BrainBOK is an application designed to help project managers achieve PMP® and CAPM® certification. It integrates a variety of tools such as exam simulators, flashcards, and quizzes, and can be called the swiss-army knife of PMP® and CAPM® exam preparation. It aims to transform the way people prepare for these certifications.
BrainBOK introduces some unique features such as the ITTO Explorer, which render hundreds of online PMP® and CAPM® resources, and gazillion spreadsheets, obsolete. It has a minimalistic, intuitive and user-friendly interface. Though it's not a mobile application, many of the features are designed with mobile devices (such as iPhone and iPad) in mind. Above all, it's free and virtually ad-free. Let’s take a quick tour of the features of BrainBOK.
- ITTO Explorer
ITTO Explorer is a unique way to explore the Inputs, Tools and Techniques, and Outputs (ITTO) of the project management processes defined in the PMBOK® Guide. The usual slow, boring and painful process of referring to the PMBOK® Guide comes alive with the ITTO Explorer. It brings the entire PMBOK® Guide to your fingertips. It’s the fastest way to familiarize with the ITTOs. - PMBOK® Quiz
PMBOK® Quiz is a simple multiple choice question (MCQ) based quiz designed to master various aspects of the PMBOK® Guide. Use it to master project management process ITTOs, PMBOK® Glossary and many more areas. - PMBOK® Flashcards
Jog your memory everyday and make learning fun with the PMBOK® Flashcards. It has a simple and and intuitive interface, which focuses on usability and content. Use it on your computer or mobile devices anywhere anytime. - PMP® Exam Simulator
PMP® Exam Simulator is multiple choice exam application designed to simulate the real PMP® Certification Exam in terms of the quality of questions and user interface features. This tool is still work-in-progress and will see lots of improvements in future.
I know that you are very anxious to get your hands on the tool now. I’ll not make you wait any longer. Here’s the Christmas present to all the readers of Deep Fried Brain:
I’m open to your ideas, feedback, suggestions and contribution (in terms of content).
Merry Christmas to everyone.
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Congrats Harry.. I may be fortunate to be the first person to read this post.. :). A while back i noticed there are no updates from you on your Christmas gift in this blog, but we all got it now.
ReplyDeleteTo all the PMP aspirants and Project Managers, brainkbok is an excellent tool for those preparing for the exams and also for others who regularly wants to keep refreshing their PM knowledge. Thank you Harwinder for this wonderful tool. All the very Best.
Hey Suresh,
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for your good wishes and constant support.
I'm not sure whether you have noticed, but I'm seeing severe problems with the application for the past couple days. It either fails to load or takes a very long time (typically around a minute) to load.
It seems to be a problem at Google's end and because of the holidays, it might take a while for things to become normal.
I guess we are not supposed to work during this period anyways :)
Thanks Harwinder. Really Appreciate your effort on this. I was going thro ITTO section for last 1 hour, it is really great.
ReplyDeleteI am loving it
ReplyDeleteThanks Bharat and Srik !
ReplyDeleteJust added 107 Acronym flashcards to brainBOK. You can subscribe to brainBOK announcements on brainBOK - Announcements page.
ReplyDeleteExcellent tool for all PMP aspirants. Thanks Harwinder for this great tool and 1 stop site (deepfriedbrainpmp.com) for all PMP resources/knowledge - Kunal
ReplyDeletefantastic tool
ReplyDeleteThanks Harwinder,
ReplyDeleteThis is indeed a great tool. Hope it helps in the exam cram.
Thanks for the links to the other resources as well
Best Wishes to everyone for the New Year
-Huzefa
Thanks kpm, Preetham and Huzefa. Try the ITTO trainer tool from Primoz too.
ReplyDeleteHi Harwinder
ReplyDeleteExcellent Tool..Many thanks to you for this initiation.
Regards
Nitika
Thanks, Nitika. I appreciate your feedback. I'm working on adding some really cool visualization features to the tool. Keep looking out for new updates or subscribe to brainBOK - Announcements.
ReplyDeleteHi Harwinder, I checked this out & it is absolutely an EXCELLENT one! I don't know is this coincidental or not. I also conceived same idea & posted Excel version of what you presented. You can check that out in http://www.box.net/shared/1mpardsmss
ReplyDeleteI chose excel version as user can perform the activities offline & no need for them to be online always.
I am really happy that our ideas are matching so much.
Hello Babou,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. The excel file is password protected. Can you provide the password or share an unprotected version of the file?
Regards.
Oops. I am really sorry for not pasted the pwd. It is "leadershipchamps" (without quotes).
ReplyDeleteYou can open it as read-only. I used VBA to load the data so excel may ask you to enable macro.
Babou,
ReplyDeleteThat's really great work. The ideas are indeed very similar, just implemented differently. I think it's good to have access to both ITTO Explorer (brainBOK) and your excel file, because both have their advantages and limitations.
I do plan to make some additional enhancements to the ITTO Explorer. If you have suggestions for me, I'll be more than happy to hear.
Thanks.
New cool visual analytics coming to brainBOK soon. Here's a sneak peek: Domain-wise performance reports.
ReplyDeleteHarwinder- Splendid job ...the diligence of you work is just unbelievably remarkable.
ReplyDeleteI had just one quick suggestion; if tooltips are added to all the inputs/tools and outputs.I think it would make tool super powerful for skimming too.
I would be delighted to contribute. I can send the short text for tooltips per ITTO.
Let me know.
Hello Amol,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your wonderful comments and feedback. That's a great suggestion.
Actually, I had started working on it, but stopped short. The feature is already available on the Process names, so why not have it on the ITTOs to make the tool more comprehensive?
The problem was that I wanted to make the description "context-specific". Let's consider the input "Organizational Process Assets" (OPAs) as an example. We all know what OPAs are, but not all OPAs are used in every process that has OPAs as an input.
Let's say a user selects a process in the process grid that has OPAs as one of the inputs. When the user hovers the mouse on the OPAs in the input grid, in the description I want to show the specific OPAs which are used in that process. I don't want to just give a general description of OPAs.
Are you thinking on the same lines?
Making the description context-specific will involve a considerable effort. That's why I haven't implemented it.
However, now that you have brought up the point, I'm thinking that having a general description is better than having no description at all.
I'm delighted to know that you are willing to help. I can use any help that I can get. Please send me a message with your email address from the "Contact" page. I'll send you an Excel sheet with the ITTO names. You can enter the descriptions in the Description column.
Thanks again for your feedback and help. Looking forward to your contribution.
Hi Harwinder,
ReplyDeleteI was thinking along the same lines as well; making description "Context-Specific".
It would be easier to gather the contextual text from PMBOK but enormous high efforts implementing it.
As a starting point we can add general description as "Ticklers".
I have sent you my email information as well.
Regards
Amol
Hi Harwinder,
ReplyDeleteNice effort , i have just completed 35 hrs PDU training was looking for more info for prepare my certification exam
Awesome awesome & Just awesome. Perfect Tool & Aid for PMP Prep. Very Helpful.
ReplyDeleteThanks & Cheers
Shankar
Thanks Shankar :)
ReplyDeleteHi. I just happened to visit this site and the tool look very impressive. But I don't see many pages, In ITTO explorer it says No items to show, al the Flashcards are not showing all the process and knowledge area details.
ReplyDeleteCan you please verify and fix this asap.
Hello Adhwin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback.
Regarding the ITTO Explorer, you need to click on the "Load Data" button at the top of the page (just below the tabs) to load the data.
The Flashcards and Exam Simulator are still work in progress. I update them as and when I find time. There are about 500 flashcards as of now. I'm planning to upload another 150 more flashcards within a week or so.
You and others are most welcome to volunteer for developing flashcards and sample questions. You can do it by topics, process groups, knowledge areas, or even PMBOK Chapters. It will help you as well as hundreds of others in their preparation.
Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks.
Excellent tool!
ReplyDeleteI am finding this very useful for my preparation. I really appreciate efforts on this tool development.
Thanks Sanemi. I dreamt of such comments when I started to develop brainBOK. Now all the effort seems worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteWell put together. I really love brainBok. The tool is intuitive, simple, comprehensive, and I like the fact that the tests are 1 hour, as this is practical for every day practice.
ReplyDeleteITTO is very useful to help me remember the inputs, outputs, tools, and techniques. You used the "grill and drill" way of learning. Sometimes this is necessary process in remembering so much material w/o getting confused.
I also like the stark white look of the page, however I wonder what would happen if you add audio and color here and there? Might be interesting.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece of work. You are truly a PMP guru.
Hello Victoria,
ReplyDeletePriceless - that's all I can say about your comments. I'll surely look at your suggestions and see how I can make it a bit more lively. Currently I'm concentrating more on the content (exam questions and flashcards).
Thanks a lot.
Excellent tool. I like the minimalist approach and would much rather have substance over style. The comprehensive content is a great start - I should have flagged some questions like "assumption" where the answer is in the question.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of your hard work and sharing with the community.
I have just passed my CAPM exam and owe my ITTO knowledge to Brainbok. I discovered it a week before my exam and within a few days I finally 'got' the flow of inputs and outputs. Thank you for making it freely available - it was invaluable to me in my preparation!
ReplyDeleteJoan - Congratulations. I'm very glad to hear that you passed the exam and also found brainBOK useful. I had tried to put myself in the shoes of PMPs and CAPMs aspirants while designing this tool, and it feels good to know that people are actually finding it useful. Thanks for your feedback.
ReplyDeleteBrainBOK is the best tool I've seen so far in my PMP Exam Preparation, being less than 48 hours away from taking the Exam I feel much more confident and ready to pass. Greetings from Guadalajara, Mexico
ReplyDeleteThanks, Leonel.
ReplyDelete