My journey towards earning the PMP.
I can’t speak for others but I started managing projects without formal training nor mentoring. Tools and techniques then were ‘trial and error’, exchanges between colleagues and some basic common sense. In was in 2005, when my employer sent us to one of the external training conducted by a PMI Rep, that I came to know about the PMP credential and PMBOK. What came as a ‘eureka’ was the trainer showing us the concept of triple constraints scope-time-cost, WBS, activities sequencing and the ‘email game’. The 1st thing that I did when I got back from classes was to share with my team during team building the ‘game’. It was a rather meaning and fun game highlighting the importance of communication model. Let me know if you want to find out how that game works, shall share with you.
Back to 2005, I believed in the PMBOK (3rd edition) and ordered a copy from ebay. I went around sharing what I learnt to my team and decided then to be a PMP one day. One tool and technique I actually used was the critical chain method to optimize my schedule and team. What I did was to take my team member’s activity estimates and manage by buffers. There was a lot of talk among us about the critical path, but I believed not many understand it’s meaning. Another distinct tool and technique was the use of EVM. The elaborate trending and forecast charts I did to bring back a delayed deliverable would be the performance measurement baseline with the SPI, CPI, EAC, ETC and TCPI. If I were to be back to those years, I believed the tedious calculations did back then would had been much simply done and I would had spent 90% of my time communicating with stakeholders and inspiring the team.
Fast forward to Sept 2009, I registered with PMI and submitted my application online. After the application was approved, I booked the exam on the 25th of March, giving myself 8 months of preparation time. I treated this as my project. I planned my study progress on Google Calendar and triggered regular email reminders. One thing that I did not know was that PMI member gets a copy of latest PMBOK PDF. Believing I got a good deal, I ordered a print copy (2nd hand in mint condition) from ebay, it’s still in very good condition today as I did not use it much. I used technology a lot during the course of study. I ordered both the PM PrepCast and PMP Exam eFlashCards. I read the email study guides, viewed the video instructions, listened to the podcasts and reviewed the flashcards as often as I could during my spare time. Though I had read the PMBOK 3rd edition and used some of the methods previously, I decided not to be complacent and start the 4th edition ‘from scratch’. Another resource I got was Andy Crowe’s “The Pmp Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try”.
Besides the purchased resources above to aid me in my self study, I signed up with Yahoo Groups such as PMHUB and PMPBEST. I read through blogs from Deep Fried Brain which helped me in my last 2-3 days of revision before exam. The other resources was the sample questions which I took to have a feel how long I need for a 200 MCQ questions and my attention level. Call me weird but my strategy was to do the tests when I was most tired and sleepy, noting down questions I did wrong because of carelessness or uncertain about the topic. I almost forgot, there are a couple of good reads from PMI e.g. Practice Standards for Risk, Scheduling and WBS. There are a number of other reading materials I used but I my main reading material was the PMBOK and the PMI code of ethics.
So I viewed and listen to the multimedia a couple of rounds, read Andy Crowe’s book 2-3 times, PMBOK and code of ethics 3-4 times, including glossary, did approximately 1,000 questions in blocks of (10, 20, 50, 100 and 200), blogs and whatever reading material that helped explain concepts, theories and calculations. Without disclosing exam details, I initially tried memorizing the EVM, PTA, critical path calculations, 42 processes x 5 process groups x 9 knowledge areas and etc. After I understand how they are used, I can now comfortably draw/write them out without much ‘dumping’ but by knowing why. It helps.
I spent the last week doing sample exams and reviewing topics I got wrong. I tried to ‘read’ questions and answers so that carelessness will not steal points from me. Since I am staying 12 hours bus ride to the exam location, I took a flight the day before and settled down early in case of any delay leading to me missing the exam. Would be a ‘waste’ especially with the many days of studying. On the day of exam itself, I called the exam centre and asked about the procedures and timing. Though my exam was scheduled at 1:00pm, I was instructed to be there at 12:15pm. Though I was familiar with the place, pre-exam anxiety made me very nervous about the time during the scramble to the location. Point to note for future engagements, ask a week earlier if possible.
At the exam itself, I produced my passport for identification, signed on some papers and led to lock my personal items including watch. I did not bring a single item into the exam room. Papers, pencil and ear-muffs are provided. There was a 15 mins period for me to get used to the computer based testing. I used 10 minutes to ‘dump’ my process groups vs knowledge areas’ processes map, formulas and etc on the paper. The exercise is useful not only to ‘flush’ my volatile memory (my nervous brain) onto the paper for later reference, it made me calmer and more confident. 5 mins was good enough for me to know how to click on the CBT interface, which looked similar to many of the sample questions I did. I did the questions in good time. Questions I am not sure and those required calculations, I mark them for review and moved on to those I could answer confidently. I took the next round to review those marked and attempt to work through them, eliminating obviously wrong answers and selecting the best answers. I also used this time to carefully tease out what the questions are asking for actually among the noise. For those questions which I had no idea, never seen them in any sample questions, study materials etc, I will console myself they could be those ‘research’ questions not scored. That’s it, 2 rounds of answering and I’m done in 2+hrs. I believed I would convert the right answers to wrong ones if I did another round so I stopped at 2 (the initial and the review).
So I click to end the test, ended up in a wreaked state of mind. Did the survey (wondered what would had happened if I were to be at KL instead) and provided good feedback for the test center. After a ‘long’ wait (it felt very long to me), the word ‘Congratulations’ showed up! I shouted ‘yeah!’ in my mind and walked out to the proctor to officially end my session. Asked for my printout result, and returned home. The next day, I was still wondering if I am officially a PMP, sent an email to PMI after unable to find out any information from websites nor on my PMI profile (still asking me to schedule an exam). In a couple of hours, PMI replied that I am a PMP and my certification details are updated. True enough I checked and it’s all there, meaning my PDU cycle has started!
Summary:
1. Treat the PMP exam as a Project. Use Google Calendar and setup milestones, SMS and email alerts etc.
2. Joined PMI as member, read the latest copy PMBOK 4th ed. PDF. Easier to read contrasted to 3rd ed. previously studied. But a lot more easier to read after going through PM Prepcast/Andy Crowe’s at least once.
3. Relied on PM Prepcast to view the videocasts at home, listen to the audio on the move on mp4 player after converting to mp3.
4. Used the PM Prepcast’s email guides to get summary of topics and test on sample questions included.
5. Relied on PMP Exam eFlashCards and load on mp4 player to ‘learn’ on the move.
6. Studied Andy Crowe’s “The Pmp Exam: How to Pass on Your First Try” before PMBOK. Any doubts I have with the content I will validate with PMBOK.
7. Read “Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures—Second Edition” from PMI.
8. Read “Practice Standard for Project Configuration Management” (PMI).
9. Read “Practice Standard for Scheduling” (PMI).
10. Read Chapter 4 on Delegation, Authority, Responsibility, Accountability, and Reliability from “The Human Aspects of Project Management: Organizing Projects for Success, Volume One by Vijay K. Verma” (PMI).
11. Read “Practice Standard for Earned Value Management” (PMI).
12. Read “Practice Standard for Project Risk Management” (PMI).
13. Read Code of Ethics (PMI).
14. Read blogs e.g. Deep Fried Brain.
15. Joined forums/groups e.g. PMHUB and PMPBEST and read the discussions and updated guides/files.
16. Test myself on sample questions databases found online, books and in PMP Exam eFlashCards.
Here’s my contributed LL in PM Prepcast’s forum.
James Tan, CISSP, CISA, PMP.
Very useful information for PMP! Thank you!