Abhay Kulkarni: Passed PMP May 14

Hi All,
I passed my first attempt on May 14th.

This forum helped me a lot to prepare for my PMP.. I want give back and share my experience and some advice to the future aspirants.

As you must be aware the PMP exam pattern is changing in August 2011..so not sure how much of this will still be releavent but here it goes…

Lesson #1 –  The PMP is easy!!..trust me it is easy!..the answer is staring right at you..all you need to do is pick it..

Here is the catch -

Lesson #2 –  Most of the questions are situational – they will require you to reconstruct the sitation, analzye the information, look at all the options (Yes – you have to read all options, else you will fail)and then select the best one.

Lesson # 3 – More than one option appears to be right..but trust me, there is only one best answer..in your mental re-construcion of the situation the time-line is super critical, as PM process occur in a particular sequence..you have to understand what phase, timeline the question refers to..this will help you eliminate some obvious options that feel to be the right one..

Lesson # 4 – I did not do this – but I will bet a $1,000 that you can pass this exam by cramming Rita’s book..of course you will have to invest a lot of time and effort which will be counterproductive (I always wanted to use this word!) if you are a working professional..But the bottom line is that you can pass this exam with some basic PM knowledge and a lot of cramming and memorization. But I am sure if you plan to use this certification as a way to become a better PM you would want to understand and learn all the PMI material without just cramming it..

Lesson # 5 - If you do not have experience managing large (PMI has a definition of large) projects (I do not!) you will have a very tough time if you just refer to the PMBOK..you need Rit’s book trust me on this..PMBOK is like a summary of Rita’s book…you can skim over it or use it for memorization of the ITTO’s

This is how I studied -

Total study time – 80 hrs
Rita’s book –  Read 2 times
Completed all excercises in Rita’s book
Skimmed over PMBOK once
Memorized some ITTO’s

Some final comments -

I got a lot of questions on Risk Management – I think it was more than what I was expecting.

Focus on Execution.

Ethics questions are very wordy..mark them and come back

Dont get bogged down by questions that require you to calculate things..I got only 5-10 of them..and looking at bigger picture you can pass the PMP even if you get some wrong..dont spend too much time on these

Calculations are very easy

Rita’s book is the best

** The most important - I am going to leave you with this …Do not..and I mean absolutely do not overstudy…this exam is easy!…you will mess up if you try to memorize too much or try to get 200/200…Good luck to all future aspirants!

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