I was a little confused as to the order of these two processes for the PMP exam because of how the processes are laid out when you look at the matrix versus how you think about this intuitively where you would always think that Close Procurements is always last.

After reading about this a little bit I realized that Close Phase is indeed the last process, and got another useful insight from this excellent post about this subject.

The Initiation and Closing phases make for 21% in the exam but they are just 4 processes, and that’s a very good insight because it shows you that focusing on these four processes, and properly understanding them gets you a pretty good scoring opportunity in the exam!

There are about a dozen quality theorists that you should be familiar with as far as the PMP exam is concerned. I have listed them down here along with the key things you should know about them for the exam.

1. McLelland: Theory of Needs; States that people are motivated either by achievement, affiliation or power.
2. Vroom: Expectancy Theory; People are motivated by positive outcomes, and expected rewards.
3. Fledler: Contingency Theory; Leaders should adapt their management style to the situation.
4. Ouchi: Theory Z; Provide a job for life for increasing employee loyalty.
5. Tuckman: Tuckman’s Ladder; Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.
6. Juran: Quality by Design
7. McGregor: Theory X and Y. X is people are lazy, and need to be micromanaged. Y is people are motivated, and need to be given more responsibility.
8. Herzberg: Hygiene Theory; Hygiene factors (e.g. status, job security, salary, fringe benefits, work conditions, good pay, paid insurance, vacations) that do not give positive satisfaction or lead to higher motivation, though dissatisfaction results from their absence. The term “hygiene” is used in the sense that these are maintenance factors.
9. Maslow: Hierarchy; People can only ascend to higher levels after fulfilling lower level needs.
10. Deming: Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle, Quality is management’s responsibility.
11. Philip Crosby: Zero Defects: identify processes to remove defects, quality is built in to the processes
12. Pareto: Pareto Principle – 80/20 Rule
13. Ishikawa: Fishbone Diagram

I made flashcards for these as well which are a useful way to memorize this.

A good image from Rita’s PMP Exam Prep book (sixth edition) to quickly understand the hierarchy of estimates.

I had to show a confirmation message in one of my activity diagrams recently, and I was a little confused as to the best way to do this. I’m sure a lot of you have encountered this where you have an action followed by a simultaneous confirmation message, and an initiation of another action.

The best way to show this is to have a fork, and then start off the two things in parallel, but since showing the confirmation message is pretty much the end of the first action, I wasn’t sure if it is allowed to use a fork because there would be no join in this case.

The good news however is that you are indeed allowed to use a fork without a join without flouting any UML 2.5 standards. It is recommended that you have a join when you have a fork but in cases where it doesn’t make sense to do so – you are okay in using a fork without a join.

Relevant excerpt from perhaps the most useful website on activity diagram modeling:

A Fork Should Have a Corresponding Join. In general, for every start (fork) there is an end (join). In UML 2 it is not required to have a join, but it usually makes sense.

In my opinion this is the best way to show confirmation messages in this type of diagram, but if you know of a better one, please do leave a comment!

Memorizing the 47 processes of the PMBOK has been an absolute nightmare for me, and it has been the hardest thing in preparing for this whole exam.  Practice questions that I encounter emphasize the need to not only know the 47 processes, but their inputs, tools and outputs as well. In this post, I’m describing the way I have tried memorizing these 47 processes, and more or less succeeded in it.

5 Process Groups x 10 Knowledge Areas

The first thing to remember is the basic structure, which they have split into 5 process groups x 10 knowledge areas whose intersection contain the 47 process areas. You can see that in the image below.

Process Groups

Process Groups are the easiest to memorize, and anyone working in IT will know that a project goes through the following give process groups or stages:

1. Initiate
2. Plan
3. Execute
4. Monitor and Control
5. Close

Knowledge Areas

Knowledge Areas are a little harder to memorize, and I use the mnemonic IST CQH CRPS to remember these.

1. Integrate
2. Scope
3. Time
4. Cost
5. Quality
6. Human Resources
7. Communication
8. Risk
9. Procurement
10. Stakeholder Management

47 Processes

This is the hardest of course, and how I memorized them is by creating this Google Spreadsheet where the first thing I do is write the 5 process groups as row headers, and the 10 knowledge areas as the column headers.

The first row (Initiate process group) has only two processes the Develop Project Charter, and the Identify Stakeholder so I write that first.

Then I jump to the last row (Close process group) which also has just two processes so I write them next — Close Project or Phase, and Close Procurements which is the last process.

Since I’m on Close Procurements, I finish filling the Procurements process area, which is neat and tidy with four processes in the last four columns.

Stakeholder Management is right next to it with a similar structure, and 4 processes so I fill that next.

These two are the only KAs with 4 cells filled. And Initiate is only one with all five filled so I do that next.

Quality and Communication have three cells filled, and are very similar so I do that next.

The remaining ones have just two cells filled, and in this HR is unique in that you don’t have any process in Control so I do that next. I use ADM to remember what to fill in Execute HR – Acquire Team, Develop Team, Manage Team.

Then do the Risk, and finally go to the start, and fill out Scope, Time and Cost. This is one way to do it, and it is a crazy way I know but it more or less works for me, and I hope gives you an idea to develop a similar method to memorize these yourself.