PMP Exam Prep Course in a Book

Based on the PMBOK Guide, 4th edition

By Richard Perrin PMP MBB CSM
Whats Inside:
Practice Exams over 550 sample exam questions!
Key concepts you need to pass the exam
The latest updates to help you pass the first time
Exam subjects not covered in the PMBOK Guide

Pass the PMP certification exam on your first try!

Project Integration
Management
Knowledge Area Processes:

Develop Project Charter

Develop Project Management Plan

Direct and Manage Project Execution

Monitor and Control Project Work

Integrated Change Control

Close Project

Section Objectives
At completion you will know how to:

Organize Integration management processes into the PM process groups

List the elements and purpose of a project charter
Describe the two fundamental project selection techniques
Define a PMIS and its two key components
List the components and importance of a project management plan
Describe the components and importance of a change control system and a
configuration management system
Perform steps needed to implement changes

Integration Process Summary

The high level Project Integration Management outputs, by Process Grou
Group are:
Initiating
Project Charter
Select project
manager

Planning
PM Plan

Executing
-Deliverables
-Work Performance
information
-CRs

Monitoring and
Controlling
CRs
Change Request
Status Updates
Updates to:
PM Plan
Project
Documents

Closing
Final Product

OPA Updates

Project Integration Management

For the purposes of the exam it is important to know both the process areas within the Project
integration management knowledge area, and which project management process group each of the
processes fall into:
Process
Develop Project Charter
Develop Project Management Plan
Direct and Manage Project Execution
Monitor and Control Project Work
Perform Integrated Change Control
Close Project or Phase

Process Group
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring & control
Monitoring & control
Close

Develop the Project Charter

Contrary to how many businesses do this, a project charter is a brief two or three page document (at
most) that imparts high-level
level information about the project: The project description, project manager
and their authority level, a high-level
level business case, stakeholders, high
high-level
level deliverables list, high-level
high
project risks, defined project objectives, project approval requirements and formal sign off ar
are all part of
the project charter.
In one sense, the project charter functions as an excellent executive summary of the project. For the
exam, know that a charter is a required element that must be completed and signed off before further
project work can begin.

Charter Elements
Key charter benefits - elements for the exam:

Formally recognizes existence of the project

The PM is authorized to spend money and commit resources to the project (most commonly
described benefit)
ents
Describes high-level requirements
Links the project to other work in the organization

The charter elements may include, but are not limited to:

Project title
Project manager assigned and authority level
Business need
Project justification/business case
Initial resources pre-assigned
assigned
Stakeholders



Initial scope and requirements

Project/product description and deliverables
Initial constraints and assumptions
May include S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-bound)*
High level budget estimate
Sponsor Signature/signoff

*There are many variants on the SMART acronym. A few appear below1:
S - specific, significant, stretching
M - measurable, meaningful, motivational
A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable

Project Statement of Work

The project SOW is a high-level description of the products or services the project will create. It is usually
created by the customer/sponsor.
Fundamental elements of an SOW:
o Business need
o Product scope description
o Strategic plan
Usually a summary if the work is being performed internally the detail is developed in the WBS
For external services procured, the SOW is called the Procurement Statement of Work (Details will be
addressed in Section 12 on Procurement)
In regards to the project charter, the Project Statement of Work is more of a high-level summary.
According to PMI, it is a narrative that describes products or services that are delivered by the project.
(PMBOK Guide, 4th edition, p. 75). For an internal project, work is actually detailed in the work
breakdown structure (WBS) and the WBS dictionary. The Project Statement of Work references:

Business need
Product scope
Strategic plan

A contract or procurement statement of work is a legal document that requires a legal review and
review by contract administration professionals. Contract statements of work can run many thousands
of pages on a large project, and legally obligates the vendor to deliver exactly what is in the contract
statement of work. Details on the contract statement of work will be addressed in the Project
Procurement Management section (Section 12).

http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart-goals.html, Duncan Haughey, PMP

Chapter Test (Partial)

1.

Your project team is assembling a business case for the current project you have been assigned. You and
the team are discussing various benefit measurement approaches for the project. Which of the following
benefit measurement methods will help you build the strongest business case?
a. Benefit Cost Ratio
b. Weighted Scoring Model
c. Net Present Value
d. Payback Period

2.

The project has been running smoothly; initiation phase is complete and the team is working on all
aspects of planning. You had meetings with stakeholders several times to collect requirements and as a
result, requirements documentation is almost complete, as are high-level and detailed design documents.
As construction begins on the project, several stakeholders have indicated the need for changes to the
requirements set. They are claiming these elements were missed in the initial requirements collection
process, and they want you to add these elements to the project immediately. You perform an impact
assessment and get it back to them only to hear that they are not going to allow any changes in the
project budget or the timeline to complete these additional elements. What is the most effective tool
that you could use to prevent this instance of scope creep?
a. Change control system
b. Configuration management system
c. Murder Board
d. Work Authorization System

3.

Opportunity costs are defined as:

a. What the organization will spend to pursue an opportunity
b. What the organization will give up by not pursuing an opportunity
c. What the organization will spend on infrastructure and human resources to pursue an
opportunity
d. What the organization will spend on sales and marketing in order to pursue an opportunity

4.

A constrained optimization method is an approach that is used for project selection based on
sophisticated mathematical models. All of the following are constrained optimization methods except
which of the following?
a. Multi-Objective Programming Algorithms
b. Dynamic
c. Linear
d. Orthogonal

5.

The project you are managing involves 11 different teams scattered geographically across the country.
The project sponsor is worried about how the work of 11 non-co-located teams is going to be coordinated
for the project. You assure the sponsor that all relevant documentation will be captured in the corporate
PMIS (project management information system). Within what key input does the PMIS reside?
a. Project Management Plan
b. Enterprise Environmental Factors
c. Organizational Process Assets
d. Work Authorization System

Project Scope Management

Section Topics:

Collect Requirements

Define Scope

Create WBS

Verify Scope

Control scope

Section Objectives
In this section you will be able to:

Assign the scope management processes to the PM process groups

Explain the components and importance of a detailed scope statement and scope management
plan
Define the difference between requirements and scope
Define the differences between product an project scope
Describe decomposition
Define and create a WBS

Scope Process Summary

The high level Project Scope Management output elements, by Process Group are:
Initiating

Planning
-Requirements
Management Plan
-Requirements documents
-Requirements traceability
matrix
Project Scope statement
Scope baseline

Executing

Monitoring and Controlling

Closing

Accepted deliverables
CRs

Work performance
measurements
Various document updates

What is Scope Management?

For the exam, there are two aspects of scope that you need to understand: the product scope and the
project scope. What this means is:

Product Scope. What requirements do I have to fulfill to create the product of the project?
Project Scope. What activities and processes do I have to perform to deliver the product scope?

One of the key elements in managing scope is to prevent scope creep . This is a term that was coined
by the United States Air Force to describe conditions in which additional scope elements are added to a
project without any means or method for controlling such additions i.e. any uncontrolled change to a
project. In some instances, customers and stakeholders will add scope to a project, yet will not allow for
additional time or budget to accommodate the changes. This is a classic scope creep situation.
Gold plating is a subset of scope creep. These are elements added to the project by the performing
organization because a team member thinks it's a good idea or that the customer will appreciate the
extra work. The problem with gold plating is that added scope elements from the project team may cost
the project money that was never contained in the project budget. If you're adding elements to the
project that the customer never asked for, they may wonder what you are doing with the rest of their
budget!

Scope Baseline
In terms of scope, we will address two aspects of the scope management process:

Product Scope: the requirements that relate to the product of the project

Project Scope: The work done needed to deliver the product of the project

There may be questions on the exam that reference the scope baseline. It is critical that you know that
the Scope Baseline consists of the Scope Statement plus the WBS plus the WBS dictionary.
The scope baseline provides much of the input needed to create a Scope Management Plan. The three
elements of the scope baseline; the scope statement, the WBS, and the WBS dictionary, will be
addressed in detail in the upcoming pages.
The Scope Baseline:

+
Scope Statement

WBS

WBS Dictionary

Scope Management

Initiating

Planning

Collect
Requirements
Define Scope
Create WBS

Monitoring
&
Controlling

Executing

Closing

Verify scope
Control Scope

The process of scope management is performed to ensure that the project contains all the work and
only the work necessary, to fulfill project objectives successfully. While the requirements of the project
are outlined in a requirements management plan, the scope management plan typically contains the
following elements:

How changes to scope will be managed on the project

Escalation hierarchy in the organization to resolve potential scope issues
Description of any control systems that are used to manage scope and changes to scope

Collect Requirements
Tools and
Techniques

Inputs

Project charter
Stakeholder register

Interviews
Focus groups
Facilitated workshops
Group creativity
techniques
Group decision-making
techniques
Questionnaires and
surveys
Observations
prototypes

Outputs

Requirements
documentation
Requirements management
plan
Requirements traceability
matrix

PMI defines a requirement as:

"A condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system, product, service, results, or
component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document.
Requirements include the quantified and documented needs, wants, and expectations of the sponsor,
customer, and other stakeholders.2
In short, you are establishing, from the customer's perspective, what the customer needs from the
project in order for the project to be successful.
Unfortunately this is the first place in the project where the 'wheels start coming off the wagon'. In the
upcoming section we will address what specific tools and techniques can be implemented to ensure a
detailed elaboration of customer requirements.

Requirements Management Plan

The requirements management plan describes how requirements collection will be planned, executed
and changes to requirements will be managed.
Some of the elements in a requirements management plan include but are not limited to the following:

What specific techniques are being used to collect requirements?

How to handle stakeholder disagreements about requirements.
To what level of detail will users describe their requirements?

th

PMBOK Guide, 4 edition, p. 437

Chapter 5 Test Excerpt

1.

The scope baseline consists of which of the following elements?

a. Project management plan, WBS, scope statement
b. Scope statement, risk management plan, WBS
c. WBS dictionary, project management plan, scope statement
d. Scope statement, WBS, WBS dictionary

2.

The WBS is used for all of the following with the exception of:
a. Allowing for team buy-in of the project
b. Showing cross functional dependencies between work packages
c. A communication tool between stakeholders
d. Shows the team how their work fits into the overall project

3.

Verify Scope defines a process that:

a. Allows the customer to verify what was built against the requirements
b. Occurs at the end of the project prior to closing
c. Formalizes acceptance of completed project deliverables
d. Verifies the scope management plan is aligned with the project management plan

4.

Two team members are having a discussion about where certain project documentation should exist.
They're discussing several elements of the WBS between which there are dependencies. Where can this
information be found?
a. WBS
b. Detailed scope statement
c. Scope management plan
d. WBS dictionary

5.

Your project team has come to you with an issue. It appears that during the requirements elaboration
process there was a disagreement between the members of the technical team regarding what had to be
built to satisfy a user requirement. As a result, some of the technical team members created features in
the deliverable that the customer did not really ask for. What would have specifically helped to avoid this
situation?
a. Requirements management plan
b. Requirements traceability matrix
c. Scope statement
d. WBS

6.

Your stakeholders, a group of seven Ph.D.'s, have met to discuss the merits of moving forward with the
project in a specific direction. The discussion started out fairly calmly until a point of contention was
identified. At this point, the discussion began to escalate into an argument and finally ended in a shouting
match between two of the Ph.D.'s. In addition, one of the members of the team had a differing opinion
from his boss (one of the people engaged in the shouting match) and was reluctant to express his real
views in the meeting. Which of the following would have been the best approach to avoid the previous
scenario?
a. Delphi technique
b. Analytic hierarchy process
c. The KJ method
d. QFD