Project Management Professional Exam (PMP Exam)
Project management itself can not be considered as something new, like a new philosophy or attitude. For many many years people used to practice project management very often without any structured knowledge about conducting a project. Basically speaking every large idea, concept or broadly saying 'undertaking' requires to set objectives, then to prepare a plan (also in terms of continuity it should be continuous planning) and coordination. Other things that should be considered and taken into account during each initiative is the management of resouces in such initiative and last but not least the ability to managing changes (in many large companies very often called challenges).

During the years of experiments and different approaches today the project management approach becomes more and more formal and structured. Hundreds of organizations even adopts "management by projects" approach, Project Management Officer (PMO) role is quite often very visible in the organizations due to its support and assistance to dealing with projects. The PMO is often involved in creating and developing standards in terms of project management which helps companies and organizations experience the real benefits of project management. To such benefits we can include:
  • highly improved estimation to changes, initiatives, concepts, projects
  • scheduling and utilization of resources
  • improved quality, especially when Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are in place and have to be obtained
  • potential problems and issues are identified at their early stages so they can be better handled and the management can be informed about them in advance. This avoids escalations and impacts on services.
  • very effective measurement of processes in order to achieve sucess

Projects always have a start and end date so they are defined as temporary ones. Their main objective is to provide a unique service and/or product. In such definition project management can be considered as application of knowledge skills, tools and everything else including techniques to project acivities leading to meet the project objectives. This is very important to remember the main phrases of effective project management processes that comprise of initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, contrlling and closing a project. Such role as a project manager is always assigned to a project and is accountable for the success of the project.