Showing posts with label Author (Ajanta Behera). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Author (Ajanta Behera). Show all posts

Tuesday, April 09, 2019

Course Review: MS Project 2013 Live Lessons - Crisp And Effective Way To Master Your Concepts

By Ajanta Behera, PMP


Microsoft Project is a widely used tool for project management in industry. Not only it enhances your understanding of project management, but also brings more opportunities in professional life. I've used MS Project 2013 from ManagementYogi first in April, 2017 and recently got an extended access.

 The MS Project 2013 video course is a very useful method of learning the MS Project software.



Features in this Course:
  • Entire course in video format: It’s very detailed course and yet a point by point approach on how to use this particular software for implementing the project management techniques. The course’s lessons are with various .mpp files and explained in video format. 
  • Jumpstart for Novices: The course starts from the very beginning of downloading the correct version software based on the system configuration and how to proceed.
  • Many Exercises: The course has a structured way of first defining the problem in the lesson exercises or assignments after each lesson, and letting out the user to check his or her existing knowledge post which the user can validate the result with the answers. This boosted-up my confidence as I proceeded with the course. 
  • Advanced Topics: Coverage of advanced topics like using master projects, earned value management etc. It has been extremely useful.
  • Revisiting Important Points: Across different chapters, important points have been revisited. Project management definitions along with managing scope, cost and time will be very difficult task when carried out on papers. The details and the important points given by Satya sir has made this course easy to understand and implement.
  • Exhaustive Coverage: Satya sir has made it very easy with his expert knowledge on concepts related to settings, creating a new plan, adding resources to tasks, best methods to plan duration, cost and time, to track progress, and advanced scheduling. This course has all of them.
This course also mentions what is the best approach for each topic or lesson. As we are all aware that visual and hearing method of teaching is very effective, same holds good for this course.

I would like to thank Satya sir for putting his effort and time to bring out such a crisp and effective way to understand and master the concepts for MS project 2013. 


Brief Profile: 
Ajanta Behera: I’m currently working as an Associate Project Manager, Standard Chartered Bank. I’ve experience in various domains - Clinical, Insurance, and Finance.


Posted by at 1 comment:
Labels: , , , ,

Tuesday, May 09, 2017

Book Review - I Want To Be A PMP: Must Buy Book If Seriously Preparing For PMP Certification

By Ajanata Behera, PMP

The book - "I Want To Be A PMP" is a well thought-out book which should be surely read for your PMP® certification preparation. Professionals preparing for PMP would have often come across the experiences of various people who are certified PMP and would have known that the PMBOK® Guide is a must read book for the PMP certification. But, the PMBOK Guide has a lot of details and not easy when you start off with your preparation.
If you are seriously preparing for the PMP certification, I would suggest the new book “I WANT TO BE A PMP”, written by Satya Narayan Dash.
Why This Book? 
  • This is a simplified version
    of the the concepts written in the PMBOK Guide. 
  • Topics and chapters are easy to understand and remember.
  • The chart for 10 Knowledge areas,5 process groups and 47 processes have been sequentially numbered, which becomes very easy to memorize. Once the logic for the numbering is understood, I'm sure professionals who read this book will never forget the above chart. 
  • Mathematical formulas are made extremely simple, so that one understands the concepts. 
  • A lot of videos with examples are mentioned. You take a topic,go through the videos and all the concepts are clear. This easy remembering of formulas can surely assist in getting numerical questions right in the exam.
  • Simple but powerful book where you are given the chart of formulas in the end and they can be downloaded. 
  • Easy, simple tips to memorize various concepts on project management. 
  • Important points are highlighted from the exam point of view. 
  • 3 set of full length question papers. These questions are very close to real exam. Answers for the questions are detailed.
  • 75 questions PMP 2016 Exam changes have also been included. This is in reference with the new Exam Content Outline (ECO).
  • Details about Critical Path and Critical Chain Methods are really very informative. 

I have used Satya sir's book and PMBOK together to understand the concepts. I felt these two books were more than sufficient to be thorough for the PMP certification. I want to extend my sincere thanks to Satya sir for putting in so much effort to make this book simple and easy to remember.

 Written By Ajanta Behera: I am currently working as an Associate Project Manager, Standard Chartered Bank. I have 12 years of experience in various domains - Clinical, Insurance, and Finance. 


Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

PMP Protein: Information Gathering Techniques

By Ajanta Behera, PMP

In the PMP® examination, you can expect a number of questions on various information gathering technique. In this article, I’ve outlined a few of them.

 The easy way to remember these techniques is to use an acronym.

As you can see above, the acronym used to remember is – BIRD. In fact, if you add another one, which is SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats), it becomes BIRDS!

Now, let us discuss in detail, 3 of the above ones – Brainstorming, Root Cause Analysis and Delphi Technique. 

I. Brainstorming 
This technique definitely makes its way for success for any problem at hand. Brainstorming is a technique used to generate and collect multiple ideas related to a project and product requirements.  This statement is taken from the PMBOK® Guide.  A frequent use of why a particular problem exists or how to resolve, what methods to apply, when to apply, who shall take the ownership of the resolution, Why a particular solution will work better than the other solutions will give a better understanding of the problem at hand.

Who should follow this technique?
This technique can be followed by anyone who has a problem at hand.  If there are two or more participants, this will be more useful.  But it does not exclude the situation where there is a single person and who wants to solve his own problem cannot use this technique. 

How does this work?
A team identifies a problem at hand, gets together in the room. A problem statement is stated and written down on the white board. The team starts a brainstorming session. The team starts giving the solution to the given problem. A project manager should be able to facilitate this session properly otherwise the session may not be effective.  The solution is written down on the white board.  It is discussed in detail as to why that solution must be chosen, what the benefits of that solution are. More solutions are thought of and put down on the board.  The solutions are prioritized, and the action point of who would own to work on the solutions would be discussed.  The team performs an iterative method of finding the solutions until the best solution is discovered. This technique can be applied to various phases of the project or product analysis. 

What are the benefits?
1- Greater productivity since the entire team member is participating in this activity. 
2- Better quality of products /services/results.
3- Better customer satisfaction
4- Greater bonding with the team 
5- Much effective results/products/services.
6- Lower project cost and better adherence to schedule.

Though the above technique is powerful enough to bring a lot of benefits mentioned above, if it is used in combination with Delphi technique or Root cause analysis, the results or outcomes would be more effective.

II. Delphi Technique 
The Delphi technique is a way to reach a consensus of experts. This statement is taken from the PMBOK guide. Here the project risk experts participate in this technique anonymously.  Mark the word anonymously.  A set of predetermined questions are distributed among the experts.  The responses are collected and summarized. This is done by a facilitator. After the responses are summarized, the responses are sent back to the experts for further comments. This is again an iterative process. This process helps to remove bias in the data and prevents the influence of the individual person on the outcome. 

How does this work?
A team identifies a problem at hand, gets together in the room. A problem statement is stated and written down on the sheet of paper and distributed among the participants. The team starts a rating process. Each participant is assigned a 100 token which has to be distributed among the various questions. A project manager usually facilitates this session.  There are chances that the experts may feel very strongly about a particular problem and they can give the 100 tokens to one particular problem. The ratings or responses are collected and shared among all the team members for further analysis. Another approach is to rate the items from highest to lowest priority. Now the team gets an opportunity to explain why they have chosen a particular response to the problem.   The facilitator calculates the mean, median, standard deviation.  Here the discussion is important because each member can explain why a particular rating is assigned to the problem. This is a time-consuming process. This process is repeated for much iteration until the standard deviation of the responses starts to converge and is within the acceptable range.

III. Root Cause Analysis
Root cause analysis is a specific technique used to identify a problem, discover the underlying causes that lead to it and develop preventive action. This is the definition mentioned in the PMBOK guide. Mostly this technique is used once there is a problem at hand. The solution discovered for the problem prevents the problem to recur. The solution may not be the permanent solution. Further analysis of the problem could help to develop the effective solution. 

How does this work?
A problem is identified. This would be a systematic analysis of the problem at hand. An individual or several of the team members would be finding the solution to the problem. The solution would be worked out to remove the problem at hand. In case the solution does not work other solutions are found. This is also an iterative process. It continues as long as the solution to the problem removes the problem. This is mostly a preventive method. Once the effective solution is found out, the solution must be included in the service/result/report. This may also be a time-consuming process.
The above three methods definitely would bring a greater success as much time is invested to find the solutions to the problems at hand. It would also increase the team binding as all of the team members would have come together to find out the solution.  Frequent use of these techniques can result in better outcomes. 

 Written by Ajanta Behera:
Ajanta Behera is a software professional with 12 years of experience in variety of domains - Clinical, Insurance, and Finance. She is currently working as an Associate Project Manager with Standard Chartered Bank, India.


PMP LIVE LESSONS - Guaranteed Pass:


    You may also like:

    New Book Available for PMP Exam:


    Posted by at No comments:
    Labels: , ,
    Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)