Preparation Guide for Exam 70-301

Managing, Organizing, and Delivering IT Projects by Using Microsoft Solutions Framework 3.0

Published: September 2, 2008

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Exam news

Exam 70-301 became available in October 2004.

•	This exam is scheduled to retire in March 2009
•	This exam is available at 40 percent off retail price until it retires

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Audience profile

Candidates for this exam work in the typically complex computing environment of medium-sized to large organizations. Candidates include consultants, technology professionals, developers, and project managers who lead teams that use Microsoft Solutions Framework 3.0 to deliver business-driven technology solutions.

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Credit toward certification

When you pass Exam 70-301: Managing, Organizing, and Delivering IT Projects by Using Microsoft Solutions Framework 3.0, you achieve Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) status.

•	Learn about Microsoft Certified Professional status

You also earn credit toward the following certifications:

•	Elective credit toward Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 certification
•	Elective credit toward Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) for Microsoft .NET certification

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Preparation tools and resources

To help you prepare for this exam, Microsoft Learning recommends that you have hands-on experience with the product and that you use the following training resources. These training resources do not necessarily cover all of the topics listed in the "Skills measured" section.

Classroom training

•	Course 1846: Microsoft Solutions Framework Essentials
•	Course 2710: Analyzing Requirements and Defining Microsoft .NET Solution Architectures

Microsoft Press self-paced training products

•	Currently, a corresponding Microsoft Press title is not available.

Microsoft certified practice tests

•	MeasureUp: Visit the MeasureUp Web site to take a practice test.
•	Self Test Software: Visit the Self Test Software Web site to take a practice test.

Microsoft online resources

•	Microsoft MSF White Papers
•	Microsoft Learning Community: Join newsgroups and visit community forums to connect with peers for suggestions on training resources and advice on your certification path and studies.
•	TechNet: Designed for IT professionals, this site includes how-to instructions, best practices, downloads, technical resources, newsgroups, and chats.
•	MSDN: Designed for developers, the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) features code samples, technical articles, downloads, newsgroups, and chats.

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Skills measured

This certification exam measures your ability to manage, organize, and deliver IT projects by using Microsoft Solutions Framework version 3.0. Before taking the exam, you should be proficient in the job skills listed in the following table. The table shows which Official Microsoft Learning Products may help you reach competency in the skills being tested in the exam.

KEY:

= The course provides a general introductory overview of this task. You will need to supplement the course with additional work

= The course includes some material to prepare you for this task. You will need to supplement the course with additional work

= The course includes material to prepare you for this task

Skills measured by Exam 70-301

Course 1846

Course 2710

Building a Project Team

Evaluate team members' skills and abilities as they relate to a specific project.

•	Apply the principles of the Readiness Management Discipline to match team members’ profiles with appropriate roles.
•	Evaluate the risks of failing to fulfill specific roles or responsibilities.
•	Evaluate the risks involved when team members assume responsibilities beyond their roles.
•	Assess team readiness.

Scale a team appropriately for a specific project.

•	Evaluate the program manager responsibilities in the context of small and large projects by using the concept of Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) role clusters.
•	Evaluate the risks of incomplete project management by team leads other than program management on large projects.
•	Evaluate the risks involved when team members perform more than one role on a small team.

Evaluate the risks involved if role clusters or team members do not participate equally and consistently in decision making.

•	Evaluate a situation and identify the best way to work toward consensus. Considerations include the application of the vision statement, the trade-off matrix, and the perspectives of various team roles during MSF Process Model phases.

Given a project scenario, map the six MSF project roles to the six MSF project goals.

Review and revise a schedule.

•	Establish a fixed ship-date mindset.
•	Baseline expectations for team members.
•	Review team synchronization.

Facilitating the Risk Management Process

Analyze risk sources for a given scenario.

•	Analyze risk conditions, consequences, and root causes.

Prioritize risks.

•	Assess a risk plan to identify the appropriate amount of analysis to perform on a specific risk.
•	Establish a risk review cycle and an escalation process and identify participants.
•	Apply the MSF risk assessment process to a set of given risks.

Develop a risk mitigation plan, a contingency plan, and contingency triggers for a given risk.

Identify the person responsible for managing each risk.

Envisioning a Solution

Identify the primary activities of the Envisioning Phase.

•	Identify team role responsibilities during the Envisioning Phase.
•	Identify stakeholders.

Create the Envisioning Phase deliverables. Deliverables include the vision document, risk assessment document, and project structure document.

•	Create a vision statement.
•	Identify business goals, design goals, and critical success factors.
•	Define the scope of a project.
•	Identify the activities and deliverables included in the completed milestone of the phase.
•	Evaluate the risks for a project that lacks shared vision and scope statements.
•	Create a user profile.

Manage project scope and solution scope.

•	Apply the trade-off matrix.
•	Apply the trade-off triangle.

Apply the MSF Process Model iterative approach to versioning, scope management, and structuring the deliverables into manageable feature clusters.

Create success criteria for milestones for each phase of a project.

Create a project structure document.

•	Establish a change control process.
•	Establish a configuration management process.
•	Establish a mechanism for managing traceability.

Planning a Project

Create the Planning Phase deliverables. Deliverables include the risk management plan, master project plan, and master schedule.

Create a functional specification.

•	Analyze requirements for a project.
•	Evaluate the quality of a design.
•	Evaluate the risks of design omissions.

Create conceptual, logical, and physical designs.

•	Establish an application architecture for a solution.
•	Identify enterprise architecture impacts on a proposed solution.
•	Create conceptual and logical models of a solution.
•	Identify feature sets.
•	Allocate resources based on skills, features, constraints, and schedule.
•	Update plans and schedules based on models of a solution.
•	Establish design goals.

Create a master project plan.

•	Integrate role plans.
•	Evaluate the risks of incomplete or missing project plans.

Create a master schedule.

•	Use risk-based scheduling.
•	Apply appropriate buffer time.
•	Use a bottom-up task estimation process.
•	Resolve synchronization inconsistencies between team project schedules.

Establish a development and test environment.

•	Analyze impacts and constraints associated with development choices.
•	Baseline a development environment and tool set.
•	Baseline a test environment based on the production environment.

Developing a Solution

Identify the primary activities in the Developing Phase.

Create Developing Phase deliverables. Deliverables include source code, configuration scripts, setup scripts, frozen functional specifications, test cases, user documentation, and operational documents.

•	Maintain a requirements traceability matrix.
•	Maintain and update a project plan and schedule.
•	Evaluate risks involved when Developing Phase milestones and deliverables are not completed.

Plan and manage builds.

•	Implement a daily build process.
•	Implement a bug-tracking, issue-tracking, or defect-tracking process and tools.
•	Manage test coverage.
•	Implement a versioning process and tools.
•	Execute test plans and test cases.

Stabilizing a Solution

Identify the primary activities, milestones, and deliverables of the Stabilizing Phase. Milestones include Bug Convergence, Zero Bug Bounce, and User Acceptance Testing Complete.

•	Evaluate the risks of omitting Stabilizing Phase milestones and deliverables.
•	Evaluate the risks of omitting a pilot, pre-production test, or user acceptance test.

Analyze the stability of a solution by using bug statistics.

Manage scope during the Stabilizing Phase.

•	Triage features, issues, defects, or bugs within a given scenario.
•	Evaluate the risks of adding features during the Stabilizing Phase. Considerations include features added by any of the roles.

Deploying a Solution

Identify the primary activities, milestones, and deliverables of the Deploying Phase. Milestones include Site Deployments Complete, Core Technology Deployed, and Deployment Stabilized.

•	Evaluate the risks of omitting Deploying Phase milestones and deliverables.

Compile feedback about the project from all stakeholders.

•	Evaluate the risks of failing to complete a postmortem.

Transition to operational support.

•	Execute the release plan.
•	Train users and operators.

Note This preparation guide is subject to change at any time without prior notice and at the sole discretion of Microsoft. Microsoft exams might include adaptive testing technology and simulation items. Microsoft does not identify the format in which exams are presented. Please use this preparation guide to prepare for the exam, regardless of its format.

•	Learn more and download samples

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Preparation Guide for Exam 70-301

Managing, Organizing, and Delivering IT Projects by Using Microsoft Solutions Framework 3.0

Related Links

On This Page

Exam news

Audience profile

Credit toward certification

Preparation tools and resources

Classroom training

Microsoft Press self-paced training products

Microsoft certified practice tests

Microsoft online resources

Skills measured