PMP in 100 days: Lessons learned
Though it seems like an advertisement but it is really not!! Clearing PMP exam and getting PMP certified is a journey which requires perseverance, hard work and dedication.
I have completed my training from Knowledgehut in January 2017. The training was for 4 days so it was really important that the concepts should be demonstrated with live examples. I am thankful to Pankaj Sharma, our faculty for the valuable coaching which gave me a gist to structure my study plan.
I decided to have a target date for my exam in April 2017. To achieve this milestone, I submitted by application and it was approved in Feb’17. To have a reality check about giving my exam in Apr’17, it was very important to see if the concepts are cleared by Mar’17. It becomes very hard to study with the professional commitment towards the work. I downloaded and read PMBOKGUIDE- 5th edition from PMI website as I am a PMI member and used to practice 30 questions online daily till Mar’17. It was crystal clear that I would need one more month practice and study to appear for exam. Therefore, I thought to take an exam date in mid May’17 i.e. 11th May’17.
The clock started ticking and finally I applied leave for 3 weeks starting last week of Apr’17. The study plan was more disciplined covering 12 hours of study each day. I planned my week as below:
1st Week- I prepared an excel sheet with ITTOs; Input, Tools & Techniques and Outputs for all the process groups and Knowledge areas. Since Initiating and Closing process group has 2 project management processes each, Executing has 8 project management processes, Monitoring and controlling has 11 processes and Planning has the highest project management processes i.e. 24, I studied and understood the role of all the ITTO in the same sequence referring PMBOKGUIDE and covering the entire week.
2nd Week- I practiced 3000 questions which includes sample questions by Cornelius Fichtner, Head First, Oliver Lehmann, Rita Mulcahy, Exam Central, Simplilearn, pmzest and referred many more websites.
3rd Week- This was the last week before the exam so I read through the ITTO again as the role of inputs, tools and outputs was far more understood now.
Finally, exam day arrived!! I was nervous which was normal and human. I had gone through the instructions and was trying to calm myself in those 15 minutes. My strategy was to read the questions completely before going to the options and try and mark very few questions as “Marked” so that there is no pressure of going through the questions again in the end. I had completed the questions in 210 minutes and kept 30 minutes for the marked questions which was around 50 questions. I don’t want to take a break in between the exam as this would have affected my concentration. I had prepared myself in that way that I could sit for 4-5 hours without a break while studying.
11th May 2017 mark as a day in my calendar for achieving a milestone. I cleared my PMP exam in first attempt and I am PMP certified. This achievement is path-breaking for me but it was not as simple as it seems to be. This journey would be incomplete without mentioning the name of my mentor Manish Singh and the blessings of my parents and god. Rest is history!!
Thanks & Regards
Supreet Kaur PMP
