PMI-ACP Knowledge And Skills: Level 3

[PMI-ACP® Exam Study Notes] Level 3 PMI-ACP® Knowledge And Skills group is one of the three Knowledge and Skills groups for the PMI-ACP® exam. The “Knowledge And Skills” accounts for a total of 50% of all the questions to be found on the exam paper. According to the PMI-ACP® exam content outline, Level 3 Knowledge and Skills includes 13 knowledge / skills.

PMI-ACP® Exam Importance: around 6 questions (~5% of all questions)

PMI-ACP® Exam : Level 3 Knowledge And Skills

• 13 knowledge / skills (Level 3) for the PMI-ACP® Exam with around 0-1 questions on each knowledge / skills (in alphabetical order):
  • Agile contracting methods
    • Agile projects are with fixed time and resources but variable scope / features
    • Agile contract types:
      • DSDM Contract – focuses on “fitness for business purpose”, the deliverables will need to pass tests
      • Money for Nothing and Change for Free – basically a time and material contract that includes early termination options (e.g. when >20% of remaining work) and provides flexibility for changes (provided the client works with the team for every iterations)
      • Graduated Fixed Price Contact – both sides share risks and rewards, e.g. finish early will result in high hourly rate
      • Fixed Price Work Packages – break down the SOW into work packages and estimate the recent work packages with fixed prices first
      • Customized Contracts – mix the above types of contracts to strike a balance between risks, costs, flexibility and quality on both sides
    • Works best when both sides want a successful collaboration and future businesses, a higher level of trust is required
    • Payment may be released for each incremental delivery / iteration after passing the acceptance tests / demo
  • Agile project accounting principles
    • need to understand the accounting policies of the organization
    • estimate range
      • estimates are presented in ranges to express the level of confidence
      • the range will become narrower upon the progress of the project (as the velocity becomes more stable)
    • used in Earned value management (EVM) for Agile projects
  • Applying new Agile practices
    • it is often advisable to make use of tried and tested Agile practices
    • however new Agile practices are coming up to deal with new challenges:
      • behavior-driven development – outside-in, pull-based, multiple-stakeholder testing
      • lean start-up – low-cost way to test out proposals
      • real options –  calculation-based for decision timing and options
  • Compliance (organization)
    • Agile = barely sufficient documentation
    • Compliance = demonstration of conformance to established standard with documentation
    • a balance has to be struck
  • Failure modes and alternatives
    • five failure modes (basic reasons for failure to achieve excellence) according to Alistair Cockburn:
      • making mistakes : that’s human nature
      • preferring to fail conservatively : revert to ‘safe’ (even not optimal) methods
      • inventing rather than researching : not to do research on the best available options but reinvent the wheels
      • being creatures of habits : difficult to adopt new approaches
      • being inconsistent : not follow processes consistently
    • four success modes:
      • being good at looking around
      • being able to learn
      • being malleable
      • taking pride in work
    • alternatives (solutions) to failure modes:
      • start with something concrete and tangible / copying and altering
      • watching and listening / gather feedback continuous
      • personality-matched work assignments
      • countering with discipline and tolerance
      • retain talent / supporting concentration and communication / rewards that preserve joy : reward systems that appeal for the long-term / combining rewards : combine different reward systems to build a supportive environment
      • frequent feedback
  • Globalization, culture, and team diversity
    • respect is the key
    • understand cultural and personal differences, e.g. mind the use of language “what went wrong” vs “what can be improved”
    • every team needs to go through the following stages: forming > storming > norming > performing > adjourning (Tuckman’s stages of group development)
    • it helps to hold a face-to-face kickoff meeting and proceed through the first iteration colocated in the same office for dispersed teams
    • pair programming and coding standards in XP can also minimize diversity in coding habits
  • Agile games
    • includes collaborative and innovation games, examples:
      • remember the future : imagine it is the future after a successful release, what would have been completed to bring the success (to solicit requirements)
      • prune the product tree : create a tree (trunk and branches) image, ask team to fill up the trunk and branches with core/additional features (for brainstorming)
      • speedboat / sailboat : draw a boat (representing a user story) on water surface, brainstorm what would anchor (threats) / accelerate (opportunities) the boat (to gather risks)
      • buy a feature : customers are given a fixed amount of money to purchase a pool of differently priced features (for prioritization)
      • bang-for-the-buck : put features / backlogs on a chart with money vs value (to optimize value delivery)
  • Principles of systems thinking (e.g. complex adaptive, chaos)
    • Systems thinking is a method to understand how things (parts) influence / interact with each another as a whole (system)
      • for diagnosing organizational issues, understanding organizational dynamics and creating change
      • Complexity of projects may range from simple, low complexity to complex and anarchy / chaos depending on whether the requirement are agreed and technology is certain or not.
      • before modifying the Agile processes, we should be thinking in terms of the systems rather than in silo
  • Regulatory compliance
    • Agile advocates barely sufficient documentation which may not meet the requirements for regulatory compliance
    • extra documentation, tracking, features may be required which may not provide “values” but are of high priorities
  • Variance and trend analysis
    • variance is the measure of how far apart things are (how much the data vary from one another)
      • e.g. the distribution of data points, small variance indicates the data tend to be close to the mean (expected value)
    • trend analysis provides insights into the future which is more important for problem detection
      • though measurements are lagging, they will provide insights should trends be spotted
    • variance and trend analysis is important for controlling (problem detection) and continuous improvement, e.g the process to ensure quality
    • Control limits for Agile projects
      • by plotting the time to delivery / velocity / escaped defects / etc. as a control chart
      • if some data fall outside the upper / lower control limits, a root cause analysis should be performed to rectify the issue
        • common cause – systematic issue, need to be dealt with through trend analysis
        • special cause – happens once only due to special reasons
      • another example is the WIP limit in Kanban boards
  • Variations in Agile methods and approaches
    • Agile advocates adaptation, even for the different Agile methods, frameworks or approaches
    • the best approach is the most suitable approach
  • Vendor management
    • if practicing Agile, this requirement should be explicitly outlined in the request for proposal (RFP)
    • special types of contracts should be used (refer to Agile contracting methods) for performance management
    • need to balance the scope of work, efforts and risks before deciding whether to proceed with Agile project management or traditional project management

Summary: PMI-ACP® Exam Level 3 Knowledge And Skills

This PMI-ACP® Exam Study notes covers 13 knowledge and skills from the Level 3 group of Knowledge and Skills for the PMI-ACP® exam syllabus. This group is not important for the PMI-ACP® exam as it accounts for just 5% of all the exam questions and the topics discussed here are more advanced and involved. You may wish to spend more time on other more important topics (e.g. Level 1 Knowledge and Skills) for the PMI-ACP® exam.