PMP Training: Resume Session 4

Last Night’s session 4 was very important because it was about the Project Management Approach that the Project Manager will choose for the project.

At the beginning of the session, I explained to the participants the flow of thoughts they should have in order to understand really well where this training is taking them so they can build the full picture. 

Then, I touched on the shift in the mindset of PMI in the exam and the increase in the importance of the hybrid/generic project management as it is becoming the new normal when choosing the project management approach for the endeavor.

In Session 4, we started the fourth chapter entitled: Project Development Approach and Life Cycle.

Chapter 2: Stakeholder

Section 4.1: Project Development Approaches

In this section we went through very important practices and techniques that each Project Manager should understand and use in their project.

First, we saw the Iron vs Inverted triangles, and then we discussed the 5 types of delivery cadences and I have emphasized on the Multiple Delivery as becoming the most favoured cadance for delivering project deliverables and product increments regardless of the PM approach. 

Then we saw the Agile Approaches and in particular the Iterative, the Incremental and the Full Agile approaches, the characteristics of each one of them, when and how to use it. 

After that, we came to one of the most important parts of the PMP Training which is the Hybrid Project Management. We went through 6 types of Hybrid PM and I have very well explained each one of them with examples and also – and this is the most important- how to be able to know in the exam how to think in each situation of a Hybrid Project and how to know whether to think Waterfall first or Agile first and which tool/technique/practice to choose from the possible answers. I have also shared what our students who took the PMP exam were saying about the types of Hybrid PM questions that they faced. 

Then we saw other practices such as the progressive elaboration and rolling wave planning, and also I shared with the participants an exercise to practice more on the topics. 

During this section we’ve had a number of quizzes after each few slides to help the participants understand better and try their knowledge.

Section 4.2: Agile Frameworks

Since Agile has increased in use in the projects and importance in today’s Project Management and Product Development environment, and thus the appearance of Adaptive Project Management, it was very important to share with the participants key practices of some of the following frameworks and approaches:

• Kanban (flow-based Agile)
• Lean
• Crystal Family of Methodologies
• Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
• eXtreme Programming (XP)
• Blended Agile
• DSDM
• FDD / TDD / BDD

We focused in particular on the first two bullets and the last one, with practice questions so the participants can see what type of questions and answers they can expect in the real PMP exam. 

Section 4.3: Scrum Framework (Part 1)

In the last part of this session, we started by one of the most important parts of the training which is the Scrum Framework, and we went through the initiation of it and in particular we saw its history and inception from the book The New New Product Development Game of H. Takeuchi and I. Nonaka (1986) to the Scrum White Paper of J. Sutherland and K. Schwaber (1995), and I explained the whole Agile mindset coming from the sports and the difference between the relay race and the hollistic approach. 

We went through the Scrum 6 principles, 5 aspects and 3 pillars, and then we touched on the 3 key roles in the Scrum practice which are the Product Owner, Scrum Master and the Development team which in the training we call them the Project Team, and we saw the characteristics, skills and responsibilities of each one of them.

I have emphasized on the role of the Scrum Master and its many other names such as Servant Leader, Facilitator, Coach, Mentor, Agile Project Manager, etc.

I explained to the participants that in the PMP exam the term Project Manager in an adaptive project will mainly refer to the role of the Scrum Master.

End of the session

At the end of the session we had a 30 minute Q&A as usual to help the participants understand better and gasp more the different learnings and techniques we went through.

See you in session 5.