Name: Shane A. Prebenda
From: Boston, MA, USA
Industry: Financial Technology
PM Experience: 6 years
I studied for about 20 weeks and passed on the first attempt.
I used a PM PrepCast to manage PMP knowledge, PMP Exam Prep Questions to identify knowledge gaps and review, and Rita Mulcahey's PMP Exam Prep 9th edition to practice all concepts from PMBOK and PMP Prepcast.
My Lessons Learned:
I have been a project manager in marketing and financial technology for about 6 years. As I progressed, I wished to learn more about key PMP concepts both to broaden and solidify my experiences. I learned of the PMP exam and started investigating, eventually applying to PMI and signing up for the PMP exam. Because I work often late into the evening, one of the risks I identified early on was staying on schedule with my PMP preparation baseline. By developing a waterfall project management plan for my PMP prep, listing specific concepts and lectures to be studied each night over ~150 days I was able to "Control Schedule", trend study schedule variance for emergent risk events and evaluate the impact of any required study schedule deviations as far as 5 months out. This eliminated a major source of uncertainty and stress in the months leading up to the exam while reinforcing key concepts and enabling me to trend my progress!
I quickly realized that even with the PMBOK Guide, Cornelius Fitchner's PMP Prepcast, my new PMP Project Study Plan and the PMP Exam Prep Questions, I would need additional resources to manage PMP knowledge. So I did some more homework and found Rita Mulcahey's PMP Exam Prep 9th. It was great in reinforcing the foundational concepts that I captured from the PMP Prepcast.
After about 16 weeks, I began taking practice exams. I started with the full 200 question exams, which was challenging initially, but enabled me to truly identify gaps in my "current" and "desired" state of preparation in each knowledge area and then reinforce them with Rita's Prep book and the notes I took from Cornelius' PMP Prepcast. I scored 70% on my first practice exam, 75% on my second practice test and 80% on my third. While tempting to continue taking tests without reviewing, I stayed true to my study project plan which helped me increase my scores each time until I was ready to take the actual test.
In the last 2-3 weeks leading up to the exam, I studied about 20 hours per weekend to advance my mastery of the content. This may have been a bit excessive but it enabled me to walk into the exam knowing I had done everything possible and Cornelius mentioned that if you are consistently scoring above 80% on practice exams, you have a very strong chance of passing which was a really helpful target!
Finally, I took a 200-question practice exam a few days prior to the actual exam and at that point, I had the confidence I needed to pass.
To recap my best practices:
1. Plan, plan, plan -- like in any project, this enables you to adapt to the inevitable changes in your schedule leading up to the exam
2. Capture all questions where you have content gaps and study them after each exam
3. The exams are long and tiresome. Be sure to adequately record questions you don't know so you can reinforce gaps in concepts and material after each exam. This will help reduce burn out from taking so many 200-question exams (because your score will increase more each time...) !
4. Use whatever method you need to understand all process groups and knowledge areas and their sequence - I used flash cards and it helped a lot...
5. Review -- After going through the PMBOK Guide, I used Cornelius' PMP Prepcast (and my Prepcast notes) to close gaps in concepts - much easier to digest than the PMBOK a second time over.
On exam day, try to relax, practice confidence and prepare your work-station if you are taking the exam from home at least 1-2 days in advance so you can "control your world" ahead of time. Also, having a quiet space where you are not bothered is key!
In short, I'd like to dedicate my success to Cornelius Fitchner and his PMP Prepcast first and foremost and secondarily, Rita Mulcahey's 9th Edition. I wouldn't have passed without them and I recommend the PMP Prepcast at minimum to everyone!
