PMP Exam Tips: Think About Large Projects on the Exam

Actually, this is an advice from PMP Exam Prep, Sixth Edition: Rita’s Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam. I found it extremely useful that I would like to share with everyone who is preparing for the PMP exam.

There is hardly any general definition for large projects. However, for the purpose of the exam, I would define large projects as multi-million dollars projects that involve at least 30-50 project team members, with various groups of stakeholders: customers, vendors, third-party companies etc.

Why think about large projects on the exam? Here is the main reason: The PMBOK Guide approach to project management is complex, formal and aims to be universal. You will find many things that hardly can be applied to your projects, if your projects are of small or medium size. For example, I rarely see project managers who have a truly project management plan in their projects. What they use instead is just a project schedule and WBS. Another example is risk management. At least, not all project managers have an approved risk management plan or ever think about creating it in their projects. Risk assessment is almost carried out in a much more intuitive manner in compared with the methodology described in the PMBOK Guide.

So, you should think about large projects when you cannot control and monitor without formal documentation. Formal documentation for activities and formal planning is very important according to the PMBOK Guide. Here are some examples

• You cannot know all project stakeholders and their attitude towards your project closely enough, so you must create a stakeholder register and document there their attitude, risk tolerance, preferred communication method.
• There are many procedures to manage and control your project, including internal company policy, formal regulating documents and templates. Even if you remember them all you cannot explain to all project’s stakeholders. So you must have an approved project management plan in place, where all project management procedures and policy are documented, so that you can use them to manage your project effectively..
• You cannot remember and control all issues in your project, so you must have an issues log to document them all and to inform your project team timely.

Thinking about large projects is useful not only on the PMP exam. It is also important while preparing for the exam and while reading the PMBOK Guide. Keeping a large project in mind, you will find many things in the PMBOK Guide much more meaningful.

Good luck on your exam,

See you next time,

Visit the Project Management Prepcast for more PMP video lessons and tips.