My PMP Lessons Learnt

That's right. I got PMP certified!

I realised, from my efforts to prepare for the certification, that the network of Project Managers is all about collaboration and sharing. There are countless forums that share information on preparing for the PMP, or resources to help in the studies. In the spirit of that, I thought I'll share some of my lessons learnt from the exams before the news of it gets stale. :)

I underwent training in July (4 days, all weekends at Quahance) and registered for the exam during my second day of the training. I realised from my last adventure that taking the time to register for the exam puts you off track and therefore not ready for the exam.

Some of the highlights from the exam:

• There were no negative-type or trick questions (questions with "not" in them eg. Which of these is NOT an example of Risk mitigation?)
• I thought the Activity on Arrow was done away with the introduction of the 4th edition, but i got an AOA question that required me to compute the critical path. Not so tough, but would be good to be prepared.
• Lots of questions on different types of EAC and earned value. The problems were not the straight forward "Calculate CV, given EV and AC" type, but a little more trickier. Good thing i was prepared.
• Lots of questions on contract types, Risk.
• It was easy in parts and tough in parts.
• I thought there will be lots of wordy questions but I only got a couple like that and it did not bother me much.
• Most questions were on Earned Value, Risk, Procurement, communication and conduct (not in any order)
• Finished the exam in 2hrs and 10mins. This is with me taking the time to read and also go over a few questions that i had marked for review.
• I did make changes to the original selection for the questions that i had marked for review
• When the questions got tough, it got tougher and tougher before easing up again. Some of the choices on the tough questions seemed like all choices could be right (i'm guessing these were the sampling questions). The moderate and easy ones could easily be spotted with just one right choice.
• I finished the exam with about 30 mins to spare. Could have spent some more time going through some of the answers i guess, but i had a full bladder by then.

Exam prep LL

• I'm glad that i registered for the exam on the second day of the PMP prep training. The more you delay your application and registration process, the less likely you are to succeed in the exam itself.
• I tried my best to get some of the guys from my training batch to get together for a joint study, but that never worked and i put in my efforts on my own. - Don't bank all your efforts on a group study. If the motivation levels are not the same across your group, be ready to hike it by yourself.
• Always be in study mode. If you have a small study material that you got from the training institute, go over it daily irrespective of whether you have put in hours to study or not. This will ensure retention of key topics.
• The podcast from Cornelius Fishner is really good. I heard a few samples from his site and wish i had invested some money in it. But i did not have the time for that.
• My resources: PMBOK, Andy Crowe and Oliver Lehmann (both the 75 questions and the 125 questions: www.oliverlehmann.com), and no i did not read Rita. I used Rita's fastrack questions for one sample exam but gave it up after using Oliver's questions. Though the questions he has are a little tougher, what i really liked is instead of explaining the correct answer he would point to the source. A lot of the source happened to be books in the PMI library, so i must have read quite a bit about a lot of things that were in addition to what was in Andy Crowe or the PMBOK. Highly recommended!!
• There were a few questions that still stumped me and I contacted Sameer, my trainer from Quahance, for the answers and he was kind enough to respond to me over the weekend despite that being his busiest time! Thanks, Sameer! Also helpful was his mnemonic of the processes which laid the foundation to retaining a lot of the knowledge in the PMBOK.
• Also, if you can get your hands on the "Q&As for the PMBOK guide, Fourth Edition" from PMI; It will be very helpful. I saw a couple of questions today that were straight from the Q&As from the 3rd edition that was available to me in the PMI library. (Curiously the Q&As fourth edition is not available in the PMI library though it is out on print and also on amazon etc). Bottom line, PMI membership = value for money.
• I did not memorize the ITTOs but i knew the process well enough, but i guess it might help to remember what Tools and Techniques are used in which process. There were a lot of questions on these - especially in Quality, Communication, Risk and Procurement.
• In retrospect, i wish i had spent some more time studying. Would have breezed through the exam. But i suffered from the two classic symptoms of most projects: Parkinson's law and the student syndrome. Even in the last week before the exam, i lost 3 whole days due to some issues at home.
  But what the heck, nothing beats seeing "Congratulations" on the screen soon after the end of test survey is done - I did not read what was on the screen beyond that. :)

On with the job hunt now. Good luck to you all!

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