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BIT Project Management Vs. PMP.

October 10, 2006 @ PROJECTIZED from Thushara Wijewardena, PMP

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Last few days I went through almost all the PM past papers of BIT ( Bachelor of Information Technology – External) in order to make me understand what UCSC ( University of Colombo School of Computing ) will expect out of a student studying for Project Management.

I saw many similarities and differences between BIT PM paper and PMP exam papers. I think its worth to write some comments on that., so this post will help a student who wish to sit for PMP exams in the future.

First of all., PMP is totally a MCQ paper ( Don’t think its easy.. Its not) while BIT is totally a written paper., BIT PM knowledge areas are centered around Summerville’s Software Engineering Book as far as PMP exam questions are based on PMBOK guide.

How ever, I see major improvements on BIT PM exam papers over the years., 2005 Paper had many improvements and it covered many practical aspects of Project Management than its previous year papers.

When you look at the main difference., More than Anything .. BIT PM paper is only based on Software Project Management.( Ofcourse its an IT degree), But PMP is generally “ Project Management” which can be applied across the industries.

When you look at the syllabus., BIT PM Syllabus addresses all the Knowledge areas listed in PMBOK.

Except to PMBOK knowledge areas, BIT PM expect you to know the Software Development models and Software Configuration Management in detail.

When you consider individual questions, BIT PM expect you to have a wide knowledge and understanding of concepts in each knowledge area., As an Example., you need to know what EVM calculations are., how they can be used in a project., and what do they mean., But in PMP, you need very detailed knowledge in application of EVM formulas., sometimes you get very tricky questions to calculate values. BIT PM does not expect you to calculate the values using formulas ( At least up to this year).

I find cost management is quite different too.. BIT –PMs favorite costing model is COCOMO model and you need to know all the equations to calculate COCOMO model in your projects., I noticed that almost every year there is a question in BIT PM papers based on COCOMO. ( Do we ever use this method to calculate cost in our real Projects??? I have never..) For PMP., they do not expect you to know those models in details in order to answer questions., But you have to have a very clear idea of different techniques which can be used for project costing and pluses and minuses of each of these techniques.

Time Management , Risk Management and Quality management are almost same in both, But in Quality Management, BIT expect you to have a very detailed understanding of ISO900 Process. PMP consider it as just another quality standard.

Which I couldn’t understand in BIT PM paper is that questions regarding MS Project tool. Its just a another tool which helps project managers., But I found few BIT questions which goes in to detailed features of MS Project Software.. Its bit puzzling…

BIT PM does not touch any specific agile methods or any process driven PM methods., neither it talks about PMO concept in organizations.

Overall BIT PM is a very good start and a base for a student who expect to sit for PMP exams in the future.

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