Practice: Technical Project Management Competences
What Practice covers
Practice is the technical core: project design (objectives, scope, success criteria), requirements and scope, time and stages, organisation and information, quality, finance, resources, procurement and partners, planning and control, risk and opportunity, stakeholders, change and transformation, and benefits. Candidates must know the difference between a baseline, a forecast, and an actual, and how change control protects the baseline.
Traps in questions
- Treating a risk as an issue: risks are uncertain; issues have already happened.
- Reacting to schedule variance by compressing everything: the disciplined answer diagnoses cause, then chooses targeted response (crash, fast-track, re-scope) with governance approval.
- Confusing quality assurance (process) with quality control (product inspection).
- Forgetting that benefits often accrue after project closure and belong to the business owner.
- Assuming a stakeholder matrix is static; it must be reviewed as power and interest shift.
Worked example
A supplier misses a milestone, threatening the critical path. Weak answer: "add resources to the team." Strong answer: confirm impact on the critical path, assess contractual and risk implications, evaluate options with the sponsor, then apply the approved change. Rule of thumb: diagnose, then decide, then document - never act on variance without understanding its cause.
Rule of thumb
For any control question, ask: Is this plan, performance, or change? The answer should match the category.