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I am super stoked to tell you that as of this morning PMExamSmartNotes.com has ALL the lessons for PMBOK processes. This makes the blog a comprehensive and complete reference for PMP® and CAPM® certification exams.

A Big Thanks to each one of you for your loyal support in consuming the content of this blog as well as for spreading the word.

I hope that you are getting the value you expect from this blog. I’d love to hear your feedback about the content and format, so please do not hesitate to drop me a line. Your feedback means a great deal to me.

I will be focusing on further breaking down some of the tough concepts into smaller, easier-to-consume pieces and posting on the blog. Also, I will be posting more tips about exam preparations. Next milestone will be converting the entire blog content to comply with PMBOK 5th edition. Although it will happen in parallel I shall keep the current content available for the time-being because 4th edition PMP® exam can be taken till 31st July, 2013.

Thanks again, and all the best for your studies and exam!

-Cheers,
Shiv

Update: This process has been discontinued by PMI in the 6th version of PMBOK.

This project management activity is about closing project procurements by ensuring that all product deliverables meet requirements, and technical documentation, test artifacts such as test plan, test metrics, test cases, and other deliverables as mentioned in the contract have been delivered.

A contract can only end at one of two places.

Either at your office, or in the court.

Either successfully (even prematurely, when both seller and buyer agree to close), or in dispute (seller didn’t deliver, buyer didn’t pay, seller escalated, buyer didn’t respond…). Terms of such a premature closure are also mentioned in the contract.

If there are multiple contracts in a project each one of them need to be closed using this process. Contract terms may also include what needs to be done as part of closing the contract – such as specific deliverables, signing certain forms and declarations and so on.

[continue reading…]

The biggest problem with contracting out work is that you do not have direct control over how the work is done, because seller’s team does not report to you. And having contracted the work out you need to put checks and balances in place to understand how is the work being progressed.

Controlling procurements involves monitoring contract work, evaluating the quality of project work, making changes to the contract as and when required, and making sure that work is done as per the terms written in the contract.

In some organizations where project is of large scope and involves complex work there is a separate person in charge of administering the contract, and project manager works with this person to integrate project work and contracted work.

There may be multiple units of work contracted out to multiple sellers in bigger and complex projects. In a sense contracted work is nothing but another small project! And you can very well imagine that some of the processes will be applicable to you as a project manager to execute for each of the contracted work!

In bigger and complex projects there may be multiple units of work contracted out to multiple sellers. And administering these contracts will involve project manager exercising these processes – project execution by seller organization, reporting project performance of work that seller is doing, quality control to measure the quality of seller’s work, change control process when deliverables do not measure up to expectations, and controlling project risks to keep in check the risks associated with contracted work. [continue reading…]

In the project management activity to plan rocurements you have already figured out,

1. which product, result or service to procure (letting someone else do it for you)
2. the statement of work (SOW) explaining what needs to be done
3. which type of contract to use for each of your procurement needs
4. how to evaluate responses from potential sellers

In Conduct Procurements project management activity you,

1. send request for proposal (RFP) to identified potential sellers
2. evaluate their responses and select the seller(s) you want to work with, and
3. award the contract

[continue reading…]

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”

― Charles Darwin

When PMI moved from PMBOK-5 to PMBOK-6 it made few changes to process names (among many others), and one of them is to rename ‘Control Risks’ process to ‘Monitor Risks’.

It does make sense to do this – risks by nature are outside of anyone’s control, because they step out of uncertainties. Thus the best thing project manager can do is to identify them, analyze them, prepare specific responses, and monitor risks.

Monitoring risks is a project management activity that is essentially about managing expected and unexpected changes in the project.

While planning for risks you referred to various subsidiary plans in Risk Management planning project management activity, realizing that risks may materialize in any of the areas such as Cost, Schedule, Communication or Scope.

You identified risk categories such as Resources, Technical, External, Project – because risks can appear in any of these areas as well.

Then you went ahead and identified very specific risks – actual risks, residual risks and secondary risks.

Then you analyzed them subjectively and objectively, and prioritized them.

Next, you meticulously planned for dealing with each of them in Risk responses planning project management activity.

• Residual risks are the smaller risks remaining even after identifying responses for bigger risks
• Secondary risks are the new risks that come up due to responses planned to manage risks

All this effort is like preparing for the battle. The usefulness of it is determined in the way we monitor and control risks through the length of the project. [continue reading…]