Project Management Professional (PMP) Exam Prep - Live Mentored

Hours: 150 / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Live Mentored

Course Overview:

This course will provide experienced project managers with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully complete the Project Management Institute’s nationally recognized Project Management Professional (PMP) exam.  This credential is considered the standard of excellence in the field of project management and is often a required credential in the field.  This comprehensive course will use learning activities, practice exams, and assignments to help students prepare for, and successfully complete, the PMP exam.

Students will:

• Describe the importance of project management, organizational project management maturity and the PMP® certification process
• Identify the knowledge areas of PMI's 6th and 7th edition PMBOK.
• Describe the project management process from Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, to Closing
• Identify the 49 key processes of project management and how they relate
• Describe projects and project management disciplines, methodologies, and means necessary in today’s business environment
• Cover traditional project management (TPM); initiating a project, planning, scheduling, cost estimation and budgeting considerations in execution and monitoring and controlling of a project
• Cover TPM planning for project quality, resources, procurement, contracting considerations, staffing, and communications
• Be able to select an optimum method of organizing management of project work, be it traditional, Agile, hybrid or considerations with scale or special circumstances requiring tailoring methods.
• Cover the Agile Practices Guide (APG) for an overview of the iterative introductory level understanding of Agile and Hybrid methods
• Demonstrate skills in selecting best approach (iterative or traditional) for a given project
• Know the Business orientation factors that define the needs and potential solutions within the framework of the Business environment

This course consists of a Self-Paced program paired with bi-weekly Instructor Mentor sessions. The Instructor Mentor will be available during these sessions to answer all questions students enrolled within the program cohort have about subject matter, as well as to provide elaboration, examples and experiences to help students to relate to the material. Live, planned lecture is not a component for these sessions. Accordingly, students should be prepared to bring questions or topics for which they require elaboration to the scheduled sessions.

This course prepares the student to take the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam.

Course Outline:

Lesson One: Orientation and Overview of Project Management

This lesson will provide an overview of the PMBOK Guide, as well as the concepts of project management. The Relationships among Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Management, and Organizational Project Management will be discussed. In addition, students will learn about the business value of project management and the relationship between project management, operations management, and organizational strategy. Discussion of the role of project manager and his or her responsibilities within the organization.  Chapter 5 Wysocki provides an overview of the PMBOK process management groups a key learning area in preparing you for the exam.

Lesson Two: Scope and Planning in TPM

This lesson will provide an overview of how to scope and conduct planning in a Traditional Project Management (TPM) project. Lesson topics include scope statement and charter documents.  Planning lesson begins with RBS build methods to Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) from the available project requirements.  This prepares the team to make work activity identification, sequencing, and estimating which is covered in the next lesson.

Lesson Three: Planning Cost and Launching Projects in TPM

This lesson will cover planning and estimation techniques for activities in a TPM project and launching the project in the Execution and Monitoring and Controlling phases of TPM.  Wysocki CH8 will be covered in lesson 10 but students should pay close attention to the end of CH8 as it deals with scheduling factors such as assigning resources, leveling, and work packages.

Lesson Four: Execute and Close Projects in TPM

This lesson will cover executing and closing out a TPM Project.  During execution phase, part of monitoring and controlling a project includes keeping variances to planned costs and schedule come to a head and PM’s job is tracking and mitigation.  Closing a project is covered in Wysocki CH10 and the factors which make a successful closing are an exam key.

Lesson Five: Project Method Selection

This lesson will prepare students to demonstrate the ability to select a project methodology best suited to the unique demands upon an organization, the organizations resources, and PM methodological choices that are available to the organization.  Traditional Project Management (waterfall), Agile, Hybrid, or other methods are now testable topics.  The PMBOK 6e is steeped in TPM (waterfall or linear methodology) and it has been a standard for decades.  Full half the PMP Exam will still be on TPM concepts.  PMI is recognizing changes in project management standards and adding new content in the exam covering project use of Agile. 

Lesson Six: Business Environment

This lesson will cover business environment from business climate down to the tactics used to accomplish the firm’s strategy.  Will explore business strategic and product models that are common to the pursuit of strategy and which is best for what answers.  A creative approach called design thinking is one you should know for the exam so look at the resource search link example below.

Lesson Seven: Implementing Agile: environment

This lesson will cover implementing agile an overview of the environment and cover the common terms and methods associated with agile or adaptive and the iterative variations.  Resources include topics in Quality that are important to be up on for the exam.

Lesson Eight: Implementing Agile: delivery

This lesson on implementing agile delivery of projects will cover a chapter on extreme management factors.  Resource links for shared topic searches will add to resource areas important on the exam.

Lesson Nine: Hybrid Approaches

This lesson will cover project types that are called hybrid or a combination of methodology unique to the project purpose.

Lesson Ten: People and Teams

This lesson will cover people and team factors important in any project.

Lesson Eleven: Agile Practices Guide

This lesson will provide a comprehensive overview of Agile Practices, which includes the processes necessary to introduce students to Agile, the Agile Manifesto and mindset (including Annexes A1-A2), lean and Kanban principles (including Annex A3), the various life cycles of Agile projects, and Agile Implementation.   Implementation topics include creating an Agile environment and delivering an Agile environment.  Students will learn the organizational considerations for Project Agile and get a sense of urgency to capitalize on Agile processes in "A Call to Action."

All necessary materials are included.

Certification(s):

This course prepares the student to take the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam.

To apply for the PMP, students will need to have either:

• A four-year degree
• 36 months leading projects
• 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification

— OR —

• A high school diploma or an associate’s degree (or global equivalent)
• 60 months leading projects
• 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.