IPMO Course Outline

MODULE 1: BUILDING THE CONTEXT AND NEED FOR PMO’S

• How Organizational Vision, Mission and Operational Objectives are linked to the realization of organization strategy through portfolios comprising of projects and programs
• How project, program, product and portfolio life cycles are related
• Functional, matrix and projectized organizations
• Challenges and risks associated with projects, programs and portfolios
• Project Methodologies – pros, cons and risks associated with knowledge based, procedural and competency based methodologies
• Complexity and the need for principle based methodologies
• Understanding the difference between project management success and project success
• Success factors and success criteria – what they are and how to select the right ones to achieve success
• Type 1 and Type 2 errors – impact on project, program and portfolio success
• Stakeholders and their impact on PMO performance and project success
• ‘Constantly changing factors’ and the impact on projects, programs and portfolios
• The historical requirement for PMOs
• History and evolution of PMOs (tactical vs strategic)
• Mapping project, program and portfolio success factors to the PMO function
• Why organizations are now giving senior management attention to fully understanding the potential of PMOs in both single and in a multi-PMO construct.

MODULE 2: PMO LIFECYCLE TO BUILD AND RUN PMO’S

Introduction to the PMO Lifecycle Framework

• Definition of capability, service and how they are applied within the PMO context

Business Strategy and Environmental Enterprise Factors

• Definitions and what they are
• Describe how they influence PMO needs, design and running of PMOs
• Techniques to categorize impacts and approaches to leverage opportunities and reduce threats

Governance

• The concept of governance
• PMO governance responsibilities

Adaptive Alignment

• Definition
• What is adaptive alignment
• Why is it important
• Process of adaptive alignment

MODULE 3: ASSESSING THE NEED, BUILDING AND/OR EXTENDING PMO’S

Business Needs

• Process to determine direct and indirect business needs

Identification/Evaluate/Strategize

• Identification of existing PMOs and potential PMO need
• Evaluate existing and new PMO opportunities within organizational context
• Strategize – How (PMOs will best fit and support organizational needs)

Business Justification

• Building PMO Business Case(s)
• Initiative specific PMO
• Organizational PMO
• Tools and Techniques

Design, Pilot and Implement

• Design
• Pilot
• Implement
• Defining metrics and tools
• Planning for Quality (QA and QC)
• Leveraging Organization Process Assets

MODULE 4: RUN, MONITOR AND CONTROL ONE (OR MORE) PMO’S

Run PMO’s

• PMO Operations handbook
• PMO Services and Capabilities handbook
• Identifying and supporting troubled projects

Monitor, Adjust (Change) & Control

• Proactive and Reactive aspects of PMOs
• Assessing PMO maturity levels
• Managing and Controlling Quality

MODULE 5: TRANSFORM/RETIRE PMO’S

• Reason why PMOs are retired
• Detailed process to close a PMO
• Tools to support the closing processes
• Facilitation of PMO Lessons Learned Discussions
• Guidelines for transforming a PMO into another entity

Module 6: PMO Success and PMO Maturity

• PMO Success
• Is PMO Success a Good Term to Use
• How to View PMO Success
• Ways to Measure PMO Success
• PMO Maturity
• Defining maturity
• Maturity models
• Defining maturity metrics
• Supporting an assessment process
• Defining the ‘to-be’ state
• Analyzing gaps
• Link between PMO Maturity and PMO Success
• Insights into current research

MODULE 7: CAPABILITIES TO BUILD AND RUN A PMO

• Strategy
• Business
• Project/Program Management/Portfolio related
• Service/Capability Management

MODULE 7: EPONYMOUS LAWS, THEORIES AND LATEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT & PMO RESEARCH

• Definitions of a eponymous law, theory and phenomenon
• Examples of eponymous laws that apply to project management
• Use of theories in academic research
• Single and Double loop learning systems
• Applying system dynamics to model processes, contracts etc. to understand throughput and constraints before they happen
• PMO hot research topics and top 10 findings
• Managing management expectations on PMOs and how to stay relevant
• Reasons why PMOs average life is only 2 years and how to adapt to increase the PMO’s value proposition
• What comes after PMO certification in your career development

PMO Cheat Sheet

PMO Cheat Sheet

Q1) Where Process and Procedures that seems to conflict against the goals of the project, what can be used to determine if they are in the best interests of the project goals?
Answer) Principles

Q2) What are 'Unknown-Unknown' in Risk management?
Answer) Risks that have not been identified & will never identified until the risk has been triggered

Q3) Which PMO document is used to understand stakeholder communication requirements?
Answer) PMO Communication Management Plan

Q4) Which PMO Role is best suited to manage organizational Process Assets?
Answer) PMO Director

Q5) Where is Project or Program Control Center?
Answer) Is where the core project or program team works

Q6) The complete history of product is known as
Answer) Product Lifecycle

Q7) Which of the following is an advantage of projectized Organization?
Answer) Clear Authority

Q8) Which of the following options best describe how governance is applied once PMO governance is defined?
Answer) is continually optimized through improvement process

Q9) What term is used for the approved value of the workto be compelted in a given time?
Answer) Planned Value

Q10) Which of the options is not type of PMO according to PMI?
Answer) Informed

Q11) What is not an Organizational Structure?
Answer) Transparent

Q12) Reference to Agile PMOs is more asoiciated with
Answer)

Q13) Doing the 'right projects' is referring to
Answer) Portfolio management

Q14) The manager responsible for the work of a business function, business line or organization unit is known as:
Answer) Functional Manager

Q15) Governance Principles
Answer) Provide norms, rules and values for setting up a framework to steer management

Q16) A program is:
Answer) Set of related projects and/or sub-programs, and operations that, when managed in a coordinated way, will meet a common business objective.

Q15) A deliverable is a
Answer) Tangible and verifiable item that must be produced to complete the project.

Q16) Stakeholders should be identified and documented in:
Answer) Stakeholders register

Q17) PMO capabilities are NOT built from:
Answer) KPIs

Q18) Including within project decisions all the costs required to develop and operate the product is known as:
Answer) Life cycle costing

Q19) PMO Slack (spare time) should be used for:
Answer) Resources (time) for Knowledge management, innovation and partnering

Sample Questions Exam 70-348 - Managing Projects and Portfolios with Microsoft PPM

Free Exam 70-348 - Managing Projects and Portfolios with Microsoft PPM Practice Exam Questions

Prepare your Exam 70-348 - Managing Projects and Portfolios with Microsoft PPM test by practicing with free sample questions.

* Answers are provided at end of page.

Question: 1
You are a project manager in an organization that uses Microsoft PPM. You create a proposal for a new
project by entering values for the Name, Description, Proposed Cost, Proposed Benefits, and Sponsor
Name properties.
The PMO must be able to approve all project proposals that have a proposed cost above a certain
threshold value.
You need to use a project approval workflow.

Which three objects should use? Each correct answer presents part of the solution.
A. Project Departments
B. Enterprise Project types
C. Project Detail Pages
D. Project schedule templates
E. Phases and stages

_________________________________________________________________________________

Question: 2
You use Microsoft PPM to manage an e-commerce portal development program.
The program is separated into individual projects that represent each area of development. This allows
each group to manage its own tasks while still having progress visibility at the program level.
You need to be able to see all programs and their associated individual projects from within Project
Center.

What should you do?
A. Select the Enterprise Project Type Name field as the value for grouping.
B. Select the Master Program field as the value for filtering.
C. Select the Sub projects check box.
D. Select the Project Details view.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Question: 3
You are the Microsoft PPM administrator for a large company. The IT manager uses four business drivers for prioritization. The priority of all four drivers is set at 25 percent.
The IT manager adds an additional business driver that has a priority value set to 30 percent.
You need to create a new prioritization that includes the additional business driver.

What should you do?
A. Create a new calculated prioritization. Select the drivers to prioritize.
B. Create a new manual prioritization. Select the correct department, and then select the drivers to
prioritize.
C. Create a new manual prioritization. Select the drivers to prioritize, enter the value for each driver, and then choose to normalize.
D. Create a new manual prioritization. Select the drivers to prioritize, and then rank the drivers
sequentially.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Question: 4
You are using Microsoft PPM to manage an e-commerce portal development program. The program is separated into individual projects that represent each area of development.
You have the following requirements:
You need to set up the e-commerce portal development program and its associated projects in
Microsoft PPM.

Where should you add resources?
A. in the e-commerce portal development program project site
B. in the individual project schedules
C. in Build Team, in the e-commerce portal development program schedule
D. in the individual project sites

_________________________________________________________________________________

Question: 5
Your organization is using Microsoft PPM to manage large projects. Within the Microsoft PPM
environment, you use SharePoint sites with task lists to manage smaller projects. You turn on the
Time sheets feature.
You must collect information about the time that resources spend on all projects.
You need to ensure that you can capture timesheet data from the existing SharePoint task lists.

Which two actions will achieve the goal? Each correct answer presents a complete solution.
A. Convert the SharePoint task lists into an enterprise project.
B. Use the Get Started with Project Web App web part to add existing SharePoint task lists to Project
Center.
C. Activate the enterprise project features for the SharePoint sites.
D. In Project Center, add existing SharePoint task lists to PWA as a project.
E. In SharePoint, add existing SharePoint task lists to Project Center.

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Question: 6
You are a project manager using Microsoft PPM. You need to create a new project that uses one of your company’s templates.

What are two ways to achieve the goal? Each correct answer presents a complete solution.
A. From Microsoft Project, select Enterprise.
B. In Project Center, select New, and then select the desired enterprise project type.
C. In Resource Center, select New.
D. From Microsoft Project, select Featured.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Answers:

     1 - Answer: B, C, E
     2 - Answer: C
     3 - Answer: C
     4 - Answer: C
     5 - Answer: A, C
     6 - Answer: A, B

Graphical Indicators with Custom Fields - Microsoft Project Server 2013 | Microsoft Project Online

Graphical Indicators with Custom Fields - Microsoft Project Server 2013 | Microsoft Project Online

Microsoft Project Server/Online facilitates with several custom fields that a user can define and use to meet their organization's needs. You can create new custom fields that full fill your specific requirement, customize an existing field and then insert it into your project,  or you can also simply rename existing fields to customize them.

Enterprise Custom Fields includes different sets of variables, option of inserting custom formulas, can use lookup tables (as defined by user) and graphical indicators to add look & feel to a value. In example below I have done same thing, I have used the Project Percentage Completion value & by using graphical indicators i have added some colors to a number value.