Now granted I have almost 15 years of experience with program management and Lean/Six Sigma but I’m amazed that I passed with just a bit over three weeks' work. Here's how I did it:
1. Monday, Nov 30th - I signed up for the PMT Institute bootcamp. I immediately watched the instructional video that suggested watching the full bootcamp pre-recorded videos prior to the live bootcamp so I did that. I just watched, didn't take notes, took about 40 hours but the instructor, Yad, is awesome. I also followed their instructions on completing my application. It was accepted without any issues and I was thankful for the guidance with that as well.
2. Monday, Oct. 7 - I took the live 4-day bootcamp but, honestly, I suggest just re-watching the videos instead of taking the live instruction. The videos are AMAZING and the same if not better than the live instruction.
3. Friday, Oct. 11th - after the bootcamp I made a study plan looking at all of the other resources at PMTI. They are plentiful and exceptional. So many videos on the processes behind Integrated Change Control Process, Quality, Risk Management, Agile, and other areas I needed a deeper dive into that were different videos than the bootcamp. Really a wealth of information. I just audited all of the resources on the site and made a plan to watch and read everything. Whatever Yad said to do, I encorporated into my plan and did it.
4. Monday, Oct. 14th - I went through all videos over this week and re-watched ones I needed to understand better. Over this week I took all of their practice tests on the PMTI site and was scoring in the mid 70's so I scheduled the exam for the following Thursday, Oct. 24th. Game time! I also bought the PM Pocket Prepp app for practice tests and took those for several days. Probably not worth it in the end FWIW. PMTI and PM Prepcast questions are much more in line with the real deal.
5. Saturday, Oct. 19th - bought the PM Prepcast Simulator tests. At this point, I had been through all material and didn't know what else to study! I needed practice tests and these were exactly what I needed.
6. Sunday, Oct. 20th - Simulator Exam #1 - 70%
7. Monday, Oct. 21st - Simulator Exam #2 - 78%
8. Tuesday, Oct. 22nd - Simulator Exam #3 - 84%
9. Wednesday, Oct. 23rd - studied until 1pm and then called it quits until test day. Honestly, my brain hurt. Three weeks on at full throttle, 8-12 hours per day except weekends (although I studied all day on 10/20). It was a LOT of work but full value and no idle time. 18 days of study time total equaling approximately 175 hours.
10. Thursday, Oct 24th - did light reading on ITTOS in the morning, wrote out the brain dump, felt ready as I could be. Took the test and totally thought I was failing halfway through! It's HARD and different than the other tests as others have said. Less clues and more “right” answers to choose from, plus the stress of it all.... You really need to know the material, not just memorize content. I got all ATs except in Closing where I got BT.
I can't overemphasize how exceptional the videos are that PMTI offers. I learned the material, didn't really memorize anything. The owner, Yad, developed the content with visuals that made learning the material somewhat easy. He has this one 3-hour video lecture of the complete process flow of a PMI project lifecycle where the video simply shows a 49 process workflow diagram and he just talks through the process. The guy is brilliant and I found it much less taxing on my brain to listen than read. For many hours of studying I just used headphones while gardening and working around the house and it was great. In the end, I think I watched/listened to all of his videos twice, the complete process flow 5x, did exactly everything he said to do, and it worked. I didn’t read one page of the PMBOK and learned a ton. Yad is clearly a solid PM and inserts real world examples and analogies that made it all click. Between the PMTI resources and PM Prepcast Simulator tests, I feel like I found a recipe for success. Good luck folks and I hope this helps someone!
