Tuesday, October 10, 2006

BIT Project Management Vs. PMP.


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.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thushara,
Thanks a lot for the post. Great to have an insiders perspective on this, being someone who is studying for the BIT. :-)
The Project Management subject has been shifted from the 5'th semester to the 4'th semester, so it is no longer made up of purely structured questions. In 2005, there were 2 PM papers, 5'th sem PM, under the older syllabus in Feb and 4'th PM under the newer syllabus in August. In 2006, there was no 5'th sem paper because the newer syllabus took effect for the 3'rd year too, but there was a 4'th sem paper under the newer syllabus.
http://www.bit.lk/exam.html

Anonymous said...

Hi Bit Student.. Glad to know that some SL people read my blog.. I was so worried by looking at my statistics.. I have 3rd least number of Visitors from SL and very high count from US, Canada and Australia.. So its great !

About BIT, Sorry I didn’t find 2006 Paper. didn’t know about this move as every paper I came across stated that its Semester 4.

One thing really missing in BIT PM papers is real PM methodologies., they could add little on that. What they discussed there is only the SW development methodologies and not PM methodologies..

BTW thanks a lot for the comments..

Anonymous said...

Thushara,

Glad to ease your fears about whether your blog is read in Sri Lanka. :-)
But you really shouldn't worry about that too much, who cares where the readers are so long as people read your blog! And the visitors from US, Canada, Australia are probably Sri Lankan expatriates anyway.

You can find the 2006 papers over here(paper1) and over here (paper 2) -
paper 1 (MCQ) - http://www.bit.lk/examination/s4/2006/IT4202p1-2006.pdf
paper 2(Written) - http://www.bit.lk/examination/s4/2006/IT4202p2-2006.pdf

You can find the 5'th semester "Project Management and Software Quality Management" papers over here, under "2005", "2004", "2003" and "2002":
http://www.bit.lk/examination/Semester5.html

Anonymous said...

I have come with a very nice theory on why people (Project Managers especially) are going for a PMP. The reason can be found in the 3 letters that make up PMP...

Pimp My Project_manager

:D

Anonymous said...

Gogula., PMP stands for Project Management Professional.. Why wasting time for some unnecessary inventions??? :-)

Anonymous said...

Aaaw... Have I hurt your feelings Mr./Mrs. Anonymous??? Awwww...

Well, I ain't wasting any time. Those kinda things just pop up in my head like ideas!!! So there!

Guess it's just wannabe PMs who think that spontaneous ideas waste poeple's times.... Awwwww... My heart goes out to ya!!! :-)

Be a PMP
 

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