How to prepare for PMP® Exam?

This question is on the mind of every PMP® aspirant. A good number of people keep thinking on this question for months and years. Many people keep thinking on whether they do it or not? Many people are not clear about their approach and many people keep postponing it because they are not confident about success.

People remain in this state because they never give a deeper thought on various aspect of this certification – what all do they need, how much is the total investment, what support do they require, what benefit will they get, how will they utilize it, how to be sure about success etc.

Here are my recommendations. Treat it as a project, apply all project management knowledge on it and your success in PMP Exam is guaranteed. You are studying project management and there is no better way to learn than applying the project management knowledge in practice. So learn it by doing. Though here I am focusing on PMP Certification but this method is equally applicable to all certifications or as such any mission you take up.  Let’s prepare for PMP Exam in a project management way.

Following the PMBOK® Guide guidelines, we will start with initiation drafting a road map, then will chalk out a plan, will look into execution of the plan, we will see how to keep monitoring our progress and take corrective measures and once you have taken the exam, how to close out the project. This being a small project, the level of implementation of processes will be low and we will use only selected project management processes that are meaningful in this project. Do you know, we call it tailoring.

1. Initiation

In initiation, we do two things, first write the charter and then identify stakeholders. Let’s start with charter

1.1 Charter

Charter is a document that give us a clear direction. A direction is necessary because without direction, efforts do not give intended results leading to failure. We will write four things in this charter to understand where we should focus our efforts.

Business Case (Why do you want to be PMP® Certified):

State clear reasoning. What issues or needs will get addressed by doing PMP® Certification? For example – It will significantly improve my performance or it will help me to get a raise in my career or it will give a raise in my salary etc.

Your objectives:

Let’s write quantifiable objectives to address the business case. It could be as simple as passing the exam. I do not recommend it because you may not be doing this certification just for doing it. You have a specific purpose which you have just written down in previous point. What specific performance will it improve? What exact raise will you get in your career? How much salary will be raised or any other avenue it will open up.

Budget:

Let’s write down the overall costing. Many times we do not consider all expenses. We should know in how much cost we are addressing our needs and is it worth?

Application Fee: $555 (India: Rs.42,000 + GST)  (For exact cost, See FAQ section on PMP Certification Training page

Cost of the training: X amount

Cost of other resources like book etc.: Y amount

Cost of travel (if required): Z amount

Total Cost = $555 + X + Y + Z =

Milestone schedule

Many times people keep thinking for months and years. To stay away from this situation, let’s write down milestone schedule. Be realistic and consider only the time you can dedicate for preparation.

Write down – By when will you complete your training? By when will you complete the preparation? By when will you pass? etc.

If you want, you can write down high level scope, risk etc. also however I recommend it to take this up in planning as this is a small project.

1.2 Stakeholders

Let’s identify some stakeholders that are actively involved. Try to write all stakeholders and see what they want from your certification and what you need from them for your success. For example

Your family specially your spouse:

You will sacrifice your family time to invest in your studies. Don’t take it for granted, involve them and let them know how much you may invest in studies and how long and what support you need.

Your company:

It may sponsor your fee and possibly provide some resources. Company may conduct PMP® Training in-house by calling a consultant. Also consider what it expects in exchange? If you are using company’s resources, ensure that your company is benefited from your certification some way.

Your manager:

He/she may help you getting your fee reimbursed from your company. He may want you to bring some improvement back at the work post certification. His support may help you in getting some relaxation from the work to prepare etc. Even if your company is not reimbursing your fee, your manager’s support may be useful to you.

Your mentor:

If you don’t have, my recommendation is to find one. He/she may guide you and help you in dealing with difficult situations, help you in resolving complex questions. You may discuss your issues with him openly and get directions.

Analyze the contribution f the stakeholders and prepare a strategy to engage them so that they all become your supporter in your mission.

Now let’s plan out what we need to do to succeed in this effort.

2. Planning

Planning start from deciding what all I need to do i.e. defining the scope

2.1 Scope

Scope of the exam is basically PMBOK® Guide latest version (Currently 6^th Edition) and Agile Practice Guide. If I have to create a WBS of the efforts, I think it should be like this…

1. PMP® Prep Training

1.1 Identify a good trainer (I insist on a good trainer not on a big institute. A big institute will not necessary give you a good trainer. I will suggest you to lookout for consultants. Your trainer can be your mentor also)

1.2 Get enrolled

1.3 Participate in the training

Go into the training with a mind-set of understanding concepts not just passing PMP® Exam. If you go with a mind-set of just passing PMP® Exam, you may not understand the concepts but if you have understood the concepts, you will definitely pass the exam.

2. Study

Divide the study in various sections. If you are following PMBOK, each chapter can be a section. If you are following PMI Training manual (that PMI is giving to candidate for the training now a days), go as per section in the manual like “Creating a High Performing Team”, “Starting the Project” etc.

If you are following PMBOK, you can go as follows…

2.1 Revise Chapter 1, 2, 3 (Project Management Framework)

I mentioned revise as I consider that you have already gone through PMP® Prep Training covering the complete scope.

2.2 Revise Chapter 4 (Project Integration Management)

2.3 Revise Chapter 5 (Project Scope Management)

… so on

… so on

2.11 Revise Chapter 13 (Project Stakeholder Management)

Few things are not so well explained in PMBOK® Guide, take the help of other books or your mentor and study them well. Like concepts of WBS, Scheduling, network, EVM, Quality Tools, Human Resource Theories, Communication Models, Risk Theories, Stakeholders Analysis. You can also use our blogs on PMP Certification to study.

3. Practice of Question & Answers

Your purpose of attempting the questions should be to identify knowledge gaps and filling those gaps. So do not attempt a huge set of questions that make your study a rote learning but attempt limited number of quality questions. I believe 30 to 50 quality question on each chapter normally sufficient to identify the gaps and fill them. If you want good quality practice questions, please contact us

3.1 Attempt questions on Chapter 1, 2, 3 (Project Management Framework)

This may immediately follow 2.1 (i.e. Revise Chapter 1, 2, 3). This mean 2.1 is followed by 3.1, then 2.2 is followed by 3.2 and so on.

• Attempt questions on Chapter 4 (Project Integration Management)

3.3 Attempt questions on Chapter 5 (Project Scope Management)

… so on

… so on

• Attempt questions on Chapter 13 (Project Stakeholder Management)

4. Test the preparedness

4.1 Attempt half-length exam – at least two

4.2 Attempt full-length exam – at least two

Try to score above 80% to be assured about your success. If you are finding it hard to achieve 80%, we need to correct the preparation approach. You can contact us, we will try our best to help you.

2.2. Time

Based on the scope, I suggest following plan. This a 28 days plan. I have considered that you have a full time job and therefore may not be able to spend more than 2 hours a day. You can spend more time on weekend but I left weekends also with 2 hours considering that you may catch up if you miss out anything any day. You may modify this plan as per your availability and time commitment.

You can also take Agile approach. Consider preparing every chapter as a sprint. You can go as follows….

Review the chapter – Sprint Planning
Attempt Practice Questions – Sprint Execution
Verify practice questions where your were doubtful or you answered incorrectly – Sprint Review
Fill the gap by reviewing chapters and study material – Sprint Retrospection

2.3 Cost

You are not required to implement EVM here but it is important to understand the total cost as it is expensive. I will mostly repeat the same here what I have already mentioned in the charter

PMP® Exam fee (Considering you will become member before applying for PMP® exam): Check here for the exact fee

Cost of PMP® Prep Training:                     (Somewhat Rs.15,000 to Rs.20,000/-)

Cost of travel: Especially for giving exam:    (Say Rs.1000/- to Rs.2000/- just in case there is no centre in your city and you do not want to take online exam from your home)

Cost Saving:

Some tips to save cost

1. PMP® Prep Training:

Doing some more analysis your own and selecting a trainer who is good and economical (I term it affordable excellence) help you saving some money. You can check out our PMP Prep Training Here

2. Opting for Online PMP Exam from you home.

– If you live in a city that does not have an exam centre, you can opt for Online PMP Exam from your home. This will save the hassle for travelling to exam centre and a little cost of the travel.

3. Share books and study material instead of buying them

– Take books from your friend who have recently passed the PMP® Exam

– Form or join a Study Group and share the books & other study material

   Please do not violate the copyright while sharing

2.4 Resources

With respect to Human Resource, you are the only person in your team and solely responsible for success and failure. However you may use some stakeholders to help you i.e. your trainer or mentor, other PMP® aspirants if you form a group, a PMP® credential holder in your friend circle.

You may need some material

Books

• PMBOK® Guide,
• PMP® Exam Pre book. Some of the – 1. by Rita Mulcahy. 2. Head First PMP®
• PMI Training Manual
• pmwares Virtual Learning Centre (Question bank offering practice questions and mock exams). Contact us for more information.

Internet

Caution: Internet is full the information. In fact we have danger of over information. Most of the stuff provided free of cost can be categorized as crap because the purpose of this stuff is to pull people on the website and not to provide them any guidance or useful information. However not everything free can be categorized like this but the good stuff is very small. Look for recommendation from your friends who have used them selve (an not forwarding the forwarded). You can seek recommendation from your mentor also. Observe caution otherwise you will end up wasting your precious time.

• To know more about PMP® Exam
• To get some tips to pass exam
• To get some free or paid question set
• Simulated Test – Free & Paid

Trainer/Mentor

• Your mentor or trainer could be of immense help in guiding you, providing you a direction, approach to prepare, answering your questions, resolving your queries, clearing your doubts, imbibing complex concepts etc.

2.5 Quality

Quality in your preparation will only come if you select quality resources. For example select a quality training. In a training, trainer’s contribution is 80% and material & institute’s contribution is 20%. So select a quality trainer. For this, do your own home work instead of getting influenced by marketing campaigns. Seek references from your friends, try to understand how training is being conducted etc. Cost of the training does not indicate anything about its quality. A high cost training may not be good or a low cost may be good. But please be cautious about too low cost.

Similarly buy quality books, don’t go on cost. Try to form a group and share the resources but go for quality books only.

Select quality questions even if you have to pay for them. Don’t assume a paid material is always better then free material. There is a lot of free quality questions available on the net freely. Seeking reference from your friend or trainer is the best policy.

We are done with our planning. I will move on Execution in next post and discuss what you need to take care during preparation.

3. Execution

Three things are most important in the execution of any project, so they apply here also

1. Discipline
2. Support from stakeholder
3. Regularly checking quality of the preparation

Discipline:

Without discipline, quality results cannot be obtained. Either outcome will be degraded or delayed or both. Once you have finalized your plan, follow it with discipline. After few days, if you think some changes are required, instead of just executing the changes, change the plan and then follow the changed plan. This will help maintaining the discipline, track the progress and give you success.

Support from the stakeholders:

It is necessary to keep unwanted situations and surprises away. You have already prepared a list of stakeholders, their expectations and expectations from them. Now you need to do three things on a regular basis

1. Ensure that you are taking care of their expectations especially critical expectations. It does not take time for a stakeholder to go unfavorable and then it will make your preparation difficult. Your manager in office and your manager at home (I meant to say your spouse) are quite important in this reference.
2. Keep them involved by letting them know the progress you are making on your preparation and challenges you are facing. Don’t think they are not concerned. They are related to you and will be happy to see you pass.
3. Seek help from your mentor, discuss your challenges with him and discuss concepts that you are finding difficult to grasp.

If you have formed a study group, then discuss chapters & concepts, offer help to others and seek help from them.

Regularly check the quality the preparation

Apply your quality plan and keep check points like 30 questions test suggested earlier. More on quality under Monitoring and Control.

4. Monitoring and Control

It is important to measure the quality of your preparation. If you follow the plan provided above, you must do better and better day by day. As you progress, number of correct answers should increases despite chapters are different. There are some principles that apply across the chapters and if you understand them, you get better.

If you are taking full length simulated exam to check your preparedness, my recommendation is that you should score above 80% consistently. If you are not achieving, my suggestion will be to improve further instead hurrying up for the exam.

Too much preparation is also not good but it is definitely better than less preparation. Sign of a good preparation is that you feel confident. Take help from friends/trainer/mentor if your score is not improving. We call it corrective measures which is integral part of monitoring and control. You can reach out to me also for any help here on contact us page.

Hurrying up could be fatal. Change in exam due to PMBOK® Guide version upgrade or due to other studies is not such a major issue. Instead of hurrying up, better to take exam after change. Do not get disturbed with the marketing of “PMP® Exam is changing on so so date”. If you are not ready, don’t give the exam. PMP® Exam does not change more than 10% because of PMBOK® Guide version upgrade and even less due to other studies.

5. Closure

You have passed the exam! Great!! Congratulations!!! But don’t stop here. You have taken help from other, it is now your turn to help others. Do following three things before you close this chapter…

Lesson Learned:

Document lesson learned. What went well and what did not. Document your key take ways and suggestions and share them with PMP® Aspirants.

Transition:

You would have collected study material. Some of them may not be useful for you anymore. Pass on this material to other PMP® Aspirants. Again do not violate the copyright while sharing.

Archive:

Some stuff, you may like to keep with you. Archive it safe so that you can refer it later or share with other people.

You can close this chapter now but to open another chapter. Learning is not a one time job. Leaders continue learn throughout the life. So learn new things in project management. Also if you want mastery on this subject, apply it in your project in office and also in your personal life. Project management principles are equally helpful in achieving person goals. If you want to become champion in project management, teach what you have learned to others.

All three activities – learning, applying and teaching will also help you earning PDUs which you need to renew your PMP certification after 3 years..

I am thankful you for staying with me till end. I hope my suggestions in this blog are useful to you. Though I am closing it now but as always I am available to you for your questions and queries. Feel free to post me your queries.

Wish you all the best.

PMI, PMBOK and PMP are registered mark of Project Management Institute Inc.