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Passed CAPM today (ksganesh) Hi All: At this moment I would like to thank PMHUB since I was a regular reader of the PM forums and specially the LL’s section on your website which helped me in my preparation especially few days before my exam. Greetings, When I decided to take the PMP test last year, I thought it will be just like any other test I took. Someone recommended Head First to prepare for the test, so I borrowed it and read it in about a month.
As IT Service Management grows in maturity, so too do the requirements for developing and recognizing capable individuals in the industry.
Introduction  Roger Chou PgMP Recently, as U.S. President Obama receives his Noble Prize, people have been talking about his success and call it “Obama phenomenon.” Many people believe, one of the secrets lies in his “Vision Leadership”. Vision Leadership is also referred to “Charismatic Leadership” in many textbooks of project management.
You are a project manager. You know what it takes to get things done. You work smart and you work hard. You create charts, schedule, plans, and deliverables. You are a person of action. You plan. Achieve. Close. And then it’s onto to the next assignment. It’s what you do.
About 2 years ago, I wanted to do my PMP certification, I took PMI membership, downloaded the 3rd edition PMBOK and that was all I did, never really sat down and studied for the exam seriously and my PMI membership expired. I reapplied earlier this year and wanted to take & pass the test in 2009. Based on LLs from PMHUB and my own experience, I decided to take the exam only after I feel 100% confident that I can pass the exam. I started with reading PMBOK 4th edition cover to cover, one thing I noticed is that it is much more reader friendly than the 3rd edition. 1. Poor planning: Who are your IT managers and do they get enough opportunity to plan or under pressure from senior management they tend to think planning as a waste of time because they believe that time is better spent doing something rather than planning. Do you involve your project team members in planning? Do they have the skills and experience to make complete plans? Or you always ask them to implement the solution. These are fundamental questions that need to be answered first.
I registered for the PMP exam early this January with the intention of clearing it by end of March. Procrastination set in and March-end became December. There..you have the first lesson learnt – the longer you wait to write the exam, the harder it gets.
In Jan, I was on course to appear for the exam based on the 3rd edition of PMBOK. I read Rita Mulcahy (5th Edition) chapter by chapter and did all the end-of-chapter questions. Just when I was starting to feel in shape to write the exam, a distraction came up and I had to reschedule. When I realized that I would have to go after the exam based on the 4th Edition of PMBOK, I dumped the Rita Mulcahy and picked up the PMBOK ( probably for the first time!). The reasoning was that I would not be able to afford the next edition of Rita without burning a hole in my pocket.
Sometime towards the end of October, I realized that the exam would expire in a couple of months and I had no more room for postponement. I started reading each chapter of the PMBOK, one chapter a day, inside out. I would go through each chapter and when I was done with all the chapters, I would start all over again with the first chapter. I didn’t count, but I must have done 2-3 rounds of this. I regularly checked out PMHub forums for questions and other lessons learned. I did practice questions (not entire mock tests) from HeadFirst, PMP Google question bank (pmpbank.googlepages.com), Oliver Lehmann’s 75 questions and those he suggests on his website. Though I did a considerable number of practice questions, I never did a full length mock test. This really made me nervous as the exam approached.
Just 3 weeks before the exam, I decided to purchase HeadFirst PMP and I am glad I did. It was great fun reading it especially since I was already familiar with the PMBOK and the exam material.I would read each chapter just like I did with the PMBOK (though I skipped the end-of-chapter questions in the interest of time). I must have read each chapter of the HeadFirst book atleast twice.I also read the Rajesh Rani notes from time to time. I did more practice questions, though still no full-length mock exam.
I was planning to do a couple of the full-length mocks during the last weekend before the exam. That never happened. As the D-date approached, I twisted and turned in my sleep.I felt comfortable with the material, but the lack of match-practice was killing me with worry.
Two days before the test, I checked out the test center. I also figured out what I needed to bring to the test and what I wouldn’t need there.
On the day before the test, I skimmed aimlessly through the HeadFirst book not looking for anything in particular. I went to bed early.D-day morning, I was up bright and early.I reached the center atleast an hour before time. Since this was morning, the center only opened half an hour after I was there. There was some last minute tension as the promteric staff were not happy with how my name appeared on the ID that I had provided vis-a-vis the name on the test. After atleast 20 mins of tense negotiations, I was in front of the computer with the test about to start…it was time ! The tension about the ID must have distracted me from the test and I was not really feeling nervous.I got out of the tutorial in 3mins. I decided against the brain dump. I just wanted to get the thing over with. Some people on this forum have talked about the first few questions just flying past them in a daze while they tried to settle down. Funnily, nothing of that sort happened for me. I just kept going. I am not sure if it was because I had prepared well or because I was exceptionally lucky with the difficulty level of questions, but there was never high and low in the difficulty level of the questions. I tried to keep a steady pace, neither dismissing any question without a second look, nor spending too much time on any one question.I must have marked around 40 questions for review. I was done with the first pass through the questions in 2:15 hours.I opted against the break and went back to the marked questions. By the time I had worked through the questions, I had another 1:10 hrs left. Again, decided against the break and went back to 3-4 questions that I still couldn’t get my arms around.
Finally, I spent the last 45 mins going through each question, starting from no.1 I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to go through each of the 200 questions, but I wanted to make sure I had not misread or misinterpreted any question.I stuck to it till the computer flashed the message that I had run out of time. The screen went blank, but I was prepared for this (since I read this in almost every LL here !). The survey was out of the way in 2-3 mins and the “Congratulations” message was on the screen.
More good news, I had scored “Proficient” in all the six areas! I had been sitting at the desk for a little over 4 hours without so much as standing up (perhaps my boring day job, and my even more boring life was good practice !). This good news was well worth it. I checked out and rushed to the restroom…just in time !
About the questions: It all happened so fast, I donot remember seeing too many questions focusing on any one particular area. One thing that struck me was that there weren’t too many questions needing me to do EV calculations. There were a bunch of questions where I was asked to assess the health of the project based on CPI, SPI etc.There were a lot of “what would be the BEST thing to do next” questions from almost all areas.The HeadFirst 200 questions seemed closest to the actual exam questions. The Oliver Lehmann questions are probably a little too much, though…do them only if you really dont mind losing confidence before the exam!
A few points in conclusion:
Each person has their own style of learning and taking the exam. I was lucky that not doing the mock tests did not hurt me, but that’s just me. If I had to do it all over again (which I wouldn’t), I would probably do at least 3-4 mock tests. But I would most certainly read the PMBOK. No point in memorizing the ITTOs but it would be great if you are in a position to tell a TT from an input and output ! Reading the PMBOK over and over means that you are able to appreciate the subtleties of such things as the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis and the fact that decision tree analysis can also be used for selecting which projects to bid for given the right circumstances.Of course, PM experience in real life helps too.
Prepare as much as you can, know the material inside out, and do a lot of practice. I would recommend doing atleast 500 distinct questions (either as part of a mock test or just as practice questions).
Good luck !
I registered for the PMP exam early this January with the intention of clearing it by end of March. Procrastination set in and March-end became December. There..you have the first lesson learnt – the longer you wait to write the exam, the harder it gets.
For those who have otherwise been following progress on Twitter, Facebook, or prior to my little disaster on my Blog, you’ll have learned that I’ve recently sent my pride, joy, and first-born fictional novel off to publication. The Corrupt Republic is now available on Kindle, in the e-Store on the book’s Website, and soon to be on Amazon and other on-line retailers. So with that put to press, it leaves me only to finish my other work, which was my Project Management book that isn’t really a Project Management book.Yes, this requires a bit of explanation.
Hi All – I would like to take some time to share my experiences with how I prepared for taking the PMP exam. I found the postings of past test-takers on PMHUB to be extremely helpful in shaping my preparation which allowed me to pass the PMP exam on my first try, and I wanted to give back to the community in return. During the initiating process you and the project customer created requirements that defined the basic ideas of the project. This document is elaborated upon, and the project scope is now created. In addition to the preliminary project scope statement, you’ll use the project charter, historical information if you’ve done projects like this one before, and approved change requests that may have trickled in.
 Jim OwensPMP We always do what’s right, we never do anything wrong! The vision and purpose statement of PMI’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct begins, Hello Everyone! I wanted to take a few moments to share my experience with everyone since I found the Blog boards on this site to be extremely helpful to me in trying to acquire the PMP Certification. Procurement in the Fourth Edition of PMBOK has contracted down to four processes from six, and PMI has removed explicit mention of “contacting” in the process names, but none of the functionality has been lost of course. And although we normally think of procurement processes as being between a buyer and seller, these same processes are equally applicable to work performed for other units of the project team’s organization. |
 The Online PMP Boot Camp offering allows you to learn at your own pace over the next six months. Read on, here
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Here’s a quick roadmap to greater professional effectiveness! 
Are you wondering if you can take the Project Management Professional (PMP) ® exam or not?
Once the WBS has been created the project manager and the project team can begin to create an estimate of how long the project work will actually take and what resources are required to complete the project work. Resources are generally thought of as people and the roles they play within a project (think network engineer, mechanical engineer, and architect). Resources, however, are also things like materials, equipment, and facilities that the project needs in order to be successful.
Have you ever wondered what professional level credentials are available for project/program managers to choose from, and how these various project management certifications compare against one another? 
About the author: Naggesh is a graduate from the PLD program at Harvard Business School, and has obtained MBA and Second Master’s in Information Systems. He has a PMP from PMI in addition to being an Associate Management Accountant. 
The project charter authorizes the project. This document officially initiates the project and gives the project manager the authority to use organizational monies and resources to reach the objectives of the project. It’s a powerful document, and without one of these you’re setting yourself (and often your project) up for failure.
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