1. Close Procurements - Tools & Techniques

Procurement Audits: Structured review of the procurement process originating from Plan Procurements through Administer Procurements.

It identifies successes and failures that warrant recognition in the preparation or administration of other Procurement contracts on the project or other contracts within the performing organization.

2. Triggers may be discovered in the risk identification process and watched in the risk monitoring and controlling process.  Triggers are sometimes called risk symptoms or warning signs.

3. Scope Baseline (Scope Statement, WBS and WBS Dictionary) is an input for Plan Procurements.

4. Ishikawa or fishbone or cause and effect diagrams illustrate how various factors might be linked to potential problems or effects.

5. Develop Project Charter - Inputs
   Project Statement of Work -
    --Business Need -  Depends of market demand, technological advance, legal requirement or govt regulation.
   --Product Scope Description - Product characteristics that the project will create. 
       Relationship between products or services being created and the business need that the project will address.
--Strategic Plan --- Documents the organization's strategic goals.

6. Life cycle costs are beyond the scope of project life cycle.  These must not be included in estimates.

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How to Memorize and Understand the PMBOK Concepts

Create a 2-sheet summary of formulae.
Practice re-creating that 2-page summary. Over and over again. You’ll need to recreate that summary at the exam from scratch, and you want to be able to do so quickly and accurately. Hence the need to practice doing this over and over. I did this about 25 times, till it became second nature. It saved me during the exam. It will save you too. You’ll need to know EV, PV, AC; PERT; IRR;  standard deviation, Management Styles, Forms of Power, Conflicts & Resolutions, Theory X & Y, Procurement options – etc.



Thoroughly understand the 5 Process Groups and 9 Knowledge Areas, plus their inputs and outputs. This will help organize a response to many questions. Develop Mnemonics to help memorize some concepts, e.g.
ISTCQHCRP : I Stir The Chicken Quickly, Help Clean Ruined Pans - helps remember the 9 Knowledge Areas, in correct order: Integration, Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resources, Communication, Risk, Procurement.

Be faithful to the PMBOK.  Regardless of what your real-life experience is, the exam refers to the ideal conditions as defined by PMBOK.

The project manager takes an active approach to the job by not waiting until a risk materializes and becomes a problem. This is an extremely important concept that might affect many questions on an exam.

The project manager does not escalate problems to upper management or to the customer before fully analyzing them and identifying options. When answering a question related to what the project manager should do in a specific situation, you should rephrase the question to: What is the first thing the project manager will do given such a situation and given his or her proactive nature?

Assume availability of lessons learned and historical databases, though this might not be true in a real life situation.
WBS is wonderful.
No Gold Plating. It is a waste of precious resources.

Courtesy - http://wasitova.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/retaining-pmbok/