Call for ADVANCED (Orange Belt) and EXPERT (Red Belt) Certification Exam Questions

CASE STUDY TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION:

To expand upon our existing bank of Case Studies we seek real-world / challenging case study questions for our ADVANCED and EXPERT level credentials.

Additional information and the Question Submittal Template can be found below along with instructions on how to submit.

Case Study Objective:

Is to enable the competency assessors to be able to use the answers provided by the applicant to evaluate their COMPETENCY at the “Advanced" or "Expert Practitioner” level by applying CONCEPTUAL (B), PROCEDURAL (C) and METACOGNITIVE / CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS (D) using the higher order Blooms Cognitive Domain - ANALYZE (4) and EVALUATE (5) existing or to CREATE (6) new, tools, techniques processes, procedures or methodologies  

This demonstrates that they are likely able to solve real problems commonly found while executing their work responsibilities, i.e. matrix elements B6, C5, C6, D4, D5 and D6 below...

Case Study Length:  

The Case Study should be not less than 100 words nor more than 500 words long and should be able to be analyzed and the questions answered by an competent “Advanced" or "Expert Practitioner” within a 1 hour time frame.

Case Study Topic:

The Case Study should reflect real problems, challenges or scenarios commonly experienced by Planners / Schedulers, Cost Managers, Forensic Analysts or Project Controllers in their day to day working environment.

Questions for the Case Study:

The number of questions pertaining to the case must consist of a MINIMUM of 5 questions and a MAXIMUM of 20 questions per case study, all answerable within the 1 hour time frame.

The questions can come from ANY quadrant in the matrix, but the majority of them need to be coming from those quadrants in Figure 1 above at the “Advanced" or "Expert Practitioner” level (i.e. matrix elements B6, C5, C6, D4, D5 and D6).

Acceptable Answer Types for the Case Study:

The answers to the case study questions can be a MIX of:

• Fill in the Blank - i.e. Calculate the Schedule Performance Index for this case study;
• Short Essay - i.e. not less than 25 words but not more than 100 words;
• Long Essay - i.e. more than 100 words but less than 250 words;
• Rank Ordering - i.e. given the facts contained in the case study, what should you do first, second, third etc

Answer Support for the Case Study:

All answers MUST be backed up or supported by credible PUBLISHED RESEARCH, available at NO COST through the Internet or other online services.  Unfortunately answers REQUIRING the purchase of a specific book or other published reference materials will NOT be accepted by the GPC Certification Board.

All references must be cited to enable the Certification Board to validate the correctness of the answer (i.e. using APA format, including sufficient detail, chapter and / or page number).

ADVANCED (ORANGE BELT) SPECIFIC:

As the ORANGE Belt is an ADVANCED level certification, the focus of the case study and questions should be on providing applicants the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to solve complex or complicated TECHNICAL PROBLEMS of the type commonly experienced in the work environment using their conceptual, procedural and / or metacognitive knowledge.

EXPERT (RED BELT) SPECIFIC:

As the RED Belt is an EXPERT level certification for those with 2 or more years of supervisory / management experience, the focus of the case study and associated questions should be on providing applicants the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to solve complex or complicated MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS of the type commonly encountered by Planning / Scheduling, Cost Management, Forensic Analyst or Project Control MANAGERS.  

This would include ethical issues commonly faced by managers, including but not limited to hiring / termination procedures, sexual or other discriminatory practices and case studies associated with “engineering” or “technical” management, including the “soft” skills-leading, motivating, team building, conflict resolution, negotiation and communicating.

Miscellaneous:

While the GPC Certification Board wants to see realistic case studies, they do NOT want nor will they accept case studies submitted which contain confidential, proprietary or copyrighted material. 

All case studies submitted will be checked for plagiarism as part of the Certification Boards review.  

The decision of the GPC Certification Board to accept, reject or modify any question will be final.

All case studies are to be submitted by the original author to the Guild of Project Controls under Creative Commons License BY v 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [2]

WHY CONTRIBUTE - WHAT IS IN IT FOR ME:

(1) Your Guild Profile will be updated to show the Case Study summary you have submitted and consistent with Creative Commons License BY v 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [2], the Guild of Project Controls will provide “appropriate credit” (as reasonably determined and requested by the author) for his / her contribution.  If you do not want your name to be associated with the case study, the author will be listed as “Anonymous”.

(2) For EACH question submitted by the original author and ACCEPTED by the GPC Certification Board, the original author will receive a CREDIT of 1.0 PDU (or 0.1 CEU's) per question. i.e. if you submit a case study containing 5 questions you would receive 5 PDU's (or 0.5 CEU's) or if you submit 20 questions with your case study you would receive 20 PDU's or 2 CEU's.

Note: According to the PMI Handbook you can claim your PDU's under Category D, "Creating New Project Management Knowledge"

TO SUBMIT CASE STUDY and QUESTIONS:

Please use the TEMPLATE PROVIDED HERE [3] (and shown below) and submit to admin@guildofprojectcontrols.com [4]