Balancing Best Practices with Real-World Realities
PMP Fast-Track Every Friday
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Welcome to The Agie Admiral weekly newsletter where I provide actionable ideas to help you build a high-performing Project Management career
Today at a Glance:
🌠 PMP OS
⌚ Project Management Plans: Balancing Best Practices with Real-World Realities
☝️ Learning corner
🧲️ Community - Weekly Study Group Schedule
PMP OS
Online Course + Weekly Live Sessions + Mock Test Simulator
Goal of Program: Program will provide clarity, direction and guidance. Study plan(What to study? When to study? How to study?
Understanding the PMI mindset, including: Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid
And how to reach 80-90% passing rate before the exam.
This program uses a practical approach, it will save you time and effort.
Who is this program for?
Join at any point of your PMP journey. If You just started exam preparation and committed to get certified or are already making progress towards PMP.
What’s included?
Learn PMP Mindset
Course Slides
Weekly Live PMP Coaching Sessions, including recordings
Online course which you can complete in your own pace
How to design your own study plan?
Exam strategy
Agile Mindset
Waterfall Mindset
Hybrid Mindset
Agile Value vs Waterfall Value
How to reach 80-90% passing rate?
Learning 49 process easily
Solving EXPERT level questions
Agile exercise spreadsheets
Most challenging Mock Test Questions
Categorized as Moderate, Difficult, Expert
Drag & Drop questions and explanations
Project Management Plans: Balancing Best Practices with Real-World Realities
Many of you have 5+ years of project management experience and also are PMP certified.
After "formal" education in project management is always challenging how to implement best practices into "real-world" projects.
Here are five challenges project managers often face when balancing best practices with real-world realities:
Resource Constraints: Ideal project plans often assume optimal resource availability, but in reality, budget, time, and personnel limitations can hinder execution.
Changing Requirements: Projects frequently encounter evolving client or stakeholder needs, making it difficult to adhere strictly to initial best practices.
Risk Management: While best practices provide frameworks for risk management, unforeseen issues and crises can arise, requiring flexible and adaptive responses.
Team Dynamics: Best practices assume a certain level of team cohesion and performance, but real-world teams may face conflicts, varying skill levels, and motivation issues.
Technological Challenges: Implementing best practices often relies on specific tools and technologies, which may not always be available or fully functional in every project environment.
Here is how I define scope baseline on my projects:
Initial Consultation and Requirements Gathering:
Engage Stakeholders: Conduct meetings with all relevant stakeholders to understand their needs, expectations, and constraints.
Document Requirements: Collect detailed requirements from the customer, including desired features, functionalities, and any specific constraints or exclusions.
Developing the Scope Statement:
Define Project Objectives: Clearly outline the goals and objectives of the technology upgrade.
Specify Deliverables: List all the deliverables that will be produced during the project.
Identify Constraints and Assumptions: Document any assumptions made during planning and any constraints that could impact the project.
Creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS):
Break Down Deliverables: Decompose the project deliverables into smaller, manageable components.
Define Work Packages: Identify the lowest level of work packages that can be assigned and tracked.
Develop WBS Dictionary: Provide detailed descriptions of each WBS element, including scope, deliverables, and any relevant notes.
Approval and Baseline Setting:
Review with Stakeholders: Present the scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary to the customer and other stakeholders for review.
Seek Formal Approval: Obtain formal approval from the customer to ensure there is a mutual agreement on the project scope.
Establish Baseline: Once approved, the scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary become the scope baseline, serving as a reference point for project execution and control
Learning corner
Personal development
Looking beyond what you see and the mind's eye
Eight lessons from a marathon (that have nothing to do with running)
Leadership and management
Stop learning to give feedback. Learn to receive it.
How to lead like a coach
Community - Weekly Study Group Schedule
Date: Tuesday, Oct 8
Topic: PMP exam study group - Cost
Host: Torge
Link to session: https://www.linkedin.com/events/pmpexamstudygroup-projectcostma7242947823174881280/
→
Date: Thursday, Oct 10
Topic: PMP - Topic: Waterfall Mindset Part 2
Host: Gabor
Link to session: https://www.linkedin.com/events/pmp-weeklystudygroup-topic-tbd7242823092324941824/
*PMP trainer in the spotlight: Ricardo Coutin, his passion to educate project managers
Project Manager Wisdom:
My most important rule for life: Don't complain about anything.
If it's within your control, go and do something about it. If it's not within your control, you're just wasting energy thinking about it.
One of my favorite ancient parables:
He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has already arrived.
Navigating in Project Management Career is not easy, feel free to reach out: find me on LinkedIn, YouTube, Udemy or Book a 1:1 Call
When you’re ready to dive deeper into strategies to learn and prepare PMP in 8 weeks, check out PMP OS. This course is fully packed with actionable tactics to help you prepare smarter, not harder.