TOPIC: From Chad Shahin, PMP

Chad Shahin, PMP sent us the following lessons learned:

Date: July 2, 2009

I am happy to inform you that I have just passed my PMP, thanks to Cornelius Fichtner Project Management PrepCast audio training course. I gave myself 5-1/2 weeks to study for the PMP and I decided to do it without the need for a live class or boot camp. I listened to one of the free sample lessons and decided it is a very content-rich and well-rounded course. So I ordered my PMBOK and PM PrepCast and started studying. I spent 4 days filling out the application, which ended up being 57 pages, thus only leaving me 5 total weeks for studying. I also got a test prep study book (I used Rita’s).

With the limited time, my studying routine consisted of: 1) Reading one section of PMBOK at a time, highlighting items 2) Listening to the corresponding PM PrepCast episode, further highlighting and taking margin notes right on the PMBOK 3) Repeating steps 1 & 2 for successive sections and episodes each night 4) The next day re-listening to the previous night’s episodes while driving 5) After finishing the PMBOK and PM PrepCast, reading the test prep study guide, highlighting, making margin notes, going through most, but not all, of the exercise, and taking the end-chapter tests 6) Building my own brain dump sheet and flashcards (printing on card stock and cutting them) 7) I then reviewed for about an hour before the test and took the test.

Although I had originally planned that after reading the test prep book I would go back and re-read the PMBOK (at least the highlighted sections and margin notes) and doing the same for the test prep book, and then taking a dozen sample tests, I never got a chance to do any of that. I only finished the first round of reading the prep book the night before my exam and took it the next morning with a comfortable passing marks. I probably spent about 100 hours of total studying.

So although I do not suggest taking the exam with only a few weeks of studying as I did, I would suggest that with all of the reports of people taking 4 to 6 months (and even longer), they are stretching the learning process too far. Perhaps 2 months to 3, at the most, should give you the best results. And I highly suggest the PM PrepCast course.