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Domain I — People
Leadership · Team building · Stakeholder engagement · Conflict resolution · Negotiation
42%
Leadership Styles & Servant Leadership
- Servant leadership (PMI's preferred style): The PM serves the team — removes obstacles, provides resources, shields the team from external interference. Team autonomy and growth are the priority. Especially important in agile contexts.
- Transformational leadership: Inspires change through vision and motivation. Encourages innovation. Team members are empowered and challenged to exceed expectations.
- Transactional leadership: Manages by exception — rewards performance, corrects deviations. Works in structured environments. Less effective for agile/creative teams.
- Laissez-faire: Minimal direction given. Works only when team is highly experienced and self-managing. Risky for less mature teams.
- Situational leadership: Adapt your style to the team member's development level. High task + high relationship for developing members. Low task + low relationship for experts.
- Emotional intelligence (EQ): Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills. High EQ = better PM outcomes. Know Goleman's 5 components.
- PMI perspective: On exam questions, the PM with the highest EQ, most collaborative style, and best communication skills is almost always choosing the right answer.
Team Development — Tuckman's Model
| Stage | Team Behavior | PM Action |
|---|
| Forming | Polite, uncertain, dependent on leader | Direct: set expectations, clarify roles, establish norms |
| Storming | Conflict, competition, resistance to tasks | Coach: mediate conflict, build trust, maintain focus |
| Norming | Cohesion builds, shared norms emerge | Support: encourage collaboration, step back |
| Performing | High performance, self-managing, motivated | Delegate: remove obstacles, get out of the way |
| Adjourning | Project ends, team disbands | Celebrate, capture lessons learned, recognize contributions |
- Virtual teams: Require extra communication planning. Use daily standups, collaboration tools, explicit documentation. Cultural awareness is essential.
- Ground rules: Team-established norms for behavior. Increases accountability and reduces conflict. PM facilitates — team owns.
Conflict Resolution — Thomas-Kilmann Model
- Collaborating/Problem-solving (Win-Win): Best long-term solution. Both parties get their needs met. Time-intensive but PMI's preferred approach for most situations.
- Compromising (Lose-Lose): Both parties give up something. Neither fully satisfied. Used when time is limited or full collaboration isn't possible.
- Smoothing/Accommodating: Emphasize agreement, downplay differences. Temporary fix. Doesn't resolve the root issue. Use when preserving the relationship short-term is critical.
- Forcing/Directing: Use authority to impose a solution. Fastest. Damages relationships. Use only in emergency or when authority is clearly appropriate.
- Withdrawing/Avoiding: Delay or withdraw. Worst long-term result. Appropriate only when you need time to gather information or cool down.
- PMI preference order: Problem-solving > Compromise > Smooth > Force > Withdraw. On the exam, almost always choose the collaborative approach first.
Motivation Theories
- Maslow's Hierarchy: Five levels: Physiological → Safety → Social/Belonging → Esteem → Self-actualization. Motivate by addressing current unmet level. Can't motivate at higher level if lower needs unmet.
- Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory: Hygiene factors (salary, job security, working conditions) prevent dissatisfaction but don't motivate. Motivators (achievement, recognition, growth) actually drive performance.
- McGregor's Theory X/Y: X = people dislike work, need control, avoid responsibility. Y = people are self-motivated, seek responsibility, want to contribute. Agile teams assume Theory Y.
- McClelland's Acquired Needs: Achievement (nAch), Affiliation (nAff), Power (nPow). Identify team members' dominant need to motivate effectively.
- Expectancy Theory (Vroom): Motivation = Expectancy (effort→performance) × Instrumentality (performance→reward) × Valence (value of reward). If any factor is zero, motivation is zero.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Stakeholder identification: Identify all stakeholders early — even those with negative interest. Document in Stakeholder Register: name, role, interest, influence, engagement level, communication needs.
- Stakeholder engagement levels: Unaware → Resistant → Neutral → Supportive → Leading. Goal: move all key stakeholders to Supportive or Leading.
- Power/Interest Grid: High power/high interest = Manage Closely. High power/low interest = Keep Satisfied. Low power/high interest = Keep Informed. Low power/low interest = Monitor.
- Salience model: Three attributes: Power (authority), Urgency (time sensitivity), Legitimacy (appropriateness of involvement). All three = definitive stakeholder. Prioritize engagement accordingly.
- Managing resistant stakeholders: Understand their concerns, involve them early, address their needs, build a relationship. Never ignore or dismiss. Unaddressed resistance escalates.
- Stakeholder engagement plan: Documents current vs desired engagement levels, strategies to close gaps, communication frequency and format for each stakeholder group.
Communication Management
- Communication formula: N(N-1)/2 = number of communication channels. 10 people = 10×9/2 = 45 channels. Used to illustrate why communication complexity grows rapidly with team size.
- Communication methods: Interactive (real-time, two-way: meetings, calls), Push (one-way outbound: email, reports), Pull (recipient retrieves: intranet, knowledge base).
- Communication models: Sender encodes message → transmits via medium → receiver decodes → feedback sent back. Noise can distort at any step.
- Communications Management Plan: Documents who gets what information, when, in what format, via which channel, sent by whom. Essential for managing large stakeholder groups.
- Active listening: Paraphrase, ask clarifying questions, acknowledge emotions, eliminate distractions. The PM should spend more time listening than talking in most stakeholder interactions.
- Nonverbal communication: 55% body language, 38% tone of voice, 7% actual words (Mehrabian). Be aware in cross-cultural teams — nonverbal signals vary significantly by culture.
◆ PMI Leadership Principle: In the current PMP exam, the PM is always expected to be a proactive communicator and servant leader. When a question describes a team conflict, your first action should almost always be to meet with the parties, understand their perspectives, and facilitate a collaborative resolution — not to escalate, document, or make a decision for them. The PM builds consensus, never imposes it.
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Domain II — Process
Project lifecycle · Scope/Schedule/Cost/Quality/Risk · Procurement · Change management · Agile processes
50%
Project Lifecycle & Phases
- Initiating: Develop Project Charter (authorizes project, names PM). Identify stakeholders. The charter is signed by a SPONSOR, not the PM. Without a charter, the project is officially not authorized.
- Planning: Create the Project Management Plan and all subsidiary plans (scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, communications, HR, procurement, stakeholder). Most work happens here.
- Executing: Do the work defined in the plan. Direct and manage project work. Manage quality, communications, stakeholders, and procurements. Most project BUDGET is spent here.
- Monitoring & Controlling: Track performance against the plan. Manage changes. Perform integrated change control. Report performance. Runs concurrently with all other process groups.
- Closing: Finalize all activities, close procurements, get formal acceptance, capture lessons learned, release resources, archive project documents.
- Project Charter contents: Project purpose, objectives, high-level requirements, high-level risks, summary milestone schedule, budget summary, PM authority level, sponsor signature.
Scope Management
- Product scope: Features and functions of the product, service, or result. Measured against product requirements.
- Project scope: The work required to deliver the product scope. Measured against the project management plan.
- WBS (Work Breakdown Structure): Hierarchical decomposition of total project scope into work packages. Lowest level = work package (can be estimated and assigned). WBS is scope definition, NOT a schedule.
- Work package: Smallest deliverable-oriented component in a WBS. Can be scheduled, cost-estimated, monitored, and assigned. NOT tasks — those go in the activity list.
- Scope creep: Uncontrolled changes to scope without going through the integrated change control process. Most common cause of project failure. Prevented by a strong scope management plan and change control process.
- Gold plating: Team voluntarily adds features beyond requirements without approval. Also scope creep — never acceptable. Adds risk without value to the customer.
- Requirements Traceability Matrix: Links requirements to their origin, WBS elements, and test cases. Ensures all requirements are addressed and nothing extra is added.
Schedule Management
- Critical Path Method (CPM): Identify the longest sequence of dependent activities. Zero float = on the critical path. Delaying any critical path activity delays the project end date.
- Float/Slack: Amount of time an activity can be delayed without delaying the project (total float) or the next activity (free float). Critical path activities have zero float.
- Forward pass: Calculate Early Start (ES) and Early Finish (EF) from left to right. EF = ES + Duration - 1.
- Backward pass: Calculate Late Start (LS) and Late Finish (LF) from right to left. Float = LF - EF = LS - ES.
- Schedule compression: Crashing = add resources to critical path activities (cost increases, duration decreases). Fast-tracking = overlap activities previously in sequence (risk increases).
- Resource leveling: Adjust schedule to resolve resource conflicts or over-allocations. May extend the project end date.
- Rolling wave planning: Near-term work planned in detail; future work planned at high level. Appropriate for projects with uncertain future scope. Used in both predictive and agile approaches.
- Milestone: Zero-duration event marking completion of a major deliverable or key decision point. Used in both predictive and agile schedules.
Cost Management & Earned Value
| Metric | Formula | Interpretation |
|---|
| PV | Planned Value | Budgeted work scheduled to date |
| EV | Earned Value | Budgeted value of work actually done |
| AC | Actual Cost | Actual money spent to date |
| CV | EV − AC | + = under budget · − = over budget |
| SV | EV − PV | + = ahead of schedule · − = behind |
| CPI | EV / AC | >1 = under budget · <1 = over budget |
| SPI | EV / PV | >1 = ahead · <1 = behind schedule |
| EAC | BAC / CPI | Estimate at completion (typical) |
| ETC | EAC − AC | Estimate to complete remaining work |
| TCPI | (BAC−EV)/(BAC−AC) | Cost efficiency needed to meet BAC |
| VAC | BAC − EAC | Variance at completion (+ = under) |
Memory Tip: CV and SV are DIFFERENCES (EV minus something). CPI and SPI are RATIOS (EV divided by something). Both use EV first. If CV/SV is positive OR CPI/SPI is above 1 = GOOD. Negative or below 1 = BAD.
Risk Management
- Risk identification: Brainstorming, expert interviews, SWOT analysis, risk register reviews, lessons learned from past projects. Document in Risk Register: description, probability, impact, owner, response strategy.
- Qualitative risk analysis: Probability × Impact matrix. Prioritizes risks subjectively. Fast and low-cost. Always done before quantitative analysis.
- Quantitative risk analysis: Monte Carlo simulation, decision tree analysis, sensitivity analysis. Numerical modeling of risk impact on project objectives. Used for high-priority risks.
- Risk response strategies (threats): Avoid (eliminate the risk), Transfer (shift financial impact to 3rd party — insurance, contract), Mitigate (reduce probability or impact), Accept (acknowledge and budget for it).
- Risk response strategies (opportunities): Exploit (make it certain to happen), Share (partner with someone who can capture it), Enhance (increase probability/impact), Accept (take advantage if it occurs).
- Residual risk: Risk remaining after a response is implemented. Planned for with contingency reserves.
- Secondary risk: New risk created by implementing a risk response. Must be assessed and managed.
- Risk appetite vs tolerance: Appetite = overall willingness to accept risk. Tolerance = specific threshold for a metric (e.g., budget can vary by ±10%).
- Contingency reserve: Budget for identified risks (Known-Unknowns). Management reserve: budget for unidentified risks (Unknown-Unknowns). Only PM controls contingency; management controls management reserve.
Quality Management
- Quality vs. Grade: Quality = meeting requirements (fitness for purpose). Grade = category of features/functions. Low quality is always a problem. Low grade may be acceptable (basic product).
- Cost of Quality (CoQ): Cost of Conformance (prevention + appraisal) + Cost of Non-Conformance (internal failures + external failures). Investing in prevention costs less than fixing defects.
- Prevention vs. Inspection: PMI and PMBOK prefer building quality in (prevention) over inspecting defects out. Prevention = proactive. Inspection = reactive.
- Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA / Deming Cycle): Continuous improvement framework. Plan the change → Do (implement) → Check (measure results) → Act (standardize or adjust).
- Control charts: Monitor process performance over time. Upper/Lower Control Limits (UCL/LCL) = ±3 sigma. Rule of Seven: 7 consecutive data points on one side of mean = process is out of control even without breaching limits.
- Pareto chart: 80/20 rule — 80% of problems caused by 20% of causes. Bar chart + cumulative line. Identify which causes to address first for maximum impact.
- Fishbone / Ishikawa diagram: Cause-and-effect diagram. Identify root causes of a quality defect. Categories: 6Ms — Machines, Methods, Materials, Measurement, Man, Mother Nature.
Integrated Change Control
- Change Control Board (CCB): Formal group that reviews, evaluates, and approves or rejects change requests. PM may be on CCB but typically cannot approve their own change requests.
- Change request process: Identify change → Submit formal change request → Impact analysis (scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk) → CCB review → Decision (approve/reject/defer) → Update project documents.
- Only the PM can approve changes? No. The PM analyzes impacts and recommends — the CCB (or sponsor for large changes) approves or rejects.
- Configuration management: Controls changes to project deliverables and documentation to ensure the current approved versions are known and used. Part of integrated change control.
- Baseline: Approved plan + approved changes. Scope, schedule, and cost baselines are the triple constraints. Can only be changed through formal change control — never informally.
- Workarounds: Unplanned responses to unidentified risks. Must be documented and eventually formalized through change control if they affect baselines.
Procurement Management
- Make-or-buy analysis: Formal decision to produce in-house vs. outsource. Factors: cost, capacity, risk, expertise, confidentiality, speed.
- Contract types — Fixed Price: FFP (Firm Fixed Price): seller bears all cost risk. Best for well-defined scope. FP-EPA: price adjusts for economic conditions. FPIF: fixed price with incentive for performance.
- Contract types — Cost Reimbursable: Buyer pays all costs. Best for uncertain/evolving scope. CPFF (Cost+Fixed Fee): fee is fixed. CPIF: fee varies based on performance. CPAF: fee based on buyer's subjective assessment.
- Contract types — Time & Material: Hybrid. Pay per unit of time and materials. Used for staff augmentation, emergencies, unclear scope. Buyer and seller share risk. Most risky for scope creep.
- SOW (Statement of Work): Describes the work a vendor must deliver. Must be detailed enough to allow accurate bidding. Part of the procurement documents.
- RFP vs RFQ vs RFI: RFP (Request for Proposal) = complex, qualitative, evaluates approach. RFQ (Request for Quote) = price-focused, commodity. RFI (Request for Information) = market research, not binding.
⚠️ Earned Value — Exam Must-Know: EV (Earned Value) is the budgeted cost of work PERFORMED — not what you planned to do, and not what you spent. CV = EV − AC (negative = over budget). CPI = EV/AC (below 1 = over budget). For EAC, the most common formula is BAC/CPI — this assumes future work will be performed at the same efficiency as work done so far. Know ALL formulas in the table above. EV questions appear on every PMP exam.
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Agile & Hybrid Approaches
Scrum · Kanban · SAFe · Agile values · Ceremonies · Metrics · Hybrid frameworks
50%
Agile Manifesto — 4 Values & 12 Principles
- Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
- Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation.
- Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
- Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan.
- Key principles: Deliver working software frequently. Welcome changing requirements (even late). Business and developers collaborate daily. Motivated individuals with the right environment. Face-to-face conversation. Sustainable pace. Technical excellence. Simplicity (maximizing work NOT done). Self-organizing teams. Reflect and adjust regularly.
- Agile mindset vs methodology: Agile is a mindset grounded in the Manifesto values — Scrum, Kanban, and XP are specific methodologies. You can be "agile" without using Scrum.
Scrum Framework
| Role | Responsibility |
|---|
| Product Owner | Owns product backlog, prioritizes features, represents customer, defines acceptance criteria |
| Scrum Master | Servant leader, facilitates ceremonies, removes impediments, coaches team on Scrum |
| Dev Team | Cross-functional, self-organizing, 3–9 people, accountable for sprint delivery |
| Ceremony | Purpose | Time-box |
|---|
| Sprint Planning | Select backlog items for sprint, define Sprint Goal | Max 8 hrs/4-wk sprint |
| Daily Scrum/Standup | Inspect progress, plan next 24 hours, surface impediments | 15 minutes |
| Sprint Review | Demo working product to stakeholders, gather feedback | Max 4 hrs/4-wk sprint |
| Sprint Retrospective | Team improves process — what went well, what to improve | Max 3 hrs/4-wk sprint |
| Backlog Refinement | Groom backlog — detail, estimate, and re-prioritize items | Ongoing, ~10% of sprint |
Scrum Artifacts & Key Concepts
- Product Backlog: Ordered list of all desired work for the product. Owned by the Product Owner. Never "complete" — continuously refined (groomed). Highest priority = most refined and at top.
- Sprint Backlog: Subset of product backlog items selected for the current sprint + plan for delivering them. Owned by the Development Team. Cannot be modified by PO during the sprint.
- Increment: Sum of all done Product Backlog Items from current and all past sprints. Must be in a useable condition and meet the Definition of Done.
- Definition of Done (DoD): Shared understanding of what "complete" means for an increment. Agreed by the team. Ensures quality consistency. If not in DoD, the work is not done.
- Velocity: Amount of work a team completes per sprint (in story points or hours). Used for forecasting, not for performance management. Don't use velocity to compare teams.
- Story points: Relative estimate of effort/complexity, not time. Teams use Fibonacci sequence (1,2,3,5,8,13) or T-shirt sizing. Planning Poker = consensus-based estimation.
- Sprint burndown chart: Tracks remaining work in a sprint over time. Shows if team is on track to complete all committed work by sprint end.
- Spike: Time-boxed research activity to reduce uncertainty before estimating. Produces knowledge, not a deliverable. Used when a backlog item is too uncertain to estimate.
Kanban & Flow-Based Approaches
- Kanban: Visualize workflow on a Kanban board. Columns represent stages (To Do → In Progress → Done). Work items flow through the board. No fixed iterations — work pulled when capacity allows.
- WIP Limits (Work In Progress Limits): Maximum number of items allowed in any column simultaneously. Forces completion before starting new work. Exposes bottlenecks. The most important Kanban concept on the exam.
- Pull system: Team members pull new work when they have capacity, rather than having work pushed to them. Prevents overloading individuals.
- Lead time: Total time from customer request to delivery. Shorter is better. Key customer-facing metric.
- Cycle time: Time from when work actively begins to completion. Shorter cycle time = greater agility.
- Throughput: Number of items completed per unit of time. Key efficiency metric in Kanban.
- Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD): Shows how many items are in each state over time. Bands widening in one column = bottleneck forming there.
Hybrid Project Management
- What is hybrid? Combining predictive (waterfall) and agile practices within the same project. No single definition — tailored to the project's unique needs.
- When to use hybrid: Part of scope well-defined (use predictive); part is uncertain or requires frequent stakeholder feedback (use agile). Regulatory constraints may require documentation of traditional approach.
- SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework): Agile at enterprise scale. PI Planning (Program Increment Planning) = large-scale sprint planning across multiple teams for 8–12 week increments. Aligns multiple agile teams around shared objectives.
- PMI's Disciplined Agile (DA): Toolkit-based approach. Guides teams to choose their way of working (WoW) based on context. Not prescriptive — enables tailoring.
- Tailoring: Adapting the project approach, processes, and methods to fit the context. PMI strongly encourages tailoring. The "best" approach depends on complexity, team maturity, stakeholder needs, and risk tolerance.
- Predictive (Waterfall) strengths: Well-defined requirements, stable technology, experienced team, regulatory environment, fixed price contract. Works when the "what" and "how" are known upfront.
- Agile strengths: Evolving requirements, need for frequent feedback, innovation, high uncertainty. Works when requirements will emerge during development.
Agile Metrics & Reporting
- Release burndown: Tracks remaining product backlog across multiple sprints. Shows progress toward release goal. Differs from sprint burndown (single sprint).
- Escaped defects: Defects found by the customer (after release) vs. found internally. High escaped defects = quality process failure.
- Customer satisfaction: Net Promoter Score (NPS), user surveys, stakeholder feedback. Ultimate measure of agile project success.
- Team happiness: Tracked through retrospectives and pulse surveys. Unhappy teams have declining velocity. Psychological safety is prerequisite for high performance.
- EVM in agile: Story points as PV, velocity-based EV. Some organizations use hybrid EVM to satisfy executive reporting requirements while running agile delivery.
- Information radiators: Highly visible displays of project status (burndown charts, Kanban boards, velocity charts) placed where the team and stakeholders can see them. Encourage transparency.
🏃 Agile Exam Strategy: 50% of the current PMP is agile/hybrid. The exam tests whether you understand the MINDSET, not just the ceremonies. Key agile behaviors: embrace change (even late), deliver value early and often, trust the team, limit WIP, inspect and adapt. The Scrum Master removes impediments — not the Product Owner. The Product Owner prioritizes the backlog — not the Scrum Master. Know the difference between Sprint Review (external, with stakeholders) and Sprint Retrospective (internal, team-only).