I think back to when I sat for the PMP exam and remember taking the first few minutes to quickly write down the following formulas. It was my cheat sheet. There was enough to think about for the next few hours and worrying if I could remember some key formulas was not one of them. So, here is a bit of advice. If you’re going to take the PMP exam, MEMORIZE these formulas. The exam won’t come right out and ask you to identify the correct formula for a variance of an activity. Rather, it will offer a question like: Your current activity was pessimistically estimated at 65 hours and optimistically estimated at 40 hours. What is the variance of the activity? (you can use this formula for both time and cost)

You can see how knowing the formula is going to make you or break you on this question.

Do yourself a favor. Make flash cards, get a tattoo, it doesn’t matter. Commit these formulas to memory and you’ll save yourself some pain and suffering (and a few points on the exam).

Wait a second!  We have you covered on one of these.  We already have the flashcard of each of these formulas.  Leverage HueCubed to memorize the formulas.  Don’t pay more than $10.

The Formulas

#	Title	Formula	PMBOK
1	Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)	P = Pessimistic Estimate M = Most Likely Estimate O = Optimistic Estimate	Page 150
2	Standard Deviation of Activity		Basic Statistics Formula
3	Variance of an Activity		Basic Statistics Formula
4	Total Float	LS – ES or LF – EF	Page 115
5	Communications Channels	[N(N-1)] / 2	Page 253
6	Cost Variance (CV)	EV – AC	Page 182
7	Schedule Variance (SV)	EV – PV	Page 182
8	Cost Performance Index (CPI)	EV / AC	Page 430
9	Schedule Performance Index (SPI)	EV / PV	Page 183
10	Estimate at Completion (EAC)	BAC / CPI AC + ETC AC + (BAC – EV)	Page 184
11	Estimate to Complete (ETC)	EAC – AC	Page 184
12	Variance at Completion (VAC)	BAC – EAC	Page 184
13	Cumulative Cost Performance Index (CPIc)	Σ EV / Σ AC	Page 184
14	To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI)		Page 186
15	Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM)	±50%	Page 168

Click the button and gain access to 20 randomly selected cards from our PMP flashcard deck and see your test results immediately. It’s free! If you have a Twitter account, it’s that easy to see use our PMP flashcard engine.

We recently posted a question on Mahalo.com, under Startup Advice. Though there is a vision for HueCubed, some ideas are best deferred to the wisdom of the crowd.  The question? As a web startup, should we list competitors on the website and how our product is better or just ignore the competition and detail our product and its features? The best answer came from Skristoff who wrote  “I think that you’ll come across as more positive if you just detail your product and its features. However, if you can get some of your customers to provide testimonials on how your product is better than a competitor’s product, it will look much better than if you came out against your competitor yourself.“

So, we’re going to take her advice. With our first property using the HueCubed engine, PMPrepFlashcards.com, we are helping people prepare to take the PMP exam.  With the release of HueCubed version 1.1, we’ll really promote our flashcard features.  Just a note, at least one of our competitors lists all other competitors on their site.  Maybe they should have used Mahalo Answers?  If you are interested in reviewing our product, we’d love to hear from you! [Contact Us]

Graphic Source: High Road Capital

Have you ever asked yourself how many potential clients there are out there?  In the month of April, there were 4,718 for PMPrepFlashcards.  I know this because every month I get a copy of PMI Today and I annotate 3 data points: New PMP® for the month, new PMPs year-to-date (YTD), and total number of active PMPs.

As you can see by the trending chart, there is quite a few people getting their certification.  The new number of PMPs in April totaled 4,718. Year-To-Date PMPs totaled 19,596. Last but not least, there are a total of 381,111 active PMPs.

The current trend predicts PMI will hit 400,000 active PMP credential holders this year.

Though I’m still worried we’re rapidly reaching a tipping point, I want to congratulate those 4,718 out there who passed the exam. It’s no cakewalk and I recognize your efforts and achievement.

Of those 4,718, I’ve been in contact with several who passed the exam with the aid of my new product PMPrepFlashcards.com. Yes, I know, gratuitous plug.  But I have to say, it felt really good knowing something we created helped people reach their goals.  Are you our next customer?

All > Process Group > Initiation
All > Knowledge Area > Communication

Create a Free account and gain access to 20 randomly selected cards from our deck and see your test results immediately. What to try more? Just click the reset button and shuffle the card deck.

Back on March 22, we launched HueCubed version 1.0. With any startup, you need to be able to iterate, scale, and pivot when needed. Well, all three are happening. On May 31, we reached our goal of 2000 flashcards on PMPrepFlashcards.com.  Between March and May, we got some really good feedback and ideas to incorporate into version 1.1.  We used to consider HueCubed synonymous with PMPrepFlashcards.  Not any more.

The watershed moment happened when I was at Virtacore visiting with Scott Simko of  ThisWeekIn and others.  It wasn’t until I was in a situation where I should be able to tell people what we did in 60 seconds or less, that I realized we needed to pivot.  HueCubed was to be a website to help up-and-coming project managers become PMP® (Project Management Professional) certified.  You may notice when you come here to HueCubed.com and try to log in, you’ll be redirected to PMPrepFlashcards.com.  I realized HueCubed was not a project management flashcard website.  Rather, it was the engine behind the flashcards and progress features.  We designed a very easy-to-use interface to study flashcards and get immediate progress feedback.  Why limit ourselves to just project management?

Iterate: Version 1.1 is in Testing right now.  We’re looking to deploy it to Production within the next few weeks.  We don’t have a driving delivery date looming our heads so we can take our time with it.  We’ve made the interface more intuitive, we’re adding Twitter and Facebook logins, and we’re simplifying the payment process.  All of the changes are geared toward making things more simple.

Pivot: HueCubed is going to become a launchpad website.  It will have contact information, FAQ, the blog, release notes.  PMPrepFlashcards.com is the first of several properties that will be released in the upcoming months.  Each will be running the HueCubed engine.  The next site to be released is K12Flashcards.com. 

Scale: PMPrepFlashcards has cashflow and getting new customers.  The next step there is to drive traffic to it.  K12Flashcards.com and other properties are in development.  All will link back to HueCubed.

Know of an exam or test that you think would be a good candidate for HueCubed?  Contact us and we’d be happy to discuss building a site to meet your needs.