Hello all,

I am new to this forum and found this website very useful just before days of my PMP exam. I thought I should share my experiences.

I passed the PMP exam yesterday and would share my experiences. A number of people crack the PMP exam every month and share lessons learnt which is very useful for PMP aspirants - the would be PMPs.  It really feels great when you add PMP beside your signature (because that is as a result of your HARD WORK).

I had my 35 hours of training at Progressive Ventures last year during April 2011 and I wrote the exam in April 2012. So you can see I took a long gap for the exam. I could not get the needed time owing to project work at office and ultimately my mom forced me to write  the exam. :)

I am glad I wrote the exam.

(1) PREPARATION:

I had to read the material I got from training, or books like Rita, Paul Sanghera and Kim Heldman. Don't forget PMBOK. Now one would think, is it necessary to go through all these books to clear PMP? I would say it helps if you can. My experience is of all the books I found Kim Heldman the most comprehensive. None of the books go deep into the subject and explain the flow of PMP processes the way Kim does. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE BOOK. Rita, no doubt is read by every PMP aspirant. But I would say read it after you have read Kim's book. To give an example, NGT (Nominal group technique) is referenced in all the books, but would you know how it is conducted? Kim explains it well; so does she explain other concepts. My dissapointment was that I got to know the value of Kim's very late into my preparation.

My advice:
(a) Read Kim's book first. Understand each and every concept thoroughly. (Forget reading 2 times, 4 times or 5 times. If you understand the concepts - 2 readings would be more than enough)
(b) Read PMBOK second. (Note that there are many direct questions on the exam. By now you should have good understand of the material in PMBOK if you followed first point). PMBOK appearing boring to most (even I at first). The reason is it is not written to please you - but to be available as framework. So I guess they haven't made it interesting. Hence, a good book on PMBOK concepts should be read first. Then you can ENJOY THE PMBOK BOOK.
(c) Go through Rita's book (follow her chart - the most valuable tool in the book).

(2) MOCK TESTS:

There is a mock practice test available by Progressive ventures. Take that, and gain the value of it. You will find the gaps in your knowleldge. There are literaly hundreds of mock tests available on site which will prepare you for PMP. Sites like PMSTUDY, PMZILLA, EXAMCENTRAL, AJITHN etc. have loads of practice questions. It might not be an exagerration to say, your success rate is proportional to the amount of time you have put in mock tests. The advantage is - (i) you would get a feel of real exam (ii) you will gain the muscle to sit on exam for such a long time (4 hours) (iii) and not panic at exam all of a sudden. So practice the questions daily - as if it is a ritual. I didn't get time daily for personal and professional reasons. But if you can get this done, you can write the exam in quick time. Practice mock tests almost daily till before the day of exam (4 full mock tests and 20 questions per day).

(3) IS PMP EXAM EASY/MEDIUM/HARD?

I know every PMP aspirant wants to know the answer for this one important question. For them,  I would say - the answer lies in your preparation effort. If you do not know what is SPI or CPI, the exam would seem tough. I had almost 15 questions just on CPI and SPI ( I am not revealing questions as this is against PMI). So it depends purely on your preparation. Learn the art of remove the odd ones out from the multiple choices. Master the art of finding the closest answer. Both are important to get an answer right. The fundamental thing to know is to learn the flow of the PMBOK processes. Just knowing the meanings of terms will not do. To give the feel of exam, it will ask (it is not a question I got but would change it to help you understand) -

 "Your project is cancelled in the midway for x, y,z reason. As a project manager what would you do now?"

The answer to the above question would appear tricky if you do not know the closing processes. So when a particular process kicks in after "something occurs" is the key. Hence, inputs, t&t and outputs are all important. But they do not have any value on exam if you do not know the flow.  Learn to read, assimilate the content and meaning behind lengthy, wordy questions. I got lot of them on the exam. I had just 15 minutes to review in the end. (I spent a little more time than expected on some questions which had multiple similar answers. Otherwise I could have spared 30 to 40 minutes). So go with a strategy on how to deal with ambiguous and numerical questions.

(4) NUMERICAL QUESTIONS:

Should I worry about numerial questions like CPI, SPI, EV, CV, critical path etc? The answer is Yes. Believe me, they are simple questions involving a little of math. You will not find them difficult. There were good number of numerical questions from Time & Cost management. None from Initiation in my exam though - except for NPV stuff (no calcuation though). My recommendation is learn the PDM questions well - on critical path, forward and backward passes.

(5) SOME TIPS:

(a) Mark all numerical questions to be attended to later once you are through with wordy and direct questions. That way you would save time.
(b) On my exam I had a good number of direct questions too. There were lengthy questions also. Learn to ignore unnecessary details given in the question.
(c) Don't panic anywhere. Even though some questions might look difficult to you - on the whole you would have a sense that you are doing well. There is a mix of questions as you know - repeated questions, new ones etc.
(d) Mark all questions. Even if you are not 100% sure of a choice to make - mark it please. More number of answered questions will help you.
(e) Arrive at exam center early - 1 hour before if possible. I had one guy sent home as he had not got his original identification cards. Imagine the tension one would go through in such a situation. So take in care in taking along your original ids.

Hope you found this post useful. I made it look like an essay though :) Best of luck to you on your PMP exam.

Warm Regards,
Badrinarayan KV  PMP