Book review: PMP: Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide

I recently got a copy of the 5th edition of PMP Project Management Professional Exam Study Guide, which is the partner text to the Review Guide and has been fully updated for the 4th edition of the PMBoK. Kim Heldman’s book is a weighty text, coming in at over 600 pages and with another two hours of audio on the included CD. It needs to be, as it covers the whole PMP syllabus in massive amounts of detail, with exam tips thrown in along the way.

I really like the way that Heldman writes, and she does a good job of describing the rather boring concepts that form the project management processes in a way that makes it interesting for the reader. Of course, you need to be at least vaguely interested in project management to find the book interesting, and it does help to be a PMP candidate, but it isn’t as dry as the Review Guide – this book is aimed at the beginner who needs to learn the concepts from scratch.

The book covers the basics of the project environment and the project charter before spending a fair amount of time discussing scope and requirements gathering. Chapters 4 and 5 cover scheduling and budgeting. With those out the way, Heldman goes on to write about risk management, resource planning, running a team, monitoring and controlling work and how to close down a project. There are also sections on procurement management and professional responsibility, which is a hot topic in the PMP exam.

Each section includes real world scenarios, exam hints and a final section on how the theory applies to the next project (or your current project, I suppose).

Heldman writes articulately about team management, which is unsurprising given that she says these topics are some of her favourites.

Although rewards and recognition help build a team, she writes, they can also kill morale if you don’t have an established method or criteria for handing them out. Track who is receiving awards throughout the project… Consider individual preferences and cultural differences when using rewards and recognitions. Some people don’t like to be recognized in front of a group; others thrive on it. Some people appreciate an honest thank-you with minimal fanfare, and others just won’t accept individual rewards as their culture doesn’t allow it. Keep this in mind when devising your reward system.

If this book was smaller and lighter I would seriously consider carrying it around with me, but unfortunately that isn’t practical. However, the entire book is available as a .pdf file on the CD, so you could print off a couple of pages to review on the train, or carry the thing around with you on your laptop if you wanted to study while you are on the road.

Overall, if you are after an interesting, comprehensive book and CD package to help you study for the PMP exam, this is it.

Career Roadblock?

roadblock – by Lyndi&Jason via Flickr

What can you do when you feel like you’ve hit a bump on your project manager career path?  Here are my thoughts, and I invite you to add your own comments with advice for this professional.

From a pmStudent community member:

I have recently been made redundant from my high flying project management role. This position was with a FTSE 100 Energy firm and therefore I was pretty dissapointed when things worked out as they did. That said it happens. So guess I wondered what your advice would be for someone who has 3 years project management experience-having managed some pretty big projects in finance, IT and engineering services. The only thing is I don’t have a qualification like Prince2 and am wondering how I would get recruiters and employers attention in a UK Market where atleast 5 years experience is needed for Junior project managers.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thank you

Certification

Gaining the predominant certification in your region is definitely a good idea.  It’s not all you need to do, but it’s a good step.  When potential employers screen your CV or resume you want it to make it into the “maybe” pile and a certification will help with that.  Find out what’s important to prospective employers, and also take into consideration your own industry and interests.  IPMA, Prince2, PMP, etc.  These might be possible candidates…but what about becoming a certified Scrum Master if you are in software development?  There are a lot of niche credentials that may offer you a lot of personal value and make you more attractive as a candidate.

Stretch and Be Aggressive

On the experience question, the perception might be that everyone requires 5 years of experience.  They probably say it right on the job posting.  After I dropped out of university, I started in a technical role and worked my way into management positions.  Being laid off many times, I had to constantly wrestle with the fact that most of the jobs I wanted “required” a degree I didn’t have.  I eventually did go back to school and earned the degree, but I learned that you can still land jobs that say they want more experience or education than you have.  I’ve landed jobs in the past that required 10 years of experience when I only had 3-4 years of experience.  My passion and demonstrated competency made up for the lack experience in the minds of the hiring managers.

It’s all about separating yourself from the pack.  Networking is powerful, because when people who know you are good refer you there is a trust factor that goes with it.  Being aggressive and demonstrating that you can exceed expectations consistently works well.  Don’t just send your resume or CV and a cover letter.  Make phone calls.  Ask someone in the company what the big challenges they face are, and come up with a solution to them.  Find ways to demonstrate your ability to add value to the organization.

Find a talk to people via social networks who work at the organization and network with them.  I don’t mean “hey, can you put in a good word for me?” to someone you just met.  Asking good questions about them and the work they do are good ways to find out more about the organization.  Take them out for coffee or lunch.  Give first, with no direct expectations.

Every new job should be a stretch, at least that’s my philosophy.  If you don’t have to learn more in order to be successful, then you’re stuck in a rut…you are not growing.  Sure, every employer would love to hire someone who already knows everything and can hit the ground running.  They realize that’s not always feasible though, especially when people are moving up into a new role.

Consider Alternatives

Sometimes it’s best to target related roles which allow you to keep close to your desired role and perhaps act as a stepping stone later on.  One example in my career was many years ago when I lost a job leading the technical operations for a company and stepped into a call center manager role.  It was a large step down if you look at it with a short-term mindset (role/salary was much less), but the decision was deliberate because I wanted to get my foot in a particular organization and I had an idea about how I could prove myself within the company and move into other roles.

Here, sometimes you have to wrestle with being overqualified for a position.  In the cases I have done this I’ve had to anticipate the hiring managers’ hesitancy to hire me because they thought I was overqualified and would leave as soon as something else popped up.  I usually initiate a frank discussion where I discuss that although I am overqualified, my goal is to work for this company.  I let them know that I see myself moving into a different role (within this company) a few years down the road, but the way I build credibility and trust is to outperform and exceed expectations.  I have to do that in this role first, before I’m going to even start considering other positions down the road.

Who Is Josh Nankivel?

I am the founder of pmStudent.com, a site dedicated to helping new and aspiring project managers succeed.

Learn more about project manager careers right now with my free eBook and newsletter!

The Misconception of PMP Certification

I can’t get in to the PM Tips site at the moment due to a server issue in order to post comments, so I’m just going to write an article on the subject…since I think I can post an article through the login.

There have been great comments and discussions on the article I wrote entitled “Project Management: Is PMP Certification Worth It?” In fact, there have been nearly 100 comments posted on this article – by far the most of any on the site. I appreciate everyone’s comments and I think it’s been an incredible discussion – and it’s probably convinced many non-certified PMs to just go ahead and get certification.

The Premise

Remember, the premise of the article is that HR departments and hiring managers are becoming lazy in this job market by requiring PMs to have certification to even be considered for a position – it is happening on many jobs that are up for grabs out there. However, the overall perception is, it’s a game…if you want to play you probably should get certified. I agree.

Direction of Recent Comments

The comments are still coming through, but now they’re only trickling in. And what’s coming through now is equating PMP certification to an MD, or a CPA, or a certified CPR. I’d like to get my two cents in on these comparisons. I think they’re crazy.  (The comparisons, I mean…not the people making them.)

While all of those are important, they don’t equate to what a PM does. First, it’s not illegal for a PM to practice project management without certification. No one’s life is at stake. It is, however, very illegal to practice medicine without the degree. And sure, a person can administer CPR without being certified and a person can do taxes or manage your finances without being a CPA, but you’re probably more comfortable with a CPA doing your taxes. And as one comment suggested, if two people are standing over you when you’re choking and one is certified in CPR and the other isn’t but just knows it, you’d probably choose the certified CPR person if you’re given the choice. I would too.

Applicable to PMP?

How does this compare or apply to PMP certification? It doesn’t at all. PMP certification indicates you have a minimum amount of experience and passed a test so you know the fundamentals of PM and the PMI methodologies. What it doesn’t indicate are the soft skills that a PM must have to be very successful. A CPA or a person who is CPR-certified really doesn’t have to have the same interpersonal skills. They wife of a choking victim doesn’t care if the CPR responder can negotiate with someone or interact with the crowd of bystanders. They have one job to do and that’s it. The person having their taxes done by a CPA doesn’t care if that individual knows how to massage a customer and smooth over bad news. Or lead a team of project resources every day to accomplish all of the behind the scenes tasks. Not at all. They only care if their taxes are done correctly. And the CPA is pretty much a one-man show and he does the taxes correctly and that’s it. No song and dance.

For the PM, things are different. The work is not more critical or more important, just different. The PM must be able to inspire a team, bring confidence to a customer, manage a multi-million dollar project, answer to executive management, keep the CEO happy and do this on several projects at once. Again, not more important, just very different. And lots of soft skills that no test can ever validate. You either have it or you don’t. Some of these things you can’t get no matter how much experience you have, but experience usually can help you get there on most of them. Pass a test and getting certified won’t get you there.

I’ve been called in to fix projects where the customer was dissatisfied with the way the project was going so many times that I’ve lost count. A test doesn’t validate leadership, confidence, and that kind of experience.

Final Thought

So, yes, we all probably should be certified because that’s just the nature of how things are going. But, in my opinion, it’s very short-sighted to equate the PMP to an MD, a CPA, or CPR certification. It’s apples and oranges.

The Job Market, Project Management, and Other Thoughts

I’ve written – and you’ve commented – about the state of project management, current hiring practices by employers, and the relevance of the PMP certification through the Project Management Institute (PMI) as it pertains to finding your next project management gig.

What I found eye-opening…maybe even eye-popping…was some findings I read about recently concerning job boards and their ability to help individuals find positions.

PMP Certification

First, let’s cover the PMP certification – briefly again – and what we’ve discussed already so far. It’s a given that more and more postings are requiring PMP certification for prospective project managers. Nearly all others state PMP certification as being highly preferred or that first consideration goes to PMP candidates. And even on some of those candidates have been told by recruiters that company ‘X’ won’t even talk to you if you’re not certified.

Good or bad, employers are eliminating the need to wade through thousands of good resumes of experienced individuals by having their HR departments do initial screenings – in many cases – on the existence or non-existence of PMP certification for the candidate. I’ll maintain again that this is a bad and lazy practice, in my opinion, but I’ve already beaten this one to death, so I won’t go into it any further.

Most of the rest of the information for this article comes from August Cohen’s very comprehensive article entitled “Need a Job? Then Don’t Waste Time on Job Boards.”  You can read his full article here.

Job Board Findings

Now on to the recent job board findings. CareerXroads recently conducted their 8^th Annual Source of Hire Study and the findings for external hires were astounding…downright disappointing, I guess. If you’re looking for a job right now, brace yourselves because this is very surprising information…but there’s light at the end of the tunnel in the form of job board advice so keep reading on.

According to the study, CareerBuilder is accountable for 3.95% of all external hires, Monster is accountable for 3.14%, and HotJobs is accountable for 1.35%. Granted, Craigslist isn’t mentioned – it’s a flaky job search site at best – but this means that the Big 3 right now account for only 8.44% of all external hires. I never would have guessed it.

What does this mean to job seekers? At the very least it means don’t rely only on those three job boards – be sure to incorporate other sources (yes, including Craigslist), but also utilize sources like Twitter and LinkedIn and network as much as possible. And when you are using the job boards, be sure to keep your information fresh because that gets the attention of hiring organizations. Be careful on this one if you are currently employed and just looking or keeping your information updated – it also gets the attention of your own HR department. I can attest to that as I did a CareerBuilder refresh one time at CareerBuilder’s request and had to have a discussion with the PMO Director and HR. Geez.

Ways to Aid Your Search

As I mentioned, keep your job board info fresh. Just as you look for recent postings, HR departments are looking for recent resumes and if you keep yours updated, it looks new.

Here are a few ways you can help your online search process:

• Make sure your resume is uploaded in the exact format requested, e.g., .doc or .txt. Note that .docx is not widely accepted.

• Refresh your resume every week or two so it looks like a new submission and doesn’t get stale. Just as you search by date of position posted, sourcers search by date of resume posted.

• Use job board aggregators like Indeed.com or SimplyHired.com. These sites are great time savers as they provide an easily searchable database for thousands of boards in one location.

• Take advantage of industry association and niche job sites. And, don’t forget LinkedIn’s exclusive job postings.

• Apply directly to the company career board if possible. LinkUp.com is a nice website that features jobs aggregated exclusively from more than 22,000 company job boards.

• Create a resume that is rich with keywords that are reflected in the position description. This means you have to modify your resume for each specific position, every time.

• Label your resume document as “lastnamefirstname,” or “lastnamefirstname_position” to make it easier for the recipient to identify and remember you.

• Don’t put a date on your resume file (“resume_05-08”), as you don’t want to accentuate how long you may have been looking.

Avectra Announces PMP Certifications for Professional Services Team Members

Sourced from PR Web.

Avectra Announces PMP Certifications for several Professional Services department members, reaffirming Avectra’s dedication to best in class project management, software engineering and analysis for delivering the company’s netFORUM Enterprise Association Management Software solutions

(Vocus/PRWEB ) August 20, 2009 – Avectra, the leading provider of on demand association management software, announced today that four members of the company’s Professional Services team recently earned Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

The project managers are part of Avectra’s Professional Services department that provides project management, software engineering and analyst teams to deliver solutions for the company’s netFORUM Enterprise Association Management Software (AMS) installations.

Considered the gold standard in the industry, the PMP credential is administered by the Project Management Institute and recognizes demonstrated knowledge and skill in leading and directing project teams and in delivering project results within the constraints of schedule, budget and resources. Avectra has a total of seven PMP certified project managers with others currently pursuing certification.

“We are excited to have these project managers recognized with the PMP certification,” said Darryl Hopkins, VP Professional Services. “These certifications are an example of our commitment to industry leading client service that assures successful implementations of our netFORUM Enterprise Association Management Software.”

Read the entire story here..