Project Management Hacking

How to Manage Projects More Efficiently and Effectively in Less Time

Douglas Martin, Douglas Peyton Martin

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000652406
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

This book provides the much-needed, no-nonsense guidance crucial for project managers – that is, the type of guidance that is missing from every major body of knowledge and educational offering for working project managers. This very practical book identifies the activities that influence project success and focuses the limited time and energy available towards just those activities.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) and most literature on project management discusses all aspects of project management under the assumption that project managers will narrow down focus because they cannot be expected to use every process outlined by PMI to manage every project. This book uses the concept of "hacking" our standard conventions of project management and outlines a standard path identified by conventional wisdom, an evil path that project managers frequently resort to under time/quality pressures, and a hacker path that provides a better way to look at the challenge.

This book equips project managers with streamlined approaches to refocus their efforts on factors that matter while spending less time doing it. Project management is a demanding discipline with a growing body of knowledge with few instructions on how to do it all.

The author provides humorous anecdotes and examples while teaching readers how to save time, improve quality, and advance their career. The primary sections of the book cover how to approach the most common certifications in project management; continuing education; leading project teams; initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling projects; general life skills; and taking on additional responsibilities. Hacking project management is about focusing the limited bandwidth a project manager can give a project towards the activities that drive success.

1

Getting Certified

Credentials like PMP® and certifications such as CSM (there is a difference between the two) bring genuine financial benefit to the credential holder and demonstrate attained knowledge on a subject matter. A large industry has spawned around certification training. Most players are legitimate, helpful, and good value. A few put up a thin veneer of legitimacy with a slick web presence and a similar sounding certification to swindle people with good intentions out of millions every year.

PMP^®

The Standard Path

1. 1. Go to the PMI website and read the current credential guide. Satisfy the experience and education requirements with a reputable education provider.
2. 2. Study like a neurotic maniac for months.
3. 3. Sit the exam.

Clean, clear, repeatable; just as the industry standard advocates.

The Evil Path

There are plenty of shady players out there in the PMP® prep world. Beware the companies that know damn well the exam has changed to the new version of the PMBOK® Guide, but they still actively market and sell materials for the previous version. A pox on the lot of them for the frustrations and re-test fees unsuspecting newbs have to pay just so they can clear out their inventory before selling the right version of the materials.

Others in the market will report that they have test simulators using “actual PMP® exam questions” reported by “recent test takers.” First, I doubt anyone can actually memorize questions during an event as anxiety-filled as sitting for the PMP®, so I call shenanigans on the premise. Second, this is a no-no for anyone who bothered to read the PMI’s ethical guidelines.

The Hacker Path

There is no shortcut through the application path. I will share that if you have a toxic relationship with the project “sponsor” or your immediate manager at that time, any knowledgeable stakeholder on a project can serve as the contact on your application. Don’t skip a project because you worked with an arrogant jackass, hellbent on making your life miserable, and wait to earn those hours back. Somebody on that project knows you both worked for an all-star asshole and will speak on the organization’s behalf to verify your participation.

If you have not learned the valuable life skill of how to take a multiple-choice test, do that first. Most exam questions are phrased in a way that you can quickly eliminate two of the four answers and give you a 50/50 shot. This is a valuable skill that will help you hack your way through a lot of subjects with less than perfect effort. Odds are you, or someone you know, has an SAT/GMAT/GRE prep book, and it is almost always covered in those guides. Crack it open and review the advice it gives on passing a multiple-choice test.

Keep in mind the PMP® is a pass/fail exercise. Time invested beyond the effort needed to safely pass the exam with an acceptable score is wasted time you could have spent binge watching something on Netflix or playing with your children. The PROMETRIC results will only indicate if you passed or failed and provide some generic feedback on how you performed in each knowledge area. No PMP® I know has ever looked back at that report once they learned that they passed the exam. Your goal is to get a C+, and the amount of knowledge and preparation it takes to get that is daunting enough.

Some quick things to keep in mind when studying for your tests:

1. 1. Regardless of how trivial or silly the issue sounds in the scenario given in the exam question, the project manager is always proactive and will act sooner rather than later.
2. 2. The project manager will never break the law or act in an unethical manner. The project manager will honor and respect local customs.
3. 3. If an available answer is “call a meeting to discuss the issue,” odds are it is the right answer.
4. 4. Some questions provide the answer to others in the exam. This frequently comes up in the inputs/outputs/tools/techniques questions.

More detailed tips to help with your exam:

If your PMP® instructor introduced Earned Value Management (EVM) as a subject being “something you just have to learn for the exam. I’ve never used it and I don’t know of many that do,” then you likely won’t really learn EVM and should ask for part of your fees back. Earned Value Management works IF you commit to the process. Take the time to find someone in your local PMI Chapter, on YouTube, or on another online media platform who is passionate about EVM and has experience implementing it. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to learn when someone with experience using it is teaching you.

As a side-rant: In what other professional endeavor is it acceptable to teach something you have never successfully achieved or believed in yourself? Shame on every PMP® prep instructor who has polluted the opinion of their students from embracing and learning a proven technique that accurately predicts schedule and cost performance because they didn’t bother to try to learn and use it themselves.

If we can agree that knowing 80% of the Process Grid’s inputs, outputs, and tools and techniques is an acceptable level of understanding for the exam, I have some fantastic news: there is no reason to memorize the entire grid!

The first wave is to identify patterns that are true at least 80% of the time and commit those to memory. Some examples:

• Initiating and Planning Activities will almost always include Organizational Process Assets and Enterprise Environmental Factors as Inputs.
• Monitoring and Controlling – Work performance data is almost always an input. Change requests are almost always an output (with the exception of “Perform Integrated Change Control”).

The second wave is allowing the question to give you the answer and relying upon your ability to read and reason versus memorizing these aspects of the grid. Some examples:

• The output for the planning activity is the plan for that process. For example, the “Plan Schedule Management” activity will have an output of a schedule management plan.
• The input for the monitoring and controlling activity is the activity’s plan. Outputs will be updates to the plan, forecasts, and logs of the same activity type.

The third wave is dealing with the exceptions to the rules and focusing on areas with several activities focused on a specific knowledge area, such as risk. Grids are fine to work from when it comes to presenting visually. However, it is far easier to pass the exam if you actually understand how the activities flow across time, so you can rely upon comprehension versus memorization to know the difference between plan risk management, identify risk, perform a qualitative risk analysis, perform a quantitative risk analysis, plan risk responses, and control risk. If you understand the flow between activities, then the inputs, outputs, and tools and techniques are easy to spot and answer correctly in the exam.

The final wave is to come up with a basic list of activities, inputs, outputs, and tools and techniques to study that simply escape reason (and your ability to remember), and try to memorize. This will be a far shorter list with far less to commit to memory, saving you time studying. It is worth noting that plenty of people who failed their PMP® have a perfect grid committed to memory.

Leverage your PMI membership. PMI members have access to projectmanagement.com. That website has an activity called “PM challenge” with a test bank of 1,000 questions to work through. Any questions missed return to the pool and will repeat until answered correctly. What is genuinely helpful about this service is, right or wrong, the site will explain why the correct answer is the correct answer. Unlike practice exams that need a firm timebox to work in, this can be fitted into a few minutes of slack time throughout the day.

Learn the rules of the proctor organization and how the test instrument functions. In the United States, PROMETRIC publishes an overview of how the test tool will function during the exam. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the tool before sitting for the exam so you’re comfortable with the technology.

Also, take time to read the rules to be observed during the exam so you are not rattled when asked to pull up your pant legs and hand over eyeglasses for inspection. When I took my PMI-ACP®, I saw a young woman practically have a meltdown when she had to put her necklace with a locket, containing some of her father’s remains, in a locker. I don’t know what test she was there to take, but I’d wager she didn’t pass and will be paying to re-test.

PMI-ACP^®

The Standard Path

1. 1. Read the 12 sourcebooks.
2. 2. Begin using Agile principles in project work to gain experience hours.
3. 3. Take a prep course.
4. 4. St...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface: Why Buy This Book
• Author
• Introduction
• 1 Getting Certified
• 2 Professional Development and Continuing Education
• 3 Leading the Project Team
• 4 Initiating and Planning Projects
• 5 Executing, Monitoring, and Controlling Projects
• 6 Closing Projects
• 7 General Life Skills
• 8 Performs Other Duties as Assigned
• 9 Summary
• Index