The Big Time

Have you heard of Wicked Problem Solving (WPS) ? This is a new course offering by PMI and I have to say, it is one of the best courses I’ve taken. 

Upon completion of the course, you will receive a Practitioner Badge and 18 PDU’s. 

What does this course come with  ?

This course will deep dive into the three most important skills of today as per the World Economic Forum:
 

• Complex Problem Solving 
• Collaboration
• Creativity 

WPS is a confluence of Agile, Lean, Design Thinking and other modern ways of working with the goal of helping you improve how you work with your team by focusing on:
 

• Asking the Right Questions
• Making Ideas Visible
• Engaging with Forward Actions
   

While it is a self-paced course, you will also be using Miro, the digital white-boarding Tool. 

The course is outstanding, very well-structured, and while there is no live interaction, the way the course was designed makes it semi-interactive and you also get to learn how to use the colalborative platform Miro. I highly recommend this course. 

Stay tuned for more to come ! 
 

I am glad to announce that I passed the Program Management Professional (PgMP®) Exam on November 29, 2021 with Above Target in all domains and very proud to be join this elite group of professionals. 

This credential was on my radar since 2019 but with the pandemic, some priorities changed and I had to postpone it. However, now achieving it marks an important milestone in my professional development journey as I did complete all 8 Main PMI Credentials and 9 Micro-Credentials. 

As usual, I am happy to share my lessons learned with the community members hoping that future candidates will find value in them. 

STUDY PLAN

PMI Resources: PMI Standard for Program Management - 4th Edition. If you are a PMP and/or PfMP, the  Standard will be more than enough provided that you read it several times in details. You will be surprised, but every time you go through the standard, you will discover something new in between the lines. 

Exam Content Outline: I can't emphasize the importance of the ECO. You need to deep dive and understand every single task, why and how you do it. 

Course: There is no course required as a pre-requisite for the application. However, it does not hurt to take a course if you feel the need to do so but I personally did self-study. 

Application: The application was very lengthy and rigorous unlike any other PMI Certifications Applications (Except for PfMP). It took me a while to complete my application (A total of 15 Hours of work). After submitting my application, I got initial approval in 5 days time, I paid the dues ($800) and the application went for Panel Review which took around 3 more weeks before receiving final approval (This was in 2020). 

Study Time: It took me a bit more than a month to study. One month might seem light but I used to study 4 hours a day and 6 hours on weekends in addition to that I took a few days off work to study extensively so it was more of a Bootcamp Personal Plan. At a normal pace, I would say 2 - 3 months (2 - 4 Hours / Day) should be reasonable. 

Simulation Exams: I purchased a couple of simulation exams available online on Udemy and others for training purposes. They were good in terms of boosting your level of confidence but again, the key is to deeply understand every aspect of the standard. 

Colleagues Advice: I connected with a few PgMP's who gave me solid advice and boosted my confidence a lot for which I am very thankful. They are a good example of people who share knowledge without boarders. 

EXAM EXPERIENCE

I am going to talk about my personal exam experience (Without going into details or specific questions). In general, I found the exam to be somehow easier than other PMI exams. I might have found it easier given how much experience and credentials I have or maybe not. Either way, below was my experience:

Level of Difficulty: The exam was not very difficult. In general, 75% of the questions were short in nature but I have to say that some were tricky so again, you need to have an absolutely excellent grasp of every word in the standard.

Exam Questions (General): Most of the questions were situational (Short Questions). You need to understand which artifact gets updated in every phases or change, what happens when and by whom, and above all you need to have a deep understanding of all tools, techniques and program activities. It is worth mentioning that you will encounter around 10% questions from outside the standard related to PMP. 

Exam Depth: The exam tests your understanding of every single aspect of the standard and the program management in general.

Exam Language: The language of the questions and answers was moderate. You might end up reading some questions twice but for the majority of the questions, it took me 30 seconds on average to read the question and answers and if you have a good grasp of the material, once is enough. 

Exam Time: The timing was  than enough. I finished the exam well ahead of time including the review of the questions I marked. 

Elimination Strategy: Surprisingly, and unlike other PMI exams, I was able to easily eliminate 3 answers for many of the questions. 

Exam Experience with Pearson Vue: Unlike my experience during the PfMP exam which was not very pleasant, this time, it went much smoother and I had no issues at all except for some difficulty in exam booking but this is totally understandable given the current pandemic situation. 

Good Luck to all future Aspirants !

In my last two blogs related to CD, Citizen Development and CD Foundation Course , I dicussed what Citizen Development is, it's benefits, an overview of key roles in Citizen Development and introduction to the CD Foundation course. This blog will be about the Citizen Development Practitioner course which is the second in four planned courses related to Citizen Development. 

Below is some basic information on the course: 

• 5-Hour Self-Paced course 
• Course Fee is $249. 
• 1-Hour Online, non-proctored course-based exam
• Exam is 40 multiple choice questions 
• Free soft copy of all templates. 
• Upon completion of the course, you earn 5 PDU's 
• Upon successful completion of the exam, you earn a PMI micro-credential and badge (No Expiry)

Feel free to reach out to me for the registration link ! 

This is probably one of the best courses I've taken. It is very well structured and comprehensive supported by case studies which adds a great flavour to the course so I highly advise professionals to take this course as it does add value.

The course will give you the tools and knowledge that you will need to efficiently create effective applications to solve the problems that you and your organization face. It revolves mainly around the "DO" part of the CD Canvas that are related to "Project Delivery" and "Capability Development" which the practitioner is usually heavily involved in. It includes eight modules, as follows: 

1. Introduction 
2. Hyper-Agile SDLC 
3. Ideation 2.0
4. Suitability Assessment 
5. Business Analysis and Design 
6. Project Risks and Enterprise Risk Requirements 
7. Application Design, Development and Deployment 
8. Conclusion and Introduction to Maturity Model

Stay tuned for more courses and professional development opportunites ! 

Recently, I’ve taken two courses that introduced me to a very interesting and valuable new concept called “Citizen Development”. My passion about this topic started when I took the foundation course after which I participated in the pilot for the CD Practitioner’s course. 
 

Being a new concept to many, I decided to write an introduction blog about Citizen Development before I dive into the details of each course I’ve taken. In this blog, all figures are quoted from PMI Resources. 
 

Citizen Development is a very interesting initiative and concept. In the beginning, I thought that it only applies for professionals with a background in IT but after deep diving into the subject and taking couple of courses, my view completely changed in that Citizen Development can be beneficial for all individuals and organizations.  
 

The Citizen Development Movement

Introduction to Citizen Development

The below slides provides a brief overview of what Citizen Development is, why it is important and what are the benefits of CD: 

Transformative Benefits of Citizen Development

Citizen Development Canvas and Maturity Model

Citizen Development Courses

PMI are working on a series of courses related to Citizen Development: 

• Citizen Developer Foundation - Released 
• Citizen Developer Practitioner (PMI-CDP): End of May 2021
• Citizen Developer Business Architect: Q3 - 2021
• Citizen Developer Strategist: Q4 - 2021 

What is the difference between a Practitioner, Business Architect and Strategist ?  (The below definitions are quoted from PMI Resources) 
 

CD Practitioners: Those who do the work by creating apps and using them in their day-to-day work. They range from students to project professionals to SME's. They could be but not limited to, the following:

• Business Analysts
• Project Managers
• Business Consultants
• Sales Executives
• Marketing Managers
• HR Managers
• Finance Analysts
• Operations Analysts. 

CD Business Architects: Architects manage Citizen Development teams, the governance process and the collaboration between stakeholders in IT and the business. They facilitate access to relevant tools and methods. They can come from IT and may already be enterprise architects or may come from the business as an agile coach or product owner. They could be but not limited to, the following:

• Lines Manager 
• Enterprise and IT Architects
• Demand Managers 
• Portfolio Managers
• Agile and Scrum Specialists 
• IT Managers and Team Leaders 
• Business Transformation Consultants 
• Organizations Design Consultants 
   

CD Strategists: Strategists manage and lead the creation of the operating environment that allows Citizen Development to thrive, instilling the cultural practices and mandates that foster adoption and scaling of Citizen Development and drive organizational transformation by harnessing the power of Citizen Development application platforms. The are members of the senior management team and can include, but not limited to, the following: 

• Chief Executive Officers
• Chief Strategy Officers 
• Chief Information Officers
• Chief Transformation Officers 
• Digital Transformation Directors 
• Organizational Designers 

What are your thoughts on Citizen Development ? 

In the next blogs, I will discussing each of the courses separately in details so stay tuned. Meanwhile, feel free to reach out to me for the courses Registration Links. 

As a Career Coach and Professional Developement Mentor, I believe growth comes from within so I continiously keep working on myself by exploring new ideas, taking courses and certifications for areas that I feel are valuable. 
 

Agile and Waterfall Kick-Off is a very valuable and interesting initiative by the Project Management Institute that will provide you with the basic concepts, tools and techniques you’ll need to get started managing projects in both Waterfall and Agile environments:
 

• It’s a FREE short 45-minute course.
• Upon completion of the course, you will earn two PMI Badges. No exam, no expiry.
• It's suitable for Project Managers (Formal and Informal), PMO's, L&D Leaders.

I highly recommend everyone to take advantage of this opportunity. Feel free to reach out to me for the Registration Link. 

How can Kick-Off help you and your team ? 
 

The majority of projects in the working world are managed by informal project managers who struggle to meet organizational goals on time and on budget. Being a free digital learning tool, Kickoff is the fastest and easiest way to for you and your team to get started: 
 

• Get smarter with foundational knowledge that’s critical for project success.
• Put learnings into practice immediately—so you can move your project forward.
• Learn how to rally and inspire a team you can trust to get the job done.
• Gain new skills that can make you a more confident professional leader
   

Stay tuned for more blogs on some of the latest PMI Course Offerings !