Book review: PMP: Project Management Professional Exam Review Guide

PMP Project Management Professional Exam Review Guide has a practical, descriptive title – and it’s a practical, descriptive book.  Kim Heldman and Vanina Mangano have written this book specifically for those project managers aiming to sit their PMP exam.  It’s structured logically, taking you through the project lifecycle.

The book starts with a review of the foundations of a project: all the basics about what constitutes a project and the project environment.  Then it gets into the detail of what PMPs need to know to manage a project from start to finish.  It covers Initiating, has a large section on Planning, followed by Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing.  Finally, the book ends with an interesting section on social and professional responsibility – something all project managers, regardless of whether they choose the PMI accreditation route or not, should be interested in.

Each chapter finishes with review questions so that you can test yourself against what you have learned.  I also liked the ‘Exam Essentials’ boxes that are scattered throughout the text and highlight key pointers essential for exam success.

Overall, the book is graphically very interesting and the authors use a lot of diagrams, graphs and charts to make learning the PMP syllabus more appealing.  However, a lot of the book is made up of lists, especially inputs and outputs of processes.  This is because the book is essentially a review guide, not a comprehensive study tool by itself.  It is a partner text to the Sybex PMP: Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide, which is twice as fat.  As a result, the Review Guide covers the topics in exactly that – review format.  It’s not the most comprehensive of texts, but it is concise, which is perfect if you don’t want to carry your copy of PMBoK or the Study Guide around with you all the time.

It’s difficult to read the Review Guide from start to finish, and it probably wasn’t designed to be used that way.  This is perhaps why it has a fabulous index.  It’s not a habit of mine to praise the index in books, but I did find this one really good!

Overall,  my experience of this book is that it is solid but dry, and the review questions at the end of each chapter are the only place where you’ll find any reference to scenarios or real life.  The bulk of the text focuses squarely on getting a candidate through the exam, and it wiill certainly help do that.  It also comes with a CD, which is another learning aid.

If you are studying for the PMP exam and need a handy reference guide to the key processes, this could be a good book for you.  However, if you want to learn how to manage a project and put those skills to work in the real world, don’t start with this book.  It is good, but only for the right audience – and that’s prospective PMP candidates.

Tracking LEED Credits in Project Software

I recently corresponded with Houston Neal from Software Advice (www.softwareadvice.com). Houston ran across PMTips while researching how to use software to track LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) credits. Houston commented that they are seeing a lot of building contractors (and LEED APs) use construction software to manage LEED projects. As a result, some software vendors are starting to add LEED credit tracking capabilities to their software offerings.

A portion of Houston Neal’s article is included below…

Track LEED v3 Credits in Project Management Software

Given the recent deadline for registering LEED v2.2 projects, we were reminded of a post we wanted to write: how construction project management software can be used to track LEED credits.

Tracking LEED credits requires software functionality similar to that required for more traditional construction project management. Consequently, a few leading vendors have re-purposed their technology to make this possible; others have customers who have developed their own work-arounds.

We expect to see a lot more software development as the number of annual LEED projects continues to grow. In the meantime, we’ve researched what’s available, how it works and how you can benefit from it. Here’s the scoop.

To Start, LEED Requires Strong Document Control

Tracking LEED credits is a document-intensive process. Just ask any experienced LEED Accredited Professional (AP). Submittal documentation includes drawings, receipts, product spec sheets, photos, commission plans and more. Adding to the clutter, numerous project members will access and edit these documents.

Project management software, especially web-based systems, act as a repository for the storage and retrieval of critical project documents. Simply upload a document into the system, then attach it to the appropriate LEED-credit log. From there you can track the history of a document, see every change that has been made and who made it.

Additional Benefits

Aside from the aforementioned benefits, project management software can be used to schedule and coordinate important project dates (e.g. commissioning sessions), it can give you a competitive edge to win more LEED projects and it provides the document tracking required to get AP accreditation.

Finally, project management software mitigates risk. There are big financial ramifications if you fall from a gold to silver, or off the podium entirely. As Courtemanche explained to us, “Just as accounting software has become a ’source of truth’ for financial reporting, project management software is a source of truth for LEED certification.”

Future Potential

In terms of development, we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. There is great potential for software vendors to create advanced features and functionality to make LEED tracking a less complicated process. Maybe we’ll even see a “click to submit” function for companies to submit electronically to the USGBC.

In the meantime, here are a few of our ideas. Feel free to leave a comment if you have other suggestions.

• Executive dashboard – Shows up-to-date LEED scorecard and latest project activity
• Portfolio roll-up – Ability to look at a “portfolio” view of all past and current LEED projects
• Resource database – Share best practices and case studies with other APs and contractors
• ROI/IRR Analysis – Calculate internal rate of return for a building based on discounted cash flows and investment costs
• Submittal templates – Use templates to generate indoor air quality (IAQ) plans, construction waste management plans, credit interpretation requests (CIR) and other submittals

To view Houston’s full article including specific software discussions and screenshots go to Track LEED v3 Credits in Project Management Software. Feel free to comment on this topic either here at PMTips or at Software Advice.

Chartered Status: the ongoing debate

The Arras People Project Management Benchmark Report 2009 that I wrote about last week asked questions this year about Chartered Status.  It’s not something that has been researched before in this type of study, as it is a relatively new development for the Association for Project Management.  Or rather, APM have been thinking about it for ages, and it has only just reached the radars of UK project professionals.

If the chartered debate has passed you by, here’s what is going on.  APM have submitted an application for Chartered Status for Project Management Professionals to the Privy Council.  If it is granted, project managers will be able to apply for ChPP (Chartered Project Professional) status, in the same way as we have chartered accountants and chartered engineers.

The survey asked respondents who were not APM members if they were aware of the chartered debate.  80% said they hadn’t heard of it.  This is bad news for APM and the ChPP status, if it ever gets granted.  How can a professional body champion professional status when most UK project managers don’t even know it exists?

This is a particularly interesting position for APM to be in, as the previous Arras surveys have showed an upwards trend towards project managers gaining qualifications and joining professional bodies. There are certainly enough professional bodies to choose from in the arena of project management.  44% of respondents belonged to a professional body, with most of those (but still less than 50%) being part of APM.  In a job where qualifications and membership is respected, you would expect people to be enthusiastic supporters of ChPP, but unfortunately the message hasn’t got through.

John Thorpe, Managing Director of Arras People, believes that the 16,000 strong APM membership only represents about 5% of the UK project management population.  Effectively, APM are going for ChPP status on behalf of the profession in the UK, with the majority of UK project managers not being members or even aware that the debate is happening.  There’s a significant risk here that ChPP, should it be granted, creates an exclusive club.  Or, I suppose, the other side of the coin is that it is a worthless status because so few people understand it.  It will take a while to become embedded in the national register as the mark of a true project professional.  Especially as Thorpe gives the example that in a recent flick through the jobs pages he came across 19 jobs for a ‘project director’ – all of which had vastly different roles, responsibilities and salaries, from £50k to £150k.  It’s hard to believe that we can find a common standard in ChPP when we can’t even agree on the language to use to describe what it is that we do.

There are also questions about how other standards with fit with it (PMP, PRINCE2 and the myriad of other project qualifications you can get).  And how other stakeholders will be consulted and involved.  And how it will sit alongside ISO21500, the new international standard for project management which is due for publication in 2012 and involves 31 countries.

You can read APM’s response to some frequently asked questions about ChPP here.  The debate will run for some time, not least until the Privy Council provides a recommendation to the Queen and the decision is made on whether the Royal Charter is granted.  It’s already taken 6 months of deliberation and we haven’t seen anything final yet, but the original timetable says that it’s about now that Organisational Chartered status is granted, so the APM people must be on the edges of their seats waiting for that phone call – watch this space for the outcome!