The quality of many comments and resource available on the web for the PMP exam are doubtful to say the least.

Apart from issues with various PMP guarantees discussed in an earlier post (view: Guaranteed PMP Pass?), my major bugbear is the array of half-baked PMP questions available. I am sure the high PMP fail rate is partly due to people having a false sense of security based on ‘successfully’ answering a range of simple free questions…….

To help counter this we have developed a set of 30 questions as a free resource (no log-on required) focused on real PMP level knowledge assessments. If you, or anyone you know wants to see how their knowledge stack up you are welcome to have a go….. The questions are available from http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Free_PMP_Questions_1.html.

Whilst the problems with CAPM are less, we have also developed 25 CAPM questions which are available from http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Free_CAPM_Questions_1.html.

Apart from normal web traffic monitoring there are no systems on these pages to track users or downloads and being we are a small business based in Melbourne Australia there’s little ‘commercial’ value to us in people making use of the free facility outside of our home base, so please feel free to pass this resource on to anyone you know interested in the PMP exam (having done the hard work writing the questions I would hate to see it wasted).

Prospective candidates for any PMI examination, including the PMP credential need to be vary wary of ‘guarantees’ from some training organisations.

PMI closely manage the security of their exam system and no one can ‘guarantee’ a pass. Candidates take a secure exam with an individually selected mix of questions and pass if they score more than 61% on the day. Less than 61% correct answers = failure!

Despite PMI explicitly prohibiting R.E.P.s from offering guarantees that cannot be substantiated, and obviously ‘guaranteeing’ a pass is impossible, it does not stop some organisations from trying.

Over the last several weeks, we have received a series of emails from FACT Training in New Zealand with a tag line ‘Guaranteed to Pass the PMP Exam!’ and on opening the email the first words are PMP® Preparation Exam Success Guaranteed (in big bold yellow lettering).

FACT Training are the Australian / New Zealand franchisee for Cheetah Learning so you have a guarantee wrapped around a well known brand for a course that costs over $3000. You would assume you are onto a good bet?

WRONG!

Dig into the fine print and you find the ‘guarantee’ is subject to the ‘Terms and conditions of the Cheetah Guarantee’. The ‘Cheetah Guarantee’ retrieved from http://www.cheetahlearning.com/FAQ.asp#What%20is%20your%20guarantee this afternoon starts off:

• We guarantee that you will pass the PMP exam after participating in our accelerated PMP exam preparation program

Looking good until you read on!
The ACTUAL ‘Cheetah Guarantee’ is as follows:

1. You come to class pre-approved by PMI to take your exam (this requires you to have already completed 35 hours of study before beginning the 4 day intensive course).
2. You have your memory map memorized (no idea what this means)
3. You participate in all parts of the program
4. You take the exam within seven (7) days of completing the course (subject to availability of test places)
5. If you do not pass the PMP exam, your instructor will create a personalized coaching program to help you shore up your weak areas and will guide you through the process of rescheduling your exam. (You do the work)
6. Your second exam must be taken within 30 days of the first exam.
7. If you do not pass again, you have to re-sit for the third time within another 30 day maximum period and only then does the real guarantee cuts in!

The real Cheetah Guarantee is that upon request they will fully refund the fee you paid them to take the course. And also they will refund the two re-sit fees of US$275 each (PMI Member rates) you have had to pay to re-book the exams – nothing else.

There seems to be a slight difference between ‘guaranteeing a PMP pass’ as per the FACT Training email and the actual Cheetah Guarantee of some of your money back if you manage to jump through all seven hoops and are still unlucky enough to fail.

Mosaic is a PMI R.E.P. and coincidentally have a very similar success rate to the 98% pass rate claimed by FACT Training. However, we operate from a very different ethical basis:

1. We guarantee to keep working with trainees until they pass (ie, we spend our time and money working with the one or two people unlucky enough to fail each year until they either pass or decide to move on).
2. We do not offer a money back guarantee (with or without multiple hoops for the trainee to jump through) for two reasons:
   1. We feel it important for trainees to have some ‘skin in the game’.
   2. We don’t think it is reasonable to charge a premium on all candidates’ fees to cover the risk for a few.

The challenge I propose to all prospective PMP candidates is to check out the actual guarantees from potential training providers and ask yourselves two questions:

Do I want to deal with an organisation that offers sham guarantees – what does this say about other aspects of their business ethics and service?

Do I want to pay the price premium associated with a very limited guarantee such as the Cheetah Guarantee above? 

• FACT Training’s advertised course fee is US$3250.00 for a 4 day course in Melbourne Australia, in October.
• The PMI Melbourne Chapter fee for a 5 day course in November is AU$2475.00 (approximately US$2130.00). The course is delivered by a professional R.E.P. and PMI members receive a discounted fee of $1,980.00 (view course details).
• Mosaic’s Mentored Email™ course fees are AU$1,320.00 (but there are no venue costs for a distance learning course – see details)

PMI have been working to clean up the advertising of PMP courses by R.E.P.s for several years you can help by voting with your feet and not doing business with organisations that offer impossible guarantees.

I my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with ‘money back’ guarantees provided the terms are clear and not too onerous, many reputable R.E.P.s offer this type of guarantee. However, I do object to organisations pretending to ‘guarantee a PMP pass’ then hiding their real guarantee on another web page.

What do you think?

PMI is replacing the existing system that manages data and processes for the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) system with a new solution developed and maintained by PMI. The new System is designed to provide an easy-to-use graphical interface as the entry point for credential holders that will deliver a more seamless, improved customer experience.

The PMI CCR is a mandatory requirement for all holders of the PMP, PgMP, PMI-SP and PMI-RMP credentials (the CAPM credential lasts for 5 years and then has to be renewed by re-examination).  People who fail to achieve the required level of CCR specified for their credential are removed from the list of credential holders and can no longer use the designation [see more on PMI's CCR requirements].

The new CCR System will handle all of the functionality that the current system manages in addition to introducing new efficiencies. These improvements will ensure that PMI keeps pace with the needs of the growing number of credential holders.

Credential holders will find it simpler and more efficient to:

• Select activities (courses/events)
• Report PDUs – View transcripts
• Maintain multiple credentials

The new CCR System is incorporated into PMI’s single sign-on technology [www.pmi.org] enabling system users to log in once to gain access to all PMI systems and avoid the inconvenience of responding to additional prompts and entering additional passwords.

The improvements are definitely needed, as at 31st July, PMI membership has exceeded 300,000 and there were over 370,000 current credential holders. The breakdown of statistics is:

PMI membership: 306,111 – an overall increase of 11.2 percent for the year.
Total Project Management Professionals (PMP)®: 360,662
Total Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)®: 9,126
Total Program Management Professionals (PgMP)®: 307
Total Scheduling Professionals (PMI-SP)®: 164
Total Risk Management Professionals (PMI-RMP)®: 192

I am collaborating with Bob McGannon to develop a workshop for the PMOZ conference in Canberra (August 10-12) – Avoiding Project Manglement: Advising Upwards. The workshop brings together three streams of thought; my work on stakeholder management, a collaborative paper with Ken Farnes, From Commander to Sponsor: Managing Upwards in the Project Environment (PMI Denver 2008) and Bob’s work on Intelligent Disobedience.

The workshop will provide a forum for those interested in developing new techniques for managing the expectations and perceptions of important senior managers. The three components of the workshop are:

• Being ready, willing and able to communicate effectively with senior management.
• Being heard.
• Being extraordinary! (for more information visit the PMOZ website…)

If the workshop is as successful as we hope, the ideas will roll forward into a new book planned for 2011.

We are in the middle of a busy training period leading up to the change in the PMP exam. Several candidates have commented on needing to learn the PMI way rather than the real world way for their exam.

The idea that the PMI way is not real world is a very wrong assumption!

There are several factors that may make the PMI way different to your way but they are based on sound concepts. Some of the factors that create a difference are:

• The PMBOK® Guide is a knowledge framework that contains processes that are generally applicable to most projects, most of the time. The consequence of this is the processes need tailoring for specific projects. The PMP and CAPM exams are generic and world wide they focus on answers that are likely to be correct for most people most of the time.
• The PMBOK is developed by hundreds of project managers from around the world. The result is a coordinated amalgam of ideas. The PMP exam is based on the information in the PMBOK and information drawn from a range of text books written by leading authors. All of the correct answers are based on information from people with significant project management know-how. This may be different to yours but it is valid.
• PMI has aspirations for the profession of project management. Some underlying themes found in the majority of questions such as the high level of proficiency of the performing organisation and the professional competence of the project managers may be a stretch based on the culture of your organisation but are highly desirable aims and are not unrealistic.

Building a major oil platform in the North Sea is different to writing a small software patch in Bangalore (and both are projects) so the exams will always contain elements that are not right for your projects.

This does not devalue the way you do your projects. As long as the projects your organisation manages are constantly delivered on time, on budget, on scope and fully satisfying all of the key stakeholders. If this happens,  your organisations approach to project management is obviously right in the context you are working in. It is just your way is different to the generally accepted way most successful projects are delivered world-wide and the PMI exams are focused on this generally accepted view of good practice.

Exam candidates need to know the change dates of 1st July for PMP and 1st August for CAPM are absolute! All examination deferrals and re-sits taken on or after these dates will be based on the new exam.

This policy will involve some extra work for PMP candidates and a complete re-run of your training for CAPM candidates if your training has been based on the current PMBOK® Guide 3rd Edition. The scope of changes between the 3rd and 4th Editions is very significant at the detailed level needed for the examinations (particularly CAPM).

You’ve been warned!!

Eligible Training hours

There’s a lot of confusion about the role of PDUs and the PMI exam eligibility requirements. The simple fact is PDUs are different to the hours of approved education needed to be eligible to sit for a PMI credential.

Approved education hours are accumulated by completing courses focused on the knowledge framework for the examination (basically the 9 knowledge areas of the PMBOK Guide for CAPM and PMP).  PMI requires the following:

• CAPM 23 Hrs of approved general project management education
• PMP 35 Hrs of approved general project management education
• PMI-SP 40 Hrs of approved education in the specialist area of project scheduling
• PgMP has no formal education requirements.

In the event of being audited, to prove to PMI your training is eligible you either need

• a certificate from a PMI approved Registered Education Provider (R.E.P.) such as Mosaic
• or the course transcript showing the course covered the knowledge framework defined in the exam specification.

Eligible training hours are very specific, you can earn them by attending a classroom based course or participating in a web or email based course – it’s the course content that matters.  Eligible training does not have to be an exam preparation course, any combination of courses that cover the required knowledge framework count!

However, there is a significant difference between ‘eligible training’ and ‘effective training’.  Eligible training will allow you to apply for the examination.  To be reasonably sure of passing your examination specific preparation is essential (all PMI examinations have a fairly high failure rate). The purpose of a well structured exam prep course is to align your knowledge with the specific requirements of PMI’s mult-choice exam questions. For more on this see The Right Way, the Wrong Way and the PMI Way.

PDUs

PDUs are completely different – the requirements for PDUs are set out in the PMI Continuing Certification Requirements handbook (CCR). PDU stands for Professional Development Unit.

As a starting point, you can only earn PDUs after you have passed your exam. Exam preparation courses cannot provide PDUs for the credential you are studying towards: you have to complete the course to be eligible to sit the exam and can only earn PDUs after you have passed the exam.

In limited circumstances the study for another credential may earn PDUs; if a person already holds a PMP credential and is undertaking a course of study for the PMI-SP credential, the hours of training for the PMI-SP would earn PDUs for her PMP but NOT for her PMI-SP.

The only way for a PMP to earn PDUs from a PMP exam prep course is to take a second PMP exam prep course after you have passed your PMP. As a training organisation we can see some merit in this ($$$$) but practically there is no point.

The other key difference is PDUs can be earned from a very wide range of activities including attending conferences, participating in webinars, being a volunteer and writing papers as well as attending training courses. Similarly for a training course to earn PDUs it only has to be relevant to your work and associated with project management (eg, an ITIL course). This covers a very much wider spectrum than the focussed training needed to to earn the hours needed to be eligible for a credential.

Click here for more on earning and recording PDUs

Summary

• Most activities that improve your capability as a professional will earn PDUs.
• Only focused training based on the exam specification counts towards the training hours needed to be eligible for a credential.
• You must accrue the eligible training before applying for the credential
• You can only start earning PDUs after you have passed the credential.

For more information see:

• Earning and Recording PDUs
• Overview of the PMI Credentials
• Mosaic’s Mentored Email™ exam preparation courses 

Most people will be aware PMI launched the 4th Edition of the PMBOK® Guide at the end of December. The PMP exam changes to the new PMBOK on the 1st July and the CAPM exam on the 1st August. Until then, the current exam is based on the old PMBOK® Guide 3rd Edition.

We are in the process of starting the update of our course materials and will be offering our Mentored Email™ courses based on the new PMBOK from the end of March. Most people take 3 or 4 months to work through the self-paced materials so this is it…..

The reason for this blog is to alert everyone to the extent of changes at the detailed level in the new PMBOK. There’s not a huge difference between the 3rd and 4th editions at the macro level but virtually every page has been re-written and improved at the detail level.

This means it is critically important for prospective candidates to pick their exam date, select the right version of the PMBOK and study to achieve their target! There will be a lot of work needed to change horses mid-race. You’ve been warned.

To double check the correct version of the PMBOK® Guide for study based on your planned exam date see the PMI Exam Calculator.

PMI’s new PM Teach is aimed at encouraging Universities and Colleges to teach accredited project management courses. The PM Teach program makes a range of resources available to academic staff interested in developing a PM course and then having the course accredited by PMI.

A key component of the PM Teach program is linking academic institutions with R.E.P.s that have the skills and knowledge to assist in curriculum development. Mosaic has joined this part of the program based on the work of Dr. Lynda Bourne at a range of institutions including RMIT University Melbourne and The University of Sothern Queensland, both in Australia; and more recently the University of Maryland (UMUC).

For more on the PMI program see: http://www.pmiteach.org

One of our trainees asked in a feedback form why don’t we use a ‘real’ case study for out Stakeholder Management and Communication Workshops. A good question deserving an answer:

1. To develop a useful scenario for a short 1 or 2 day workshop you need a few ‘larger than life’ characters – good guys bad guys and some in between. If these were based off a real life situation we could be sued. Most of the characters in the case study are an amalgamation of some people we have met….. but they are designed to highlight characterisations rather than individuals.
2. The scenario needs to be very simple to run through all of the issues involved in managing and communicating with stakeholders. ‘Real’ scenarios are usually far too complex for a workshop (unless you are working inside an organisation and everyone already understands the business).
3. By developing a totally fictitious business in an exotic location, the ‘Paradise Isld. Utilities Corporation’ (PUC) everyone in the class is free to imaging ‘what might be’. If the scenario was too real some people would ‘know the answer’ based on direct experience and others would be left out.
4. When you are dealing with stakeholders, you can never know exactly what their version of reality is! You have to base your decisions on what you think their perceptions of the project are. Your stakeholder management and communication plans are based on your team’s perceptions of the stakeholder’s perceptions. The advantage of a neutral scenario is this ‘fog’ is the same for everyone but the teams in the class can decide exactly what the right outcome should be. We have seen some amazingly different scenarios created in the minds of teams from the same information and the great thing is they are all 100% correct. The learning comes from dealing with the scenario as imagined and crafting effective communication strategies to manage the stakeholders.

So in short, the reason we use a fictitious scenario is we feel it helps us deliver much better training outcomes for public classes and internal workshops already have a built-in scenario in the organisation.

What’s your experience?