Basics of PMP Certification

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hello and Welcome to SimpliLearn, Introduction to PMP Certification Course!!! This is the 1 st among the 14 lessons, provided by SimpliLearn on PMP Exam preparation. This is the Introductory lesson and it’s a must read for all the 13 remaining lessons as well. Please make sure that you have access to other 11 lessons as well to fully comprehend this course. For your information, The complete 14 lessons series is provided absolutely free of cost to everyone. SimpliLearn charges participants only for their Live Virtual Classes and their one to one tutoring service with the PMP Instructor. In case of any clarification or doubt, please feel free to drop a mail to Krishna@simpliLearn.com
• #3: Lets us first setup the Agenda of the first Lesson. As indicated in the previous slide, this is an introductory course and it covers areas like, What is PMP and PMI. These are terms you will frequently encounter in your conversation with certified Project Managers or people preparing for this exam. Once you are comfortable with what PMP and PMI is, we will discuss the syllabus of the PMP Examination. Next, we will discuss more about the PMP Exam itself. For example, we will cover topics like How many questions are their in the exam, what is the pass marks, how many questions are expected from which part of the Syllabus etc. Lastly, we will explain how the SimpliLearn PMP Certification Course is structured. Going through this part is a must before you start accessing the remaining lessons of this course.
• #4: PMP stands for Project Management Professional. It’s the name of the certificate awarded to any one who scores more than the required passing mark in PMP Exam. So if you successfully pass the PMP Exam, you become a Project Management Professional ie PMP. As evident by the name itself, this certificate is of interest to any one interested in Project Management as a career. PMP is most recognized Individual certification in the area of Project Management. Its valued Worldwide. For many of the Project Management Jobs, its even a mandatory qualification. PMP is not for Project Managers from a specific domain. A Project Manager working in any Industry, be it Manufacturing or Retail or Defense or Information Technology can write the PMP Exam and upon successful completion can become a PMP. PMI is an not for profit Organization, who conducts PMP Examination. PMI stands for Project Management Institute. PMI is based in USA and it has local chapter across the globe. So, if you are based in Singapore, you can look for PMI chapter in Singapore. Such local chapter conduct regular knowledge sharing and networking session for people interested in Project Management. You can get more information about PMI by logging to their website, www.pmi.org A PMP certificate is valid for three years. Post completion of this three year period. It can be renewed for another three years. PMI measures Project Management Experience in units of PDU. PDU means Professional Development Unit. So, if you attend a Project Management Class of 1 hour by an expert, its equivalent to say 1 PDU. If you write a White Paper on Project Management related topic, it may be equivalent to 5 PDU. PMI has guideline on what kind of project management activity amounts to how many PDUs. You can check their website for details. Every three years, one must have attain 60 PDUs to retain their PMP certificate. So first time, when you write the exam, you become PMP for 3 years. After this period, to renew your certificate, you need to submit proof that you attained 60 PDUs in last three year and pay the PMI renewal fee, your certificate gets renewed for another three years. You can do this online at www.pmi.org PMBOK means Project Management Body of Knowledge. Its like a Book that PMI releases every four years. The latest version of the PMBOK is version 4 and it was released in June 2009. PMBOK also acts as a Text Book for the PMP Exam. You can also think of PMBOK as Standard for Project Management Profession.
• #5: Can anyone take up the PMP Examination ? Yes, provided one meet certain prerequisite. The prerequisite depends upon person’s formal education. As shown in the table, for bachelor degree holder, they have to have at least 4500 hours of Project Management experience and for some one whose highest formal education is High school degree, its 7500 hours of Project management experience. In addition to this, there is some requirement in terms of total no of years of work experience as well. For the first category, one has to have at least 6 years of total work experience and for the second category its 8 years. The 3 years within 6 years in the table means that 4500 hours of project management experience should have happened in last 3 years of total 6 years of experience. Lastly one also has to show proof of attending 35 hours of Project Management Training just before writing the PMP exam. There are many Project Management Training companies, who are PMI REP. PMI REP means, these training companies are registered with PMI as Registered Education Provider. If you attend their 35 hour contact training, they also give you 35 PDUs. As I have explained earlier, PDU means professional development unit. It’s a measure of Project management activity by PMI. Attending a Project Management training is also a Project Management Activity. I would like to clarify here that even if you attend 35 hours of Project Management Training by a company, which is not REP, you can still go ahead and take up the PMP exam. But you must show proof of attending 35 hours of Project Management training. So, if you have gone through our complete 12 lesson material and also attended our virtual classes. You qualify to take up the PMP Exam. Lastly, One has to submit proof to PMI while submitting the online application for taking up the exam. PMI audits such submission from time to time. If you do not meet the prerequisite and still submit the exam application, there are chances of getting caught. PMI disqualifies such application. Once your online application for taking up the exam gets approved, PMI sends an Authorization letter. You must write the exam, within a year of getting the Authorization letter.
• #6: Let me tell you more about the PMP Exam. It’s a four hour exam consisting of 200 questions. Out of this 200, 25 questions are not scored. But beware, you will not know which are these 25 questions! So you should answer all 200 questions, with same seriousness. PMI includes these questions to see how many test takers are getting them right. Based on this, they might decide to include these questions in future Exam. The pass marks for the exam is 141 out of 175, which roughly translates to 81%! Now, you must be guessing that PMP exam is not that easy. You are right! Taking PMP exam does require certain seriousness in preparation. Next, I have shown in the table on how many questions from which part. Getting confused with so many new terms. Hold on for a moment! You will learn them in the next slide. For now, assume them to be the six major topics and percentage of questions that typically comes from each of these topics.
• #7: There are three terms that I would like to introduce here. First, being the Process Group. The whole Project Management discipline is divided into five broad Process group, they are Project Initiation, Project Planning, Project Execution, Project Monitoring & Control and Project Closing. You probably, might be aware of them as well. When a new Project starts, its in the Project Initiation phase, from Initiation, it moves to Planning, than to Execution and than to Monitoring & Control and finally its closed. Some of these overlap as well. For example, Project Execution and Project Monitoring & Control go hand in hand. So when a new project is started i.e., initiated, all processes of Project Initiation Process Group should be applied to the Project. Similarly when the project is being closed, all Processes of Project Closing group should be applied. Let me give you more specific example, “Identify stakeholders” is a Process of Project Initiation group. So when the project is initiated, you must identify all the stakeholder’s of the project. Next. ..There are 9 Knowledge areas. For example, “Human Resource Management” is one of the Knowledge areas. Knowledge area is a set of specific processes required to be performed to meet a project objective. A Knowledge area may have some processes to be done in Project Planning Process Group and some other processes to be done in Project Monitoring & Control Process Group. For example, if you take “Human Resource Management” Knowledge area, “Develop Human Resource Plan” is a processes in Project Planning Group and another processes “Manage Project Team” is in Project Execution group. Lastly there are 42 process areas, we have already come across two such Process areas. “Develop Human Resource Plan” and “Manage Project Team”. If you are totally confused by now. Don’t worry. This is the whole exam syllabus and there is one lesson dedicated to each of these topics!
• #8: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #9: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #10: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #11: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #12: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #13: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #14: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #15: Let me give you an overview of all the lessons of this Tutorial. In all, we have 14 lessons. The current one being the first lesson, which is an Introduction to the PMP certification. Lessons 2, which is named as Project Management Framework, aims to explain what Project and Project Management is all about. It also explains some related terms like Program Management, Project Management Office etc. So, Lesson 2 can be considered as an introduction to the Project Management. Next, Lesson 3 aims to explain the five Project management Process Groups that we discussed some time back. Just to recap these process groups are Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling and Closing. From Lesson 4 till Lesson 12, the 9 Project Management knowledge areas are explained. One lesson dedicated to each of these nine areas. In addition to the 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas, PMI gives a lot of weightage to professional and social responsibility. There are good amount of questions in exam from this topic as well. So we have dedicated one chapter for this as well. The last lesson, ie lesson no 14, is generic in nature and there in we have explained few tips and tricks for the exam. We suggest you to go through once. It might be of great help. Along with this we have also listed what is called PMI-ism. What is PMI-ism? Well, PMI has a certain way of thinking and PMI-ism is a compilation of the same. You might not agree to all of that, but you must know this to pass the PMP Exam. At this point, I would also like to add that, at the end of each of these lessons, we have an quiz. I strongly support to take up the quiz and also look at the explanation of the all the questions, those which you got right as well as those you got wrong. This would help to get a better grasp over the subject. Once you are through with all these 14 lesson, you can go ahead and start taking our practice tests.
• #16: This marks the end of our lesson 1. Lets do a quick recap of what we learnt so far. In this lesson, we learnt about what is PMI and PMP. We also got some information about the PMP Exam format itself and looked at the prerequisite of taking up the PMP Exam. Finally we covered the syllabus of the PMP Examination, where in we explained the 5 Process Groups, the 9 Knowledge Areas and the 42 Project Management Processes. Before marking the end of lesson 1, we also saw how the whole Simplihire PMP Preparation Course is categorized in 14 lessons and what each of these 14 lessons cover. Thank you!