Sharing my exam experience has been overdue and here it is. As you can imagine many of PMP concepts can be applied for this ‘project’ of taking PMP exam – such as planning, risk management, costing and budgeting. I am also going to share few tips that can save you time, energy and heartburn during the time leading up to your exam.

Read more about brain-dump and take a look at my own brain-dump here.

Read about the 10-min PMP preparation tip here.

This became quite a loong post so I am splitting into two. In this one I will share my lessons about preparing for the big day, due diligence needed, and few tips. In the subsequent post I shall share my exam brain-dump.

You can download PDF version of this post here.

So let’s dive right in.

PMI Membership

Taking membership from Project Management Institute is the first thing to do the moment you decide to take up PMP exam. Why?

Taking PMI membership has three distinct advantages –

1. You get your free, legal copy of latest PMBOK guide
2. You start becoming serious about the exam because now you have made a financial investment
3. You get a discount on the examination fee, and your overall cost of owning PMP certificate is reduced

The PMP beginner’s guide explains nuances of getting PMI membership, and more. You can refer to the guide here.

Preparation

The suggested way by my seniors in the organization was to buy one of the well-known PMP books and then read PMBOK and that book one after the other at least 4-5 times, till I understood everything in it. This meant spending LOT of time reading, and re-reading even if I didn’t get much in initial rounds.

As I started studying for the exam I realized that PMBOK wasn’t one of the juiciest books you can read. Other books I researched about and bought were not all that great from a perspective of simplifying the subject. One book that came closest to the way I’d liked was Head First PMP – but I found it to be a bit convoluted from exam perspective.

Therefore, I decided to make my own PMP study notes.

My goals for this preparation were –

1. Get the PMP certificate with least time of overall study
2. Make sure what I learn for the exam will help me do my job better as a project manager

In short, to learn the subject effortlessly and to be able to apply it on the job. Both these goals meant that I make my notes with additional care (even if it took time to research concepts).

I had taken quite a few professional exams (before and during my Engineering study, Management study, for technical certifications and CSM certification). And during the course of these exams I had researched for and used effective study and note making techniques. “Why not use these techniques and make killer PMP notes” I thought to myself, “that I could then share with my friends who wanted to take up PMP exam as well”.

With the above two goals and the raw inputs of my study notes PMExamSmartNotes.com blog was born.

Almost immediately I realized that I had an enormous responsibility now and my exam preparation was not anymore limited to what I would do if I were to prepare for just the exam alone.

Click here to get my PMP exam brain-dump for free.

I decided not to take up the exam until I finished the blog with all necessary notes, or else I might lose interest in completing it once I passed PMP. To add to this, PMBOK-5th edition based exam was just around the corner, and I wanted to be certified in the latest of the syllabus, plus, I wanted my notes on the blog to be relevant to PMP aspirants for a long time.

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