Hi All,

Cleared PMP in the first go with 4Ps and 1 MP. It took me about a couple of months to prepare and appear for this.

To begin with, I was extremely scared of the exam. Prime reason for the scare was probably too much information - So many websites, so many coaching centers, blogs and even pre-requisites of the exam - It all gave me the feeling that may be one hell of a tough exam and I was pretty scared about it.

Infact, if anything, this was just like any other exam that I have ever appeared. I realised this after a few days, clamed down, and started treating it like any other exam. It worked.

Material I used and Approach

1. Just like with every other exam, the best preparation is the main text book, which in this case is the PMBOK. Read it thoroughly once and scanned through it (more about the scanning part later)

2. Language in PMBOK is not for the faint hearted - It uses words, terms, references etc, which may be new and or complicated to someone. So, it is recommended to use a 'reference material'. This works just like a guide which would use in any of our exams back in the high school / college. In my case, I picked up Rita Mulcahy's book. While reading PMBOK, I would regularly refer to this book as a reference material to understand the concept further. 

A have to say that I din't like Rita's tone in the book - The tone is as if she is expect the readers to be absolute idiots. But, I don't have a problem with it and infact I like the simple language. Firstly, if I want to gain knowledge, I need to keep my ego aside. Secondly, if I need to know something, I would look at the simplest language to read and understand the concept. Rita's book was simple to understand, and that is the key. 

Having said that, Rita's book doesn't cover everything, there are some topics which are there in PMBOK and not covered in Rita's book. For all such topics, be very thankful to the internet and search those on google, which is what I did.

3. Mock Tests - Mock tests help, and they help you more in understanding the exam format, getting you oriented to the exam. They help you in techniques like elimination between the 4 answers, They help you on time management aspects and they give you a rough idea of how prepared you are. Don't take the percentages on the Mock Tests seriously. Take them with a pinch of salt. I have noticed wrong answers being marked on some of the mock tests. So, take this as a mere indication and not literally. Say if you get 78% in one of them, tell yourself that you are in the 70-80% range. 

I suggest it is better to stick to one or maybe 2 sources of mock tests. Never, ever, ever pay for mock tests, it is not worth paying for. In my case, It is better to stick to 1 or 2 sources, because of consistency. I stuck with Christopher Scordo's book for the reason that it is available for free on PMI website (for members). The book has abundant questions for the entire journey, The questions are all covered in PMBOK and nothing is out of PMBOK (like some of the other mock tests, which were laced with many questions out of PMBOK). 

Just to test myself, I took the PMZilla's 30 tough questions and scored 19. This was just a day before the exam. Is it bad? Is it alright? Is it good? Frankly, my objective was to get my mind accoustomed to some of the tough questions. I was not worried about the result. 

Revision (Pretty much on the last day).

Objective #1 - For anyone to appear in PMP, if they have understood the concepts clearly, they should be able to clearly recollect and articulate to which process group and knowledge area the 42 process areas belong - This is not difficult at all and this works as an excellent metric of your preparedness. No. I don't intend to say that you memorise. Please focus on the concept - if that is clear, one would be able to recollect the process group and Knowledge areas for all of them. It is as simple as :

1. If you are starting something / meeting new people - Initiation

2. If you are planning / estimating / defining - Planning

3. If you are performing 'work' - executing

4. If you are verifying something, making changes to fine-tune or correct, checking something if it is correct or not, reporting on performance etc - Monitoring and Controlling

5.Closing - Simple, if you are closing something.

So, please don't memorise everything - understand the concepts. It is not that tough. 

Objective #2 - I should be able to look at the ITTO chart of all processes and write a sentence defining each of the input, Tools / Technique and the output. Again no memorising business, but this is a clear test of understanding the concepts. Do I understand what 'Decomposition' means? Do I understand what the difference between 'Work Performance Information', 'Work Performance Measurements' and 'Performance Reports' is? Can I distinguish between each of them - This is more of a test of how much you understand the concept.

With those objectives, I did my revision and I was unclear about a few things for which I refered to PMBOK again. I covered these concepts by scanned the PMBOK. 

The Exam

I have to say that I got a pretty tough set of questions. Language was twisted, in some EV calculations, I had to compute the AC first as the expression was given in labor rates, labor hours and was also laced with indirect costs which one has to ignore because the basis for estimation of costs in this project was direct costs only. 

Some questions were very very lengthy - around 5 or 6 of them.

Had a lot of calculations - one in every 3 question was a calculation or a network diagram. Had about 9 or 10 network diagrams. 

Time was not an issue and I finished the exam off in about 2 hours and 15 mins. Marked about 10 questions for revision and then revisited those, which took another 10 mins.

I was utterly disappointed with the Prometric Center. There were people who were appearing other exams (GRE) in the same room and the keyboards were making a lot of sound. The guy sitting next to me was hitting the keyboard so that that I had to go and actually report the matter to the TCO. It was disturbing. Rated the center accordingly in the survey.

After survey - Magic !! The congrat screen and the result of 4 Ps and 1 MP. The MP was in Closing, which has a lesser margin of error because of lesser number of questions. Anyway, I don't mind it and I am generally happy with the result. 

Do's and Don'ts

Purely according to me and the list may wary.

1.Treat this like any other exam. Don't get scared by the lengthy application process (my passport application was easier).

2. Ignore the Internet - Don't look at any of the material / appear in any of the mock tests on the internet  till you have read the text book (PMBOK) and used the guide as a reference material. Don't test yourself before this - When you know you are not prepared, this is wastage of time. 

3. How many times should I read the PMBOK & the guide - It depends. As a good metric, I would say, that you should be able to easily recollect which process belongs to which process group / knowledge area and at the same time know (and not necessarily memorise) what each of the input, tool, technique and output is. Just know what it is, no need to memorise. You should be able to write a simple sentence to define what it is.

4. Many people here recommend putting down the formula and page number 43 of PMBOK on the scratch paper during the exam - I am quite opposed to it. If you cannot recollect which group / KA a process belongs to, you are not prepared for the exam and you have not understood the concepts yet. And come on, putting down the formulas on the scratch paper - Can anyone tell me which formula are they struggling with? All formulae were really easy and involved basic mathematics. Mugging up formulas is again not recommended.

5. The exam is for 4 hours, which is a lot of time actually. I was able to finish my paper in 2 hours and 15 mins. This is despite the fact that there were many network diagrams and calculations. Nevertheless, it is better to get accostomed to the exam environment and time management aspects by taking a couple of full length mock tests. Again, take the result of the mock test with a pinch of salt, don't read too much into the percentages. 

6. I used Rita' book as a guide. Like many others, I found the language to be slightly offensive, clearly giving out a sense that the author believes that the world is full of idiots and she is entrusted the responsibility to guide the world in the right path. Having said that, if I am seeking knowledge, I need to flush my ego in the toilet. All said and done, Rita's language was easy to understand and that settles the deal. Having said that, if someone wants to refer to a book my a different author, I heard a great deal about the book by Andy Crowe, but didn't get a chance to read it.

7. Don't waste your money on paid mock tests - there are many free ones which are available on the net and they are more than sufficient. Better still is to stick to not more than one or two sources. Christopher Scordo is recommended as it is available on the PMI website (which in a way means that it is authorised by PMI) and it has enough material to cover the whole journey.

Cheers

Prasad