Engineer

MAY-AUG 2013

Engineer presents professional information designed to keep U.S. military and civilian engineers informed of current and emerging developments within their areas of expertise for the purpose of enhancing their professional development.

Issue link: https://engineer.epubxp.com/i/145930

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 33 of 43

An Army offcer working on a USACE megaproject briefs senior leaders during a site visit. ■ Monitoring and controlling. ■ Closing. The application requires names of contacts who can verify the applicant's work, though signatures are not required unless the application is one of the few selected to be audited. The next requirement is a brief (550character) summary of the project tasks led and directed by the applicant. The PMBOK includes 47 project tasks, or processes, that are part of the fve project management process groups. Studying these will allow the summaries to match PMI terminology. For each month that an applicant worked on multiple, overlapping projects, only the time spent on one of those projects can be counted toward the 3- or 5-year project management experience requirement. The hours spent leading and directing both projects can be counted as part of the 4,500- or 7,500-hour requirement, but remember to keep the total reasonable. Applicants who worked on two overlapping projects should not claim that they worked on each for 40 hours per week. The resulting 80-hour week total would send a red fag and increase the likelihood of the application being audited. Meeting the 35 hours of project management education is an easy requirement for Army engineers. The Engineer Basic Offcer Leader Course and Engineer Captains Career Course have time devoted to project management. The start and end dates of the course and the number of contact hours earned are required in order to receive credit. The entire time spent in the courses will not count, since all hours were not devoted to project management. Applicants should claim the appropriate number of hours for both courses. PMI takes 3 to 5 days to review applications for completeness. If there are no errors, it is time to pay for the examination. Once the examination fees have been submitted, PMI notifes applicants whose applications have 32 Engineer been selected for audit. In that case, proof of education, verifcation of project management experience from supervisors, and proof of project management education must be submitted to PMI within 90 days of notifcation. Phase III: Examination Preparation T hough it is not necessary to memorize the PMBOK Guide, applicants should scan it to become familiar with the terminology and processes that PMI uses. The goal is to understand the processes involved in managing projects. The guide lists the fve process groups, 10 knowledge areas, and 47 processes of project management. Knowing which process group that a question is referring to and being familiar with the processes within that group will help answer many questions during the examination. A free online review course is available through Army eLearning. Access the course by logging on at , go to Catalog, and then go to the link for the project management knowledge center. This leads to a Skillsoft® Web site that has many resources for project management. The review course is in the Roadmaps section of the Web page. Once there, go to Pursuing PMI Certifcation and click on Project Management Professional. Currently, the course has 28 lessons that provide a good review for the exam. The estimated duration of the review course is 52 hours. While studying for the examination, it is best to have the mind-set of working on a multimillion-dollar project with a team located around the world. The test is written from that perspective. Those who have worked only on shortterm, platoon-size projects could be at a disadvantage for the test since solutions at this level are often dealt with by speaking directly to a small team rather than devising a communications management plan that addresses the concerns of multiple stakeholders around the world. After completing the review course, applicants can take a May–August 2013

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Engineer - MAY-AUG 2013