Enjoy this first video of my free online PMP Exam Preparation training course and prepare to sit and pass the PMP certification exam from PMI. This PMP training video is based on PMBOK6 (PMBOK Guide) and covers the introduction section which discussed what is a project and what is project management.
Hello and welcome to my PMP exam prep course my name is Edward Shahab and I’m certified from PMI as a project management professional program management professional and the first in the u.s. to be certified as a portfolio management professional I am also a certified business analysis professional Six Sigma greenbelt and PMO certified this course is intended to be a free PMP exam prep course and this is to help out all of you guys out there that are looking to be certified project management professionals for me to continue this series and this is the first part of it I’m going to need your support and encouragement and messages that will tell me that you do want me to finish this so I would like to ask that you please subscribe and turn on your notifications so you’ll know when the next video comes up and please let me know that you’re out there and that you want me to finish the series so I can pull this through this is going to be a heavy effort it’s going to take a lot of time and I need to make sure that there’s somebody out there that really wants this for me to continue to do this and help out all right so let’s move through with the course the course is based on pin book guide version six and I will walk you through chapter by chapter let’s start with the table of contents and what you will see here matches exactly what you see in the pin book guide version six what you see on the left is are the chapters what you see on the right are the chapter name so we will start accordingly with the introduction then go down to the environment in which projects operate so the role of the project manager and then take it on from integration all the way to stakeholder and management what you see below project integration management all the way to stakeholder management these are the 10 knowledge areas that are covered in the handbook guide so let’s move on we’ll start with the introduction so let’s start with what is a project a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product service or result it is usually progressively elaborated now what does it mean for a project to be temporary what it means is that a project would have a beginning and an end date so projects are not like operations they’re not intended to keep running and usually the sponsor or whoever is asking for the project to be done needs it to be completed at a specific date or time all right so the next term that we need to discuss is it is undertaken to create a unique product service or result many people confuse the term unique the product service or result itself is not necessarily unique we’re not going to be making a new product every single time that we run a project and it’s not going to be unique at all times but what’s going to be unique is going to be the environment in which the project is going to be running this means that if you run a project let’s say if you ran a project back in 2017 and let’s say you built a home a house and that same client that you built a house for asked you to build another one in 2019 what you’ll notice between 2017 and 2019 is that some aspects of your project would have changed for example the cost of some of the material would have changed or the resources availability of some of the contractors or subcontractors may be different you yourself might feel different you may be more energetic less energetic you may have problems that will drag you down making you less able to focus or may be more efficient also what would have changed would be regulations pertaining to building homes other matters that would change is value of currency value of money cost of products and also the location of the house so there are many aspects about the project that will change and that makes the project unique so it is unique in its circumstances the last term that we need to discuss is the progressively elaborated part so we say that projects are usually progressively elaborated what that means is that we elaborate as we progress projects don’t have to be defined in full or planned in full – every single tiny detail right from the start so let’s go back to the example of the house if I was building a house maybe initially I can just determine the size location dimensions height number of rooms and basically the architectural structure of the house and also I can figure out that the permits that will be required and so on and so forth but minor details like the color of the walls that need to be painted later or any attachments to the wall let’s say cabinets vanities mirrors you know smaller details like that those can be left until later so basically I can plan high-level and si progress and move from phase to phase in the construction of the house I can I can go ahead and plan the rest of the details so we say that we are elaborating as we progress so in summary a project is a temporary endeavor has a beginning and an end it is undertaken to create a unique product service or result as discussed that’s the circumstance of the project it is going to be unique and it is usually progressively elaborated meaning we elaborate as we progress on the project okay projects drive change we don’t run projects if we didn’t have a need most of the times an organization would have a certain problem or an opportunity that they would like to capture so let’s use another example if you were Starbucks you have several hundred locations in one specific country and you have decided to change your point-of-sale systems now you’re going to shift from an existing point-of-sale system to another one that allows you to let’s say track some items or maybe some business intelligence like what time of day what product who was you know what type of client is buying this and maybe it has some inventory management features and you want to roll out the system across all of Starbucks well your current state is where you are right now where you don’t have this system and your future State is going to be one where you will have the updated system and your goal now will be to go from this kind state up until the future state and by doing so what you’re trying to do is elevate the performance of Starbucks so organizations run projects because they want to enhance some aspects of their operations or business so speaking of business projects drive change in organizations and they enable business value creation by let’s go back to the example of Starbucks by Starbucks implementing this business intelligence based point-of-sale system they’re going to have additional abilities in collecting customer data which would allow them in the future to be able to provide better products in the right locations so we say that projects bring about change good change and they help drive an organization from their current state all the way to a future state that is supposed to be more efficient and more profitable and has better value to its own shareholders next we need to discuss why how projects get started so the project initiation context here is looking at why an organization would go about starting a project why would they put some money into a project number one they could be doing this because they have to because some laws have changed so to meet regulatory legal or social requirements they would have to go about making a change let’s say the tax laws have changed and Starbucks currently has its old point-of-sale systems that were configured in a certain way that does not include tax changes because of the tax changes so this would be a regulatory and legal requirement they they would have to make changes on all of their point-of-sale systems to incorporate the change in taxes so and for that reason Starbucks would initiate a project you could also run a project for social requirements a project could be for let’s say give him back to society you may run a project to let’s say update a specific road because a community uses this road and it has become you know not so sufficient anymore because that a traffic you could also build a walkway for pedestrians because you know the community or the neighborhood has changed and it requires that we build this walkway so we say that projects could be started for regulatory legal or social requirements you could also start projects because somebody asked for it so in your organization your management could ask you to for example implement an ERP system or a customer relationship management system because they need to track and update customer details so this could come directly from a stakeholder they could also ask you to build a library in the company and that that would come directly from one of the company’s senior management and so that we consider as a request that’s coming from stakeholders it could also be that we’re trying to change technological strategies or we’re trying to change our business strategy and because we’re trying to do that it may mean that we have to make some changes in our and the company’s logo website or it could be in the way we manage our HR procedures and so on so if we have some changes in a business we might need to initiate a project finally we may have something broken and we need to fix it so a system that for example has gotten old obsolete and we need to replace it we may initiate a project for that so these are the reasons why a project maze start what is project management project management is the application of knowledge skills tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements we will later discuss what project requirements are and what project activities are but just to give you an idea the project activities would be the items or the timed activities on your project schedule that will need to be completed and these activities will be associated with project requirements that we would have collected from different stakeholders these will be specifications so project management is the application of knowledge skills tools and techniques most of them are in the PMBOK guide and if once you learn them applying these to project activities to meet project requirements is what we call project management now needless to say project management skills have become a strategic competency in most organizations the reason organizations are interested in project management skills is that project management helps ties project results to business goals later on I will show you how an organization plans its mission and vision and executes its strategic plans through projects so essentially the projects which are at the lowest level of the planning chain are the way that we execute on what the organization desires at the highest level nothing gets done if we don’t work on it and that work is what we call the project so we do need specialized skills for these projects for them to not become waste of time and money and resources so if we execute projects more efficiently we can compete more effectively in our own markets not making change main stains stagnant and that would let your competition have an edge over you so we do need to compete in most instances we need to remain relevant and up-to-date and therefore project management skills will be required and that would translate to the next point sustainability of the organization without making changes and without updating for what other what customers and stakeholders need there is a point where the organization is going to become non relevant to them they would lose interest in what this organization offers we also which is the last point now we have to respond to the impact of the business environment changes we are an organization that is for-profit or not-for-profit is always going to be faced with changes and these changes could come from regulation changes or it could come from trends in the market or it could be from technology advancement and they have to catch up they need to work on adjusting the way they do business and that’s going to require that they have good project management skills on this chart you’ll see the importance of project management in different areas starting from the top left you see that it helps us meet our business objectives and just go to the right they can help you satisfy your stakeholder expectations make your business or your work more predictable increase the chances of success optimize the use of organizational resources respond to risks in a timely manner that’s going to take some risk management skill sets resolve problems and issues deliver the right products at the right time identify or recover or terminate failing projects not knowing like when a project should be killed results in an organization overspending on something that it’s not going to need then we go to the lower level here in the one marked in red managing constraints every organization has its own limitations on or time or limited resources and with proper management skills we can make better use of these resources to deliver what the organization wants balancing influence of constraints on the project that’s that’s gonna come from knowing how to you know manage the trade-offs in a project typically we think about scope time cost and the resources that go into it and a project manager needs to know how to balance these resources you can see overall here that project management will be very important for an organization to advance itself and more from whatever current state it’s in into a future State this brings us to the close of this first video I hope you liked it and enjoyed it and found it to be informative and enjoyable if you enjoyed it please subscribe like share and let us know show us some love let us know that you enjoy this so that we can continue to produce the rest of the videos the pin book guide is pretty big and it’s going to probably take about a hundred videos or so to complete all of it I need the energy and the motivation and I need to know that someone out there thinks this is good stuff so I would like to request that you please subscribe like and share and one more thing please turn on the notifications so that you’ll know when the next video is out we look forward to seeing your feedback on this one session and we hope to see you on the next video thank you and goodbye
