1. Read the PMBoK 4th edition two to three times before taking the exam. In that once use mind mapping to take notes. On scope, quality and procurement knowledge areas, there will be some questions straight from inputs / tools and techniques / output; In risk management the order of events (the process flow) is important; etc. So reading PMBoK is crucial. If you can get someone to explain PMBoK concepts, from begin to end, with illustrations, you should grab that opportunity. Technical documents can be boring to read by yourselves.
O.S.Balaji is the Engagement Manager – ANZ region for Wipro Technologies. He is a management consultant with wide knowledge in CMMi, PMBoK, Prince 2, Six Sigma et al. He is an active blogger and the editor of “Resonance” an e-magazine that strikes a chord with thousands of IT professionals in India. Balaji has agreed to write a series on mind mapping that he uses extensively in his magazine to explain concepts.
I like this quote from Francis Bacon “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” Currently I am reading the book “The high performance entrepreneur” by Subroto Bagchi and really chewing and digesting it. And I can tell you it is very tasty. The Golden rules in the book are invaluable for a budding entrepreneur like me. I was at Sri Sankara college of Arts and Science near Kanchipuram today. When I addressed the 300+ students I shared that taste as the message. I told them that “Manager” is not a title but a reward for those who are willing to take accountability for meeting specific results; I elaborated how in this connected world, a manager’s job is to interact with client, performing organization, team, shareholders and society and produce the value that each one of them is looking for; I left them with the message that management study should not stop after college but go on forever through sources like Subroto Bagchi’s book.
I have been invited to address the MBA, BBA and B.Com students at Sri Sankara Arts and Science College at Kanchipuram on 3rd Sep as part of “Margadarshan 2010″ their two day National Symposium. I feel honored to be part of the program and putting together the message I want to give them. If you got an opportunity to address the future leaders of this country, what will be your message? Please share it as as comments in the blog or send me mail. Thanks.
I have used the Indian Rupee symbol in Management Scholars Academy website to quote the course fee for our PMP boot camp here http://msacademy.in/pmp-rupakara.htm using rupakara font. Rupakara is a new font created by Michael Everson to give support to the newly invented Indian Rupee Sign, which has been assigned to U+20B9 by Unicode. You can see the rupee symbol in my site only if you have the rupakara font installed in your computer. You can download the font for free from here http://www.evertype.com/fonts/rupakara/
Finalizing all activities across all of the project management process groups to formally close the project or a project phase
The August month PMP boot camp concluded well with 14 Project Managers joining the program this time. They were from CSC, TCS, Aricent, HCL, Ford, iNautix, Laserbeam Software, Focus Infotech and Keane Consulting. The average experience of this team was high (12+ years) and it showed in their focus and performance in the tests.
I wrote about TRIZ Principle -1 - Segmentation in the earlier blog. Here I am writing about two more TRIZ principles.
Principle – 2. Taking Out (Separate an interfering part or property from an object, or single out the only necessary part (or property) of an object.
By segmentation principle we have segmented our work/project. There is always a chance of troublesome or critical segment or part in our work, which we can take out and handle separately.
Scope Management
Developing a detailed project scope statement which is critical for project success
The scene from Ramayana:
In the cosmic stage show, sometimes a villain grows into a powerful force, so powerful that he even overthrows deities or devas, who stand for all that is moral and right. One such rogue was Ravana and devas pray to Lord Vishnu to help them. Vishnu promises them protection and declares, “Be relieved of your fear! You will be safe under my shelter! I will descend on Earth as sons of King Dasaratha and get rid of Ravana and his gang that have become a terror to deities and sages. I will rule the earth for eleven thousand years and establish the path of Dharma.”
Some of you who are using BSNL broadband at home told me that you are not able to access my blog. I also had the problem and found that it was something to do with BSNL DNS cache. I was not able to access my website and mail from time to time (Sometimes even Google.com)
When there is a PMP trainer in the house, everyone does projects! Here is my daughter Mathangi’s (5th std) school project – A face made out of veggies / fruits. If you guess all the veggies correctly you will win 1 kilo of vegetables!
The artists among you will like this one. If you want to publish and promote your work, in whatever form (music, videos, artwork, websites etc) as a catalog, You can do it at behance.net and share it over web, facebook, linkedIN, twitter and so on. I created a project for the “MS Academy PMP boot camp” out of the first slide of all the course material, the learning points on each of the 12 topics, with the great images I bought from dreamtemplate(dot)com and published it on Behance as a project www.behance.net/gallery/PMP-Boot-Camp-in-Chennai-from-MS-Academy/614589 Putting it in a place like this and giving links back to your site will also get you google juice.
I see that many of my friends let the PMP credential expire because they find accruing PDUs difficult. Actually it is very easy. You can get 15 PDU for just being in project management profession; Another 15 for self directed learning; You can get 10 PDUs for speaking or writing on project management; More PDUs for attending training programs on project management etc. So 60 PDUs in 3 years is quite easy if you just want to do it.
