PMIWDC Dinner New Location in Falls Church

PMIWDC's premier event the Monthly Dinner meeting is moving to the Fairview Park Marriott starting January 18, 2011. It is no more at Sheraton in Tyson Corner. The new location The Marriott is right off the Beltway in Falls Church, Virginia and features a newly renovated lobby and large banquet hall.

Further Reading

PDU Categories Changes in 2011

More information on PDU categories.

As per PMI, key changes to the program include:
* Simplification to the Continuing Certification Requirements (CCR) category structure, reducing the number of categories from 18 to 6
* Ensuring that all categories use the rule that one hour of learning activity is equivalent to one PDU
* Expanding the categories to include Web 2.0 learning opportunities
* Adding limits on certain categories to require that all credential holders pursue project management continuing education as part of maintaining their credential

Further Reading

Books on RUP Rational Unified Process

PDU categories changed

The PDU category structure is being changed. It will be implemented from March 1, 2011. As per new structure the number of categories will be reduced to 6. This will simplify the category structure. Will keep you posted as more details will emerge.



Further Reading

Project Management Tools & Techniques (CD-Rom V 2.0 ) (11 PDU's)

Product Description
Packed full of all the tools and techniques you need to manage your projects succesfully. Ideal for: - project managers who need an easy to use desk top reference, - those studying to take the PMP or a PMP in need of a refresher, - new project managers and project team leaders who need to learn quickly - pre-training seminar self study BMC's Project Management: Tools & Techniques is your in-depth desk-top resource. Over 400 screen pages is broken down in to 8 subject specific ares: 1) Introduction to the Project Management Method 2) Planning & Objectives 3) Work Breakdown Structure 4) Project Scheduling 5) The Project Baseline (Budget) 6) Organizing & Staffing 7) Project Control & Reporting 8) Risk Management And includes a 21 question seft-test to see how much you really know.

About the Author
Dr. Tom Johns is CEO, Senior Managing Partner and founder of BMC (1985). Prior to establishing BMC, Dr. Johns had a successful 18 year career holding a number of senior management and executive positions managing projects and programs with Bell Labs and Battelle Memorial Research Institute. Dr. Johns continues to be active in consulting and training and is on facualty, delivering project management training & consulting at NASA Academy, University of Houston, Singapore Institue of Management, Hong Kong Management Association to name but a few. Dr. Dave Adkins, a BMC Senior Partner, brings a vast wealth of knowledge and practical hands-on experience to BMC having held senior management and executive positions in a broad range of industries where he not only managed research projects, but also multi-million dollar capital programs in Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Undersea Technolgy, Semiconductor and Government. Dr. Adkins is also on faculty at a number of post-secondary and industry training academies worldwide.

PDU Category for PMP Credentials

PMI organizes PDU in to five categories.

Category 1: Formal Academic Education Category
Category 2: Professional Activities
Category 2A: Author of article in referee journal
Category 2A: Co-author of article in referee journal providers
Category 2B: Author of article in non-referee journal
Category 2B: Co-author of article in non-referee journal
Category 2C: Speaker/Teacher of a formal course
Category 2D: Speaker at PMI chapter/community meeting organization
Category 2E: Member/Moderator of a panel workshop
Category 2F: Author of a PM textbook
Category 2F: Co-author of a PM textbook
Category 2G: Developer PM courseware
Category 2H: PM Practitioner
Category 2SDL: Self-Directed Learning
Category 3: Course offered by PMI’s R.E.P.s or PMI’s chapters/communities
Category 4: Course offered by other education
Category 5: Volunteer Services
Category 5A: Volunteer officer of a not-for-profit PM
Category 5B: Volunteer committee member of a not-for-profit PM organization
Category 5C: Providing volunteer PM-related services to a community or charitable, not-for-profit group

Project Management Tools & Techniques (CD-Rom V 2.0 ) (11 PDU's)

Further Reading

Free resources to earn PMP PDU.

Please try the following sources. Please visit these links to get the latest info as some of the information might have changed. These resources claim they can provide some free PDUs for PMP.

IBM Rational Project and Portfolio Management certification training e-kit.:Earn through IBM Rational Project Web site. Try it.

PM Podcast : As per web site " Yes you can earn 15 free PDUs just by listening to The Project Management Podcast™. Best of all... it's free!
Podcasts have emerged as a valuable tool for project management related education. They are a simple method of delivering pm-based thought and education to the project management community at-large. This is especially true for those practitioners among us to whom geography or scheduling is a roadblock."

www.pmtrainingonline.com : Currently they are offering some PDU free to try their online course.

Maintain your PMP credentials: Please read for more information on how to maintain your PMP credentials.

Other posting related to PDU.

Further Reading

How to earn or obtain free PDU for PMI PMP Credentials.

You need to earn 60 PDU in three year cycle to keep your PMP credentials.

Best way is to attend PMI's chapters, specific interest group (SIGs) and events, meeting and educational sessions that are pre-approved for PDUs. Most of the time you do not have to pay. Just attend these meetings or seminars and get 1 or 2 PDUs. Make sure get the activity details so that you can update your information online. You also get a PMP Professional Development Activities Reporting Form. Fill it in and fax or mail to the address provided on the form.

Check out my posting for free resources for obtaining free PDUs. Free resources to earn PMP PDU.



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PERT Program Evaluation and Review Technique

PERT stands for Program Evaluation and Review Technique. This comes under time management and scheduling. It provides more accurate estimation as it takes care of the best case and the worst case. Best case is the optimistic view and the worse case is the pessimistic view.


PERT Formula
ET = (P + 4*M + O)/6

Where:
ET = Expected time
P = pessimistic value
M = Most Likely Value
O = Optimistic value

A project normally will take 12 days to finish but if every thing goes well then it finish in 10 days. Worst case scenarios is that it will finish in 26 days if things do not go well.
O = 10 days as it is the optimistic time.
M = 12 days as most likely likely it will take 12 days to finish.
P = 26 days as this worst case scenario.

ET = (26 + 4*12 +10)/6
= (26 + 48 + 10)/6
= 84/6 = 14 Days

So expected time to finish this activity will be 14 days.

Quality Management and PMP

One of the most contoversial PMP mantra in quality control is Gold Plating. Gold Plating is giving customer extra beyond the scope of the project.

Why it is bad? Any thing you give extra cost you, nothing is free. It will also cost you to maintain that feature after customer acceptance. Some time this extra feature can cause you more problems in later stage. On one of software development project one developer added a feature where user can export a file. The developer told that it did not cost extra as it was part of the features. Customer liked it. Later on the developer spent most of the time troubleshooting exported files. It became an headache and also nuisance. These file will have error or format problem. Now it was too late to delete this feature because customer is using it. This happens all the time in our projects. So if you thing something is being delivered extra, change the scope and incorporate this in your project plan and assign the resources to it. You may think it is free or but it will effect the three constraints cost, time and specifications.

Project.

What is a project?

Whatever task you are doing or handling if it has following charactersitics,then it is a project.

1. It has a start and an end.
2. It is unique.
3. It is temporary.
4. It is progressive elaboration.

Free PMP Resources

Here is a summary of some free resources on the web. These are links to the resources.

Free Sample Questions

PMP Test Practice Questions

PMP Sample Questions

More PMP Exam Questions

PMP Mock Exam

More Resources for sample questions

Visit these links and get a sense of questions in PMP Exam. As these are external resources Admin assumes no responsibility for accuracy and validity.

PMP Exam Prep Questions, Answers, & Explanations: 800+ PMP Practice Questions with Detailed Solutions

PMP Exam Practice Questions (First Set): PMP Practice Test & Exam Review for the Project Management Professional Exam

PMP Exam Success Series: 3500 Question Exam Simulation CD-ROM

PMP Exam Practice Questions and Solutions-Why the best answer is best and the wrong answers are wrong-4th Edition

RUP-Nine Disciplines and Four Phases

There are nine disciplines in RUP methodology of software development. These are followed during four phases.

The nine disciplines are

1. Business Modeling
2. Requirements
3. Analysis and Design
4. Implementation
5. Test
6. Deployment
7. Configuration and Change Management
8. Project Management
9. Environment

The four phases are as follow

1. Inception
2. Elaboration
3. Construction
4. Transistion

The nine disciplines are followed in the above four phases. Hump Chart gives the generic pictorial repersentation.

There is lot of business modeling being done during inception phase. Very little analysis and design work is being performed during the inception phase. More emphasis is on analysis and design during elaboration phase.

Adopting the Rational Unified Process: Success with the RUP
Software Development for Small Teams: A RUP-Centric Approach (The Addison-Wesley Object Technology Series)
Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide

RUP Best Practices

Following are the best practices if you are using RUP methodology to develop an software application.

1. Develop Software Iteratively.
2. Manage Requirements.
3. Use Component-based Architectures.
4. Visually Model Software.
5. Continuously Verify Software Quality.
6. Control Changes to Software.

Different Phases of Software Development SDLC

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) use different models or methodologies like Waterfall, Spiral, RUP, Agile, Prototype, JAD. In every model there are different phases. The Waterfall Model I mentioned in my previous post has phases as:

System Requirements,
System Design,
Programming,
Code & Unit Test,
Integration & Test,
Deployment

These can be called by different names in another project or have totally different phases.

Another example of SDLC phases:

Feasability
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Test
Maintain

In RUP methodology the phases are pretty standard as follow:

1. Inception
2. Elaboration
3. Construction
4. Transition

Another example of phases of Project Management and SDLC

Project Initiation
Requirement Analysis
Design
Development
Testing
Deployment
Maintenance




SDLC 100 Success Secrets - Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) 100 Most asked Questions, SDLC Methodologies, Tools, Process and Business Models

PMP PMBOK Processes

The average project life cycle consists of five phases or processes. Please note that there is not a single or unique way to define project life cycle.

1. Initiation

a. Develop Project Charter
b. Identify Stake holder


2. Planning Processes

a. Define Scope
b. Define Requirements
c. Create WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)


3. Executing Process

a. Acquire and Develop Project Team
b. Perform Quality Assurance

4. Monitoring & Controlling Processes
a. Verify Scope
b. Perform Quality Control

5. Closing Proceses

a. Close Procurement
b. Close Project or Phase

PMBOK and RUP

If you are an PMP certified and working on software development project using RUP, you are asked how does both go together? Does RUP maps to PMP style of project management?
Also check out another post

RUP (Rational Unified Process) is mostly applicable to software development process whereas PMI (Project Management Institute) covers every project.
Let us how project phases are defined in the Rational.

There are four phases according to RUP.
1. Inception
2. Elaboration
3. Construction
4. Transistion.

Checkout RUP HUMP Chart for graphical repersentation.

As per PMI's PMBOK there are five phases of project management. These are called processes or process groups.
1. Initiating Processes
2. Planning Processes
3. Executing Processes
4. Controlling Processes
5. Closing Processes

I look at it as both RUP and PMBOK overall map each other. The only extra in PMBOK is Controlling Processes. Controlling Processes is basically esuring that project objectives are met by measuring and montoring the progress and then controlling it by taking necessary action. In RUP this is done all the times as it is iterative process and you can come back and make changes so that project objectives are met.

More reading

    and    

Agile Software Development

This methodology develops software through iterations for the whole life cycle of the software development project. You can find lot of stuff written about this on internet and in books. There are many ways to define this method of programming. The Owner Admin of Agile Alliance explains Agile Software Development as follow.

In the late 1990’s several methodologies began to get increasing public attention. Each had a different combination of old ideas, new ideas, and transmuted old ideas. But they all emphasized close collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication (as more efficient than written documentation); frequent delivery of new deployable business value; tight, self-organizing teams; and ways to craft the code and the team such that the inevitable requirements churn was not a crisis.

Agile development is based on adapting the requirement changes. There is very active user involvement. Small incremental development is done and released and tested. These tested pieces of the code are delivered to the client on regular basis. These are functional codes. Testing on regular basis is one of the main feature of this methodolgy.


There are similar methods to Agile like SCRUM, DSDM, XP (extreme programming) being used.

DSDM is Dynamic System Development Method.



Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Edition

Book Description by Amazon


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Rails is a full-stack, open source web framework that enables you to create full-featured, sophisticated web-based applications with a twist...you can create a full Rails application using less code than the setup XML you'd need just to configure some other frameworks.

With this book, you'll learn how to use Rails Active Record to connect business objects and database tables. No more painful object-relational mapping. Just create your business objects and let Rails do the rest. You'll learn how to use the Action Pack framework to route incoming requests and render pages using easy-to-write templates and components. See how to exploit the Rails service frameworks to send emails, talk to web services, and interact dynamically with JavaScript applications running in the browser (the "Ajax" architecture).

You'll see how easy it is to deploy Rails. You'll be writing applications that work with your favorite database (MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, and more) in no time at all.

Spiral Model

This is extension of Waterfall methodology with Prototype. In this model software is developed in incremental increases. Each phase starts with a design goal and ends with the user. In each phase progress is reviewed. You can revisit each phase. Analysis and engineering efforts are applied at each phase of the project, keeping in mind the end goal of the project. This model also addresses the risk management. Credit goes Dr. Barry Boehm for developing this methodology.

Waterfall Model

Waterfall Method It was introduced by Winston Royce in 1970. Waterfall method of software development is the oldest and most of the software engineers are familiar with it. Some people think SDLC and Waterfall are same. It used to be same long time back when the software development was new and systems were not complex. It involves sequence of steps or stages. Output of one stage is input to another stage. Some time there are hard boundaries between the two stages and sometimes the two stages may overlap. Some software development teams may add or delete steps. Some may change the name of the steps according to their requirements. As this is a very straight forward method, it facilitates the project management, scheduling and estimation.

Once one phase of the software development is complete, the development of next phase starts. You cannot come back.

There are very definite goals for each phase of the development.
The biggest drawback of waterfall model is that it does not allow much of revision. It is very difficult to go back and change something. Some times the requirements are not well figured out in initial stage of the project.

The waterfall method is not suitable when requirements are changing. The customer or stakeholder wants to monitor the progress all the time and this is not suitable as you are working on only one phase at a time. It needs lot of effort on planning. All the phases are frozen and there is no turn around.

Typical Waterfall Phases



System Concept
System Requirements
System Design
Programming
Code & Unit Test
Integration & Test
Deployment


Here a sample diagram for Waterfall Model for SDLC. These are generic phases. These different phases can change depending upon a project.





Waterfall Model of SDLC

RUP Hump Chart

Here is high level graphical  representation of the Hump chart. The X-axis represent the various phases. The Y-axis represents various disciplines.




The following picture refers the RUP (Rational Unified Process) life cycle. It is called the 'hump chart' in RUP circles. It has 4 Phase of RUP on X-axis. The software development disciplines are on y-axis. The humps signifies effort of the certain discipline in a particular phase. This is generic model. Notice the discipline Business Modelling has big hump in the Inception stage as lot of this activity happens in the inception phase and fades down as the project progress through Elaboration, Construction and Transition phases.