Part 1: PMBoK v6 and PMP Exam – All that you need to know

Worried about how PMP exam has changed?

GreyCampus presented a 2-day training on the updated Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK v6). The objective of this training is to prepare you for the upcoming PMP certification exams aligned to PMBoK v6, starting from March 2018.

The training covered PMBOK6 update - summary of changes between PMBOK 5th and 6th edition, details on PMBOK v6 and the impact on the PMP examination. Through this training you can equip yourself with the main changes and be exam ready. The training conducted was very interactive and there was a dedicated Questions & Answers session which you might relate to.

Below is the recorded version of the Webinar that was held on 24th-25th February 2018.

Read the article: PMBoK V5 vs PMBoK V6: 10 Major changes you should be aware of

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Transcript

Hello everyone I am Manideep business manager from GreyCampus welcome to the today training of PMBOK basics I would like to introduce today's facilitator Mr. Laxmi srinivas who is an IT professional with 16 plus years of relevant industry experience in banking and financial services life sciences and healthcare he has managed complex projects and large programs so worked as a project program and client service delivery executive and also established PMO like a project management office for various organizations so before we proceed let's set up some guidelines for an easy flow of the session number one before the webinar begins everybody will be muted to prevent a noise disturbance to the presenter for asking questions please ping or raise your hand where you can find the option at the bottom of your screen question number two questions will be taken by the presenter during the session via chat or the question Anderson option available on the bottom of your screen you can also email your questions to support@greycampus.com so we'll be happy to answer it we also have a dedicated question and answer session at the end of today's session so for any queries any road of queries you can directly ask the instructor or you can email all your queries to support@greycampus.com so we'll be very happy to answer all of your questions all right over to you Mr. Laxmi Srinivas.

Yeah thanks Mani for that quick introduction and the setting of the ground rules good morning & good evening everybody I laxmi srinivas she must cordially invite you for this day webinar spread over two days two hours per day today and tomorrow on project management and let me quickly introduce myself thank smoothly for the introduction but however I have a total of 16 years of experience primarily into IT project management and I worked in the capacity of a program and project manager and I am an project management professional certified professional from PMI began mine I mean as a certified practitioner I'm a risk management professional and I'm also a program management professional PG&E; from PMI.

I've been freelancing for quite some time now for the last five six years and project management is made for passion and today I'll be your presenter and facilitator for today and tomorrow we will discuss about the various aspects of project management most importantly we will try to align our self to project management body of knowledge version six which is the current standard that is available and in this during our interactions we will have to learn and unlearn hands-on primarily because many of us we are premier practicing project managers but most importantly we will have to align our thoughts to the project management body of knowledge which becomes the single source of truth for the examination ok.

I welcome you one and all on behalf of GreyCampus and which get started off though okay right we will move on will quickly move on the project management body of knowledge version six so this will be a good landing page for all of us if you look at the very title page says together for the first time project management body of knowledge which talks about the kind which will be the single point of reference for all of us which is version 6 along with agile practice day so there is an enormous focus on agility moving from a traditional planned urban model to n value driven model and if you look at now we are currently referring to sixth edition so what usually happens is to give you some information about the change in additions there is something known as an Road delineation study abbreviated as RDS so what PMI does is they do an a survey ok they do a survey every three to four years and they try to understand what are the process best practices that are there from a project management standpoint across the group and they try to collect everything and then they try to revise the existing processes okay so that is one of the key reasons why there is a change in this edition every five minutes okay so currently we are referring to sixth edition and the key focus is to bring a more emphasis on agile as a practice okay this is the project management body of knowledge.

Project management body of knowledge 

I hope you all are aware that you can get a copy of this from the PMI website my underlying assumption Before we jump start today's session is that we all know the fundamental tenants of project management okay and most importantly we know how do we go about filling up the application form we have a very good understanding about the code of ethics and professional conduct and we also know from where do we get the project management body of knowledge okay so before I do that you can navigate to project management guidance standards okay and this is where you try to get your project management body of knowledge which is the sixth edition okay right so now we eventually spend some time looking at what are the major changes that have been brought into the picture so the good news here is still we will the knowledge areas continue to remain the same okay I see I hope that you are aware that when we talk about project management we will talk about the domains of project management and knowledge areas if you navigate to page number 25 quickly so this will be a very frequent landing page for all of us where if you look at we talk about knowledge areas and we talked about the process groups so we have five process groups initiation planning execution monitoring and control and closure and there is no change per se in the process groups this will continue to remain the same from version 5 to version 6 no changes at all in terms of process groups in terms of knowledge areas this continues to remain intact and what does it mean still we will primarily continue to focus on the 10 knowledge areas starting from integration management scope management schedule management cost management quality management resource management communication risk procurement and stakeholder management so the 10 knowledge areas and phy to means they continually make the same there is no change in the domains and knowledge changes ok that's the first thing that's the good news that we have and now if you look at we will spend some time looking at what are the changes that are there ok so integration management there is no change here if you look at only change from a knowledge area standpoint is project time management ok in version 5 we had project time management as a knowledge area that has been rephrased because we cannot primarily manage time that is a view that PMI has and hence we have refreshed into schedule management ok so this is one important factor and the second important thing is when we talk about stakeholder management if you look at stakeholders are not like risks when we try to manage them so primarily instead of management we very carefully use the word called engagement okay primarily because the success of a project is directly proportional to the amount of effort you have invested in managing the expectations of your stakeholders there are the people who are going to design the success of your project so it is equally very important to spend a lot of time during the nascent stages of the project and understand what are their expectations and eventually have an engagement plan rather than calling it doesn't stakeholder management plan like for all the other knowledge areas we talk about heavy emphasis on planning we talk about a project management plan we talk about a scope management plan we talk about the schedule management plan we talk about the cost management plan so on and so forth but here if it can't be talked about stakeholder engagement what is your plan to engage your stakeholders once you have identified them from the first process so that is also a key consideration that has been taken into account ok then from a process standpoint what has really changed that is there are no major changes if you look at from  the processes that we have done a project charter which is really appoints the project manager which brings the project into existence which  empowers the project manager to expend time money and resources from the project continues to remain the same however if you look at move on to the executing phase of the project if you look at 4.4 which is managed project knowledge so this is all together then you brand new process which has been introduced so it has a view that when they are executing a project there is wealth of information in terms of work performance information both performance data and we collect this and we broadcast this to various stakeholders on our page so instead of an exercise which is which happens at the end of a phase or at an end of the project what PMI has done is they have they have brought this as an activity which will take place through the life cycle of the project ok so how do you given that is there is a lot of wealth of information ok because eventually when we start working on projects there is lot of data that gets churned out and with this data there is lot of information that we have to take meaningful decisions about the project and eventually translate them into dashboards and customer information so this wealth of knowledge has to be managed and if this will be an attractive activity which happens through the life cycle of the project right from initiation planning execution monitoring control and closing and instead of doing it big bang and rather during the end of the project we will have this as applicable or as relevant or as the situation warrants okay so managing project knowledge is a key consideration and the brand new process which has been introduced ok the other important thing I would like to emphasize at this point in time is now a PMI has mapped the role of a project manager to the talent triangle what does it mean I'll quickly navigate to Google again I hope we all of aware of the talent triangle so this is known as sub PMI at alien triangle during the nation during the early stages of the project there is lot of work that has to be done for an opportunity to be translated into a project okay I'm using the word opportunity where you will have to understand the landscape of the customer what are the various solution offerings that are there who are the various competitors who are there in the market understanding the potential problem statements of your customer and most importantly stepping into the shoes of the customer instead of only focusing upon the triple constraints of project management which is scope time and cost now there is a greater need for the project manager to have an holistic view about what is the project about what is the business problem that is getting addressed because of this endeavor called project how is the customer benefiting from this solution most importantly and how does it how does it eventually translate into downstream opportunities both to the customer and to the performing organization there has been greater emphasis on this approach in version 6 and that is why if you look at the role of a project manager has been mapped to the talent track which talks about the project manager essentially has to understand the strategic and business management aspects of the project what is the landscape of the customer who are the competitors who are there what are the regulatory conditions that have to be taken into consideration eventually found us an opportunity translate into a project and what are those handoff activities which happen between the executive committee and the project manager so there is greater emphasis to understand all these aspects and this has been brought into strategy in business management the next important aspect talks about leadership so today if you look at potentially they are we are all governed by constraints okay when we talk about project management if you look at we are governed by constraints okay when a state governed by constraints you are not given all the required resources to work on a project resources essentially per se does not mean Human Resources it would be hardware resources it could be software resources it could be people resources any infrastructure okay any equipment any material that is required because primarily when we talk about project management they are not now only talking about the IT industry but we by enlarge refer to all the industry set up there okay so now it is equally important for the project manager to demonstrate servant leadership in order to be a leader you will have to be a servant first that is the fundamental driving force of leadership where we not about the project manager having very good interpersonal skills okay when we talk about interpersonal skills we talk about soft skills your ability to negotiate your ability to motivate individuals creating and a congenial atmosphere for development end after day when different people when different resources they're usually resources they come from different organizations they have different cultural backgrounds so it is equally important for the project manager to ensure that everybody is on the same page and then get started off on the project and during the execution phase of the project there will be lot of push and pull with regards to the various aspects of project so how does a team work together Like well oil in the machine that's equally very very important there will be room for conflicts conflicts are good conflicts are bad and beyond a point conflicts they prove to be counterproductive so how do you really help teams deliver true business value how do you create or develop high performance teams that is the fundamental essence of leadership in order to be a leader you will have to be a servant first and this concept also is heavily inspired from the agile industry which is the concept known as servant leadership. 

Servant leadership

servant-leadership basically talks about in order to be a leader you will have to be a servant first servant meaning understand what the team wants okay instead of using a command and control approach we are making a paradigm shift we are no longer trying to employ a command and control approach but rather work with individuals understand their competencies help them evolve over a period of time and help them deliver true business value that's very very important and that is what leadership essentially focuses for the other aspect of the talent trend it talks about the technical project manage essentially the project manager is supposed to have the required knowledge and competency to primarily manage the project understanding scope understanding schedule deriving schedule and most importantly ensuring that the goals and objectives of the projects are met and we are able to deliver business value to the customer so primarily understanding the triple constraints of project management which is full-time and crossed and how do we ensure that you deliver true quality to your customer so this is one major aspect that has been brought into consideration and incorporated into project management body of knowledge version 6 ok and we have a dedicated chapter towards this which talks about what is expected from a project manager that's very very important and project management body of knowledge version 6 talks about it ok any questions till now it's almost close to half an hour I will pause here for questions I will give you two minutes the floor is open for questions I am looking at the chat window you can use the chat window for your questions I have a good kill now a quick confirmation for from all of you will get and fan so thank you for the confirmation ok and I'm seeing responses coming in thanks for the hotel hall I'm not sure apologies if I have got your name wrong you we will have a placeholder Westen's so you can voice out your questions rather than taking all of your questions towards the end I would pause here for a couple of minutes for your questions video of PMBOK Sanjay has a question PD use of project management version 5 training will be useful for version 6 certificates yes that does once you how do we yeah so Sanjay to answer your question the certificate is valid irrespective of version 5 and version 6 so I know I hope that answers your question Hansen has a question how do I sign in under my name I did not get your question can you elaborate on that hands are you talking about using the signature of PMP I am sorry I am afraid I did not get your question can you elaborate on your question hands ok if there is not very important we'll move on ok right.

Okay we will go back to the project management body of knowledge ok we will also look at ok an important document that I have prepared which which clearly calls out what are the primary differences I will keep flipping between the project management body of knowledge and this document which also the primary differences so project knowledge management is an key area of consideration and as I told you there is a dedicated chapter which talks about the role of the project manager ok so with this these have the primary changes that have been introduced into integration management so as I told you there is more focus on business value how do you manage the wealth of information that keeps coming out in a project even that's very very important and if you look at in project management body of knowledge version 5 we had something known as closing the project I will go back to the PMBOK version 5 this is version 5 and if you navigate here this is version 5 and if you look at we had something known as closing procurements okay this is the version 5 which talks about procurement management has a knowledge area and now in version 6 you don't see something known as closed procurements okay so this is also a key consideration that has been brought into picture when we talk about the procurement knowledge management knowledge area we don't have closed procurements here okay so corrosion of procurement snow has been integrated with closing the project on closing the face which is a very important consideration that has been taken into account okay and then I think yeah so as I told you understanding the landscape delivering new business value managing project knowledge and more explicit emphasis on the project documentation of artifacts okay we talked about whenever we talk about project management there are a lot of artifacts that come into picture and defining activities sequencing activities estimating activity resources estimating activity duration activity list so there are lot of document artifacts that come into picture so now there is greater degree of rigor and control on project documentation and project artifacts as well so that is one of the key consideration that has been brought into picture okay then now moving  on to scope management.

Scope management 

Now the good news is there are no major changes when we talk about scope management if you look at primarily the processes continue to remain the same but as I told you fundamentally how do you really work on assigned projects okay what is primarily the approach to grooming sessions we all know right when we usually I'm assuming that we are all very familiar with agile as a framework and when we talk about agility we talk about scrum as a variant okay and now when we talk about scrum the first important thing is that it's a product owner okay the product owner is usually the wife of the customer or the customer by himself so how do we conduct grooming sessions okay because the grooming sessions are fairly very important for the agile teams to understand the voice of the customer so then has been greater amount of information on what is the agile way of doing things from it requirement elicitation standpoint how do you ensure that you know understood the features correctly and completely in an unambiguous way how do you ensure that you have very very good view about what is the definition of ready and what is the definition of them all these things have been incorporated from him as a standpoint but otherwise from a traditional project management standpoint right then going on to schedule management.

Schedule management

As I told you in project management body of knowledge version 5 which was known as time management okay now managing time is something which does not which is not really very convincing from a project management I mean terminology standpoint is rephrased the word called time to schedule okay if you go back to version 6 I will keep flipping between version 5 is version 6 now if you look at the good project schedule management how do you manage projects can use is equally very very important right so instead of using the bird call time this has been refreshed with schedule that is one of the key consideration and if you look at we had a process called we in the project management body of knowledge version 5 we had a process called estimate activity resources okay in order to carry out an activity in order to perform an activity as we all know a project has phases phases have activities and activities have tasks okay so in order to carry out an activity what are the resources that are required okay it would be in in version 5 we were only talking about human resources now what PMI has done is after careful consideration they have eliminated the word called human they only call it as the source management so resources could be anything by enlarge it could be material equipment hardware resources software resources and people resources now the other key difference here is this process of estimate activity resources has been moved from time management to resource management that is one of the significant difference that has happened in version 6 now if you look at estimate activity resources it has been moved into human rules into Resource Management knowledge area so one process has been pushed from schedule management to resource management so that is one of the primary difference that is there now as a again needless to say for every knowledge area ok so for all the technology areas that you see on the screen starting from integrations for time cost quality Human Resources communication risk procurement and stakeholder there are four fundamental aspects that have been introduced for each of the knowledge areas what are they one key concepts for every knowledge area what are the key concepts that has been clearly documented in version 6 so it is like more like an abstract okay a summary view of what is integration management what is management for every knowledge area you will see he concepts the second important point is talking about what are the trends and emerging practices for each of the knowledge area now if you look at when we spoke about version 5 it was more retrospective okay where you will plan the project you will execute you will monitor and control and then eventually you will close the project and it was more a lag indicator so what they have done is they have also started I would call this as a more a forward-thinking approach okay that's the beauty of project management body of version six where they have incorporated a forward-thinking approach where when we talk about what are the emerging trends in project management what are the emerging practices and how they can be incorporated into each of the knowledge areas that is the second point that they would like to think of for each of the knowledge area.

The third important thing is tailoring considerations timing is very very important now I will pause here for a minute and ask you ask the team what is what is what essentially does tailoring me any idea my question to all of you is what is styling in a project management any idea what is tailoring you can use the chat window my question is tailoring okay I can spell it for you by learning what does tailoring me cutting to the specific project okay any other views modifying the project plan to meet specific outcomes and goals accommodating for nuances refining okay I see lot of responses coming in thanks for that okay now I'll go back okay so now if you look at in a project okay I'll use the Excel spreadsheet before we look at the definition of tailoring so a project could be a very simple project okay where it is span across let us say six months to one year okay not lot of money in one let us say 125k US dollars and this is one of those business-as-usual projects I will call this as BAU projects not very strategic there is a customer who is willing to pay for a particular service and you quickly understand the requirements you design Development Authority now it's a very simple now there could be a strategic project okay a strategic project which is very important to the customer and to the Performing organization inherently complex okay inverse fairly big amount of money very heavy on domain and technology okay now in that case there has to be a greater degree of rigor in terms of processes okay before we understand tailoring it is equally important for us to understand the triage the Triads between people process and technology so if you look at in New York in any industry we talk about three things we talk about people we talk about processes and we talk about technology people come they join the organization eventually if they don't see a well-defined career path they leave the organization okay and technology keeps changing day in and day out so I am I don't want to trivialize the whole discussion saying that people and technology are not very important but equally when there are two dynamic elements you will need something which will try to bridge the gap between them and that is known as process central to any industry is process process defines a way of doing things and when you do it in that way when you follow a process your activities are more controlled their activities are more understood your activities are articulated build and there are no unpleasant surprises as you design develop and test application or service that you want to provide to a customer so now this is the primary definition of process now to give you a very simple example today we are here
today to understand what are the primary differences between version 5 and version 6 so that is the objective of this session so we all wanted to get acquainted with project management body of knowledge version six and we started looking at who are the various service providers who are there who will help us understand project management at our own convenience okay so you reached out to GreyCampus you enrolled with them you checked on what are the hardware and software requirements we have a specific given that we come from different geographies we finally agreed on a particular time slot and now we have started discussing on project management body of knowledge version six so there is a process that we have followed knowingly or unknowingly there is a process that we have followed so whenever we work on a program a project and interior opportunity primarily inherently there is a process in everything and anything that people so know what PMI says is going back to the project management body of knowledge version six these are all the various processes that are there if you look at
as we all are on our have already trained on project management if you look at from 4.1 through thirteen point four you will see that there are close to 49 processes now is it not will it not be an overhead to incorporate all these processes into every project sometimes a process is usually an enabler it should not act as a burden to the project manager so you are going to handpick that is the beauty that a project management body of knowledge gives you it is a framework it is not a standard standard is basically do what you say and say what you do but when we talk about the framework you can customize the processes which you think are important for your program and project so out of all these 49 processes if you look at that you see on the screen you could handpick the processes which are relevant to your organization relevant to your project and start incorporating them in true spirit so that is known as tailoring considerations okay I hope that is very clear to all of you okay right so that was about tailoring consultations and to go and reiterate the point that every knowledge area talks about key concepts trends and emerging practices what are the tailoring considerations and most importantly how do we do it anyway how do we work in an agile or an adaptive environment has also been extensively discussed in project management body of knowledge version six okay right now the next important point is we have discussed on schedule management and as I told you quick references going back to a schedule management it has been renamed rephrased from time management we have moved to schedule management which is one important thing the second important thing is estimate activity resources which was part of schedule management has been moved to resource management that is the second important thing and the third important thing is also more focusing on rather than talking about the critical path method okay which is a very important aspect of schedule management how do you when we work on a project we all know right that a project has phases phases have activities and activities have tasks now let us take an example where you have 40 tasks in your project okay and not all of them can be started on the same day and completed on the same thing you will have to sequence them you will have to understand dependencies and then you will have to establish relationships and most importantly as a project manager you should also know which of these activities can be delayed and which of these activities should not be delayed okay so instead of using such a heavy framework called critical path method now we are also focusing on agile release planning okay how do we how do we do I'd read you approaches how do