Business is of any type but they all want proper management. Project management software is necessary for maintaining records. It includes many things like collaboration software, resource allocation, cost control, team prioritize, chatting with clients and many more. It defines your company’s goals and makes projects plans. It gives you the idea of overall expensive and helps you to control and rectify them whenever necessary. It provides updated information to all your team members and your clients regarding all the level of the project.

With the help of project management software you can talk to your team member as well as your clients on a single platform without any difficulty which saves your valuable time. Through this you can manage your meetings, initiate fast communication and take important decisions. Scheduling is also one of the tasks of project management software where it can create deadlines, scheduling people to work on various task and provide information what resources are required by people to accomplish the tasks. This will indirectly increase the performance of your team members and business.

Time tracking is also an important part of business. It provides you information regarding how much time you spend on one project so that you can use your rest of time on other projects which results maximum increase in your productivity. It can manage all the records of employee’s which include their attendance, how much time an employee can spend on one project etc. Time tracking is basically used to analyze your team member as well as performance of your business. It ca easily track and manage your entire team time. All your business depends upon planning and proper management.

Source: Proofhub

PMP Exam

One of the most high demand and credible certification available is the PMP® (Project Management Professional) certification offered by PMI® (Project Management Institute). The PMP demonstrates advanced knowledge of and experience with Project Management concepts. Today, there are over 250,000 PMP-certified project managers worldwide. To obtain PMP certification, a candidate must satisfy the followings:

Educational requirements
Experiential requirements
Agree to and adhere to PMI Code of Professional Conduct
Pass the PMP Certification Examination

The Project Management Professional (PMP) is the project management credential of choice for numerous industries and companies. By attaining the PMP credential, your name will be included in the largest and most prestigious group of credentialed professionals in the project management community. Many who have PMP designation have received raises, or promotions as a result.

2. PMP Exam Passing Score

There are 200 questions you need to answer in 4 hours. 25 pretest questions are randomly placed throughout the test to gather statistical information on the performance of these questions in order to determine whether they may be used on future examinations. These 25 pretest items are included in the 200-question examination, but will not be included in the pass/fail determination; candidates will be scored on 175 questions.

There are still 200 questions you need to answer in 4 hours. You will not be scored for 25 questions. But, you will not know which questions are pretest questions and if you will be scored or not for a question. Therefore, you must make every effort to answer all of the exam questions correctly.

PMI made a decision in 2006 to no more publish passing scores for its exams. In 2007, PMI also removed all quantitative elements from the post-exam review for test candidates. The passing score is estimated inside a range between 61% and 75%.

3. PMP Exam Itself

The first 15 minutes, you will be asked to go over a tutorial. 15 minutes to review tutorial is not included 4 hours exam duration. Reviewing tutorial approximately takes 5 minutes. You can use 10 minutes of this time to jot down formulas, all processes, and knowledge areas on your scratch paper as you did in the ‘Exam Cheat Sheet Workbook’. Don’t skip this step. During the exam, you need to focus on the question instead of trying to remember formulas. You can just refer to written formulas when those questions arise rather than having to reach into your memory during the stress of a timed exam.

25 pretest questions will be randomly placed throughout the new examination to gather statistical information on the performance of these questions in order to determine whether they may be used on future examinations. These 25 pretest items are included in the 200-question examination, but will not be included in the pass/fail determination; candidates will be scored on 175 questions.

There are still 200 questions you need to answer in 4 hours. You will not be scored for 25 questions but you will not know which questions are pretest questions and if you will be scored or not for a question. Therefore, you must make every effort to answer all of the questions correctly.

Each question on this exam is worth exactly as much as the next. The very simple ones and the more complex ones are not weighted against each other; all are the same weight. So if you do not want to deal with a question that you do not understand at first, do not.

Select Mark for review for your answers you are not sure about. After you complete all questions, review marked questions. Make sure that you have some time to review marked questions at least once more.

Do NOT leave blank any question. There is no penalty for incorrect answers.

All questions are worth the same value. One question, one point.

The questions are in random order. They are not grouped by knowledge area.

Look at all the answers before you answer the question. Take time to read all the answers, even if you are sure that the answer under the letter A is the correct one. You may find that there will be an even better answer in the other options.

If the question is too long, first read the last sentence to understand what the question is? Sometimes, the information given in the question is not necessary to be able to answer the question. However, read the question at least once.

If you are not sure the answer of the question, eliminate the answers. Usually, you can reduce the possible correct answer to two options. Use your logic and select the best answer between two.

Getting done early helps. It gives you a chance to go back over some of your answers.

Esra Guven, BScEE, PMP
Founder/Director, STAR-PM,

http://www.star-pm.com

Esra Guven is the Founder of Star-PM and serves in the position of Director. In this capacity, Ms. Guven prepares and provides all the informative study guides on the website and in the published study guide. She is a qualified trainer who has over 10 years of project management experience in the Information Technology area. She is also author of a PMP Certification Book called “Pass PMP Exam on Your First Try, Aligned with PMBOK 4th Edition” which is recently published in Canada.

She can be reached by e-mail at esra.guven@star-pm.com at http://www.star-pm.com

Source: PMP Guru

The project initiation phase is the critical phase within the project lifecycle. It is also called the project pre-planning phase and about stating the basic characteristics of the project. To successfully initiate a project, you need to which basics steps are required to carry out to develop a business case, undertake a feasibility study, develop a project charter and others.

Here are the basics steps of the project initiation phase:

Step #1 - Create Business Case - A business case document is the formal start of the project when the project sponsor (or the project initiator) gives a description of the business problem/opportunity. The project is to be initiated to address the problem or provide alternative solutions. The business case document will include the business problem and potential costs associated with the project implementation. 

Step #2 - Make Feasibility Study - A feasibility study is a research conducted to determine whether the project can be accomplished and to identify the likelihood of the alternative solutions. The feasibility study investigates whether the benefits stated in the business case can be delivered. It also depicts relationship of business costs with the project solutions.

Step 3 - Develop Project Charter - Once the business problem/opportunity and possible solutions have been identified, your next step is to develop a project charter which is the critical document of the initiation phase. The project charter essentially describes what your project sets out to solve the business problem and what the boundaries of the project will be. It specifies the project vision, goals & objectives, scope & boundaries, deliverables & expectations, project organization and an implementation plan.

Step 4 - Assign Project Management Team - The project charter is developed so you can proceed with identifying human resources required for delivering the project and achieving its goals. You will need to appoint the management team which will take the primary responsibility for the planning and implementation of your project. The Project Committee should be established and the project manager should be assigned. Then the project manager will work on recruiting the project team and making project assignments. Once the team is recruited and assignments are made, the project initiation phase is almost finished; only one step is ahead.

Step 5 - Perform Review - Your last step to take through the project initiation phase is about reviewing your project. A review stage should be conducted to ensure that the project is successfully initiated – this means all of the initiation activities are completed. Once the project is reviewed, the project planning will be.

Source: elocman

It seems like Stack Exchange is the perfect platform for questions about Jewish observance. After all, most of the Talmud reads just like Stack Overflow: a question, followed by multiple answers, usually with the highest ranking answer appearing first. The number of questions is infinite.

If you would be interested in participating in such a thing, please commit to the proposal today.

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn’t drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.

Source: Joel Spolsky

It is not enough to manage projects virtually, but to properly apply e-project management processes that result in less development time but with improved quality. This is about value and not just cutting costs, after all.

Advancements in telecommunication are among the key movers of offshore outsourcing. Without it, back-office operations and application development outsourcing will not be as successful as they are today. Better infrastructure has allowed for richer applications and cheaper communication that enable businesses and their outsourcing partners to manage people and projects efficiently from different time zones.

Adopting virtualization in managing project offers great competitive advantage to companies and offshore project teams . However, with the increasingly virtualized tech industry, it is not enough to manage projects virtually, but to properly apply e-project management processes that result in less development time but with improved quality. Remember that this is about value and not just cutting costs, after all.

To make a successful adoption of virtualization, a few key elements are involved.

Infrastructure – Both client and vendor must set up the infrastructure that can support virtualization efforts, particularly when the project at hand involves sensitive information. Both parties need the hardware and software to host VoIP calls, and in many cases, virtual private networks (VPN). At the start of the project, prioritize the acquisition of hardware, software, and bandwidth to support collaborative and communication efforts.

Communication Plans – Much of the success of adopting virtualization in depends heavily on communication. On-shore project members do not have the advantages of following up colleagues whenever they want or in person. Delivery teams, on the other hand, do not have the luxury of clarifying project details immediately. In this regard, it is best to set up communication plans that define identify proper channels and approaches. Are there available people on the other end of the communication line? When should the team use virtual meetings? Is e-mail enough to update one another about the project status? Who will project members ask about issues—specific persons or entire teams? Experts agree that it is better to err on the side of over-communication.

Control and Evaluation – On top of delivering results at a time when they are expected to, offshore project teams should report plans for manpower allocations and utilization, risks and issues, and milestones. By having these details, project teams—no matter where they are in the world—can evaluate project status and control risks. This also involves a single control system that allows for an easy generation and consolidation of data. At the end of every period—typically weekly or monthly—such data can be measured to evaluate the success of the project in terms of quality of work, manpower and financial investment, and the lessons learned from the venture.

Collaboration Tools – A repository accessible to every member of the delivery team should be put in place. Do not rely merely on multiple copies of outputs stored in individual folders. Versioning and project management software, such as SharePoint or Perforce, allow project team members to work on single source copies of outputs, as well as archiving, checking out and backtracking of works.

Source: ExecutiveBrief