Business Landscape of 2010 - Part 1

I was recently asked by Raymond Smith, MBA, CISA, PMP, ITIL: "What do you think the world business landscape would look like in 2010 and what viable strategy should businesses adopt given the current environment?"

There are many ideas spinning in my brain on just that subject or thereabouts. I will say in this installment of an answer to that question that off the top of my noggin I can say that the business educational landscape in 2010 and beyond will be characterized more by certifications than traditional education. You can see the movement of traditional colleges and universities toward their support of the well endowed certs like CPA, EA, PMP and so on. They have always been supportive of MD, AIA, bar exams and other test-driven professional designations. The trend continues with great aggression. Why not get ahead of the curve by adding to your certification study arsenal an Exam Simulator. Mine is best for the PMP and EA and others. It is diagnostic and as Windows software does not require an Internet connection. Get going, pass your cert on your first sitting by practicing questions. The blog sidebar has the links, or go to for PMP or for EA, CISSP, Oracle, PHP, Java, Networking, BO/CRCP, and more ....

Exam Simulators rigorously keep your study program honest and well budgeted. Take it from me, as it helped me become a PMP and more...

PMP Exam Simulation by Knowledge Area

Ok, there are a few exam simulators on the market. Mine is the best. It is developed by an accomplished programmer, experienced with MS Windows development since 1985, and who also happens to be a Project Management Professional. Unlike other exam simulators developed on contract or from a "kit" for "pure PMPs" (who don't write code), mine is very flexible, allowing you to choose amongst KAs - knowledge areas, and use simulation software as a complete diagnostic learning platform. Have you seen the new Star Trek movie? In that movie, the Vulcan's - an advanced race of humanoids learned everything by Question/Answer/Explanation and simulation. My simulator and the PMBoK is about all you need to pass your exam on the first sitting. I guarantee that if you simulate 80% of the more than 1000 questions in my software in several test sessions over the course of your PMBoK study you will pass your exam. Take a look at the feature list for my PMP Exam Sim. I am constantly improving it. I listen to my customer suggestions, and unlike other PMP simulators, there are no middlemen between my customers and me, so the PMP is the programmer. I get it done! Do yourself a professional favor and buy my PMP Exam sim.

Qualifying New Hires for Your Team

One of your biggest responsibilities as a Project Manager is to build a winning team. Building that team means recruiting and hiring the best people. In difficult economic times, resumes typically become extreme hyperbole. One study found that 70% of candidate resumes over stated their skill set mastery by a significant margin. Isn't it better to have a concrete assessment in hand to gauge a particular candidates skill set? Require your candidates take a skill set test. There are many candidate assessment web services. One thing they all lack is the ability to control the test taker candidate's access to sites that can help with the answers. A job candidate taking a web-based skills assessment has a world of reference material available to use as a "crib". The better policy is to use a stand-alone computer at your facility for testing candidates. My certification exam simulators, originally built as rich client Windows software to help PMPs, EAs and other IT professionals become certified can be customized to your specs as an in-house secure, proctored, test center for job candidate validation. A web service may be an "easy and high-tech" testing platform, but don't you want candidates who answer using their brain and not the brain of the "global community of the Internet"? Contact me, the frugal PMP for more information.

Automation for Lean Times

Every organization today wants to get faster, better, cheaper results. One way to achieve this is to apply one or more of the many available virtual business process automation tools. These tools are built to script, and or via visual IDEs, hook together both Windows and Web applications into composite apps, dashboards, new virtual working environments and even work flow existing legacy with newer web service apps to create end to end business processes that have little to no seams between them, i.e., "seamless" interfaces. These virtual automation tools are often immature pieces of software, so be prepared to team or partner your interested existing SME/non-programmer types with an experienced dual or more platform (Win/Web/OS) experienced analyst and get kinks worked out with the vendor until a solution is reached. Documented requirements should not go by the wayside either. As always, it helps to make sure everyone is on the same page with a solid sheaf of requirements and plan. A PMP should be able to help negotiate the still turbid waters of cross-platform automation tooling with her background in requirements writing and team management. You are not a PMP? Well, then, there is no better way to pass your Project Management Professional exam than to simulate the test center environment with my simulator at: www.frugalpmp.com.

The Benefits of PMP Exam Prep with an Exam Simulator

Only a fraction of candidates who sit for the Project Management Professionals (PMP) exam pass on their first sitting. Understandably the likelihood of passing on subsequent attempts increases with each attempt to pass, because after all practice does make perfect as the old saw goes.

Isn't it more cost effective to sit for your PMP exam once and pass the first time? Failure to pass that first time may cause you professional harm, and certainly cost to re-take the exam and time to continue your study.

Use of an exam simulator, particularly mine for practice of exam center conditions with exam caliber questions has several benefits:

• Easy to use
  
• Lowers your risk of failing
  
• Increases your chance of passing on the first sitting
  
• Instead of exam practice with the real exam you practice before you get there
  
• A software product developed by a PMP for PMP candidates
  
• A truly dynamic, interactive learning tool, sans droning lectures or static material
  
• My PMP Exam Simulator diagnoses your strength and weakness by PMBoK knowledge area
  
• Helps you budget your last minute preparation
  

It works. I used an early version of about 100 questions to help me pass the exam on my first sitting. Now with ten times that number, updated to conform to the new PMBoK 4th edition, I offer it to help you pass on the first try.

To purchase securely with paypal goto: www.frugalpmp.com I guarantee you will be delighted.

PMP Exam Simulator works on Apple

By permission, I am quoting a user of my PMP Exam Sim for Windows who got it to easily work on a MAC: I have VMware Fusion running Windows-Vista home for my PC needs. Works Great (especially when I am forced from Merlin to Project). BUT I often forget that I can not extract all files in the Mac environment then import them into the Windows environment? Once I dropped the ZIPed file into the folder I created in Windows then uncompressed from there, she started up.

Thanks for creating this... It will be a big help for me.

Project Management Diplomacy

So often we we meet people who are Project Managers by political influence.

Who completes your federal tax return? HR Block or a CPA. I prefer a CPA. There is no way that I have yet found to treat PMs who have no desire to be PMPs to the benefits of our profession. They are there and that's it. They may be sincere and try their best to "manage", but often they do not carry their people with them by anything but brute force, not to mention completely ignore even the basics of integration, scope, time, risk, and other areas of formal management that are second nature to a PMP.

It may sound a bit too dramatic to say that a shadow hangs over the project management profession. What I mean to say is that yes there are some non-PMP project managers who are good ones. Because of the stringent requirements for experience and testing, and a strict code of ethics it is much more likely that a PMP is a good PM. I have met far too many project managers who had little experience, formal education in management, and people acumen to be worthy of their project manager title.

If you have a desire to be a PMP and thereby prove that you have satisfied the basic requirements of a true profession, then you may want to consider buying my High Performance PMP Exam Simulator to help you practice questions diagnostically. Practicing exam questions under exam-like conditions is one of the best ways to ensure you budget your study time wisely and then pass your PMP exam.