PMI PMP Project Management Professional – Related Areas of Project Management

1. Section Overview: Related Areas of Project Management

In this section, we’re going to discuss the related areas of project management. We know that projects aren’t the only entity, the only structure that can happen within our organization. We’re going to nail down those other areas that affect project management that you’ll need to know for your exam, but also AV in your organization. So we want to have a really clear understanding here and look at these different terms. And so if you know the terms, that will help us pass the PMP by answering questions correctly. So we’re going to talk about the difference between project management, program management, and portfolio management, that those three things are related. You might also be working in a project management office. And there’s different types of project management offices. Your organization might call it a PMO, might call it a project office or a project headquarters. So those all overlap. For our sake, we’ll just refer to it as a PMO, a project management office. We’re going to really have a good distinction in this section about operations or projects. We need to be able to recognize is it a project or is it an operation?

What’s the difference? So what are some characteristics of both really important to be able to recognize? Is this an operational activity or a project activity? So we’re going to dive into that. In this section, you’ll have an assignment where you’ll test yourself on projects or operations. So that’s really important. And it’s a fun little exercise. Well, fun may not be the right word, but it’s an exercise or an assignment. We’re going to talk about OPM. So a new term for you, OPM. So we’ll look at OPM and business strategy. How are those two things related? Well, what is OPM and business strategy? Something to look forward to in this section. And then we’ll talk about understanding your project environment. So we’re going to discuss discuss this and hopefully you’ll be able to recognize the characteristics of different environments and even the environment that you work in as a project manager. So we have a lot of information to cover in this section. So let’s hop in and knock it out right now. Keep moving forward.

2. Program Management

Welcome back. Early in the course, I talked about building a skyscraper. A skyscraper could be a project. It would be a really big project when you consider all the different moving parts. So we have the foundation of that skyscraper, the excavation of it, the metal steel, the steel beams and the framing there, and the glass, the elevators, the interior, all of the different things that go into building a skyscraper. Just mind boggling how all that comes together. So that could be a project. It would be a really big project. More likely, though, it would be a program. A program is where we have multiple related projects that are managed in orchestration to receive benefits that you would not receive if each project were managed independent of one another.

So if you think about that skyscraper being a program, you can think about the coordination that would have to happen between all of those different components. So a program would be one big umbrella, if you will, of all of those projects. And the program manager would work with the project managers to orchestrate that coordination. So you think about the delivery of materials. There’s only so much space on that job site for the materials.

So there has to be some logistics there. And you think about the different resources that are needed, electricians that are needed at different points in that project and at different places in the project. So the orchestration I keep saying that word because that’s really what it is. It’s managing all of these different projects with the project managers to receive benefits by scheduling, coordinating, using logistics, getting them to work with one another.

That’s program management. And so program management is a related area of project management. Programs have projects. You have project managers, and you have program managers. So there are multiple related areas. There is a certification. It’s a pretty tough certification for program management. From PMI, it’s the PgMP, the program management professional. And there’s not a lot of people around the world that have this sort certification. So program management, the PgMP just want to be able to recognize and be familiar with that idea of programs, that programs have projects. All right, good job. Keep moving forward.

3. Portfolio Management

Another term you’ll have to recognize for your exam is a portfolio. Portfolios describe kind of the book, if you will, of all the investments that an organization can make in projects and programs into, sometimes into operating operations. So portfolio management describes all of the things that we are invested in. So if you think about your own personal portfolio with your stocks or savings or what have you, that’s your portfolio. A portfolio in an organization or a business context describes the investments that a business has in itself. And what I mean by that are the programs and the projects and operations. So portfolio management then is led by a portfolio manager for the organization, usually a senior level executive that is managing where and how do we invest in programs and projects.

So considerations to include here with portfolio management, the scope, what exactly will you be delivering for the organization? So think about business value change. You’re moving from one state to a desired future state. So what’s changing here? Planning, how will you plan, how will you approach the work, how you do it efficiently and effectively, the management of the program or the project? Not in our context, we’re thinking of just projects.

But the reality is it could be a program would also fall into portfolio. What are the success factors, how do you know you’re successful? What about monitoring the project? So how do you monitor it? In particular, how do you monitor risk or anything that could threaten the project’s success? Because the portfolio manager is going to want to know how are you going to be successful in what you deliver as an investment? So what we are investing in, how you deliver, what’s the return on investment. So portfolios are all about maximizing return on investment. So an organization has a portfolio and then within that are the investments.

Here is what a portfolio might look like. I know it’s like this big circle here, but at the center is the portfolio. Then we have these orange squares that represent the programs that we talked about a little bit ago. And remember, programs have projects within them. Well, a portfolio can have projects and programs. It’s possible that a portfolio would have only programs and then programs would have projects. More likely a portfolio is going to have both. And yes, it’s possible that a portfolio could have only projects, but probably you’re going to have both. When you look at a typical portfolio, portfolios are interested in the oversight as we just talked about the scope, how do you manage change, how are you going to plan for success? How are you going to manage it or who’s going to manage that program or project? What constitutes success?

Because we’re what return on investment then? How will you monitor that? And part of that monitoring will be communicating when you have variances or things aren’t going to plan. And we’ll talk about communications in chapter ten in the PMBOK, the organizational portfolio. Another way of looking at this, you have the portfolio, and then within the portfolio, we have programs and we have projects. So just what we talked about. But there’s this other thing down here at the end that we could have a sub portfolio. A sub portfolio is part of the overall.

You mentioned a really huge organization, like a government or a really massive business. They might have a portfolio, the amount of funds they can invest in the entire company, and rather than one person managing all of that, they chunk it out by departments or lines of business or types of projects and programs. And so you could have a sub portfolio, and then the sub portfolio would have programs and projects, as we described. And yes, operations could be part of a portfolio, but typically we’re talking about programs and projects, but you could have operations in there. All right, great job, keep moving forward.

4. Working with a Project Management Office

Many organizations use a project management office. It’s a way to coordinate projects in a particular area. So in a department, in the whole company, or just within a small group or type of work, typically PMOs are within departments, so the It department could have its own PMO. It’s possible at a larger company that you have a PMO for all projects in the organization. Either way, really doesn’t matter. For your exam, what you’ll need to know are the characteristics of a PMO and are you working with the PMO and how does that affect you as the project manager. So let’s look at the characteristics here. So a project management office, their first goal is to support project managers, helps to manage shared resources across the PMO.

So resources being equipment, facilities, tools, but also people, so they may help coordinate when people can be utilized on what projects. PMOs can provide some coaching, mentoring and training for project managers because what PMOs often want is a uniform approach to doing projects. So that all projects in this organization take the same approach, follow the same processes, use the same forms and tools and techniques for all projects so that stakeholders know what to expect, that there’s uniformity across the projects. And it’s a repeatable approach to project management. Project management offices might also conduct project audits where we want to confirm that the projects are adhering to these repeatable approaches that have been established. So they’re using, they being project managers and the project team are using the right tools and techniques, are using the right forms or templates, using the right software.

So a project audit is a way of not just financial audit, but that you’re doing the work as planned as you’re prescribed in that PMO. A PMO is also responsible for developing and managing processes and procedures. So just what I was talking about there, that we have a particular way on how to communicate. We use these forms and you have to send out a status report every Thursday and you have to have a status meeting at least every other week. Or you have to create this form for procurement or change requests, follow this approach. So all projects have the same approach in that organization. And that’s actually a really great thing for a project manager for a couple of reasons. One, it saves time that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time that I go into a project, and I don’t have to train stakeholders on how we do change control or what forms to expect and when. Everybody knows whenever we do a project, you’re going to get a status report on Thursday, we’re having a status meeting Monday morning and that will set out our goal for the week.

And we’re going to be using these forms. And this is how you get change control and the types of questions. So it really speeds up some of that. Just the oversight of project management by using a PMO and having established approaches. So I like working with the PMO. It also helps communication across projects, especially if you’re in an organization where project team members come from all over. They might be on multiple projects at once, so it helps you to communicate with other project managers and to schedule resources. Physical and human.

There are three types of project offices you want to be familiar with. We have supportive, controlling, and directive. A supportive just like it sounds like they’re more of a consultative role where they are helping the project manager and consulting, giving templates and training. Controlling is more about compliance that you have to work through a framework, use specific forms and specific templates, and follow this governance. And then directive typically means that the project is owned by the PMO.

The project manager works as part of the PMO, so they manage the project and they control the project lifecycle so it’s not distributed or spread across different groups. Everything all projects can be asked for by different groups, but once they start or get initiated, they’re part of the PMO, so they really control everything as far as the PM, project lifecycle and approach. It’s important to know these for your exam, because depending on what type of PMO you’re in, that will affect how you manage the project. All right, good job. I’ll see you in the next slide.

5. Projects Vs. Operations

Earlier in the course, we talked about projects and operations. I mean, this is a really important topic, and it’s sometimes a theme, it seems, throughout the Pmbok guide. But we’re going to nail this down once and for all here and we’re not going to look at it anymore. But I just want to be clear that we have a good understanding of projects and operations, especially when we talk about related areas of project management. Because projects and operations are obviously related. Both have employees. You have employees that work in operations, and then those employees may be part of a project team that are working in projects. So our project team members need to understand there’s a difference between ongoing work and a project which is temporary work. So both have employees, but they need to understand the concept of operations or projects.

Both have limited resources. Both have only so much people, only so many hours in the day and so much money. Or typically both, they only have so much money in a project. You only have so much money in operations. Both operations and projects are designed. You execute it. One’s going on forever and the other is short term. It’s short, not necessarily short term, right? It’s temporary. It’s temporary. It’s executed and it’s managed. So projects and operations have those characteristics in common. Projects and operations, we also have the idea that they are temporary.

So projects are temporary, we know, but what about operations? Operations are not necessarily temporary. They can be ongoing. That we want the organization to last forever and ever. So projects, we think about developing new products or implementing services and strategy. There’s that MACD we saw earlier. Moving, adding, changing, deleting, implementing a new service or solution. And there’s that operational transfer. So that we take the thing that we’ve created and now it moves over into production or operations.

Operations are ongoing, repetitive actions like procurement, accounting, finance, marketing, sales. It’s just the wheels or the engine of the organization. Where projects are special, they’re over here. Unique from the day to day. Operations. Maintenance is a good example of operations. It’s the core business functions. All right, that’s it. We’re not going to talk about operations or the different difference between the two anymore. I think you’ve got this down. All right. So I promise no more of that. Keep moving forward. I’ll see you in the next lecture.

6. OPM and Strategies

A theme that happens in many organizations is we want to be uniform in our project management approach. That we want all projects to have the same types of processes, the same terminology, the same expectations with stakeholders. So we create an organization project management. So organizational project management is what we’re talking about here. And how does this mesh with the strategy of the organization? So OPM organizational project management. Sometimes you might see this as organizational project management. Maturity model or OPM three. But for our exam we just know it as organizational project management and that it’s a way to coordinate, manage, control programs and projects so that our portfolio of all of our investments are managed in a uniform, consistent effort. What we don’t want is Bob over here is using Lean and Sally is using Adaptive or Agile and I’m using Predictive.

And we all have different forms and approaches and way to do the project because there’s lots of different ways to manage a project and all of those ways are fine, all those ways are good. However, that creates confusion for stakeholders and customers because when they work with Bob they do it one way and with Sally they have a different approach and with me we have a different approach. So it just creates a lot of ruckus in our project rather than being uniform across all of us making a decision at an executive level with OPM on how we’re going to manage projects because we want to consistently deliver better projects. And if we all take the same approach and we tailor is okay, but we have the same approach, it’s going to make it better for everyone in the organization.

 Let’s take a look at some facts about OPM. First goal of OPM is we want to think about goals and tactics. Why are we doing projects? How does this help us deliver business value? How does it help our organizational goals? So we want to think about the goals and the tactics. Then we go into value decisions. So value decisions are talking about business value. How does this make our business more valuable? How does this create value for our stakeholders? And by creating a uniform approach, how does that improve upon business value? And then results delivery? Which approach gets work done most effectively and efficiently? Profit value, return on investment. So what about results delivery? And then the fourth step is based on those results, how do we see business value? How do we measure that? What’s the realization of what we’ve created? So we start very high, we think about goals and tactics and strategy and then we think about value decisions. Which should we invest in? So, portfolio management and then results delivery.

Those projects follow a uniform approach and they are creating value. So that’s where we see the business value realization. So the return on investment, the improvement in our market share, happier stakeholders. So what’s the business value realization? An important concept here as well is projects and strategic planning. Any organization, well, not any, but most organizations follow this triangle here of executives, functional management and operations. Operations is the broadest. It’s where most people are in an organization.

Functional management is kind of the idea of middle management because you’re stuck in the middle between operations and the executives at the top. So the closer you get to the top, the fewer people they are in the population. So at the executive level, when it comes to projects or OPM, they’re thinking, Why? Why do we want to do this project? How does this support the vision of our company? How does it move us closer to the vision? How does this support our mission as an organization? And what about our goals for the year or the five year? So how does it support the goals?

So executives want to know, why should we do this project? Functional management is thinking about what, what’s the mechanics of the project that will support the strategy and the tactics of the organization. So how does this help us achieve the layer above? How does this to help us achieve the vision? We need strategy and tactics to achieve the vision or the goals or the mission. So functional management is looking at what and the lines of business and core functions, the operations, the day to day. They’re thinking about how can we implement this project to achieve the what or the why? So projects span all three of those levels that we start off very broad in the charter with why are we doing this? And then we get into the scope and planning and we think about what? What are we doing exactly, making decisions? What?

And then the how is where we work with our project team and subject matter experts and we think about how will we accomplish the project to support those strategies, which the strategies should support the vision, the mission, and the goals of the project. Finally, organizations and project management, just some things that we want to address here that may affect the remainder of the course and might affect your exam. First off, we want to talk about project based organizations. A project based organization is an entity that their income is generated by doing projects for others. So a construction company, each house they build is a project, or an It integrator or a software development company, that everything they do is a project.

So they need a very uniform approach to project management because everything they do is a project and they want a uniform approach so they can measure performance, measure profitability, measure business value. We also want to talk about project management and organizational governance. We’ll see more about governance throughout the course. But governance are like the rules, the framework, the structure of how we operate. So it’s what are we allowed to do? So our projects have to be meshed with organizational governance that we just can’t go off on our own and make up our own rules. We have to follow the governance of the organization. Now, that organization could also be within the program. So we have a program governance that we follow. Projects and organizational strategy have to be in sync with each other that we don’t get to launch projects that don’t support our strategy.

If our strategy is to be a construction company or building houses, we probably don’t need a project where we’re going to start creating a service to create websites that really doesn’t sync with what we’re doing as a business. We may have an excellent website designer, but it doesn’t really support our goal and vision. And frankly, something this is what I’ve wrestled with in my company. My company is Instructing. com, and I offer these types of training. Well, we have become efficient at editing these videos and publishing videos and so on.

But I can only teach so many videos, right? There’s only so many things that I know about. So it’s like, well, we’ve got some really good video editors, but I can’t keep them busy all the time. So should we start other services where we offer video editing? It’s not really the goal and the vision of my organization of teaching project management of the teaching adult education. So that doesn’t really fit with the strategy of the organization.

So any project that we create has to support the strategy. And also we have to consider the culture. If we are in a really big company, a really big bank, there’s a culture in a way that people interact with each other. That’s probably different. If we’re in a small startup with just a dozen or 100 people, it’s going to be a different culture in that type of industry. Definitely from banking to a. com company or from banking to an insurance company even. So there’s a different culture. And we also have culture in different parts of the world that affects how we do the work. So there’s a different culture in New York versus in Tampa, Florida, or Chicago, or in Sydney, Australia. Or over there in Antwerp in Belgium or Paris. So there’s local cultures that affect how you do the work and how you operate rate in that organization. All right, all important stuff. We’re moving forward. I’ll see you in the next lecture.

7. Understanding the Project Environment

Welcome back. In this lecture we’re going to talk about project environments. A project environment describes where the project works takes place. So project environment is the physical location of where you’re doing the project work, but also the different factors that influence the project. So we need to understand the project environment. First off, the physical location. If we’re doing construction, obviously there’s a physical location we could be building way out in the middle of North Dakota. There’s not a lot of towns around there, there’s not a lot of resources around there. So we have to plan much more precisely for the construction project in that remote location versus a construction project in or near a city where if we need more equipment or we need wood or we need some more bolts, it’s just a quick trip to the hardware store.

So the physical location affects the project planning and how we do the work. It also can influence the project as far as return on investment and business value and if we even choose to do the project. So we need to understand the environment where the project will take place. So things like the location of the project work, these are physical environmental elements, the working conditions. So way out in Dakota, there are parts that are amazingly windy or snowy at different times, versus in the south where it’s hot and humid, where there’s wildfires that are happening.

Or you think about the physical environment. If I’m in a secured facility and you can’t bring in your phone, you can’t take anything out with you, nothing in your pockets, maybe you’re in a really secure facility or you’re dealing with some sensitive data, or you’re in a hospital and there are HIPAA concerns and regulations you have to follow. So the working conditions and the physical environment elements go together and that affects how you manage, how you plan. It could slow down the effectiveness or efficiency because you have to accommodate for those environmental elements. Weather, obviously, is an environmental element.

Nobody wants to work in the rain or a lightning storm. The constraints the constraints are anything that limits your options. So you’re only allowed to be on the job site between eight in the morning and 06:00 at night, and there’s no construction on weekends. You’re not allowed to do any of the network updates during the daytime. It has to be between six at night and five in the morning, or whatever the case may be. Those are all constraints. They limit your options in regard to having access or the environmental elements. Constraints could also be you just have to deal with it. You’re out in North Dakota, as I mentioned, and there’s snow, there’s rain, there’s wind, there are not a lot of stores nearby to go get what you need. So you have to come up with solutions. So the constraints or anything that limits your options in regard to environmental elements, external enterprise, environmental factors, are the physical environmental elements.

So remember, an EEF are things that are outside of the project, often outside of the organization. External environmental factors are things that restrict what you’re allowed to do. So some physical environmental elements could be you have to wear safety equipment and that is a factor that’s a law or an OSHA regulation that you have to be secured and have safety harnesses on when you’re above so many feet or doing a particular type of work. So any types of laws or regulation that affect your application area in a physical environmental element are things that you have to consider. Let’s take a look at some social and cultural influences.

So the political climate of where your project takes place. So talking about politics, not only politics in the government, but politics in your organization. So you might have some fractions in your organization or you have departments that are being merged together or absorbed and that can create a hostile environment for your project. There are codes of conduct. Yes, we have a PMI code of conduct, but there might also be a code of conduct in your discipline, in your organization. They’re definitely ethics. So you have to behave ethically and treat people kindly and with respect.

Perceptions, perception is truth to the individual that is making that perception. Like I’m making a perception that there’s a real mystery around people that do software development that I don’t understand it. So they must be really smart and really amazing people to work with. And I’ll respect whatever they say because they say they’re a software developer. Now, for a lot of software developers that’s true, but I think we all know there’s a small sliver there of people that say they’re software developers and they’re just really good at copy and paste. All right, so I’m not saying that’s you, I’m not saying it’s everyone, but that perception that people have about a role, about a responsibility, sometimes it’s not a true perception and that can work the other way as well.

But I have a perception of, oh, I’ve worked with technical writers before, I’ve worked with electricians from that company before, they’re no good because they have a perception of that type of work or that industry or that company. And that’s not always a true perception. So that can affect your project. The values, yes, business value, but also what’s important to the stakeholders, what’s important to the project team members, what’s important to the project manager. So we have to think about the values. In particular. In this context, though, we’re talking about the values of the customers and the business and who’s going to receive what we create for them. And again, external enterprise environmental factors, anything that’s outside of the organization.

So you think about the culture of the country where the work is taking place or the social aspects of the project might have in your community. That’s an external enterprise environmental factor that can affect your project. Another thing to consider is the organizational culture and structure. And I hinted at this a little bit earlier when we talked about a big bank versus a small start up and how there may be a different culture there because of the structure and the history and the maturity of those two different organizations. So some things that influence the culture and the structure is a clear vision statement or a mission statement for the organization.

What are the stated values and beliefs? And then what’s the values and beliefs of the people that work in that organization? What are the cultural norms? Is it just accepted to write down a change request and send it in an email or put it on a Post it note? Is that how you get things done? Is that a cultural norm? Or is it a cultural norm that everybody kind of kicks off friday after lunch is always fun to do? Or is it a cultural norm that you just don’t schedule meetings on Friday after 10:00 a. m. ? Like get that stuff done at the top of the week? So what’s the cultural norm where you work? What’s the hierarchy and the authority? Who reports to whom?

 And is that clear among your project team? What about the organizational and management style? So how do people manage other people? Is there respect there? Is it more loose? Is it kind of a de facto management or is it a very clear distinction to who’s a manager and what are the different roles and what are their responsibilities? And then we have internal enterprise environmental factors. We’ve talked about external things outside of the organization. So internal are things that are created within the organization that affect your project. So an example of an internal enterprise environmental factors are how you do procurement, how you communicate with the public, how you discipline your project team members that’s unique to your company and that affects how you operate and how you act as a project manager. Another thing that we have to consider is the infrastructure. This is an environmental factor, the infrastructure of where the work takes place. So you think about the facilities, think about what equipment you can use. Is it really old equipment? Is it brand new? And so there’s a learning curve. So what about the equipment?

What about communicating with one another? So telecommunication channels or texting, is that allowed? Are you able to send an email, send and receive via your phone? What about out in the field or if you’re in a secure environment and then I can’t receive a text or a phone because I don’t have a signal or I’m not allowed to take my phone into that job site with me. So how will I communicate there? What about sensitivity of that nature? You ever send someone a text and you accidentally send it to the wrong person and then it blows up? I’ve certainly done that. It hardware and usability. So laptops workstations, especially in an It environment, or you’re using a very complex piece of software, a learning curve, or can the hardware keep up with the demands of that software? So what about It hardware and usability? And then again, internal enterprise environmental factors, things that are created by your organization that can affect your infrastructure, but yet, no, you’re not allowed to use texting. You’re not allowed to use social media for work. Everything has to go through a secure email server.

You can’t send it via Google. You have to use our email server. So those internal enterprise environmental factors, we’re supposed to follow, or we have to follow as the project manager, but we need to communicate that to our stakeholders and to our project team members what those are, because that affects how we manage the project. All right, a lot of good information here in this lecture, but keep moving forward. You’re doing great. I’ll see you in the next lecture.

8. PMP Coach: Know Your Terms

Okay, a little secret here for your exam success. Know your terms. We’re still pretty early in the course, but we’ve covered a lot of material. There’s already been a lot of terms. Maybe there’s some new terms here you’ve not recognized and maybe some terms you need a little refresher on. But from this point forward, we’re going to really start getting into the Pmbok chapters. And so it’s going to be a lot of terms coming at you. So what we’ve done before, this has been pretty foundation, pretty fundamental. Maybe some of this was review for you, but now we’re going to start moving deeper and deeper into the Pinback guide. There’s going to be a lot of terms you need to know for your exam. So I encourage you to use those flashcards that we talked about as a course resource, but also take notes, take effective notes and terms you don’t recognize. Go out and do a Google search.

Look them up. Look in the Pmbok guide. So if you have downloaded the Pmbok guide as being part of a member, and you get that as part of your membership, then you can search for that term in the Pmbok. But remember, not every term that you’re tested on is in the Pmbok guide. So the Pmbok guide is definitely the base, but it’s broader than just that one document. And most of the terms, well, all the terms I give you are going to be defined in this course. But if you need more information about the terms, that’s what Google is for. Or you can also post a question in the Q and A, or look what other people have asked for.

And so you really want to make an effort to know your terms, to document your terms, the reason why, if you know the terms, you’ll be able to understand the question better. It will be unfortunate if you get to a question and you have no idea what they’re talking about, should that happen to you. That probably is one of two things, frankly. One, you didn’t know your terms. Two, if it’s a term you’ve never seen before and you were diligent in this course and you really studied, it might be a seeded question, so it doesn’t matter. Another thing to look at though, if you get a question and you see there are four choices, and two of those choices you’ve never recognized, you have no idea. It might be a bogus couple of choices. Those could be some red herrings, a distraction for you where you’re not paying attention to the two terms that you do recognize.

Well, let’s think about this smartly though. Let’s say that the question is asking about risk. And you know the first two choices are risk terms, but those terms don’t fit with the scenario. So here are two other choices that you’ve never seen before. You understand these two terms, but these two answers you have no idea. Well, you know these two don’t fit. So it has to be one of these two that you’ve never seen before. So now you have a 50 50 shot. So just by knowing your terms, you’re doing some critical thinking, you’re doing some problem solving that should you get up against some terms you don’t recognize, you can compare and contrast, and from that, make the best choice. Overwhelmingly, though, the terms from this course are going to be what you’re tested on. So no, your terms. All right, keep moving forward. You’re doing great.

9. Section Wrap: Related Areas of Project Management

Great job finishing this section on the related areas of project management. I know we covered a lot of information in this section, so let’s just hit the headlines again and have a good wrap up before we move into new material. In this section, we looked at the different components of an organization that are related to project management. We talked about project management, of course. And then we talked about program management and portfolio management and how those three entities can work together, can be all part of one another.

And how you need to operate as a project manager in any one of those instances, whether you’re a solo project or working inside of a program or you’re part of a portfolio. We talked about working with a PMO, a project management office, and how does that affect you as a project manager and how you operate as a PM in your organization? In this section, we also discussed is it a project or is it an operation? And I know you completed an assignment where you were able to recognize projects or operations. So that was really important to do. We discussed OPM organizational project management and business strategy. We talked about strategy, the vision of the organization, the strategy, what helps us achieve that vision.

Then how does OPM fit into that hierarchy? And then you have to understand the different project environments. The environment you’re operating in affects how you get to manage the project, the amount of authority that you have as the project manager. And then you want to recognize those different environments, even if you aren’t working in one of those structures, because that will affect how you answer an exam question.

So you need to be aware of those for your exam, for passing your PMP. And then, of course, as I mentioned in the coaching session, know your terms. If you know the terms, you go through those flashcards that are sprinkled throughout the scores. Know your terms. That’s going to help you answer the question. If you don’t recognize the term, you have no idea what it is, then it’s really tough to be able to understand what the question is asking. All right, good job. You are making great progress. You already through section six here. Let’s go ahead and start section seven. You can do it. I have confidence, seen you.