Hey Friends,

Glad to share with you all the happy news that I managed to earn the credential PMP from PMI, USA!!! Feels good, Project Management Professional, awwww.

Now, having had all the learning from PMBOK, who could forget to jot down the lessons learned for reference for all the aspiring PMP’s.

Once to believe, this is an excellent forum for any info required to be a successful PMP. It has a plethora of knowledge & experience to offer as well as a big pool of practice questions to try & test the knowledge. Thanks to the PMZilla team for the excellent forum.

 Exam pattern:

• Hardly, 10 on 200 questions were direct ones as observed in any of the mock tests.
• As said on this forum before, the new exam pattern has no separate questions on the ‘Social Responsibilty’ section. It is merged as an integral part of the project management activities.
• The exam has a pre test & a post test tutorial. Pre test tutorial to be done quickly to steal time to jot down your mugged formulae & page 43 charts whereas post test tutorial to test your patience on the anxiety for the test scores & cross fingers.
• The test timing is descending 04:00 Hrs. to 00:00 Hrs. hence, do not get worried in case the exam centre takes time to check you & leave you couple of minutes late into the exam cubicle.
• I targeted the exam for 3 hrs & managed to finish in 03:15 hrs. Rest 15-20 min to complete the 14 qs. That I had marked for review. I utilized the last 25-30 min to revise the marked answers & could barely go through 100 on the total of 200 qs. Once again just for surety.
• 5-7 numerical questions, 3 CPM questions, 4-5 TCM questions.
  

Study material: 

• I attended the training in Aug’11 & before that had no least plans on any certification. 31^st Aug is when I scheduled the exam & the exam date being 19^th Oct, Hyderabad. On 17^th was when I rescheduled it to 21^st Oct, Andheri. Thank you Divya for all your help on this!! 2 months of thorough preparation is a must.
• PMBOK being the encyclopedia on this, you just cannot think of taking it casually. 2 revisions bare minimum on PMBOK.
• Rita’s book & HeadFirst are the two best books available to make your concepts clear. Whilst Rita’s book offers a serious tone with a detailed & deep study on each topic; HeadFirst is a lighter book for those who enjoy pictures, puzzles & riddles whilst studying. I took the Rita way & had 2 thorough revisions on it.
• One important thing I would want to tell all the aspirants – the more the questions you practice, the more confidence you gain. Try to solve as many mock tests as possible but ensure quality on the questions, not just any XYZ questions available on net as the most important thing is to have your concepts clear & not to mix explanations given from solved problems on various websites.

 Exam centre:

Hyderabad- Banjara ville. But I was lucky enough to know enough on Telangana issues & hence cancel my tickets & reschedule the exam for Andheri, Saki Naka.

Definitely, the security is too tight with each & every corner of the exam room under CCTV monitoring & continuous supervision.

Thorough checks before entering the exam hall & forget having with you your Titan or kerchief, tissues, pencil, water bottle or any other thing.

Eventually, I was just amazed to read “Congratulations” you PASS....YIPPEEE – 21st Oct’11

A very nice experience!! Glad I got the opportunity & banged on it :-)

ALL THE BEST!!!

Lajja Patel, PMP