodologies feature distinct planning, development, and testing phases
• Software development projects are heavily planned during the planning stage, where little to no code is completed
• During the build (development, or execution) phase, the product of the project is built
• Any changes to product design are normally handled by change requests to the original project plan
• After the build phase is completed, products are tested during a comprehensive testing phase. Clients (or customers) do not normally receive the finished product until all work on the project has been completed and delivered

Agile methodologies

• Agile methodologies feature iterative development phases
• Product features are gathered and prioritized in a backlog of features
• Scrum teams take on development of product features during sprints, where they are designed, constructed, and tested – normally during a two-week period
• After the sprint, features emerge as deliverable product
• Clients are presented completed features from an individual sprint during a sprint demo
• Product changes may not take place during sprints, but they are accepted at any other time, so products are constructed organically

The tale of the trends

So which framework is more popular, and which one should you consider getting certified in?

Let’s take a look at the tale of the trends, thanks to Google Trends. This is not the most scientific approach to be sure, but looking at Google Trends is an easy way to see what people are interested in over time.

PMP vs. Agile

First, let’s compare the general search terms “PMP” and “Agile”.

Click to enlarge the graphic. Here you can see that searches for PMP appear to have peaked at some point in 2008, and have recently declined. Meanwhile, searches for Agile, while spiking in late 2009, are generally trending upwards.

Note that this does comparison not take into account that people might be searching for PMP or Agile for reasons other than interest in project management methodologies – but I still found this chart quite interesting.

PMP Certification vs. ScrumMaster

The two most popular certifications for waterfall and Agile methodologies are the PMP and ScrumMaster certifications. Since you can search for ScrumMaster in different ways (ScrumMaster Certification, Certified ScrumMaster, and so on), I used “ScrumMaster” as the search term to compare with “PMP Certification”. Here are the results:

Click to enlarge the graphic. You can see here that while ScrumMaster searches are trending upward, there are many more searches for PMP Certification. And I wouldn’t say that searches for ScrumMaster are skyrocketing – they appear to be relatively level. One interesting search that you might try yourself is a search comparing “ScrumMaster” and “PMI-ACP”, PMI’s own, and relatively new, Agile certification. I’d be glad to hear your opinions on that comparison in the comments section of this post.

Which project management certification is best?

It does seem to me that interest in PMP certification is level, or perhaps even waning, while interest in Agile methodologies is growing – though interest in the most popular Agile certification, Certified ScrumMaster, does not appear to be “taking off” as much as I had originally thought it might be. Remember, this is a very simple analysis using Google Trends, so I may be way off the mark here – please be sure to tell me if I am! I’d be interested in seeing any data or opinions contrary to what I’ve explored here. I should note that I have noticed that PMP certification appears to be growing in popularity in India… I get a lot of questions from Indian professionals, especially software engineers and test engineers, who are interested in becoming project managers and getting PMP certified.

I still haven’t answered the question “which certification is best”… a lot of factors go into making this decision, and it turns out that one certification may be best for some, while the other certification may be better for others. It seems to me that PMP certification is more powerful if you’re interested in applying for a job as a project manager – many recruiters require PMP certification of their project managers – while Agile certification is important if you’re working for an iterative software development shop, or want to learn about a methodology that is slowly but steadily gaining in popularity. In my opinion, Agile methodologies will see even more recognition in the future while interest in waterfall methodologies will continue to wane.

As I mentioned above, I personally recommend getting both credentials. In fact, I make it my own mission to continue to improve myself both personally and professionally however I can, whenever I can, and education is one of the surest ways of doing this. Whichever path you choose to pursue, best of luck to you!

Applying for the PMP examination

One of the most frequent (if not the most frequent) questions I am asked by potential PMP hopefuls is about the PMP examination application process. In particular, project managers would like to know how they should go about filing their work experience: how to document their hours of project management experience, how to report it to PMI, and how to prepare for the dreaded PMI audit, should it occur.

I followed a process of my own devising to file my own project management work experience in preparation for my application to take the PMP exam that seemed to work pretty well. I’ll share it here in case you would like to try it during your own application process, and I’ll include a template for you to use to record your own project management hours in case you haven’t already created one yourself.

Recording your project management work experience

In order to apply for the PMP examination, you need to have amassed 4,500 hours of project management work experience. If you do not have a bachelor’s degree, the work experience requirement is greater at 7,500 hours of experience. You need to have completed 36 months (three years) of unique, non-overlapping project management experience… that is to say that if you’ve completed all of your 4,500 hours of project management experience within a 12 month window, that is not sufficient to apply to take the PMP examination.

For each project that you have worked on during your career, you need to document the hours you have spent in each of the five PMI Process Groups. These groups are:

• Initiating the Project
• Planning the Project
• Executing the Project
• Monitoring and Controlling the Project
• Closing the Project

After calculating the hours per Process Group for each project, you will arrive at a total number of project hours for that individual project. Once you have completed tallying your work experience for all of the projects you have worked on, you can then figure out the total hours that you have worked for all of the projects in your career. At this point, if you don’t already know, you will be able to figure out whether or not you have the requirements to apply to take the PMP examination.

To figure this total out, I used an Excel spreadsheet that tallied up all of my hours of work experience per Process Group, per project, that I had worked on in my previous roles. I then used built-in Excel functions to figure out how many hours total that equaled. I have included a template like the one I used back then with this post, in case you’d like to use it to tally your own project management work experience.

You can download the template here.

Preparing for a possible PMI audit

The next and perhaps most important step you need to take before you submit your PMP application is to prepare yourself in case your application should get audited by the Project Management Institute. In order to do this, you will want to contact those managers who you have worked for in the past and send them the hours that you have indicated that you worked on projects while under their management in your Excel spreadsheet. You will then ask these managers: Should my application happen to get audited by PMI, will you attest that I worked the hours that I have indicated I worked on this spreadsheet?

If your managers agree to vouch for the hours you have indicated, then you’re in good shape! Should PMI decide to audit your application, you can simply have your former managers sign off on the hours that you have already passed by them. Any conflicts or disagreements about the hours you have worked while in their employ should have been resolved before you submitted your PMP application.

Special cases

There are a few difficult scenarios that you may encounter when preparing for a possible PMI audit. These include:

• What if your manager no longer works for the company you’ve filed hours for, and nobody at the company can vouch for your hours?
• What if you worked for your own company and did not report to anyone?
• What if the projects you worked on were top secret, government or military contracts for which you cannot disclose any information?

In these cases I recommend collecting as much collateral as you can about the projects you’ve worked for in the past – project charters, work breakdown structures, project schedules and the like – to demonstrate to PMI should they ask for it; unless, of course, this information is classified by the companies you’ve worked for. In that case, I would go in armed with the truth – that there are hours that you have indicated you have worked but cannot vouch for, and the reasons that you cannot vouch for them. I am sure that PMI has received many applications from project managers working in military or top-secret organizations who cannot disclose information about the various projects that they have worked on. In that case, I imagine that you can work with PMI to find a way to approve your application without your having to deliver any separate artifacts to prove your experience.

I hope that this article and accompanying spreadsheet come in handy when it comes time for you or someone you know to file your project management work experience for the PMP application. Good luck with your application, good luck with your PMP exam preparation, and good luck on the exam!

Even outside the field of project management, the PMP examination has an almost mythical status – many people that I’ve talked to who work in Information Technology or other project management-heavy fields have heard from friends or co-workers about the many challenges involved with applying to, studying for and taking the PMP examination – but don’t worry; in reality, it really isn’t all that difficult!

While it is indeed a worthy challenge to pass the PMP exam, with some hard work and proper preparation it is an achievable goal. Below are the methods that I used to prepare for and pass the PMP exam on my first attempt.

1. Study a variety of different sources

While preparing for the PMP examination, I consulted a variety of different sources. Below are three of the texts that I personally studied during my PMP exam preparation time; I’m not indicating that these are necessarily the best PMP references by any means – I do not have enough familiarity with the other PMP resources to be able to make that call. What I can tell you is that they seemed to work well for me.

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

The Project Management Body of Knowledge, or PMBOK (pronounced pimbok), is the official source of information for the project management framework managed by the Project Management Institute (PMI). As the PMP examination is based on the information contained in this book, the PMBOK is an essential read when studying for the PMP exam.

Unfortunately, the Project Management Body of Knowledge is rather dry… you might need to down a few coffees during study sessions with this weighty textbook. Also, although the various process groups and knowledge areas are each explained in full detail in the book (with process inputs, outputs, and tools and techniques clearly identified where applicable), PMI’s illustrations of important process flows can be somewhat hard to figure out, and the book is laid out more like a reference manual (its primary purpose) than a teaching tool.

The PMBOK also does not cover all of the information that you will need to learn to pass the PMP exam; some concepts that are tested in the PMP examination (ethics being one) are not covered in detail in the PMBOK. As such, in order to study properly for the exam, you’ll need to consult secondary sources.

The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try by Andy Crowe

The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try by Andy Crowe of Velociteach is a good, basic introduction to the PMI process areas and knowledge groups. In this book Andy lays out the PMI processes in an easy-to-understand manner, and the way he presents the logical flow of the combined processes is more comprehensible than the manner used in the PMBOK.

Andy’s book also features a variety of practice exam questions; however, I found them to be relatively simple, and not up to the level of difficulty that is found on the actual PMP exam. As such, if you find that you are acing the questions in this book, do not assume that you will perform similarly well on the actual examination.

PMP Exam Prep by Rita Mulcahy

PMP Exam Prep: Eighth Edition by the late Rita Mulcahy is probably the best known of all PMP exam preparation textbooks. Rita goes into a great deal of detail when describing the various processes found within the PMI framework. In fact, one of the drawbacks to this book is that it is extremely wordy (and at times perhaps even a bit preachy), and will take you a long time to study. However, the time spent studying this book is time well spent, as Rita will bring to you a thorough understanding of what the PMP exam is all about. She also introduces the concept of PMI-isms; areas that PMI exam creators tend to focus on when creating PMP examination questions that you should understand and focus on when studying for the PMP exam.

Whereas Andy Crowe’s book’s questions are much simpler than those found in the actual PMP exam, Rita’s book features many challenging sample questions that are comparable to those you might find on the exam itself. As such, to get a good idea of what the PMP exam questions will be like when you are taking the actual examination, this is a good book to consult.

Studying all three sources

If I were to study all three of these books in preparation for the PMP examination (which in fact I did), I would recommend that you study them in the following order:

• First: The PMP Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try (a solid introduction to PMI’s framework)
• Second: The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) (a must-read that you might find be easier to digest after perusing Andy Crowe’s book)
• Third: PMP Exam Prep (for a comprehensive understanding of the material, featuring realistic example examination questions)

2. Memorize the PMI processes and Earned Value formulas

Each of PMI’s processes contain one or more of the following:

• Inputs
• Tools and Techniques
• Outputs

These are often referred to as the PMI ITTO (or ITTOs), and if you’re studying for the PMP exam, you will likely spend a great deal of time poring over these. You will discover that some processes are inputs for some processes and outputs for other processes; other processes do not seem to fit together with the rest of the processes very well, and need to be understood as somewhat separate from the others. Confusing, yes – but much easier to understand if you diagram the PMI process flows.

While preparing for the PMP examination I used rote memorization to get two pages’ worth of important information into my head. The first page showed a flowchart of the PMI processes, with arrows indicating how one process might be an output for another process, and an input for a third. The second page had a list of the important Earned Value formulas that you will need to know for the PMP exam: PERT, Cost and Schedule Variance, Net Present Value, and the To Complete Performance Index, among others.

On exam day, when I arrived at the Prometric testing center and sat down beside the computer terminal to take the PMP exam, the first thing I did was write out all of the PMP process flows and important Earned Value formulas onto a blank piece of paper (both blank paper and pencils were provided to by the Prometric testing staff). This is a perfectly legal and in fact recommended way to approach taking the PMP exam – perform a brain dump of all the important information you’re going to need to know for the exam right as the exam starts, and then consult this brain dump throughout the examination. I highly recommend this approach!

3. Answer as many sample exam questions as possible

The PMP examination is a standardized test, and therefore you should familiarize yourself with how to approach it and the sorts of questions it will contain. The best way to do this is to answer a whole bunch of sample questions that are comparable to the questions you will face when you take the actual exam.

Most PMP exam preparation books (and courses) provide sample questions for you to answer; some books provide more realistic questions than others. Even if you only study one or two PMP exam preparation books thoroughly, it’s not a bad idea to hit your local library or bookstore, take a variety of PMP exam prep books off the shelf, and answer a selection of sample questions from each one. Doing this will give you an understanding of how prepared you are for the actual PMP examination, and will show you in which areas you may be lacking knowledge and should allocate further study time.

Is it necessary to take a PMP exam preparation course?

A lot of people may tell you that it’s important to take a PMP certification course before you sit for the PMP exam, and in fact a great many people use a PMP certification boot camp course as their required education hours when applying to take the exam. I personally do not believe that a PMP boot camp course is necessary for passing the PMP exam; my own project management education hours that I used to prove eligibility for the PMP exam came from project management education outside of the realm of PMI’s framework. I found that by studying textbooks and diagramming process flows to come to a thorough understanding of the PMI process groups and knowledge areas, and by taking a series of practice examinations, it was relatively easy for me to pass the test itself.

All that being said, if you’re the sort of person that learns best by taking courses in a classroom setting, you should certainly look into taking a PMP exam prep course. Also note that you do have to have 35 hours of formal project management education in order to apply to take the PMP exam; it just doesn’t necessarily have to be in the form of a course teaching PMI-related project management material.

Preparing for the PMP exam

I hope that I’ve given you some good advice for how to prepare for – and pass! – the PMP examination. If you have any further questions about the test itself or about how to succeed on it, please let me know. I’d be glad to offer whatever advice I can.

We’re currently living in Normandy, France, a region that houses a lot of British ex-patriates. As such, the British community commonly gets together to celebrate British special occasions, and Shrove Tuesday is one of those days. For Shrove Tuesday the group got together in a well-known park and had a Pancake Day celebration. The highlight of the day was the series of pancake races. In a pancake race, contestants line up along the starting line with a frying pan in hand, a cooked pancake inside of it. When the race starts the contestants must race from the starting line to the finish line, all the while flipping the pancake up into the air and catching it in the frying pan. If you dropped your pancake you had to pick it up and keep running. It was a fun and crazy race!

Afterward the group congregated at a nearby pub and had pancakes (or crêpes) with powdered sugar and lemon on top, as well as buttered scones with jam and hot tea. In all it was a very British afternoon, which was a fun cultural experience for me and my family.

One thing that haven’t noticed much of is project management information on Pinterest. Searching for “project management”, “PMI” or “PMP” reveals very few pins and very few boards. It appears (just by browsing the site) that, as of February of 2012, the majority of users on Pinterest are women, and that the majority of posts are about clothes, fashion, food and education. So far it has been difficult to find project managers or other professionals interested in PMI or Agile methodologies on the service.

As such, I’ve set up a PMP Certification Pinterest board that I hope can become a collaborative board to share information about Project Management Professional certification, the PMP exam, and other PMI-related information of interest to project managers. I’m not sure how to advertise boards (I’m relatively new to the service) but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find like-minded project managers who are interested in sharing information about project management online.

If you’re a project manager and you’re already sharing project management research, blog posts or other information on Pinterest, please let me know! I’d be glad to link up with you and help forward the profession on Pinterest.

We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.

Kent Beck   James Grenning   Robert C. Martin
Mike Beedle   Jim Highsmith    Steve Mellor
Arie van Bennekum    Andrew Hunt   Ken Schwaber
Alistair Cockburn   Ron Jeffries   Jeff Sutherland
Ward Cunningham   Jon Kern   Dave Thom
Martin Fowler   Brian Marick

© 2001, the above authors
this declaration may be freely copied in any form,
but only in its entirety through this notice.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

While processes and tools are great, a lot of development outfits tend to overemphasize the processes and tools. Put your development into the hands of individuals and allow them to interact to get the software done. Ask your development team what they think of the project in question, how they should get it done, and how much they believe they will be able to get completed in bite-sized chunks (sprints). Then, allow them to use the processes and tools that they find most effective to completing the job.

Working software over comprehensive documentation

A lot of companies tend to over-document before even touching a line of code. The Agile Manifesto indicates that it’s better to create working prototypes of software rather than to over-document before hand. In this manner the needs of the user will come out over time – before the code base of a project has been developed to such an extent that it is too late to make changes to the infrastructure.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Instead of having an us-versus-them process of negotiating the finer points of a wordy contract, a development effort should be a collaborative effort between the developing organization and the client. Agile favors the discovery of the “final needs” over time, by developing working prototypes of software programs, over demanding that the client has a complete 100% understanding of their needs before a line of code is written. The customer and the developers should work together to come up with the right software to meet the client’s needs.

Responding to change over following a plan

Microsoft Project is a great tool for creating huge, complicated waterfall project schedules. However, Project may not be the best tool to use in an Agile Development software project. Agile projects need to be able to adapt to change, and therefore should not be planned out to the letter months in advance in a waterfall-like schedule. With such schedules changes tend to be feared and protested; in Agile Development, changes should be expected, welcomed and understood.

Using the Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto is more than snappy prose; it indicates a way of thinking when developing software. If you’re an Agile shop, regardless of your methodologies and how you adapt them to your needs, when subjecting your development team to a change in process or even your corporate culture you should ask yourself: Does this change line up with the Agile Manifesto? Are we adding too much documentation – or even too much process – to our practices?

Claiming PDUs under Category F

Under PMI‘s new PDU category structure, introduced in March of 2011, PMP and other PMI certification holders can “earn PDUs for working as a project manager (project risk management professional, project scheduling professional or program manager)” (quoted from PMI’s web site). How many PDUs you can claim in one three-year credential renewal cycle depends on which certification you possess:

• PMP (Project Management Professional) and PgMP (Program Management Professional) credential holders may claim 15 PDUs per cycle
• PMI-SP (Scheduling Professional) and/or PMI-RMP (Risk Management Professional) credential holders may claim 7.5 PDUs per cycle.

Meanwhile, there is a restriction on how many PDUs you can claim per year within the three year cycle:

• PMP and PgMP credential holders can claim 5 PDUs per 12-month period
• PMI-SP and PMI-RMP credential holders can claim 2.5 PDUs per 12-month period.

You can earn these PDUs only if you work in your respective field for a minimum of six months during the twelve month period. So for example, when I claimed my own PDUs, I claimed 5 PDUs (as a PMP) for the entire 2010 calendar year (January through to December), and also claimed 5 PDUs for half of the 2011 calendar year (January through to June), for a total of 10 PDUs claimed under Category F. I will also be claiming 5 PDUs for my work as a project manager from July of 2011 up until the end of the first half of 2012.

The maximum PDUs allowed in Categories D, E and F

The PDUs you earn for working in the field of project management count toward Category F, which is one of three Giving Back to the Profession categories that also include Categories D and E. In one three-year cycle you are only allowed to claim:

• 45 PDUs total for PMP and PgMP credential holder
• 20 PDUs total for PMI-SP and PMI-RMP credential holders.

This clause means that you will need to earn at least 15 PDUs of your required PDUs per three-year cycle within Categories A, B and C: undergoing continuing education, participating in self-directed learning, or taking courses from third party providers (for example, from PMI REPs).

So go manage some projects!

The moral of this story is: if you hold one of PMI’s credentials, and if you are working in the field of project, program, risk or scheduling management, you would be daft not to claim the maximum allowed PDUs for your efforts to put toward achieving your total 60 PDUs for the cycle. So go out and manage some projects – and claim those PDUs!