How to Pass PMP-Personal experience.

• Introduction

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I would like to share my personal experience to pass PMP certification on 1st attempt.

First of all PMP is not about learning project management, but to be certified by PMI that your knowledge is up to the industry standard. When you should do PMP

PMI has very well descriptive information when you are eligible to sit for the exam.

If you have a secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree, or the global equivalent)you need at least five years of project management experience, with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.

four-year degree holder (bachelor’s degree or the global equivalent) its at least three years of project management experience, with 4,500 hours project management and 35 hours of project management education.

So from the above description its very clear PMI needs some project manager to sit for the exam not trainees.

And above all that's bare minimum requirement, Also remember it requires renewal of certification every 3 years by achieving some PDU. So from my personal experience do the certification when you can cash in the value added by the certification. Starting preparation

Bible for PMP is PMOBOK. I would say its a must while you read other books for references. There are 2 ways you can seat for the exam,

1. Be PMI member and then pay reduced fee for the certification. or

2. Seat for the exam as a non member.

In either case total cost will be more or less same. But my recommendation is to be PMI member, that will give you access to free soft copy of PMPBOK. Also some other resources.

So very first thing get access to PMBOK in what ever form does suites you. (e.g. For me paper book is much comfortable than pdf version for some other people may be reading from a tab/pad will be more convenient ). Once you start reading its very very important you start relate your daily work/your organization structure to the content of the book. The more you can relate more easy it will be . Never ever try to memorize anything. There are certain concept or process that may not directly relate to your organization process, but you should be able to still relate it or find the differences you follow in your own organization.

• Registering for the exam

As I said earlier if you are a PMI member or non member you have to apply to PMI to accept your application for the exam. You need to fill up certain details in the form that PMI will review before you can actually pay for the exam and get a registration number.

So make sure you already met PMI prerequisite. i.e. you have already gone through the 35 hours of training ( from a pmi recognized institute) and you have the required experience as project manager. Once you submit the application your application will be reviewed by PMI, typically it takes around 5 days. If your application is chosen for an audit you have to send the proof of all PMI required. So keep those documents ready even before you apply to avoid delays.

Once PMI accept your application you can pay for the exam and you will get a registration number by which you can actually book the exam date from a promatric center. You have 1 year of time while your registration is valid and you can give exam maximum of 3 times over that period. with of course a re-exam fee if you are not able to clear on first attempt. So be well prepared before 1st exam. Exam fees are high.

• How to prepare

OK, so by now you know what PMP exam content is from PMBOK and you are comfortable that you already do most of the activities in each knowledge areas and process groups. If you have already registered by now 1 year clock has already started ticking.

Be on your own pace, don't rush. If you are very comfortable and working as project manager for long time you could be ready as early as not even a month. But if you are not that comfortable, i would say keep around 3 months of time for preparation and understand each and every concept. If you were not following in your work start doing so. This will ease out your memory and the exam will be real beneficial.

As per PMBOK 5 there are total 47 processes and 10 knowledge areas. You need to know(understand) all the processes why that is useful what are the output that process is making and create a mind mapping about the output of the process going as input to which process.

VERY VERY Important. each processes input most of the time output of another process and output of that process is also useful that's why the process is there at first place. so dont read each process as standalone but visualize by doing that process you are at what stage of the project and once that process is complete you will use the out put to which process.

Apart from ITTO there are some concept on organization theory, communication procurement management where you actually need other books to refer. Some concept comes in exam which may not be explicitly written on PMBOK.

For the exam I would suggest to refer following books apart from PMBOK.

1. Rita Mulcahy's PMP exam preparation book

2. Head first PMP.

You can refer other text book too, but don't overload your brain. If you understand the concept and read 1/2 books you will be all ready for practice exam.

Now the simulator exams are very important. You will get 200 question to answer in 4 hours. Even the duration is very lengthy, keeping concentration all the time and to approach a question requires lots of practice.

You can get some free exam from

1. head first

2. pm study and lots of other free sites.

I personally think to get a paid version of Rita's fast track simulator s/w is also a great help for a quick success.

But main point is you need lots of material and questions for practice and once you can reach 80%-85% on these practice exam on first time attempt, then you can think yourself ready for the exam.

Good luck.

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