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In this issue... |
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 Hello ,
"Congratulations! You have earned your PMP certification, and it feels great to have that behind you. It is certainly a milestone, and an accomplishment worth celebrating. But after a short time, the question often becomes "What's next?""
Read this week's article from guest writer John Reiling and learn more about what to do next after passing the PMP exams.
This week we are featuring Simplilearn's MS Project Online Training Course.Take advantage of the online
course that makes project managers not just MS Project experts but also
a cut above the rest.
Also get the usual dose of our Sample PM Exam Q & A. Tips and Lessons Learned from new PMPs.
Enjoy!
Until Next Time,
Cornelius Fichtner, PMP
President, OSP International LLC
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Now You're a PMP! What Next? by John Reiling
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Congratulations! You have earned your PMP certification, and it feels great to have that behind you. It is certainly a milestone, and an accomplishment worth celebrating. But after a short time, the question often becomes "What's next?"
What's next?
Yes, high achievers especially experience this "What's next?" urge. Just this morning, I was listening to a podcast on the way to work, and the author talked about the challenges and experiences that some of the astronauts who had walked on the moon. After years of preparation and intense focus and discipline, they reached their goals - only to return, in some cases, with a loss of purpose and direction. Some had deep troubles, largely because they had suddenly become "goal-less". They in essence had "lost" a goal by achieving their primary goal, and by not replacing it with another worthy goal.
Leverage your time: PDUs AND another Certification
So, for you, it will be great to leverage your PMP certification, to apply the principles, to show you know your stuff, perhaps to advance or move crosswise to another interesting and lucrative career position. But perhaps there is more that you can do to keep up, and even accelerate, your career momentum. As you assess your goals, perhaps another certification will help you to advance, as well as to keep you fresh and excited.
Five Realistic Possibilities
Here are a five ideas related to career goals and certifications - and you can 'kill two birds with one stone' by earning a new certification and PDUs at the same time!
- Perhaps you find yourself operating or moving toward a more international venue. In Europe, as well as some other parts of the world, the PRINCE2 certification is very popular and highly respected. You have the distinct advantage of having a great deal of project management background already behind you, and might find that the first step - earning the PRINCE2 Foundation certification - is fairly easy in comparison with the PMP. It also could provide you with an addition credential relevant in your specific work environment, plus added perspective on the job.
- A large number of PMPs work in the Information Technology (IT) field. Some may already have technical certifications with such vendors as Oracle, Cisco, IBM, and others. Since you have already made the move to management, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) certification may interest you. It can provide specific deep expertise and credentialing in the IT space that is valued by many organizations worldwide. You may find that it enables you to get in charge of projects that might otherwise have been out of reach.
- You may find that the pure project management profession suits you just fine, and that you would like to simply take a path to bigger and better things. The PMI has laid out a path for that - the Program Management Professional (PgMP) certification. It is a very logical extension to the PMP, using a similar approach to the PMBOK framework, and building directly on the PMP skills base.
- In today's economic environment, one of the favorite types of projects to be funded is that of the cost cutting or efficiency producing variety. In those cases, many organizations want to turn to proven methodologies and processes, one of which includes Six Sigma. Six Sigma Green Belts and Six Sigma Black Belts are in high demand for any of these projects, and project management skills are also at a premium. The combination of the two can be powerful!
- One of the most important areas in a project is requirements management. Actually, the scope of requirements management can be broadened to that of 'business analysis'. Many could find a great appeal to the analytical skills required in Business analysis, and the combination of a Business Analysis certification with the PMP can again be powerful, especially in environment where the analysis portion of typical projects is particularly crucial. This is often the case, for example, in the area of application development projects.
Concluding Thoughts to Ponder
So, when you ask what's next, consider additional certifications. You might find that it is easier than you think to add another credential on top of the PMP and whatever else you might have, and that it is especially enticing when you can earn PDUs for the work at the same time!
While it's great to celebrate, don't linger on your success too long. Remember, it's not where you are, or where you have been, that's important; what's important is where you are going. Keep that fresh and forward moving feeling going and set some new goals today, and consider tackling another career-enhancing certification.
Source: http://www.pmhub.net/wp/2009/07/john-reiling-now-you%E2%80%99re-a-pmp-what-next/
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Competing Project Constraints
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 We help you prepare for the PMP Exam by looking at the 6 major competing project constraints and quick look at Scope in detail. This is just a short portion of our complete 38 hour long PMP Exam preparation video workshop that you can download to your portable media player.
Watch this video we have prepared for you: http://bit.ly/nmfg2l
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Sample PMP Exam Question
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The following PMP exam sample question is taken from The Free PMP Exam Simulator at http://free.pm-exam-simulator.com - The answer is at the very bottom:
Which of the following may be considered as the outputs of performing Quality Assurance?
A) Requested changes, recommended corrective actions, organizational process assets, project management plan.
B) Requested changes, requested preventive actions, Quality metrics
C) Quality management plan, Quality metrics, Quality baseline
D) Quality control measurements, recommended preventive actions
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PMP Exam Tip: Interpersonal Skills a PMP Needs: 4. Communication
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In Appendix G, the PMBOK Guide discusses Interpersonal Skills for the project manager. We are currently reviewing these one by one in our weekly PMP exam tip. In this week's tip we talk about developing strong communication skills.
Good communication skills are important in most careers. If you are working as a project manager that is even more true since we communicate about 90% of the time. Some project managers go as far as considering the communication aspect of managing a project as their main job responsibility.
Great communication skills are key to not only improving the relationships among all project team members, but also to establishing trust and keeping everyone motivated and on schedule.
Usually there are many stakeholders involved in a project and they must all be kept up to date on the status, timelines, progress, risks and issues associated with the project. A good project manager and PMP must communicate all of these details to project stakeholders in a timely fashion and in the format that they expect to receive it in. Project managers must also be able to properly communicate with senior management in their organization.
As you develop your communication skills, it is important to include all of its facets. This includes both written and verbal. Another important part of developing good communication skills is learning what information needs to be communicated and who needs to receive the information. Providing too much information or not enough to the interested parties can hamper the project from fulfilling its potential.
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The Correct Answer is A.
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Lessons Learned from Remy Sam
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I am very happy and excited to announce that I passed the PMP exam on August 29, 2011. I would like to share my lessons learned. Hope it will be helpful to all the PMP aspirants.
It all started in June 2011. I bought Cornelius' PM Prepcast. It is an amazing product and concepts cant be explained better than how Cornelius does it. I listed to the podcast, at least twice when I went out, while driving etc.
Then I set forth to referring Headfirst PMP and Rita. Headfirst is an excellent book. It was almost third week of July and for the next two weeks I dedicated my self to reading the PMBOK.
I then bought the PM EXAM SIMULATOR by Cornelius. The key to passing the exam is to practice, practice and practice although most of the ITTO questions are not the way it is asked in the exam. I attempted all the 9 test twice. In all I attempted about 3500 question from various sources, which has been made available by many users.
Read more here...
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