December 21st, 2007
Appendix: Formal Project Management Training and Certification 371 Some of the other requirements for obtaining PMP certification are High school diploma or a comparable certification. At least 35 hours of project management education. A minimum of 7,500 hours working in a leadership role and providing direction for particular types of tasks. At least 60 months of project management experience. PMI randomly audits applications, so be sure to keep all of your documentation. You must pass the PMP certification exam, which consists of 200 multiple- choice questions. The questions you get are random, so if you and your best buddy take the exam at the same time in the same location, you won t be asked the same questions. If you have a baccalaureate degree (otherwise known as a bachelor s degree), you only have to work 4,500 hours in a leadership role. And instead of 60 months of project management experience, you ll only need 36 months. Understanding what a PMP certification says to others The esteemed PMP certification demonstrates to potential employers, stakeholders, your project team, and others with an understanding of the difficulty of attaining PMP status, that you have completed the arduous requirements necessitated of this standing. This accomplishment also shows that you have a solid understanding of project management concepts and principles. When you earn the PMP certification, it shows that you are willing to work hard and that you take your choice of careers and professional field seriously. Obtaining your PMP certification validates that you understand the principles and accepted practices of the project management field. It also proves that you are willing to go the extra mile to attain professionalism in the field of project management. The PMP certification is recognized all over the world. Understanding what the PMP certification gets you Obtaining your status as a PMP is likely to increase your chances of a higher salary, advancement in the project management field, and the respect of your peers. Your skin will glow, there will be an aura about you, and your teeth will be whiter. Plus, it s cool to have another set of initials after your name.
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December 20th, 2007
370 Software Project Management For Dummies Opportunities to join special interest groups and local chapters in the PMI network. You can teach others and receive information from other professionals who work in the same field as you, or in other fields. Access to knowledge areas, project management career information, and training information and opportunities. Memberships in PMI colleges, where members share a common interest and expertise in a particular project management knowledge area. Numerous opportunities for professional development and networking. Visit the PMI Web site at www.pmi.orgfor more information and to discover a plethora of other reasons for joining this prestigious organization. PMI has over 200,000 members (and it continues to grow) from over 100 countries. The current annual membership fee of $119 for an individual membership or $30 for a student membership is a bargain. Finding Out Whether the Project Management Professional Certification Is for You If you re already a project manager or work on project teams as a developer or in some other capacity, you probably know several project managers. Conduct an informal poll: Of all the project managers with whom you are familiar, how many have their PMP certification? Probably not many. The PMP certification isn t an easy qualification to obtain. This certification is the top of the line because it s so difficult to obtain, and it is very highly regarded. Earning the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is a challenging and arduous feat. First, before you can even start the certification process, you have to have worked as a project manager for a predefined number of hours. The conventional wisdom is that as you continue to work as a project manager and gain experience in the field, you will become better at being a project management professional. After all, most people learn best through experience, so you should become better at project management the longer you do it, right? When you become a PMP, you also pledge to abide by the PMI code of professional conduct. You can find out more about the PMI code of conduct from the PMI Web site and from almost every PMP certification study guide on the market.
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December 19th, 2007
Appendix Formal Project Management Training and Certification In This Appendix Introducing PMP Certification Getting to know the PMI Knowing certification requirements As with any other professional field, there are organizations, certifications, and career development opportunities that you should be aware of. Accountants have their CPA (Certified Professional Accountant) designation; engineers can take tests to become PEs (Professional Engineers); and project managers can look forward to obtaining their PMP (Project Management Professional) status through the Project Management Institute. PMI supports all areas of project management, not just software project management. Getting Up Close and Personal with the Project Management Institute The Project Management Institute (PMI), founded in 1969, is an increasingly influential and prominent organization that focuses on enhancing and encouraging the career development of project management professionals, while offering opportunities for professional development and knowledge sharing. PMI serves as a project management resource. Membership benefits include Access to project management professional publications that exhibit examples of successful project management ventures. The PMI s publications are immensely helpful in providing peer learning opportunities and mentorship.
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December 19th, 2007
368 Part VI: The Part of Tens It may not be easy, but you need to communicate both good and bad news in a timely manner. Stakeholders have to know what s going on, and it s your responsibility to communicate with them. This is really easy advice to understand, but surprisingly difficult to follow. It s best to communicate bad news as soon as you have the information. Believe me, your stakeholders will react more positively if they hear news in a timely manner than if you wait and tell them something when it s too late. If the schedule may slip, or your costs may be overrun, or you think you might be losing a key team member, promptly communicate that. You never know, someone to whom you re communicating may just be able to help you with the problem or issue. At the least, give them that opportunity.
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December 18th, 2007
Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Make Any Software Project Better 367 Always talk about follow-ups. The last agenda item should include next steps or follow up. Before they leave the meeting, all attendees should have a clear understanding as to what will happen next and when it should happen. Don t let the minutes pass you by. Always, without fail, every time, forever and ever, follow up each meeting with meeting minutes. Distribute them as soon after the meeting as possible and be sure to ask for corrections or additions to the minutes. If someone sends you changes to your minutes, send out the corrected minutes as soon as possible. Be sure to include all appropriate stakeholders in the meeting minutes, whether or not they attended the meeting. Post the minutes on either a team Web page or a shared drive somewhere on the network. Stakeholders should have easy access to all meeting minutes and they should be stored in an organized fashion. Establishing Project Rules Before the Project Begins It s so easy to follow rules when you know what they are. It s pretty much a no-brainer to follow an established, well-known rule. If you want project team members to adhere to project rules, make sure they know what the rules are before the project begins. Better yet, ask your team members to contribute to the list of project rules. Take advantage of the expertise and intelligence of the smart people you hired. People are always more likely to follow rules if they helped develop them. After you establish guidelines, cover them in the project kick-off meeting. Go over each rule and ask if anyone needs clarification. Don t forget to follow up with documentation. Communicating Good and Bad News Remember when you were little and you broke your neighbor s window with your curve ball, or received a bad grade in citizenship, or accidentally cut your brother s hair? You were probably a little apprehensive about telling your parents the bad news. That attitude gets carried over into adulthood. People may not be eager to communicate bad news, but they have no problem communicating good news.
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December 17th, 2007
366 Part VI: The Part of Tens doesn t sound too difficult, right? Well, it doesn t get any more difficult than that. On the agenda, document each agenda item, along with the responsible person and the time span for each agenda item. When attendees walk into a conference room, they should have absolutely no doubt as to the purpose of the meeting. Here is an example of a well-prepared meeting agenda: Meeting Agenda for Review of Training Methodology Meeting Date: Tuesday, November 12 Meeting Time: 1:00 2:00 p.m. Meeting Location: Room 123A Facilitator: Mary Recorder: Tony Meeting Invitees: Bob, Tom, Sue, Mary, Tony, Glenda, Gladys, Roger Meeting Purpose: The purpose of this meeting is to review the train ing methodology for the software that will be implemented on June 10 of next year. Agenda Item 1: Discuss the three basic training methodologies (1:00 1:30 p.m. [Tony]) Agenda Item 2: Review the CBT (1:30 1:45 p.m. [Glenda]) Agenda Item 3: Questions and Next Steps (1:45 2:00 p.m. [Tony]) Next Meeting: Tuesday, November 19 Next Meeting Location: Room 123B Be sure the agenda is distributed prior to the meeting. When attendees walk in the room for the meeting, they should already understand the purpose of the meeting. Here are some helpful hints for making the meeting more efficient: Start the meeting on time. The best way to get people to be at a meeting on time is to gain a reputation for always starting a meeting on time. Stay on topic. When someone brings up a topic that is not on your agenda, offer to place that item on the parking lot, which is a document where you keep items to be discussed at a later time. Play the librarian. When two or more people begin to have a side discussion, calmly remind them that everyone needs to stay focused and stay away from side topics. Is that subtle enough? After you say that once, you re unlikely to say it again.
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December 15th, 2007
Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Make Any Software Project Better 365 Documenting Your Project Even if You Don t Want To But then again, why wouldn t you want to document your software project? As we say in Chapter 17, a project worth doing is a project worth documenting. Your project is worth doing, right? Not only should you be documenting your software project plans as well as all of the subsidiary plans, but you also need to document your lessons learned. Here are some tips for documenting lessons learned: Start early: Most people start their lessons learned documents at the end of a project, but they should start this documentation at the beginning of a project. Create a spreadsheet that has placeholders for each area of your project and then add to this document as the project progresses. By the time you close the project, you will already have a nearly complete lessons learned document that you and others can use for your future software projects. Make it a group thing: You could even make lessons learned an agenda item for each of your project team meetings. After team members become accustomed to seeing this lessons learned document and watching it grow as the project progresses, they will start feeling ownership of the document. The project team will also get used to thinking in terms of every issue or problem resulting in a lesson learned instead of just considering problems as something to overcome. Spread it around: When your software project is complete, you can distribute the lessons learned document to your project team and then complete it with the team during the post project review meeting. Your team, your sponsor, and all the stakeholders over all the land will be in awe of your superior project management powers. Hosting a Successful Project Meeting Have you ever attended a meeting that reminded you of a three-ring circus? There was no agenda, one guy was talking on his cellphone, several people were having side conversations, you weren t sure of the purpose of the meeting, and not only that, but the donuts were stale? Don t let this happen to you. Hosting a successful project meeting is not that difficult, and requires just a little planning and thoughtfulness. First, and maybe most importantly, send out an agenda to all invitees prior to the meeting. In the agenda, document the purpose of the meeting. So far, this
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December 14th, 2007
364 Part VI: The Part of Tens After you know what these signs are, deal with them as soon as you spot them. Be proactive; don t wait for your Invitation to Project Failure to show up in your interoffice mail box. The key to turning around an imperiled project is communication. This means not just talking with your sponsor and team members, but listening, too. Then you must act. Planning, Planning, and a Little More Planning There are five process groups involved in project management. These process groups are Initiation Planning Executing Monitoring and controlling Closing You will spend most of your time in the planning phase, and this is completely logical when you think of all the activities that you and your software project team will accomplish during the planning process. You will be Developing project management plans Developing project schedules Defining project scope Estimating duration of activities Estimating costs and budgets Documenting communication plans Creating risk management and quality management plans Planning the scope Creating the work breakdown structure Determining the project sequence of activities Estimating the types and quantities of project resources Planning is not a one-time deal. That s why they call it an iterative process.
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December 13th, 2007
Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Make Any Software Project Better 363 Recognizing Failure Before It Arrives How can you recognize something before it even arrives? It s possible, and you don t have to be clairvoyant, either. If you know how to look for the signs of impending failure before the failure actually occurs, in fact, you ll have a significant advantage in the software project management game. The other crucial element (perhaps more crucial than simply recognizing signs of failure) is being proactive in dealing with potential issues before failure bears its ugly head. You know that if you see or smell smoke, there s probably a fire nearby, right? Great, but recognition makes no difference if you don t run for the fire extinguisher. Remember that projects are more likely to fail at the beginning than at the end. So do everything in your power to prevent failure at the beginning. Spend a sufficient amount of time planning your software project, gathering requirements from your customers, and developing a strong, solid communication plan (and adhering to it), then use those exceptional leadership skills of yours to build a strong, motivated, software project team. Here are a few signs of potential project failure: Have you or anyone from your project team started to let a few deadlines slip? That s bad. What s worse is if no one s even a bit surprised anymore when deadlines do slip. Has your project changed so much you don t recognize it anymore? If too much scope creep has, um, crept in, your project is in danger. Are you starting to have a high turnover from your team? If people are dropping like flies (for whatever reason), they are taking knowledge with them. That s bad. But what s worse is if they re leaving because morale is low or because they don t respect their project manager. Speaking of low morale, are you seeing signs of it? Are team members bickering more often than usual, losing interest in the project, or putting silly words in the middle of their software code just to see if anyone notices? Are programmers sleeping at their desks, coming in late, leaving early, or taking marathon lunches? Has your sponsor been missing meetings with you? Does he or she appear disconnected from the project? Have your stakeholders started getting a vacuous look in their eyes whenever you mention deliverables and risks? Has the sponsor started to micromanage you? Do you lack the autonomy you need to bring the project to a successful completion?
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December 12th, 2007
362 Part VI: The Part of Tens Keep in mind that one of the purposes of the project plans is to document and communicate exactly what you hope to accomplish when you create the software. You must document the resources required to accomplish project tasks, start and end dates of each task, and predecessors and successors of each task (what has to happen first and what has to happen next). Before you document all of this information, be sure to Talk with the appropriate stakeholders Gather all of the requirements Meet with your sponsor Talk to other project managers who have gone before you If you thoroughly do all of these things, you will most likely create a thorough and accurate project plan. Finding the Correct Sponsor The sponsor for your software project has the authority to assign resources and offer guidance in resolving issues. These are not responsibilities for just any doofus; you must pick the right doofus. Just kidding. It is imperative that you find the correct sponsor because this person can apply muscle on your behalf when necessary and, because of his or her executive position in the firm, can help you enforce project decisions. The project sponsor also has the customer s needs in mind, understands the business objectives of the software project, can help resolve issues, has a role in developing the project s strategic objectives, and is your main point of contact for all executive-level decisions. Because the sponsor for your software project is the one you have to rely on at crunch time, you want a sponsor who is actively engaged in the project. Avoid a sponsor who has so many other irons in the fire that she won t have the time to focus on project issues. Also, the project sponsor will be the one who announces to the world that you are the Big Wig Project Manager for this software project. Ideally, you should have a positive and constructive relationship with this person. You may not always enjoy the luxury of choosing a project sponsor. Many times you are merely told who the sponsor is. If all this information is moot because you have no say in who your project sponsor is, here s what you can do: Make your sponsor look really, really good. Take on all the best attributes you can and then give credit to the sponsor. And smile.
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