Hi All,

Wanted to share with you that I have attained PMP certification on 27th Nov 2012 with 3P's and 2 MP's ..A big thanks to God and it was a true family effort ...From 2 years i have been living this dream to achieve this coveted, elite 3 letter word to be associated against my name.

Started preparing 2 months back and got the application accepted on Oct 7 2012 and then the countdown began....

So here I am sharing my lessons learned and thought of sharing some tips which would help other aspirants

General

1 Start with a definitive date in mind at least 3-4 months in advance and without any hesitation get your PMI membership as the membership entails you to a rich source of invaluable books

2. Make a 60 day study plan and stick to it like a Project Plan

Books

1 Without any doubt as its said PMBOK is the bible for PMP exam so please ensure read it 3 times before you appear for the exam

2 To start with, I personally felt Heads First is an excellent book to led the foundation built as it really illustrates things in a story telling manner

3.Rita questions at the end of each chapter are of excellent quality but the content in the first iteration of study tends to dominate or scare you as if you are going for a war or an IAS/US Air force interview so preferably unless you have 3-5 years of Project Management experience starting with Rita tends to de-motivate(Just my personal opinion)

Suggested Study Plan

Day 1 -Day 12  (12 days)

1. Start with Heads first ..Do 1 reading in 12 days 1 chapter a day

Day 13-Day 27 (15 days)

2 Once you have read Heads first start reading 1 chapter from PMBOK and same from Rita and solve questions from Rita

Day 30 -Day 32

Start getting a feel of mock exams ..To start with examcentral and the ones from Frank T Anbari on PMI are excellent sources

Day 33-40

Once you know which knowledge areas or Process groups are weak start reading and consolidating the same from PMBOK

Day 40 -45

60% of the exam is based on inputs, tools and techniques and the process interactions..I made a mistake of deferring the thorough understanding the flow of ITTO's till my last week but anyone who makes a mind map diagram of these will pass with flying colors ...just simply follow the DFD approach given in PMBOK..i have read Saket and some other person ,mentioning in this forum creating a big whiteboard where similar to the way its in PMBOK you make charts of inputs ,outputs and process

Other thing which you can do is to make a PPT of 42 processes diagrams and understand them thoroughly..if anyone wants it i can share the soft copy

Day 45-60

Time to now get into serious exam mode ..its entirely a personal choice and often debatable whether to buy mock tests or not but i am a bit nervous person so wanted to ensure nothing unexpected happens ..i felt pmpforsure and pmstudy tests both give a similar feel of the actual exam although i felt if someone scores consistently 70% in pmpforsure he or she can easily sail through and being available for 1500/- it didn’t hit the pocket hard

Use last 15 days to understand every concept of PMBOK in detail..what i tried in this time is to get examples of some impt docs from net or like i got from my colleagues how they prepare WBS , RACI matrix, risk plan using FMEA matrix so actually seeing the application of imp artifacts helps you to understand their application

Coming back to mock tests any questions from Oliver Lehman appear out of course but its a good source of ensuring you have covered every topic ..though its rarely mentioned but free sample paper questions  from simplilearn really acquaint you to situational questions and papers from Christpher Scorbo in PMP site especially the 15-20 are of very good quality as they are totally based on PMBOK

60-65 days

Just concentrate on 1 more quick reading of PMBOK and chapter end questions from Rita 7th edition

What to expect in exam and what did i do wrong

1. I had always read Time,Cost,Risk are the meat or core and max questions come from these 3 knowledge areas but i was really shocked to see around 25-30  questions just from Human resource management ..there was not even a single question from Ethics as the format has changed in 2011 Aug so i believe all those questions got allocated to HR and Quality ..Had i focused on HRM more i would have scored Proficient in Executing also :(

2 Calculations from EVM were very simple and all those EVM questions just involve substituting EV,AC,PV so if you simply know formulas expect 10 questions related to them to be correct in your kitty

3. Its a true psychometric exam where they see your consistency also ..There were 3 or 4 questions all asking which is the best conflict resolution technique , similarly collaborating is the best approach and there is lots of focus how a PM handles team , conflicts , clients or what is his role in contracts

4 Read Glossary from PMBOK and definitions thoroughly ..no tools and techniques or inputs come by their name ..their core characteristics and definitions are given

5 Lots of questions tend to focus on where to use Quality assurance or Quality control or the typical ones like control chart , pareto or ishikava ..Also learning Change cycle and config management would get you 5 questions correct

General tips for exams

1 . Arrive 30 mins before the reporting time..do a google search from maps at least 1 week before if you are new to this area

2 . I don’t want to mention any particular mock site but 7 days before the exam start giving 4 hour exams , at least 3 of them on the same time slot which you have chosen...there may be others people especially the ones which have GRE require lots of typing so just see if you want to use ear plugs or not

3. 4 hour exam requires lots of stamina so carry some energy drinks, fruits or lots of water ..They don’t allow anything to take inside exam hall but eatables can be kept above the locker

Appreciate if you are still reading this..i know it was very long  ..but i thought its pay back time and to contribute back :-)

I am really very thankful to Saket, Admin and Shruti Acharya

Now i would have no more sleepless nights and most importantly time to play with my son and have a vacation with family

If there are any questions pls drop a line at puneet01.arora@keane.com or reply to this post..will try to answer any queries within 24 hours

Regards

Puneet