Please take a minute to vote in our PMP salary poll. The PM Source is currently gathering statistics on Project Managers to compare the salaries of PMP Certified Project Managers and those who do not hold the PMP Certification. These polls are based in US dollars. We will soon be opening polls for other denominations.

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PMP Certified Salary Poll
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The statistics obtained in these polls will be combined to provide a comprehensive evaluation on the salary differences between the two groups.

The PMP Certification

Can a PMP certification improve my salary?

Possibly the biggest question people ask themselves when determining their career track is, how can I make more money? With Project Management becoming an increasingly competitive field, you need to find a way to stand out amongst the crowd. One way of doing this is by obtaining a PMP certification.

The PMP certification has very strict requirements. So, you can’t just wake up one day and decide that your going to get your PMP today. There are many prerequisites including 3 years of professional project management experience. This requirement itself sets a pretty stiff barrier to those seeking career advancement. However, this type of requirement insures that people following the project management career path are dedicated to the field of project management.

So, back to our main question. Can I get more money if I have a PMP Certification? Well, obviously it depends on the job market and your current salary. You may already being reward financially for your performance at a salary that is above the average PMP salary range. But, assuming you’re not, companies are looking more and more for this credential. Many positions for project managers on sites like monster and hot jobs require the PMP credential or at least state that it is preferred. Unfortunately, it may seem like your current employer does not recognize this certification if you were already working for them before you received it. This is due to a common problem with employers – if they already have you, then they are less likely to bump your salary. This is a very unfortunate approach that can be detrimental to an organizations success.

All too often, we hear complaints about a company’s willingness to pay more to bring in new recruits than they would to reward the great employees they already have in house. Therefore, at the very least, the PMP certification will make you a more marketable candidate to other companies. Especially, if your current employer is unwilling to increase your salary after you have obtained your certification.

The best advice is to always keep your options open and explore new opportunities. That dream job may be just around the corner!

You can begin networking with other project managers right here at The PM Source. Be sure to check out our forums, and do not be shy about posting new messages.

One of the most common complaints employees have about an organization is the lack of communication. Whether it is between the developer and tester, the executive and the Project Manager, or the maintenance team and customer support, clear communication is vital to a successful project. Poor communication can lead to numerous issues including, but certainly not limited to, incomplete requirements, unapproved changes, cost overruns, schedule delays and even failure to obtain client sign-off.

If you are a Project Manager, or a team member of an ongoing project, ask yourself this question: Does my project have a Communications Plan? I would be willing to bet that the majority of you answered “no”. Communication Plans are not only important because they document how to communicate with stakeholders, but they also force you to think through the process of the entire project. How will approval of the Project Charter be communicated? How will requirements be distributed to the development team? Who should be notified of requirement changes? Who approves test scripts and quality measures? Where will this plan be stored? Where can someone access different types of information? These are just a few questions that should be answered when developing a Communication Plan.

As you can see, a lot of questions need to be answered. Plus, there will be numerous stakeholders who need to receive and respond to communications distributed during a project. However, be careful not to over-communicate. You do not want to distribute information to individuals that have no use for it. Think of it as the boy who cried wolf. If you send out too many communications to non-interested parties they just may start assuming that your communications do not apply to them. Then, of course, they will “miss” the piece of information that is critical to them. This can be a very tricky balancing act.

Be sure you can answer the following questions:
- Who will need information? You may literally have dozens of stakeholders that need information in some form.
- What information do they need? This is a crucial question. As noted above, you do not want to bombard stakeholders with information they deem useless.
- When do they need this information? Maybe it’s a weekly status meeting, maybe it’s as an event occurs. Be sure to brainstorm on how frequently different types of information should be distributed.
- How will they receive it? This may be as simple as dropping by someone’s desk, or as formal as a written, executive approved, contract update.

This concept is more critical to a projects success than most may think at first look. So, how do you manage time so that the project is completed on time? And, how do you determine what “on time” is? This leads us to software development’s most hated topic: Estimating. No, it’s not a black magic art. Here, we will delve into the world of estimation and time management and, hopefully, come out with a brighter outlook.

So, where do we start? A great place to start is with identifying and defining the activities required to meet the requirements of the project. Start with analyzing the project deliverables, requirements and scope to identify the necessary activities. From there, these activities should be broken down into smaller, manageable components that can be more easily estimated. This process is known as decomposition.

Once a list of activities has been developed, the next step is to look at how to layout the sequence of these activities. Be sure to document the dependencies and relationships between all of the activities identified. There are many methods to use for this activity.
- Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) – Also known as Activity on Node
- Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) – Also known as Activity on Arrow. This method can also be used to calculate the critical path of a project.
- Conditional Diagramming Methods
- Network Templates

Once all activities have been identified and all dependencies have been documented, you will then have a clearer picture of the work ahead and thus a better chance of creating accurate estimates. These estimates will be used to develop your schedule (which management will keep a close eye on) so the more accurate the better.

How do you handle resources on your projects? How do resources get assigned to your projects?

Resource allocation is vital to meeting project deadlines and project budgets. Understanding resource management will help you build a framework for your project team. Start by identifying the roles, and responsibilities of these roles, necessary for meeting your project goals. Do NOT start by identifying the people you would like on your project. Starting with specific people in mind can be detrimental to your project even when you are familiar with their work ethic and performance. There may be other forces that prevent a specific person from being a good fit. For example, they may command a higher rate because of their performance. This rate may cause your project to exceed its budget. So, start with roles and responsibilities, and begin to map out the reporting relationships along with the skill sets needed for these positions.

Once the roles and responsibilities are defined, you must begin mapping out who will fill these roles. However, another factor to take into account is what type of organizational structure your organization has in place. There are basically four types of organizational structures – Functional, Matrix, Projectized, and Composite.
Functional – Hierarchy where each employee has one clear supervisor
Matrix – There are 3 types of Matrix Organizational Structures
1) Weak – In this structure, the Project Manager is more of a coordinator or expeditor
2) Balanced – The project coordinator shares responsibility with the Functional Managers
3) Strong – In this structure, there is a full time Project Manager dedicated with considerable authority and a full-time project administrative staff
Projectized – In this structure, team members are collocated and more of the organizations resources are involved in project work. Meaning, the team is formed with a specific project in mind and could be disbanded once the project is complete.
Composite – Most modern organizations create a special team which acts independently to handle a project.

Understanding your organizational structure will help you understand the authority of the Project Manager and the reporting relationships of the resources dedicated to the project. This will also help to determine how resources are selected or assigned to a project.

For best results, a project should be staffed much like an open position is filled within an organization. A potential candidate’s work experience, interests, characteristics and availability should all be taken into account when deciding whether or not they would make a good fit for the project.

Staffing the project is just the first step. Once the project is staffed and everyone understands their role and their responsibilities, you must then take on the task of actively managing these resources throughout the life of the project. Using Gantt charts is an effective tool for managing task assignments. But, what about all the other “little” things? How do you resolve conflicts between individuals? How do you keep people motivated?

There are five key managerial skills need to address these types of problems. They are Leadership, Communication, Negotiation, Problem Solving, and Influence. Each of these skill plays an important part in managing people and understanding the social aspects of a team. After all, these are not robots or machines dedicated to making widgets. These are people with opinions and emotions that can be very strong and have huge impacts, both positive and negative, to a project.

One of a Project Manager’s many enemies is the infamous Scope Creep. So, how do we keep Mr. Creepy in check? That is just one of the questions that need to be answered when managing scope. Scope management is exceptionally important when trying to manage customer/client expectations. It is one of the first questions a client will ask. “Did you deliver what we asked you to deliver”? (their next question is “how much did it cost me”). Scope is the guts of your project. It is “The Thing” you are trying to accomplish. You must plan well, define accurately, provide means to verify that it has been delivered, and carefully control the size of scope.

For starters, you need to know exactly what it is you are trying to deliver. A full description of the requested product should be included in the Project Charter, along with a description of the project objectives and an explanation of the business need that you are attempting to meet. Remember, if the project does not meet your client’s needs, then your client will not consider it a success. Therefore, it is imperative that you as the Project Manager, along with all of the stakeholders, agree that the successful completion of the project will result in a product that will meet your client’s business needs.

Creation of a Project Charter is actually a very important task that typically gets overlooked during project initiation. We have all seen projects take life without clear objectives or any kind of measurement of the benefits the organization expects to receive from the undertaking of the investment. This is a deliverable that is typically created by upper management, but it’s also an input to the project that I believe a project manager must have in hand before moving forward with the project.

Without such a document, how else does a project manager gain formal approval to move forward with the project? Because the boss says so? If your organization is practicing this style of project management, then you are setting yourself up for headache after headache. As a PMP certified project manager, you should push for reforming your PMO to include the need for this deliverable.

So, let’s assume that you have a somewhat functional PMO and have received the Project Charter with approval to move forward. What do you do next? The next step is to take the charter and product description and start elaborating and documenting the scope of the work defined. This should result in a statement of work (or Scope Statement). This gives you a big picture, “what am I going to do” type of view on the project. The next step is to start defining the scope in smaller, more measurable components. This should result in a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and possibly changes/updates to the statement of work.

A good WBS will be the heart of your project and will be critical in estimating and determining the resources required for the project. A WBS can also be used to identify dependencies between tasks.

The next phase moves into the executing and controlling phases of the project. Scope Management spans multiple phases of a projects life cycle and must be constantly monitored and verified. Completed deliverables should be verified with stakeholders at the end of each phase. A good Project Manager will also be concerned with scope creep. As deliverables are verified, inevitably questions will be asked about things that are “missing”. This is where your statement of work will come in handy. There very well may be something missing from a deliverable. However, a good project manager will not automatically assume this. Part of the scope verification process includes comparing deliverables to the statement of work. If the deliverable meets the work requested, then great! However, that does not mean your customer is happy. They may still want something that is “extra” in your eyes, but required in theirs. This is where Change Control comes into play.

Having a good change control process in place for managing scope will be essential to meeting customer expectations, and for communication additional expenses incurred to all stakeholders. Scope creep can be deadly to your project’s success. You should always verify that you have approval for additional work before taking on any new requests from the client. These additions to a project should be reviewed, verified and approved by all stakeholders to insure that everyone is on the same page. These changes nearly always have a direct impact on the budget of a project and should be carefully monitored.

I would encourage all PMO’s to make a strong effort to put a solid Change Control Board in place for all projects. Doing so will only help your projects success. It will also force your client to performe a detailed analysis on the benefits and costs of any changes they are requesting.

Understanding Earned Value, or EVM. Earned Value Management is a practical tool for understanding the value of a project. Lets start with common definitions:

ACWP – Actual Cost of the Work Performed.

BCWP – Budgeted Cost of the Work Performed. This is also known as the Earned Value.

BCWS – Budgeted Cost of the Work Scheduled. This is also known as Planned Value.

Cost Variance (CV) – The difference between the work completed and the cost to complete the work to date. Or, the difference between Earned Value (BCWP) and Actual Costs.

Schedule Variance(SV) – The difference between the work scheduled and the work actually completed. Or, the difference between Earned Value (BCWP) and Planned Value.

Cost Performance Index (CPI) - (Earned Value/Actual Costs) A measure of project performance in terms of costs. A measurement greater than 1.0 indicates the project is under budget.

Schedule Performance Index (SPI) - (Earned Value/Planned Value) A measure of project performance as it relates to value earned at the current date.

Budget at Completion (BAC) – The approved budget for the project.

Earned Value Management is an effective tool for determining a project’s true status and projecting or estimating the remainder of the project. As you will see, there are a number of variables used in determining a projects status. Earned Value itself is merely the value of the work completed. For example, if a building has four walls and each wall is valued at $100, then once a single wall is completed it is said that the project has earned $100 worth of value. The Earned Value is then compared to the Planned Value and the Actual Costs to determine the health of the project.

Let’s take a look at an example based on this chart. We can derive the following information from the example:

Planned Value = $115,000

Earned Value = $150,000

Actual Costs = $100,000

From these numbers we can determine the health of the project.
Cost Variance = Earned Value – Actual Costs
CV = $150,000 – $100,000
CV = $50,000
This project is $50,000 under budget.

Schedule Variance = Earned Value – Planned Value
SV = $150,000 - $115,000
SV = $35,000
This project is $35,000 ahead of schedule.

Cost Performance Index = Earned Value/Actual Costs
CPI = $150,000/$100,000
CPI = 1.5

Schedule Performance Index = Earned Value/Planned Value
SPI = $150,000/$115,000
SPI = 1.30

As you can see, by using these techniques, you can easily quantify the status of a project and its value to an organization.

Rule #1: Do not confuse risks with issues!

Risks are events that MAY occur that will negatively impact your project’s resources, time, cost or scope. An issue is an event that has or will occur

Very early in your project, you should actively identify the risks to your project. An effective way of doing this is bringing the team & stakeholders together for a brainstorming session. Think of risks identified for similar projects. What is unique about this project that could cause you problems? Are you using new technologies? Are resources spread too thin? Is funding secure? Keep the group talking and write down the risks as you go. I guarantee that you will have many more risks than you originally thought. Risks can and will continue to come up throughout the life of the project. Always be on the lookout for new risks!

Once the identification phase is complete (or everyone is wiped out from thinking about all the bad things that could happen) the risks should then be quantified to determine the probability that a risk will occur and the severity that said risk will have to the project. A common way of doing this is by using a risk matrix. When using a matrix, rate each risk’s probability of occurring and the impact it will have if it does in fact occur. Those with High probability and High impact will need immediate attention.

Now you know your risks, their severity, and their impacts. So, what do you do next? Well, there are basically four options:
- Avoidance
- Transference
- Mitigation
- Acceptance

Let’s take a look at each:
Avoidance – what can we do to prevent this risk from happening? Does our vendor have a history of late delivery? Well, find another vendor. Are you short on software developers? Hire more (yes, I know that’s not always realistic). You get the idea. Find a way to remove the possibility that this risk will occur.

Transference – the concept of making someone else responsible. Think of it as insurance. And, insurance is actually a form of transference. We offset the risk of having an expensive bill for car repairs by hiring an insurance company to accept some of the risk.

Mitigation – What can we do to minimize the chances of a risk occurring or the impact a risk may have.

Acceptance – There’s not much you can do about a meteor striking your office. So…just accept it.

Risk should be continually managed throughout the project. You should always be on the lookout for new risks and tracking probabilities and impacts of known risks.