TheCourse Edition 4 and a Half

During the last half of 2010, Project Management Institute informed its Registered Education Providers that 30% of the PMP exam would be replaced on August 31, 2011. Revised course material will be issued to all classroom and online students registered after January 1, 2011. All other students will have access to the revisions through this web page and its links.

The changes were due to two developments:

• A decision was made that the sixth category of exam questions, Ethics and Social Responsibility, is to be eliminated, and some questions throughout the other five categories (related to the five process groups) would be revised to incorporate the PMI Code of Ethics. This issue does not affect our course material, other than to urge students to study the Code of Ethics, which is included in course segment 15.
• A new Role Delineation Study (RDS) was completed, and its impact needs to be incorporated into the exam. The RDS is a survey of practicing project managers to learn what they actually do.
• Added May 27, 2011. I've prepared an html page with the revised Project Manager task descriptions from the Crosswalk page, and highlighted specific points that lend themselves to exam questions. You should be alert for others.

At first glance, the effect of the RDS appeared to require a major revision to the course. PMI supplied a table titled 'Crosswalk' showing the revisions. It consists of a comparison of project manager tasks as formerly defined, and as now defined as a result of the new RDS. The former descriptions are of little interest - it is the new definitions that impact the course. There are 37 tasks described in the new specification, in these process groups:

A study of the new task descriptions led to a pleasant surprise. With one exception, TheCourse either already includes the tasks, or very little revision was required to incorporate them. Examples of tasks defined by the Crosswalk as having 'substantial differences', but which are already thoroughly addressed in the course material, are:

• "Develop a human resource management plan by defining the roles and
  responsibilities of the project team members . . ."
• "Develop a communication plan based on the project organization structure and
  external stakeholder requirements . . ."
• "Create the work breakdown structure with the team by deconstructing the scope, in order to manage the scope of the project . . ."
• "Transfer the ownership of deliverables to the assigned stakeholders in accordance
  with the project plan, in order to facilitate project closure."

Following is an example of a 'new' task that is inserted into the course material by quotation of the task description at the appropriate point(s). When there is available space, text is added to existing slides or online pages. If not, new slides or online pages are inserted. The insertion may be duplicated is there is more than one logical place it belongs.

• "Measure customer satisfaction at the end of the project by capturing customer
  feedback, in order to assist in project evaluation and enhance customer relationships."

All additions such as those described above, both in the classroom and online material, are in blue font.

The Exception

Initiation task 1 states, in part, "Perform project assessment based upon available information and meetings with the sponsor, customer and other subject matter experts . . ."

This language reinstates the former Initiation process, which consisted of evaluating whether a proposed project meets the organization's prerequisites for conducting a project, rather than being provided with a 'business case' as stated in 4th-edition PMBOK. The former material was inserted in the 4 and a half course edition at the beginning of Segment 3. It is presented as if it were another process named 'Project Assessment'.

This material is available to students registered before Jan. 1, 2011 in the second segment 3 online presentation.

Questions corresponding to this material are in lot #14 of the test engine question set.

Due to the increase in the size of course segment 3 by the addition of Project Assessment, the Develop Project Management Plan and Develop Scope Management Plan processes were moved to the beginning of segment 4, and the segment question sets were realigned accordingly.