TOPIC: My 120-day journey to 5 P's on the PMP exam

I passed the PMP exam today with 5 P's.
I thought I'd close this personal project by archiving my lessons learned. Pun intended.

My journey began on January 2nd, when I signed on to a project management position at a large corporation.
I had more than 15 years of experience doing project management jobs in various industries but one of the requisites for my new job was to pass the PMP exam within the first year.
I was aware of what PMP certification was but had never really looked into it in any detail so I ramped up my efforts and started looking into the application process and contacted my former managers to get their pre-approval of the number of hours I would be declaring in my application.
The thought of being audited bothered me considerably so I wasn’t taking any chances.
I had never had any formal project management training that could be used for the required 35 contact hours so in February I decided to start attending weekly PMP study groups organized by my employer.
I forecasted that I would reach the necessary 35 hour milestone by mid-April. My initial intention was to take the exam in September or October.
Due to circumstances, around beginning of March, the study groups I was supposed to attend started getting cancelled one-by-one and I knew my plan to reach 35 hours by April was in jeopardy.

That’s when I subscribed to the PM Prepcast and fast-track my plans: I took a few days off at work, I took a first pass through most of the PM Prepcast at 1,5x speed, skipping over intros and summaries. Just enough to pass the final exam on a 2nd try and download the certificate.
I submitted my application to PMI on March 23rd, 4 weeks earlier than I had initially planned.
A few days later I received word that my application had been accepted without further audit.

My study plan
I immediately booked the exam for June 23rd, which coincided with the end of my 2 teenage daughters’ final exams. This assured me the house would be calm & quiet during my final study week and gave me a deadline to plan against.
At that point in time I had 12 weeks left to get prepared so I compiled a high-level study plan which basically came down to a weekly cycle per process group:

• listen (audio) to the precast for that knowledge area
• study the relevant PMBOK chapter, take notes
• study the relevant chapter in Rita Mulcahy’s book, take notes
• take the self-assessment test, analyze wrong answers
• take Rita’s end-of-chapter test, analyze wrong answers
• take learning/timed quizzes, analyze wrong answers

My job requires quite a lot of driving to customer sites so I was able to listen to the PM Prepcast while driving, which saved me a considerable amount of time.
I allocated another 4 hours per week for the other study activities and taking the tests/exams.

As I was not taking chances, I took off an entire week from work and I delved deeper into each chapter, making notes, researching things and generally building a picture of how it all fits together.
At the end of each chapter I would take a 40 question quiz on that chapter, followed by a 40 question quiz from random knowledge areas to ensure I was progressing. After every quiz I would analyze the answers I got wrong. I didn’t take the time to complete any full-blown 200-question mock exams except for Oliver Lehmann’s 175-question free sample test, on which I scored 73%.
On the last day before the exam I practiced making a brain dump (which I ultimately didn’t use), reviewed all process ITTO’s and read up on ethics. I spent the rest of the day taking timed quizzes in 50-question chunks.
When my scores got into the 90’s I felt confident.

Taking the exam
At the exam center (this was in Brussels) there were several people waiting to take the PMP exam, as well as other exams.
After having deposited all our belongings into a locker, we were herded into a small lounge where we waited to be called into security to be signed in one by one and shown to our cubicle for the test.
I was handed 4 sheets of scratch paper, a calculator and 2 pencils.
At the cubicle there was a choice of headphones or earplugs.
The test starts with a tutorial which I skipped.
I felt confident enough not to make a brain dump.
I didn’t find the questions particularly difficult, the PMP Exam Simulator questions are pretty representative of what I encountered on the test.
I did not encounter any direct ITTO questions.
I needed to perform only one or two calculations, answers could generally be deducted from the numbers given in the question.
Most questions could not be whittled down to one answer by elimination, very often two answers could not be eliminated and needed insight into which process/knowledge area you were in order to choose the right one.
Maybe five or six questions on network analysis, one had no solution due to cyclic references.
A considerable amount of questions were about the interrelation beteen stakeholder management, communications management, integrated change control and risk management.
One question on quality assurance used the term median instead of mean, and tested to see if you know what a median is by presenting erronous data.
I cannot recall any obvious ethics related questions.


A few lessons learned

• Know yourself: be aware of your personal learning style
• Skim through the material at least once before you make a study plan
• Stick to the study plan but plan for contingencies. You might get sick, your job or your family may require more attention than expected etc.
• Be careful when googling for free mock exams or apps: some of these are of questionable quality and have blatantly wrong answers, they will get you confused. PMP Exam Simulator is first-rate
• Don’t sweat memorizing the ITTO’s at all. Instead, concentrate on understanding what’s being done in each process, what information is in the inputs, where the inputs are coming from, what’s in the outputs and where it’s going to be used next
• When preparing the management plans you should always ask at least the what-how-who-when-why questions
• Learn to reproduce table 3-1 from the PMBOK, it helped me gain insight into inputs and outputs as well as how processes go together

Some random thoughts

• Cornelius is an excellent narrator. I will miss his company during my drives. If he ever decides to publish a recurring podcast show about project management (interviews, case studies hint-hint), I would be all over that
• For me, listening to the PM Prepcast audio seemed to work better than watching it. Somehow I found it easier to focus and assimilate what was being said without seeing the slides
• Added benefit: I found that Cornelius’ calm tone of voice had a positive effect on my driving style

I could never have pulled this off without the PM Prepcast: a big THANK YOU to Cornelius & Co.

Dear Tom,

Congratulations on passing your exam!

Thank you for sharing your success and detailed lessons learned. We are glad to hear that our products helped you prepare and pass your exam.

Good luck in all your future endeavors.