This is something which i would like to share with all PMP aspirants who are preparing for their PMP Certification. This could be considered as a Tip or a Motivation based on my experience on how I did for achieving my PMP.
I planned to write PMP examination about 6 to 7 months back. First of all i bought PMBOK in order to go through the theory and concepts. Yes! it is boring, that is what i understood at first. As i visited the PMI website, i understood the advantages and disadvantages of having a PMI membership, My intention of getting a membership in the first place was to get a reduced exam fee, in case i failed in the first attempt.
Yes ! That was the primary reason, why i enrolled myself for the PMI membership at that time. Meanwhile, i subscribed to the online training for PMP from PM Prepcast (This is only one which i used and found to be very useful, there are many others available in the market)I Have been watching the video daily, spending at least 2 hours a day. I was not comfortable in watching the video always in computer, hence i used to stream those lessons in my Television set and used to sit in front of it and prepare notes. Those were the notes which i would rate as best reference material before the day of examination. Going through the concepts, i was surprised to notice that I have already been doing in my daily work most of the things mentioned .Obviously without knowing the technical terms or knowing what it is about.
Since i registered i started getting information about monthly premium deliverables and workshops from projectmanagement.com (I registered using my PMI credentials) gradually, i started understanding the concepts from PMBOK and from the video tutorials and started applying that in my daily office works. Fortunately, i was given responsibility to initiate a Transition project from my company, and i used this opportunity to work and apply the different processes and tools. My manager supported me in this, as he was happy to get the work done in the standard way, using the required tools and templates. The deliverable like templates, which i used to get from projectmanagement.com website were used for many activities from then.
I remember the quote "The best way to learn is by doing it". I will call that as a self-initiated hands-on Training. This was done for almost 3 months’ time. Now, i wanted to prepare for the examination, for which, i should plan, prepare and enroll for the examination in January 2017. Once you have the target date, you will be more serious and you will have a fire inside your heart to be prepared and achieve your goal. Accidentally, i found PM Exam notes page in Facebook and made myself a part of it and used to follow the quiz and the learning materials posted on it. I used to answer almost all quiz questions posted on it from last 2 months or so. The questions were good, and the most important thing was the answers posted for those questions explaining the reason. Last 3 weeks were the critical time period for taking the examination. It is not the time to learn something new. But to revise what you have learned and practiced and trying out some sample examination. I subscribed to a few sample exam simulators (OSP International, Pmstudy etc: were few available in the market, Exam Simulator from OSP International was something I used for my preparation) As soon as you try out sample examination, you will be able to have an understanding on how the real exam will be.
Sitting 4 hours in front of the computer focusing the questions was difficult for me. Normally after 30-40 minutes, you will get saturated and lose your focus. Trying out sample examinations will give you this capacity to handle 200 questions in 4 hours. My first sample examination score was 30%. It was only because, i was fed up sitting in front of the computer for 4 hours to take the exam. Trying out at least 4-5 sample examination will make you flexible and adapted to handle this time period without losing the focus. The day before the examination, i stopped learning anything new rather, i was going through all the notes which i prepared. Did some specific examples related to Network diagram and Earned value management.
Writing examination at Prometric center, is a good experience. You can take breaks in between but watch out the time left and adjust your breaks based on the confidence level that you will be able to complete the exam within 4 hours. The questions for the final PMP examination was not as tough as what you find in different exam simulators in the internet. The questions will be clear and will not make confusion, and identifying the question to which process group and what is it intended to do is the key point to answer a question.
It was a wonderful experience, seeing the final page after the PMP examination displaying "Congratulations, you have passed the PMP examination".
