Hi All,

It’s with great pleasure that I present my lessons learned based on my experience with the PMP exam. Yesterday was a great day as I passed my exam on the first attempt while Chelsea FC won the FA cup!!

Exam Results
Initiation – Proficient
Planning – Proficient
Executing - Proficient
Monitoring and Controlling – Proficient
Closing - Proficient

Resources Leveraged
1. Andy Crowe 8/10 – Awesome book for gaining a high level understanding of PMI’s concepts. In addition, includes a one week subscription to Velociteach which makes the book even more valuable as it contains useful courses and practice exams. If you need to earn 35 PDUs to complete the educational requirement for the exam, I’d recommend this as you get a certificate once you complete Velociteach’s course. The glossary is a nice addition and I found his tips on taking the exam very useful, as he explains that the exam is comprised of easy, medium and difficult questions and how to spot each type of question.

2. PMBOK – 7/10 – A must read but doesn’t teach you how to answer the questions on the exam. The most valuable part of this book for me was learning page 43’s process group to knowledge area mapping. This set the foundation to all my studying.

3. Rita Mulcahy 7th Edition – 9/10 – A must read, as it goes into a lot more detail and really explains how to answer the exam questions. Her end of chapter tests were a lot more challenging than Andy’s and really helps with practicing situational questions, which make up the majority of the real exam. As I had already learned the process group to knowledge area mapping in the PMBOK guide, her process chart was just another way of articulating the contents.

4. Kim Heldman – 8/10 – I really enjoyed reading this book, as the practical examples used were awesome. In addition, I enjoyed her chapter tests the most. Furthermore, this book contains information that is not contained in the other books. I didn’t purchase this book, but used books 24*7 online for free.

I found it interesting that there was no one book that covered everything, so it’s important to supplement the PMBOK with at least 2 additional resources in my opinion. Andy’s book is the best value for money. Rita’s book is the most useful. Kim’s book has the best chapter questions and the best examples of real world usage of the concepts, so using all these resources was a deliberate strategy.

Study Plan
I spent circa three months preparing for the exam. I had to reschedule once as work was interfering with my study schedule.
To prepare, I devised a study schedule in Excel with a plan of topics I aimed to cover in a given day. On the whole, I spent 3 hours/day on weekdays and 5 hours/day on weekends studying. A high level version of my plan is as follows:

1. Read a chapter a day of Andy Crowe’s book, including taking the end of chapter tests
a. Averaged 74% on my first pass of Andy’s chapter tests
2. Read a chapter a day of the PMBOK and after each chapter, went back and took the end of chapter test in Andy Crowe’s book
a. Averaged 93% on my second pass of Andy’s chapter tests
3. First mock exam to highlight strengths and weaknesses
a. PM Study 1 - scored 65%, which left me discouraged. I felt flustered by the math’s questions and network diagrams and felt I needed more work on the ITTOs
4. Complete a knowledge area per day of Velociteach’ s course, including taking the chapter tests
a. Averaged 82% on Velociteach’ s chapter tests
5. Complete Velociteach mock exam
a. Scored 86% on the 200 question mock exam.
6. Read a chapter a day of RMC book, including taking the end of chapter tests
a. Averaged 81% on end of chapter tests
7. Read a chapter a day of Kim Heldman’s book
a. Averaged 81% on end of chapter tests
8. Complete mocks exams
a. See mock exam results section
9. Focus studying on areas of weaknesses by referring to study notes
a. My areas of weakness were the maths, network diagrams, quality and risk. With much practice these are now my strongest areas
10. Once receiving 80% + in mocks, felt confident to go on and take the exam

Mock Exam Results
None of the mock exams were perfect as I found some mistakes in the marking and explanation. Therefore, it’s imperative to scrutinize each correct and incorrect answer to make sure they are consistent with PMIs ethos. I completed the following mock exams (all free):

1. PM Study 1 – First attempt (65%) Second Attempt (82%) – This was my favorite exam
2. Kim Heldman’s 70 question mock in her book – 76% - This was a close second favorite
3. Oliver Lehman 75 questions – 72% - More difficult than the real exam
4. Oliver Lehman 175 questions – 80% - More difficult than the real exam
5. Andy Crowe End of Book Mock – 92% - Quite easy so use to gain confidence
6. TechFaq 360 – 83% - OK, but contained many grammatical errors and marking errors
7. HeadFirst PMP – 82% - I really liked this exam, but it did contain errors
8. BetterPM 50 question phone app – 92% - Used this once ad hoc. Good for ITTOs check

It’s important to try different types of questions to be prepared for any challenge the exam may present. There’s no point in me saying I encountered x types of question as each exam is completely different. I will say that as long as you’ve trained yourself to sit through a 4 hour mock, manage your time wisely and read the questions carefully, you’ll be fine.

General Advice
If you take a step back and break down the numbers you’ll determine the following:
- 42 Processes
- 9 Knowledge Areas
- 5 Process groups
- 517 Inputs Tools and Outputs

You must memorize the first three components, but it’s absolutely unnecessary to memorize the ITTOs. You know you’re ready to take the exam once you can derive the ITTOs just from understanding what’s contained within a given process. For example, Develop project charter, logically we know the output is the Project charter. With preparation, you’ll find that the other processes become just as intuitive. Given the exam is a multiple choice, it becomes natural to eliminate answers in order to hone in on the correct one, all with practice.

All the best!!

Chelsea, PMP

Many thanks to God for giving me the wisdom I need to succeed and my family for all their support