5th Feb, I cleared my PMP.
Very Interesting story!
Ladies and Gentlemen, my total experience is about 14 years, managing different sizes of Software projects everywhere, geographically.
Now hear this! I spent in total $9665 in clearing PMP. Shocking right! Yes it is!! When I reconciled all my spending, I was shocked too.
Lesson 1:
I prepared using Prep-cast since 2012. I started preparing aggressively for 3 months and stopped due to a new large project which I saw was more beneficial than getting a PMP. Obviously being a freelance consultant I saw more money in joining hands with a new client rather than spending time on PMP. Trust me it was a decision which I repented about year n half later. I was back to square one when I was not a PMP, but had money!
Lesson is decide your priorities, else one loose majorly on on benefits for the effort and cost one spends
Lesson 2:
I thought it was a piece of cake in 2013 when I was consulting on a Project with a Indian company into London (UK), I was so majorly involved in Project Management activities and on CMMi Level 3 QMS related to Quality Assurance than I took the exam without any preparation and I failed miserably. I think the total amount of time going through the prepcast and some material on Internet with reading PMBOK ( Not properly once). I lost money and time and effort. Even though I was earning well
Lesson is never go with a preperation of 30 days, untill you have started to score more than 80% on simulator of the company that Mr. Cornelius Fichtner manages! Amazing stuff by the way, which I realized now after running through 1800 question before taking the test
Lesson 3:
So today in 2016, after so much of preparation with work , travel back n forth into continents, I read PMBOK once, Head First once, Rita's book ( borrowed it from someone smile emoticon, Once and Prepcast lessons twice. Then bought the simulator about 1 month back and gave all the tests and finally a day before the exam gave the last test on simulator , Test 9 for ITTO. Everyone says you dont have to memorize them, true, but some aspect of it, once has to remember, but it becomes easy with ready and understanding the whole flow of the PMBOK standard for the Project Management Processes.
Lesson: My view is prepare of 90 days, give tests in next 30 days, if you score more than 75% hit the pro metric center.
My SAGA of almost 4.5 years and so many $$, is it going to help me now? I'll have to do a benefit analysis at the present day with all sunk cost , even cost related to my time and effort and energy wink emoticon and then see how will get my ROI!! You guys will laugh but I made this a project which ran in loss eventually as you can see as I missed lotsa other opportunities last 6 months to earn. I even created This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. only for PMP, that is my domain and my last name.
But thanks to Cornelius Fichtner and company, their support desk, who I bugged so much many times with my questions.
16th Feb , life is better as a PMP!
