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 1. Introduction

 One of the most time-consuming chapters of the PMBOK® Guide is chapter 3, because the 42 processes that make up the flow of project management are introduced.  These 42 processes are listed under 5 process groups and 9 knowledge areas.   Not only the processes, but their interrelationship and all of their contents are discussed.   

I took a PMP exam prep course in May and June of this year put on by the PMI’s Orange County chapter.  Now that the course is over, we have a few adventurous souls who have already taken the PMP exam and passed. They remind me of the brave penguins that are the first to jump in the water after the winter is done. (Hey, look out for those leopard seals!) In any case, some of them have described the general types of questions they have encountered on the exam. There are variations from person to person, but they ALL say that one of the largest numbers of questions they received on the exam have to do with those that require that you thoroughly know the flow of the various project management processes.    A typical question will be:   such-and-such is happening on the project.   What do you do next?

 For this reason, our study group is mastering the 42 project management processes in addition to reviewing all the knowledge areas in a systematic way,  In the next few posts, I want to review the various steps it takes to master the processes, their order, and their contents, which include the inputs, tools & techniques, and outputs (or ITTO).

2. Steps towards Process Mastery

Most of those taking the exam use the 15-minute pre-exam period to write down the 42 processes on one of the sheets of paper that are provided as a memory aid (popularly referred to as the brain dump).   Here are the steps you must take to master the 42 processes and prepare not just for the brain dump, but how to utilize this to the maximum effect during the actual exam.

The next posts will cover these six steps towards mastering what the processes are (steps 1 through 3), what sequence they occur during the flow of project management (step 4), and what their contents are (steps 5 and 6).

I strongly recommend that you study this systematically during the entire course of your review of the various knowledge areas of the PMBOK® Guide. In our study session, we start off with a review of the processes (we are currently in step 4), and then go on to review the material for a particular knowledge area, and end our session with a set of practice exam questions studying that knowledge area.

So starting tomorrow, let’s start with steps 1 and 2: memorizing the process groups and the knowledge areas!

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