The Project Management Professional certification is generating a lot of interest amongst the corporate world as well as with individuals of all trades, backgrounds and professions. Implemented by the Project Management Institute in September 2006, the PMP certification has been obtained by more than 310,000 individuals worldwide; such popularity is due to the demand of corporations and businesses to have knowledge project managers to ensure their own success and credibility. The certification exam is based on 6 principles: initiating the project, planning the project, executing the project, monitoring and controlling the project, closing the project and professional and social responsibility. PM-Express’s preparation courses covers all of those 6 essential principles of project management and ensure the ability of each trainee to understand the material presented in class.The PMP certification obtained by trainees is valid worldwide; this is very important for self-employed project managers who prefer to sell their services to individual clients rather than work in-house for a larger corporation. With an internationally recognized certificate, project managers can now easily obtain employment in businesses and organizations from anywhere in the world and be confident in their project managing skills. Being PMP certified is certainly a renowned credential and the knowledge gained through the exam will impress future clients and employers alike.

In order to pass the Project Management Institute’s exam and obtain certification, individuals and corporations and highly encouraged to sign-up for PM-Express’s preparation courses. These courses will greatly help covering all material found in the certification exam and will also give you valuable knowledge and experience to add to your resume. The courses offered by PM-Express include PMP Exam Preparation, EVMS Compliance, PgMP Exam Preparation, Applied Systems Engineering and OPM3. All these courses will make you and your employees the best project managers to be found and will greatly improve your chances of successfully passing the PMP certification exam.

Just like with any type of exam and certification, the key to confidently obtain the PMP certification is to be adequately prepared. By signing-up for PM-Express’s preparation courses you will not only thoroughly prepare for the exam but undertake a unique immersion experience in the world of project management. Preparing the exam with PM-Express is the best way to ensure success and confidently train in project management whether you are part of a corporation or business, or a self-employed individual.

There are three things that make a chart ugly:

* Lack of Focus

* Wrong Type of Chart

* Poor Color

There are two ways a chart can lack focus; unrelated variables and variables outside of the span of control.

A chart that shows unrelated variables lacks focus. Putting the Accounts Payable with Inventory and Share Price doesn’t make sense. It is like the Sesame Street game. One of these things is not like the others. Share Price is not directly related to either Inventory or Accounts Payable.When the variables presented in a chart are not all within the control of the viewer, there is a lack of focus. If you can’t change a variable, why show it?

Wrong Type of Chart

It is surprising how often people choose the wrong type of chart. Usually it is because a tool or vendor hypes the type of chart. The best current example is the gauge. The Business Intelligence industry has included gauges in its tools. The message is “You need to simplify your reporting like a car dashboard.”

The problem with this logic is that the car dashboard instruments provide information you use once and forget. If you look at your speedometer and see you are doing 75 in a 45 zone, you slow down. In a business though, you need to know whether 75 is a good or bad number. To make this decision you need to see what the history has been. Has it been increasing or decreasing?

The other reason for choosing the wrong type of chart is making the wrong decision between point in time and time series chart types.

A point in time chart shows the values for a number of variables or organizations at a single point in time. Chart types which can show a single point in time are pie, stacked bar, and bar charts. The pie chart is the most commonly used single point of time chart type. A pie chart shows the relationship between segments for a single point of time. When it is misused, you have multiple pie charts of the same variables for different time periods. Variations in pie charts are difficult to compare which makes them the wrong choice.

Time series charts show one or more variables over a range of time. The most common chart types used to show time series are line, bar, and surface (also known as area) charts. These chart types are made into the wrong choice by using the 3 dimensional (or 3D) features of the charting software. In my opinion the 3D capability should never be used. It hides numbers behind other numbers or makes it hard to impossible to see the scale behind the lines, bars or areas.

Poor Color

Color should be a tool to help people read and make sense of your charts. The problem with color is the way people choose to apply colors. The two main problems are mismatched colors and inconsistent colors.

Mismatched colors are those which make it hard to read or even look at the colors. Too much contrast or too little both cause problems. Bright colors with different shades are hard to read when presented side by side. Red and green are great at Christmas but lousy when you are trying to make a useful chart. Other colors which are similar are especially bad choices when making a bar chart. Examples include yellow and green, red and orange, and purple and blue.

Choosing colors for each chart separately creates confusion. Using a legend does not solve this problem. You should select colors over a group of charts, not on each individual chart. Use colors consistently to show organizations across charts.

Making your charts ugly is easy. But it is just as easy to make charts that are easy to read and useful to your audience. Take the time and make your charts better.

Become a serious business entrepreneur

A business entrepreneur must be focused on making money – This is the bottom line of being in business, and unless this is at the forefront of your mind with every business decision you make, then your business is in danger of losing ground to competitors and perhaps even losing relevance completely.A business owner must be confident in their own decisions – This does not mean that you should not ask for expert advice when necessary or seek help in realizing your goals, but you certainly cannot let other people make key decisions for you. Provided you carry out the required research, you should have a sound basis for moving forward with your plans. Remember this is your venture, not someone else’s.

A serious business entrepreneur must make strategic business moves – The correct mindset is not to jump into every business activity on offer, but weigh up which are most likely to produce the greatest results. For example, networking or training must be relevant and worthwhile, or they will waste both time and money.

An entrepreneur must connect with profitability – If profitability is the raison d’être of being in business, then you must know all the information that relates to this. What is your profit margin, your cash flow, your sales goals, your competitive advantage, and your key profit indicators? These are the elements that keep an entrepreneur focused.

A business needs to implement strategic business practices – This means not getting so bogged down in the here and now that you lose sight of the bigger picture. Every decision you make today must relate to the long-term profitability of your company. You must ask yourself whether the practices you engage in are moving your company forward.

A business entrepreneur must be willing to diversify – There is no reason why you have to concentrate on one business to the exclusion of all others. A clever entrepreneur will always be on the lookout for their next profitable business idea. Even if you employ someone else to carry out the day-to-day running of another business, it pays not to put all your eggs in one basket.

A business person must be passionate about what they do, without being emotional – Passion is strength and can lead to bold and dynamic decisions, whilst emotions can cause weakness and prevent the right decision, or any decision, from being made. You must learn to differentiate between the two so you can recognize when your emotions are undermining your entrepreneurial skills.

If the public are going to be allowed access to your place of business (and let’s face it – there aren’t many businesses that would work without them) then this is a must. It’s not a legal requirement (unless your new venture is a riding school), but for your piece of mind and cover in the event of any accidents it’s good to have.

PLI will cover you in the event of a compensation claim, any legal fees incurred and incase of damage to your or a third party’s property. This includes pub insurance for example.

Policies vary depending on what type of business you have decided to run and premiums can be tailor made to suit both your needs and your budget. Do shop around though, there can be quite a difference for the same package depending on where you decide to buy.

Comparison websites are very good for highlighting lower prices, don’t be afraid to have look at them. Ask for advice from insurance brokers too – they know what they’re talking about and will be able to answer any questions that you might have – usually in a non-biased way. If you have other insurance (employer liability for example) have a look and see if your provider offers a package deal and you may be able to save a little more.