PMP Exam Cram Course - 35-Hour Course Condensed - 12 PDUs Up

Distinguish project, operations, and project management using PMBoK terms; apply knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to meet project requirements and manage risks, resources, and timing.

Understand programs as groups of related projects coordinated for benefits, and portfolios as collections of projects, programs, other portfolios, and operations, managed to achieve strategic objectives and long-term goals.

Identify the value a project delivers and what must change to realize it. Project management moves organizations from current state to desired state through changes in products, services, and processes.

Define phases within the project life cycle as collections of related activities that yield deliverables. Ensure deliverables are verifiable outputs, tangible or intangible, and require acceptance before the next phase.

Identify the project life cycle and its five phases that output deliverables, and note how the phases are managed as predictive, agile, or hybrid.

Identify and manage stakeholders who are affected or perceived to be affected by a project, including customers, team members, sponsors, and functional managers, with both positive and negative impacts.

Explore how organizational structures shape project power, resources, and budgeting by comparing functional, matrix (weak, balanced, strong), and project ties structures where the project manager's authority varies.

Explore how the project management office standardizes processes and shares resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques across large projects, and compare the three PMO structures—supportive, controlling, and directive.

Explore the six project constraints—schedule, cost, scope, risk, quality, and resources—and learn how each limits work, driving effective project management decisions.

Explore predictive (traditional waterfall) and adaptive (agile) project management approaches, including their upfront planning versus evolving scope, change control, and collaboration.

Understand the difference between risk and issue in project management: risks are potential events that may impact the project; issues are current problems that have materialized.

Compare leadership and management using PMI's definitions to see how influence, process development, and relationships shape project outcomes across predictive and agile contexts.

Develop your project management skills by mastering emotional intelligence to recognize and manage emotions in yourself and others, improving leadership and communication.

Define AI terms from artificial intelligence to generative AI and GPT, and show how machine learning and deep learning inform project management tasks like budgets, schedules, and risk.

Explore the six universal PMBOK principles that guide thinking, decision making, and behavior on any project: holistic view, value focus, embedded quality, accountability, sustainability, and empowering teams and stakeholders.

Embed quality into processes and deliverables from the start to meet objectives and keep customers satisfied, preventing defects and avoiding slow or crashing products through continuous improvement.

Be an accountable leader by shaping behavior, communication, and decisions to deliver value to teams, customers, and the organization, while improving performance and resiliency.

Learn to select predictive or adaptive development approaches based on project scope, risks, budget, and stakeholder involvement, and apply hybrid strategies with iterative or incremental delivery.

Explore how the 40 PMBOK processes use inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs, focusing on common ITTOs and key documents like the project management plan and stakeholder register.

Integrate and align all planning processes to form the project management plan, a master, integrated document that defines how the project will be executed, monitored, controlled, and closed.

Plan sourcing strategy defines in-house versus outsourced work, guiding procurement from need to contract close and detailing fixed price, cost reimbursable, time and materials, and target cost contracts.

Monitor and control project performance by collecting data, comparing it to the plan, and applying corrective actions. Produce work performance reports and change requests.

Assess and implement changes through the integrated change control process, reviewing change requests for impact on scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, and risk, and update the change log accordingly.

Monitor and control scope, schedule, and finances by tracking baselines, preventing scope creep, and managing changes; verify deliverables meet quality and forecast budget and schedule outcomes.

Apply the validate scope process at the end of execution to obtain formal acceptance of a verified deliverable through inspections and customer reviews, with change requests if needed.

Close project or phase by finalizing activities after acceptance, transition the final product to operations, hand over documentation and the final report, close contracts, release the team, and archive records.

Explore iterative and incremental development in agile projects, showing how iterative builds the entire product for feedback, while incremental delivers software in small, useful increments.

Agile boosts project success with greater customer involvement and frequent feedback, delivering value early in increments and welcoming changes through a product backlog.

Learn the agile mindset for project delivery, embracing changes, value-driven delivery, and continuous feedback in incremental releases. Apply learnings to manage teams, customers, and ongoing retrospectives to improve processes.

Agile delivers in increments, releasing accounts payable, receivable, payroll, and banking sooner than traditional methods. It highlights customer feedback and incremental planning, with highly regulated projects sometimes favoring traditional approaches.

Learn how inverting the triangle contrasts traditional projects, which keep scope fixed while time and cost vary, with agile projects that fix time and cost while redefining the scope.

Explore the four values of the Agile Manifesto and how they guide all agile methods, highlighting individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change.

Apply the 12 agile guiding principles from the Agile Manifesto to any project. Deliver valuable software continuously, welcome late changes, and empower self-organizing teams through collaboration, simplicity, and technical excellence.

Explore the scrum process and agile practices, detailing the product backlog, sprint backlog, daily stand-up, sprint review, and retrospective to deliver value in increments.

Explore Scrum roles and responsibilities, including product owner, Scrum master, and development team, and learn how transparency, inspection, and adaptation guide backlog prioritization and collaborative delivery.

Explore the four scrum ceremonies—sprint planning, daily stand-up, sprint review, and retrospective—and how they drive a time-boxed sprint, sprint backlog, and stakeholder feedback.

Explore scrum artifacts including the product backlog, sprint backlog, and product increment, and learn how grooming, prioritization by the product owner, and the definition of done guide value and feedback.

Define a global, project-wide definition of done at project start to specify what completes work, including tests, documentation, and outputs, with product owner and customers aligning the team.

Learn extreme programming (xp), an agile software development method focused on simplicity, communication, and feedback, with roles like coach, customer, programmers, testers, and compare it to Scrum.

Compare scrum and xp to map similarities and differences, covering sprint length, planning games, product owner or customer roles, retrospectives versus reflections, and cross-functional, self-organizing teams.

Explore lean software development, from the Toyota production system, to reduce waste, empower teams, deliver fast, and build quality with continuous improvement and customer value.

Manage projects with Kanban development by using a signboard to visualize workflow, limit work in progress, and identify bottlenecks to improve flow and collaboration.

Explore the 12 principles of servant leadership to support agile teams, balance welfare with project goals, and guide ethics, integrity, conflict resolution, reflection, and thinking backwards toward the vision.

Learn value-based prioritization for agile projects by ranking the product backlog using methods like Moscow, dot voting, 100-point, monopoly money, and keno analysis, guided by customer input.

Highlight face-to-face communication as the most effective method for stakeholders, and emphasize two-way feedback, information radiators, and low-tech, high-touch tools like whiteboards and social media in agile environments.

Clarify agile roles—the delivery team, product owner, and scrum master (or agile project manager)—and their collaboration via the product backlog, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.

Develop a high-performance agile team that is self-organizing and self-directed, with generalizing specialists who share work to reduce bottlenecks, and maintain a shared vision.

Explore how to design effective agile team spaces, from face-to-face setups and Kanban boards to virtual co-location and osmotic communication, to support collaboration across co-located and distributed teams.

Decompose requirements into user stories to create a shared agile understanding; connect epics, features, and tasks, write stories as users in the three c's format, and groom the story backlog.

Discover how to use relative sizing and the Fibonacci sequence to assign story points for agile sprint planning. Learn planning poker and wideband Delphi, and how velocity informs project schedules.

Learn to read burn up charts and burn down charts, measure completed and remaining work, and track team velocity with iteration-based story points in agile projects.

Learn to run a sprint retrospective to inspect and improve team work, using five phases, data gathering, five whys, fishbone diagram, and smart goals for continuous improvement.

Blend agile and predictive (waterfall) methods in hybrid projects, using four approaches from the Agile Practitioner Guide to manage definable and uncertain work.

Embrace the traditional mindset to follow the project plan, manage changes via approved change requests, and engage stakeholders while the team identifies risks, defines quality, and integrates scope, time, cost.

Apply agile mindset through servant leadership, empower teams, limit work in progress, prioritize the product backlog with the product owner, and foster face-to-face collaboration with visual management and retrospectives.

Celebrate completing the PMP exam cram course and stay engaged via weekly live streams and forums as you aim to pass the exam on the first try.