BCS IS Project Management Foundation Certificate – Virtual Classroom

Syllabus & Exam

BCS IS Project Management Foundation Syllabus

Projects and Project Work

• The definition of projects, as opposed to other types of work
• Terms of reference for a project
• The purpose of project planning and control
• The typical activities in a system development life-cycle
• System and project life cycles
• Variations on the conventional project life cycle, such as the use of prototypes or an iterative approach (e.g. the creation and testing of a series of versions of a product that converge on the final deliverable) or incremental approach (i.e. the phased creation and delivery of a series of products to users)

Project Planning

Note: candidates are expected to understand both the product and activity-based approaches to planning

• Project deliverables and intermediate products
• Work and product breakdowns
• Product definitions (including the identification of derived from, and component of relationships between products)
• Relationship between products and activities in a project
• Check points and milestones
• Lapsed time and effort required for activities
• Activity networks (using ‘activity on node’ notation)
• Calculation of earliest and latest start and end dates of activities and resulting float

Monitoring and Control

• The project control life cycle: including planning, monitoring achievement, identifying variances, taking corrective action
• The nature of, and the purposes for which, information is gathered
• Collecting progress information
• Timesheets
• Team progress meetings
• Error and change reports, etc.
• Presenting progress information
• Content of progress reports

Change Control and Configuration Management

• Reasons for change and configuration management
• Change control procedures
• Role of change control boards
• Generation of change requests
• Change request evaluation (e.g. its impact on the business case)
• Change request authorisation
• Configuration management

Quality

• Definitions of the term ‘quality’ e.g. ‘fitness for purpose’
• Quality control versus quality assurance
• Defining quality: definition and measurement
• Detection of defects during the project life cycle
• Quality procedures: entry, process and exit requirements
• Defect removal processes, including testing and reviews

Estimating

• Effects of over and under-estimating
• Effort versus duration; relationship between effort and cost
• Estimates versus targets
• Use of expert judgement (advantages and disadvantages)
• The Delphi approach
• Top-down estimating
• Identification of size drivers (e.g. function points etc)

Risk

• Definition of the term ‘risk’; components of risk: risk events (or triggers), probability, impact
• Ways of categorising risk, e.g. business versus project
• Identification and prioritisation of risk
• Assessment of risk exposure (i.e. combining consideration of potential damage and probability of loss)
• Risk responses and actions: risk prevention, reduction, acceptance, transfer and contingency planning

Project Communications and Project Organisation

• Relationship between programmes and projects
• Identifying stakeholders and their concerns
• The project sponsor
• Establishment of the project authority (e.g. project board, steering committee etc.)
• Membership of project board/steering committee
• Roles and responsibilities of project board, project manager, stage manager, team leader
• Desirable characteristics of project manager
• Role of project support office

IS Project Management Foundation Exam Details

Exam format – Multiple-choice.

Number of questions – 40.

Duration – 60-Mins.

Supervised – Yes.

Open book – No.

Pass mark – 26/40 (65%).