Chapter 1

What Is a Project?

Congratulations on your decision to study for and take the Project Management Institute (PMI®) Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam (PMP® exam). This book was written with you in mind. The focus and content of this book revolve heavily around the information contained in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Fourth Edition, published by PMI. I will refer to this guide throughout this book and elaborate on those areas that appear on the test. Keep in mind that the test covers all the project management processes, so don’t skip anything in your study time.

When possible, I’ll pass on hints and study tips that I collected while studying for the exam. My first tip is to familiarize yourself with the terminology used in the PMBOK® Guide. Volunteers from differing industries from around the globe worked together to come up with the standards and terms used in the guide. These folks worked hard to develop and define project management terms, and these terms are used interchangeably among industries. For example, resource planning means the same thing to someone working in construction, information technology, or health care. You’ll find many of the PMBOK® Guide terms explained throughout this book. Even if you are an experienced project manager, you might find you use specific terms for processes or actions you regularly perform but the PMBOK® Guide calls them by another name. So, the first step is to get familiar with the terminology.