The Path to the PMP (Part 7)

Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.

  Career Development   Cost Management   Earned Value Management   Estimating   Using PMI Standards  

Look at you! You’ve passed the midpoint mark on the fitness journey and are in a great position to complete your goal of writing the PMP exam before the transition to PMBOK’s Fifth Edition. The first six articles have made a light-hearted comparison between committing to getting in shape versus committing to writing the PMP exam. Both involve recognizing the need for self improvement, committing to doing something about it and take specific actions to realize the goal.

Together we started with small steps of reviewing the easy material such as the PMBOK introduction, appendices and the definitions. The next articles focused on developing specific body parts or, in PMBOKian terms, the knowledge areas. We’ve covered Project Integration Management, Project Scope Management and Project Time Management.

I find when exercising that occasionally adding more weight than I am accustomed to is a good idea. We’re doing that on this article by focusing on Project Cost Management. Traditionally, I find individuals who attend the 10+ bootcamps I run each year struggle with this knowledge area. It could be because they don’t have financial accountability on their projects, it could be because few elements of a project garner more attention than money on many projects so they become nervous. It may also be simply because the main subject, Earned Value …

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