An introduction to PMI® is useful. It sets the stage for discussing accreditation, process groups, knowledge areas, and glossary terms. We take this opportunity to encourage students to become student members at a greatly reduced cost.
Several features of this text help a student to understand The Guide to the Project management Body of Knowledge65th ed. (PMBOK® Guide). This most current version of the guide is what students will need to completely understand if the wish to challenge a Project Management Professional (PMP) or Certified Associate in Project management (CAPM) certification exam.
You can ask the students to look at the inside front cover of the book on the right side to see both how the PMBOK® Guide is structured and exactly where each process is covered in the text.
You can also have the students turn to the back inside cover for a flowchart of the processes in the order in which they should be performed. This PMBOK® Guide flowchart emphasizes primarily the things students will need to learn to create the various planning and control documents that will help them plan and manage a project. At the start of each chapter, we include the portion of the flowchart that is covered in that chapter. One slide is available in the PowerPoint deck of the overall flowchart and several smaller sections of the flowchart are available as slides also so when you introduce topics, you might also want to remind students visually where they are in the planning flow.
The PMBOK® Guide topics for each chapter are listed in the margins of the second chapter page.
Key terms consistent with the PMBOK® Guide and numerous other, more detailed PMI publications are listed immediately after the project summary.
At the end of each chapter we include study suggestions for the CAPM and PMP exams for the topics covered in the chapter. We also include one assessment section is PMBOK® Guide questions. These questions are very similar to CAPM and PMP exam questions. Correct answers to each of these questions along with page references from both this text and the PMBOK® Guide appear in this IM.
Finally, Appendix A starting on page 439, is a summary of study suggestions for anyone who wishes to take one of the certification exams. We have taught many exam preparation classes both for PMI and for private providers.
The Project Customer Tradeoff Matrix gives the opportunity to discuss how a project manager can make consistently better decisions by fully understanding the customer. It also is an early opportunity to discuss the challenges of honest, open communications and ethical challenges that can arise. We like to use two different projects in the same industry that made different trade-off decisions as an example. For us it is easy since one of our universities built our on-campus arena with a strong emphasis on cost control and had to play one more season in our old facility while one of the professional teams in town placed so much emphasis on playing their entire season in their new stadium that their overrun cost more than our entire arena!
Project roles are briefly introduced here, but described in much greater detail in Chapter 3. You may wish to tell your students that even though they are studying to be project managers, it is important for them to understand other roles that need to be accomplished. Project managers spend a large percentage of their time communicating and these roles describe many of the people with whom they will communicate. One further point regarding project roles is that while all projects require planning and control work, when it is done, by whom, and the titles of the people involved often differ on agile vs. traditional projects and to make matters more confusing, often different departments in the same organization are more accepting of agile than others, so titles can vary dramatically.
We like to use real projects as teaching vehicles. The end of Chapter 1 is a good place to introduce the projects. See specific ideas in example project section below. Appendix D lists many of the project planning and control documents that are in common use. You will likely want to assign a variety of these as assignments. If it is the first time you are using real projects for class, you might start with just the most basic documents such as charter, communication plan, WBS, and schedule. As you gain more experience, you can assign quite a few of these. You can also use ones you do not assign as homework as in-class exercises so you can give the students very rapid feedback. Examples and instructions for all of these are in the text and grading suggestions appear in the appropriate chapter where each is covered.
Appendix C has answers to selected problems. In each case, at least one other structurally similar problem is in the text with the answers here in this IM, but not in the text.