All posts by David McLachlan

Project Communications Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Communications Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Communications Management, click here. Enjoy!

Project Communications Management Overview

Plan Communication Management

Manage Communications

Monitor Communication

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Communications Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Project Resource Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Resource Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Resource Management, click here. Enjoy!

Project Resource Management Overview

Plan Resource Management

Estimate Activity Resources

Acquire Resources

Develop Team

Manage Team

Control Resources

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Resource Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Project Quality Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Quality Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Quality Management, click here. Enjoy!

Project Quality Management Overview

Plan Quality Management

Manage Quality

Control Quality

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Quality Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Project Cost Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Cost Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Cost Management, click here. Enjoy!

Project Cost Management Overview

Plan Cost Management

Estimate Cost

Determine the Budget

Control Costs

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Cost Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Project Schedule Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Schedule Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Schedule Management, click here. Enjoy!

Project Schedule Management – Overview

Plan Schedule Management

Define Activities

Sequence Activities

Estimate Activity Durations

Develop Schedule

Control Schedule

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Schedule Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Project Scope Management – Project Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Scope Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Scope Management, click here. Enjoy!

Project Scope Management – Overview

Plan Scope Management

Collect Requirements

Define Scope

Create the Work Breakdown Structure

Validate Scope

Control Scope

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Scope Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Project Management Integration – Project Management Video Course

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

Below you will find videos on all the Project Integration Management sections from the PMBOK Guide.

If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Integration Management, click here. Enjoy!

01 – Project Integration Management

Overview

Develop Project Charter

Develop Project Management Plan

Direct and Manage the Project Work

Manage Project Knowledge

Monitor and Control Project Work

Perform Change Control 

Close Project or Phase

Well done for improving your knowledge on Project Management! If you want to see the “Key Concepts & Tools” for Project Integration Management, click here. Enjoy!

 – See All The Project Management (PMBOK) Video Lessons Here – 

– David McLachlan

Five Core Values of eXtreme Programming – Agile Certified Practitioner

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What is it?

eXtreme Programming (XP) focuses more on the programming aspect of Agile – pair programming, refactoring code, continuous integration of working code and test driven development.

XP has five core values, and we’ll compare them to the Scrum core values.

1. Simplicity

Find the simplest thing that could possibly work. Keeping things simple means removing complexity and waste in the development.

“Occam’s Razor”

2. Communication

Transparent, frequent, face-to-face communication is best for a project team.

Co-located where possible.

3. Feedback

Feedback on the product and on the team process.

Fail fast and fail early to get feedback on what’s not working before getting too invested in the project approach.

4. Courage

The courage to speak up, put ego aside, be vulnerable. Code is visible to everyone all the time on an XP project. Courage to put your work out there for others to review, inspect, and edit.

5. Respect

The team respects each others’ ideas, culture, values, and how they work to get results. Quality and the success or failure of the project is everyone’s responsibility.

– David McLachlan

– See all the Agile Certified Practitioner Videos –

The Seven Scrum Ceremonies – Agile Certified Practitioner Videos

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What is it?

“Ceremonies” is the term for meetings and events when working in a Scrum team. Let’s look at the seven Scrum ceremonies and how to using them.

1. Backlog refinement meeting

The product owner, the Scrum Master, and the development team work together to discuss and prioritise the backlog items.

2. Sprint planning meeting

The team determines how much work they can take on from the prioritized backlog for the next sprint (two-week iteration).

This is based on estimates of the items, and velocity of the team.

The selected items from the product backlog become the sprint backlog and the goal of the sprint.

3. The Daily Scrum

This is a 15-minute daily meeting, sometimes called a “stand-up” (where everyone stands around the Kanban board).

The development team and the Scrum Master each take turns answering three questions:

What have I accomplished since the last Daily Scrum?
What will I accomplish before the next Daily Scrum?
Is there anything blocking my work?

4. The Scrum of Scrums

In larger projects or programs there are multiple teams working within the same “program of work”.

A representative from each team meets in a Scrum of Scrums (often one to three times a week) to report on each team’s progress. They answer the same Scrum questions plus a fourth: Will our team be putting something in another team’s way?

5. The Scrum of Scrum of Scrums

In larger programs, you may have overlapping projects or programs, where a representative from each scrum of scrums may attend this scrum of scrum of scrums. The same scrum of scrum questions are asked.

This is typically getting up to the executive level, where multiple programs are involved.

6. Sprint Review

At the end of each sprint, the development team demonstrates the work they’ve accomplished for the product owner, the Scrum Master, and other key stakeholders.

This is an opportunity to see, feel and touch the feature and garner any feedback necessary before signing the feature off as done.

7. Sprint Retrospective

After the sprint review, and before the next sprint planning meeting, the development team meets to discuss and answer:

What worked well,
What needs improvement,
What did we learn, and;
What still puzzles us.

This feedback goes back into the process to improve for future iterations.

– David McLachlan

– See all the Agile Certified Practitioner Videos –

PMP Practice Exam Questions and Answers | Scenario-Based! | 30

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PMP Exam Question Session 30

Scenario-based questions, just like the real PMP exam!

In this series we will walk through five PMP Practice Exam Questions each day – a great way to set up your morning as you prepare to pass the PMP Exam. It is also useful for the CAPM exam, as the content is very similar.

We will also figure them out together, and you’ll see the thought process behind solving these PMP exam questions.

Watch the video below for the questions and answers! 

Question 1

You are working on a project and it has become apparent that part of the product your company was creating they won’t be able to complete. You decide to outsource it to a vendor, and offer a bonus to the vendor if the work is completed in two months. What type of contract will you use?

A)  CPFF (Cost plus fixed fee)
B)  FPWEA (Fixed price with economic price adjustments)
C)  T & M (Time and materials)
D)  FPIF (Fixed price incentive fee)

Question 2

You are working on the schedule of your project and have just created a schedule network diagram. You have noted the duration, early start and early finish dates for each activity. What will you do next?

A)  Perform a “forward pass”, noting the Late Start and Late Finish for each activity.
B)  Perform a “backward pass”, noting the Late Start and Late Finish for each activity
C)  Break down the scope into smaller work packages you can assign to your teams
D)  Perform a “backward pass”, noting the float and positions of each activity

Question 3

You are working on a project that is outsourcing part of development to a third party. Your project sponsor wants to keep the risk to the organisation low. What sort of contract will you use to outsource this work?

A)  CPFF (Cost plus fixed fee)
B)  T & M (Time and Material)
C)  FFP (Firm Fixed Price Contract)
D)  CPIF (Cost plus Incentive fee)

Question 4

You have acquired your project team, and are ready to distribute the work to your team for them to begin. You will use your project’s outlined work authorisation system, which:

A)  Manages the timing and sequence of when activities need to be performed, and by whom.
B)  Tracks and manages work defects as they arise
C)  Identifies the resources needed to complete activities
D)  Is used for comparing actual work against the baselines

Question 5

You are managing a project to build a new meeting hall. Half way through, one of the stakeholders advises the stage is not big enough, it must be twice as big. This was not originally planned for. What will you do next?

A)  Get the work done immediately and start executing
B)  Update the impacted baselines – scope , cost and schedule
C)  Update the work performance reports and share with stakeholders
D)  Analyse the impact to the cost , schedule and scope, then submit the change request to the change control board for approval.

– See all the PMP Exam Questions –