Appendix: PMP List of Knowledge and Skills Tutorial

16.1 Lesson 16—Appendix: PMP List of Knowledge and Skills

Hello and welcome to the PMP® Certification Course offered by Simplilearn! In this lesson, we will be looking at the knowledge and skill requirements for project managers according to the latest PMP examination content outline.

16.2 Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to: •List all the knowledge and skills according to the latest PMP exam content outline •Describe briefly the cross-cutting knowledge and skills In the next screen, we will look at the knowledge and skills from all the domains.

16.3 Knowledge and Skills—Existing

PMI expects the project manager to possess these knowledge and skills to perform the tasks mentioned in the examination content outline and make the project a success. We will first briefly discuss the knowledge and skills in the older exam outline and then look at the newly added ones in later screens. As these knowledge and skills have already been discussed in detail in earlier lessons as well as the PMBOK, only a brief description of each is presented here. The elements of a project charter are: •Project purpose or justification •Measurable project objectives and related success criteria •High-level requirements •Project description and risk •Summary milestone schedule and budget •Key stakeholder list •Project approval requirements such as what constitutes success, who decides it, and who signs off the project •Assigned project manager, their authority level, and responsibility •Name and authority of the sponsor or other persons authorizing the project charter Estimation tools and techniques for schedule, effort, and cost estimation include analogous and parametric tools, as well as three point estimation or PERT. You can also use simulation methods, such as Monte Carlo. Cost management planning provides guidelines on estimating the cost at the activity level, deciding which estimation technique to use, determining the overall budget, and tracking expenditure. It also covers the frequency of monitoring and the contingency reserve. Communication management plan describes the communication-related needs of stakeholders, and how to manage and control communication. Human resource planning provides guidelines to assign roles and responsibilities, acquire the team, release the team, set safety and compliance for employees, and define skill levels required to make the project a success. Procurement planning outlines processes to select vendors, award contracts, monitor and control procurement-related activities, and close procurements. It also covers contract types and source selection criteria. Quality management planning provides guidelines on how to perform quality assurance using quality auditing, and measure the quality of deliverables using quality control processes. Requirements gathering techniques include planning sessions to decide who should be involved, decide who will be the facilitator or moderator, schedule meetings, and plan the agenda for the meetings. Teams also use brainstorming techniques to generate ideas. Focus groups involve bringing together prequalified stakeholders and subject matter experts to elicit their expectations, opinions, and attitudes for a proposed product, service, or result. Risk management planning provides guidelines for risk management, identifying risk using different techniques, performing risk analysis, selecting risk response strategies, and controlling risk. Scope deconstruction tools include the Work Breakdown Structure, which involves the decomposition of scope into smaller components called work packages; and scope backlog, which is a list of all requirements for an iterative project lifecycle. Scope management planning offers guidelines to collect requirements, define the scope, decompose the scope into manageable components, accept deliverables after validation, and control the scope. Time management planning describes estimation techniques for scheduling and effort estimation, such as critical path. It also covers strategies to maintain the project schedule, and track and review project progress. Work flow diagramming techniques help to graphically represent the flow of activities and the dependencies. Examples include flowcharts or network diagrams. Continuous improvement processes are performed throughout the project by conducting process analysis, including removing bottlenecks, identifying redundancies, and others. The elements of a statement of work are business need, product scope description, and strategic plan. Let us continue discussing knowledge and skills in the next screen.

16.4 Knowledge and Skills—Existing (contd.)

Project budgeting tools and techniques include revenue projection model, forecasting, expense budgeting, cash flow for a given period, depreciation calculation, and profit and loss maintenance. Organizational tools or Excel sheets are used for the purposes of budgeting, accounting, and controlling. Quality standard tools include fishbone diagram, control charts, flow charts, scatter diagram, run charts, Pareto charts, and check sheets. These help in measuring quality and matching it with the standard. Deviations from the standard require corrective and preventive action to be taken. Performance measurement and tracking techniques such as earned value management provide a comparison between planned and actual values. Based on this, we can predict the future of the project from time and cost perspective. Project control limits like tolerance and threshold are to be set for every parameter. Tolerance is the limit to which deviation can be withstood, for example a ±10% for the project timeline. Threshold is the level beyond which corrective action has to be taken, for example, the threshold for the timeline can be set as 15%. Risk identification techniques, including SWOT analysis, assumptions analysis, documentation reviews and analysis, can be both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative techniques help in prioritization and quantitative techniques provide the numerical value for the project objectives, that is, the contingencies. Risk response techniques differ based on positive and negative risks. Negative risk responses are Avoid, Transfer, Mitigate, and Accept. Positive risk responses are Exploit, Share, Enhance, and Accept. Archiving practices and statutes outline a set of practices based on organizational rules to store documents and materials once the project is closed. Compliance requirements are defined at the country and organizational levels. These include regulations, standards, culture, practices, and law. Contract closure requirements include the mode of payment, deliverables acceptance and sign-off procedures, and Terms and Conditions mentioned in the contract. Close-out procedures are the steps performed either due to the termination or successful completion of a project. Some of the steps are Final Acceptance, Sign-Off, Contract Closure, Lessons Learned Documentation, Archival of Documents, and Customer Satisfaction. Feedback techniques use different formats such as face-to-face, written, or survey types. The frequency of feedback collection and the format have to be agreed on. Project review involve meetings, or using software such as MS project, and EVM techniques. Transition planning and techniques are defined in the project management plan; transition can happen at the end of every deliverable or at the end of the project. The transition plan defines how, when, where, what, and between whom the transition occurs. In the next screen, we will look at the newly added knowledge and skills.

16.5 Knowledge and Skills—New

Analytical skills refer to the ability to visualize, analyze, break down complex problems, and solve them, followed by decision making. The project manager needs analytical skills especially during the initial stages of the project when there are more unknowns. Benefit analysis helps justify the business case, and results in the decision: whether to start or continue the project under consideration. Benefits analysis is done during project initiation and at the start of each project phase. Strategic management is required to achieve project deliverables as well as realize benefits, and meeting organizational goals. Change management planning outlines procedures to manage, track and document change requests, and describes the conditions for approving change requests, and the tools that can be used. Different types of contract are fixed price, cost reimbursable, time and material contracts. The contract type depends on the scope and whether the project will be outsourced. Selection criteria are developed to rate seller proposals and can be either objective or subjective. For this technique, the project follows existing organizational practices. Lean methodology involves reducing waste to improve efficiency. This is a continuous improvement process, which can be adopted within the project. Regulatory requirements to consider during planning include government and industry standards that may impact the project outcome. Environmental factors such as the weather, available infrastructure, and economical factors are also considered. Contract management techniques include defining the contract, terms and conditions, and negotiations with vendors. It is important for the project manager to read, understand, and agree on the project contract. Interdependence among project elements cover how the change in one element can affect the other and so affect the project outcome.

16.6 Knowledge and Skills—New (contd.)

Vendor management techniques involve selecting the best sellers based on source selection criteria. Project managers use them during procurement-related activities for the project. Process analysis techniques help identify better or faster ways to perform work, that is optimize the process. Process analysis involves the application of tools and methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, and Kanban. Project finance principles cover the different project selection methods using parameters such as PV, NPV, IRR, and other cost and earned value calculation techniques. Project quality best practices and standards provide the mechanism to align to the industry or government. ISO, or international organization for standards, is designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders while adhering to statutory and regulatory requirements. The CMMI Institute helps organizations discover the true value they can deliver by building capability in their people and processes. Quality validation and verification help ensure processes are performed in accordance to expectation, follow best practices, and measure the project output to verify if deliverables meet the standards. The techniques include quality audits, process analyses, problem analysis using check sheets, fishbone or scatter diagrams, and run, bar, control, and Pareto charts. Performance measurement techniques involve using parameters to decide the acceptance, rejection, or satisfaction criteria. Key Performance Indicators or KPIs include SLAs and baselines. Success factors include key deliverables, and organizational benefits. Let us look at the cross-cutting knowledge and skills in the next screen.

16.7 Cross-Cutting Knowledge and Skills—Existing

Active listening is an important interpersonal skill the project manager needs to manage stakeholders. Brainstorming is a data gathering and idea generating technique used to identify risks and problem areas, and devise solutions. It generally involves a group of team members or subject matter experts. Change management involves change control boards, expert judgment, and meetings between different stakeholders. The outcome of these meetings are either approval or rejection of the change requests. The potential number of communication channels within the project environment can be calculated using the formula n into n-1 by 2. Tools and techniques used for communication are face-to-face communication, video conferencing, teleconferencing, and social media. Communication methods can be interactive, push, or pull. Conflict resolution techniques include different resolution methods such as, problem solving, forcing, avoiding, smoothing, and compromising. Data gathering techniques are used to collect, organize, and present data and information. Decision-making can be on an individual basis or with a group of stakeholders. If a group is involved, it is called group decision-making. Facilitation techniques have broad applications within project management processes and guide the development of documents such as the project charter. Brainstorming, conflict resolution, problem solving, and meeting management are some of the key techniques used by facilitators to help teams and individuals accomplish project activities. Information gathering techniques include brainstorming, interviewing, the Delphi technique, and root cause analysis. Leadership involves focusing the efforts of a group of people towards a common goal and enabling them to work as a team. Negotiating means holding discussions with stakeholders to get the best resources, budget, and timeline in a win-win proposition. Influencing is a strategy of sharing power and relying on interpersonal skills to get stakeholder and team member buy in towards common goals. Presentation tools and techniques include visual aids such as pictures, videos, dashboards, traffic lights, stores, tubes, and so on. Prioritization is to order deliverables and activities based on stakeholder and business needs. In doing this, time management plays an important role, that is, activities and deliverables are prioritized based on the project schedule. Problem-solving techniques include brainstorming, SWOT analysis, fishbone diagram, and Five Whys. Steps to follow in problem solving are: Define the problem, Generate alternatives, Evaluate and select alternatives, and Implement solutions. In the next screen, let us look at the newly added cross-cutting knowledge and skills.

16.8 Cross-Cutting Knowledge and Skills—New

Applicable laws and regulations include labor law, country-specific standards, guidelines, and statutory requirements. The project manager has to keep jurisdiction-appropriate laws and regulations for project contract considerations. Benefits realization is a set of processes defined to ensure project deliverables are aligned with organizational strategies and create value. Note that the new examination content outline lays particular emphasis on benefits realization, in addition to the earlier focus on meeting project deliverables. Business acumen is an individual’s quickness and aptitude to understand the business situation and choose an appropriate response, and is an important skill for a project manager to possess. Coaching is a means of developing the project team to higher levels of competency and performance. Mentoring is guiding less-experienced people to reach the next level. Training is a formal or informal method to enhance the team’s skill levels. Motivation involves creating an environment in which the project objectives are achieved while keeping the team’s morale high. All these fall under interpersonal skills necessary for the project manager. Configuration management is a collection of procedures used to track, monitor, and manage project artifacts such as hardware, documentation, software code, and drawings. Customer satisfaction metrics are set by identifying parameters that help to measure whether the customer requirement is fulfilled. Some of these metrics are standards, technical specification, and Service Level Agreements. Delegation is assigning an activity to the appropriate team member or stakeholder and is an important skill as project managers themselves cannot execute all the activities. Emotional intelligence is the capability to identify, assess, and manage one’s own emotions and that of other people, as well as the collective emotions of a group. Emotional intelligence, an interpersonal skill, requires the project manager to be aware of and sensitive to people, their culture, and background. Expert judgment is provided based on expertise in an application area, knowledge area, discipline, or industry, as appropriate for the activity being performed. Such expertise may be provided by any group or person with specialized education, knowledge, skill, experience, or training. Generational sensitivity and diversity refers to understanding team members belonging to different age groups, and also be sensitive to the skill and cultural diversity within the team. The manager can establish a good rapport with team members with the help of one-on-one meetings and organizing team activities. Interpersonal skills refer to the ability to establish and maintain relationships with other people. This includes leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision-making, political and cultural awareness, negotiation, trust building, conflict management and coaching. Let us look at some more cross-cutting knowledge and skills in the next screen.

16.9 Cross-Cutting Knowledge and Skills—New (contd.)

Knowledge management entails having an understanding of the DIKW or Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom model. This model is used to generate data, gather information and create reports on work performance. Knowledge management is added newly in the fifth edition. The lessons learned management technique refers to the documentation of the knowledge gained during a project showing how project events were addressed or could have been addressed with the aim of improving future performance. According to the latest guidelines, the lessons learned technique must be performed throughout the project. This is also part of continuous improvement. Meeting management techniques involve preparing an agenda, setting ground rules, and dealing with conflicts, and other meetings-related duties. Organizational and operational awareness refers to situational awareness based on organizational practices, and is an enterprise environmental factor. Peer-review process is performed by people at the same level of expertise and is a horizontal channel of feedback. Relationship management refers to managing relations with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders and ensuring smooth communication. Risk assessment techniques cover qualitative and quantitative risk analysis using different tools such as decision trees, Monte Carlo simulation, and probability and impact assessment. Situational awareness refers to an understanding of current trends and practices in law, culture, skills, technology, as well as changes within the organization. Stakeholder management planning refers to different strategies to engage with stakeholders, which vary from stakeholder to stakeholder. The five levels of engagement are: Unaware, Resistant, Neutral, Supportive, and Leading. Team building techniques are used throughout the project to ensure they communicate and operate efficiently and deliver value to the customer. Virtual or remote team management involves managing the team when it is spread across different locations, time zones, or shifts.

16.10 Thank You

This concludes the lesson ‘Professional and Social Responsibility’. An appendix listing all the knowledge and skills in the latest examination content outline follows this lesson. This concludes the PMP Certification Course offered by Simplilearn. Thank you and happy learning!


Name Date Place
PMP® Certification 3 Aug -31 Aug 2018, Weekdays batch New York City View Details
PMP® Certification 6 Aug -21 Aug 2018, Weekdays batch Boston View Details
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