Hello everyone,

I cleared my PMP exam on May 2^nd, 2014 with 2 MPs (Initiating and Closing) and 3 Ps (Planning, Executing and M&C).

It has been a long 8 months since I became interested in PMP and finally attained my certification. So I am sharing my lessons learned here. It is a little long but I hope you will read it.

Sept 2013

A little while before September, my dear friend and colleague suggested I become PMP certified. He had completed his certification recently and was truly positive that this would be a worthwhile pursuit for me. I have to confess, at that point of time, I really had no clue about what PMP truly is. Anyways… he got me interested and I enrolled in Simplilearn, Bangalore for my Boot Camp.

I have been managing projects for over 10 years and I thought the training will touch upon subjects I would be familiar with. The 4 day boot camp was a revelation. I learned so many new things and found that there were quite a lot of gaps between my experiences and what PMBOK advocates. Our trainer was really patient and covered everything in an easy to understand manner. So I understood most of the things. However, post training, when I took the mock exam, I scored a measly 103/200 (51.5%).

I became a member of PMI post this training and got hold of the PMBOK. I started reading the PMBOK – not regularly but once or twice in a week. But like everyone said, PMBOK is a textbook and that made it hard for me to correlate the concepts to my real life experience. For instance, there could be many things you may already be performing as part of your day to day work, but you may not have attached a term or built a concept for the work you do. So this made it difficult for me initially, to relate to the subject.

So I bought HeadFirst PMP (based on PMBOK 4^th Edition) as it was suggested to me by my friend (who had sparked my interest in PMP). I found the book quite interesting and very easy to understand.

Oct 2013 – Jan 2013

Unfortunately, there were some personal problems during this period. I had to deal with them and my regular work and preparation for PMP. Since I hadn’t booked an exam date, I conveniently pushed PMP certification to end of my priority list. However, during these 4 months, I managed to devote about an hour each day to HeadFirst PMP mainly to keep up the momentum (I couldn’t squeeze in time to study the PMBOK guide). I was anxious that if I lost touch with the subject, I would have a tough time recollecting whatever I had learned. I couldn’t maintain the same pace on the weekends as I was busy with other things.

At one point in time in Dec 2013, I completed HeadFirst PMP, and I decided to check my preparation level. I still had access to Simplilearn’s paid exams (which are allotted to you once you enrol in their training). So I took an exam on one Sunday. I found SimpliLearn’s questions quite difficult. HeadFirst chapter wise questions were simple and straight forward. As a result, my score in that test was 123/200 (61.5%). A little better. But I knew this wasn’t going to help.

So I changed my strategy. I started with Rita’s book (8^th Edition). I found her approach to be quite different from HeadFirst PMP. I managed to study for 3 hours on weekdays (1.5 hrs before dinner and 1.5 hrs after). I also started studying the PMBOK guide along with Rita. I was progressing at a slow pace. Till the end of Jan, I had covered only the first 3 chapters in both books (averaging roughly about one chapter a week).

Feb 2014

Luckily, my personal commitments got over by end of Jan, allowing me to focus strongly on my preparation.

What I found (and so many PMP aspirants agree to) was that Rita’s approach is one of the best in understanding the PMBOK principles. Initially, I used to wonder why the focus on ITTOs is missing in her book. But Rita explains the concepts in such a way that you can’t help but start to logically understand the flow of Inputs, Tools/techniques and Outputs. Also, one of the biggest help was her Project Management Processes chapter. Truly, this was my weak area and her book helped me gain a better understanding.

Using her book alongside with PMBOK, I was able to understand so many concepts easily – especially the integrated change control, roles of PM, Sponsor etc, why a particular activity took place in a particular process among other things. Studying Rita’s book made me more confident than before.

In fact, so confident, that I wanted to schedule the exam date. I went online on one Sunday in Feb and paid my exam fees online. Pat came the reply – I have been selected for an audit! Even though I have read that Audits are random, the only thought at that time was – why me J To add to my misery, I didn’t have a degree certificate (I graduated in 1997 and never thought to apply. Silly of me.)

I had to go to Bangalore University and apply for my Degree Certificate. I had read about delays in procuring Degree Certificates so I was now worried if I can make it in the 90 days deadline to meet the audit. I mailed PMI about this concern. They graciously extended my deadline by another 30 days. Thank you, PMI! I also mailed my PMP Bootcamp trainer, he also reassured me that everything will go fine. That was a morale booster at that time.

So the next 2 weekends (Saturdays) saw me going to my old college and Bangalore University. It was a good experience in itself. I applied in Tatkal. I got the certificate in three weeks.

Mar 2014

Post receiving my certificates, I got my current manager and ex-manager to validate my experiences. I posted all these to PMI. Within five days, I got my approval to schedule the exam. Even though I was running around arranging my documents, I was still diligently continuing with my preparation. So when I got my approval, I selected April 4^th as the date. I thought this will be sufficient to complete my preparation. But two weeks into March, when I finished one round of Rita and PMBOK, I took Rita’s PMFastTrack exam to check my preparation level. I had scored 69.5%. Then I took PMPForSure exam (free 100 questions) and found that I failed (58%). This made me realize that I wasn’t ready. So I rescheduled my exam to May 2^nd.

April 2014

I started my 2^nd round of preparation (3 hours on weekdays and 8 hours each on weekends with no TV or outings J). Study Rita first and read the same chapter in PMBOK. This time, I was able to understand concepts even better. But there were times, when I thought I was over-studying. However, these thoughts went out of my mind, when my scores started to improve. In the 3^rd week of April, I took HeadFirst PMP exam (online) on one Sunday. I thought the exam was actually tough. When I hit the Submit button, I was happy to see that I scored 83%. For a guy who hadn’t scored more than 70% in any prior PMP exam, this was a happy moment indeed. This also revealed that I was on the right preparation path.

In the 4^th week of April, I finished a quick 3^rd round of Rita and PMBOK. I took Rita’s PMFastTrack exam. I scored 81.5%. Again, this was quite good.

During the last 3 weeks in April, I was also solving questions from Scordo (from PMI Website). I was averaging from 70-94% on these tests.

Last 5 days

During these last 5 days, my focus was on learning the ITTOs more thoroughly. I started by understanding the Outputs of each process and work backwards to understand the tools/techniques and Inputs. I adopted this approach from Rita’s book. And it actually helped. Please note that I just couldn’t memorize as I was running out of time and understanding was my only course of action.

During these 5 days, my brain-dump was also finalized - all formulae and the 47 processes.

Day of Exam

I had a disturbed sleep the previous night. Even in my dreams, I used to get options A to D and was trying to attempt the correct answer with no questions! Quite a nightmare, really.

I had scheduled the exam at 12:30 PM. So in the morning before leaving to the exam center, I created the brain dump as I had read in PMZilla about this. Trust me, it really helped.

Luckily, the Prometric center is situated 4 kms from my place. I reached there at 11:30 AM. I was allowed inside at exactly 12:00 PM. My thoughts were – this is it, this is the real thing I have been waiting for. I was nervous, but not panicky. I knew, whatever the result, I had some solid preparation on my side and that would guide me.

The first 3 minutes, I spent understanding the tutorial. In the next 12 minutes, I finished the brain dump. I improvised further and added the Tuckman Ladder acronym (FSNPA) and the Quality Theorists’ names and their theories.

From the first question till 50^th question, I was really stumped! The questions bore no resemblance to anything I had encountered earlier. However, I kept smiling at the screen J I took more time answering these questions (1 hour 20 mins) as I had to really dig deep in my brain to fish out the right answer. The next 100 questions were relatively easier. The last 50 were again tough. I finished my exam in 3 hours 45 mins. I had marked around 30-40 questions for review. I started reviewing the answers in these 15 mins. I was able to review only around 10 of them (changed 2) before my time ran out. Even at this point, I wasn’t sure how I had done. All I knew was that I put in my best effort.

Finally when the screen became blank, I thought I will see the survey. But the computer had some issue, and the facilitator promptly switched me to another one. Here I did the survey first and the screen went blank again. Suspense… Finally, I received the message – Congratulations! Phew! I learned that I had scored Proficient in Planning, Executing and M&C and Moderately Proficient in Initiating and Closing. I just bowed my head down in a silent thanks to God who was with me all through.

Post exam, I called my wife and told her the good news. For both of us, it was like, we both were preparing for the exam. She had been so encouraging and supportive throughout my journey. In fact, she was more confident that my preparations will yield a positive result J

Lessons Learned:

1. Prior to attending a boot camp, I wish I had studied HeadFirst PMP. This would’ve given me more understanding in the actual training. But some say it is better to come to the boot camp with an open mind.
2. HeadFirst PMP, Scordo and PMStudy exams were close in format to the real exam.
3. Rita’s book is highly recommended and I second that. I am not sure if I would’ve passed without this book. Especially, the end of chapter questions. They really make you think and that gets you tuned into answering questions from PMP exam’s persepective.
4. Understanding the concepts helped me more than anything else. I kept a log of all questions I had in a chapter and during my second round of study, I would revisit this list to see if I could answer those questions.
5. Memorizing the ITTOs was something I couldn’t do. And I don’t regret it.
6. PMPrepCast was something I learned about at a later point in time. I wish I had taken that as it would’ve been like having a personal tutor.
7. I made a half hearted attempt at creating my notes. I preferred going to through the PMBOK guide during the last 2 days of exam for revision. I wish I had created one as it might’ve saved some time.
8. PMZilla – I had been a passive member on this website observing people write about their experiences. I kept visualizing the day when I would be able to go online on their forum and post my lessons learned. This visualization helped me tremendously. The PMZilla members are so positive and so encouraging. At times, when I used to feel down, I would go and read some of the recent posts. This gave me the courage to forge ahead in spite of the odds in my favour.
9. I purchased the PMZilla tough questions Ebook but I ran out of time and didn’t practice any of the questions in the Ebook. I only took their online 30 tough questions.

Some of my scores in the exams are below:

Simplilearn Exam 1 – 58%

Simplilearn Exam 2 - 61.5%

Rita PMFastTrack Exam 1 – 69.5%

PMPForSure – 58%

Oliver Lehmann 75 Questions – 65.3%

PMZilla 30 Tough Questions – 67%

HeadFirst PMP Online Exam – 83%

Rita PMFastTrack Exam 2 – 81.5%

Scordo Tests – 70-94%

Thank you, PMZilla. PMP Aspirants - Wish you all the best of luck in all your endeavours!