PMP cheat sheet: Project Management Professional (PMP)

People (33%)

Servant leadership: serve the team — remove impediments, shield from distraction, develop people — rather than command and control.
Conflict resolution modes: collaborating/problem-solving (best for important issues), compromising, smoothing/accommodating, forcing/directing (win-lose), withdrawing/avoiding (worst for blockers).
Team development moves through forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning. Invest in training and mentoring ahead of a known skills gap.
Handle performance issues privately and directly first. Establish team ground rules / a working agreement, especially for distributed teams. Support a sustainable pace.

Choose the approach: predictive when scope is stable; adaptive (iterative/incremental) when requirements will evolve and early feedback adds value; hybrid mixes both.
Route every change — even small ones — through integrated change control or backlog prioritisation: assess impact, then decide. Uncontrolled additions are scope creep.
Critical path = the longest chain of dependent activities; it has zero float and sets the shortest possible duration.
Earned value: SV = EV − PV and CV = EV − AC (negative = behind / over). SPI = EV/PV, CPI = EV/AC (below 1 = behind / over).
Risk: identify → analyse (qualitative then quantitative) → plan responses (avoid, transfer, mitigate, accept; escalate) → assign an owner → monitor. Keep the risk register current.

The project charter authorises the project and the project manager; the business case justifies the investment and precedes it.
Deliver value, not just deliverables: if the business case no longer holds, recommend terminating or re-scoping to governance.
Output vs outcome vs benefit: the output is what you build, the outcome is the change from using it, the benefit is the measurable value that change creates. The sponsor/business owner owns benefits realisation after close.
Compliance is non-negotiable against schedule: stop the non-compliant activity, report it through governance, remediate. Respond to new regulations through change control.
EEFs (regulations, market conditions, org culture — outside the team's control) vs OPAs (templates, processes, lessons-learned repository — internal assets).

Plan the transition to operations: training, documentation, support handover, and organisational change management — a deliverable no one can adopt delivers no benefit.
Retrospectives must produce owned, tracked improvement actions, not just notes.
An MVP is the smallest increment that delivers real value and generates validated learning — 'minimum' means scope, not quality.
Manage procurement issues within the contract terms: understand the cause, evaluate remedies, act on what was agreed before escalating to termination.

Reading a summary is the easy part. Take the free 10-question diagnostic to see which of these domains you actually have, then drill the rest.