Read Project Management Associations and Certifications First
If you dont have time (or dont want) to read the whole page, but have (Urgent) questions like
1. What's the eligibility criteria for PMP?
2. How many years of experience i need?
3. What's the exam fee?
4. How many questions are there in PMP?
5. What's the best book to prepare?
6. Please tell me where i can get the brain dumps to prepare in 3 hours and pass the PMP
even then, read the whole page and PMP Handbook.
About dumps: They are unethical, useless, and also misleading. They are full of errors and old material (PMBOK 2000).
Three points:
1. If a question has 5 answer choices - It's old. It won’t appear in the current PMP.
2. If a question's answers are like 'A&B', 'None of the above', you are looking at misleading questions. In the current PMP, all questions have 4 choices, and only one is correct.
3. Since they are wrong, if you find yourself unable to answer them, you may get nervous – Will I pass the PMP exam? If you have studied well, have experience, and possess good analytical abilities, you’ll pass the exam. Please see Q3. below.
How to find the PMP Training providers:
To find the REPs in your area, you can go to http://tel.occe.ou.edu/cgi-bin/PMI_Provider/repsearch.cgi and search by Region - Country
About PMP: A friendly intro to PMP http://www.informit.com/articles/printerfriendly.asp?p=461083(Just ignore the "Getting Some PMP Help" section)
Get the updated info on PMP from PMI http://www.pmi.org/PDF/PDC_PMPHandbook.pdf
Is the PMP Valuable?
Taken from http://forums.pmhub.net/viewtopic.php?t=12267&sid=1b14a4f65a6fa3f3e23de498341e6e19
(This is NOT my opinion. I like to read multiple views)
Glad you were willing to jump in. I have nothing against the PMP, provided people who hold it or aspire to hold it put it in the proper context. I DO have issues with PMI having become over-commercialized but that is separate from the issue surrounding the obvious over promising and under delivering coming to be more frequently associated with the PMP.
Above all else, PMI is a marketing machine. And a VERY effective and successful one!! IMPO, they have “oversold” an entry level credential based more on marketing hype than any hard facts. Organizations, grasping for “solutions” to so many project failures, have adopted PMI’s marketing hype on blind faith, turning the PMP into an icon- a requirement for jobs and advancement, in the HOPES it will help them deliver projects more successfully. As a management consultant, we know that without the appropriate supporting organization, project management alone CANNOT succeed. (See Henry Fayol http://www.12manage.com/methods_fayol_14_principles_of_management.html )
Unfortunately, as many of the “early adopters” are finding out, having 1,000 or 1,200 or a gazillion PMP’s in your organization does NOT necessarily result in projects being done better. While it does help people speak a common language (but only PMI’s), project management alone, without integrating it with Asset (portfolio) and Operations (Program) management, continues to fail miserably. PMI is stumbling in the direction of integration, but from what I’ve seen to date, they still “don’t get it”. And when we add in Portfolio and Program to Project management, haven’t we come full circle back to “General Management”? (See Peter Drucker, “Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices” http://www.amazon.com/Management-Responsibilities-Practices-Peter-Drucker/ )
For those who are interested in a fully integrated Asset, Operations and Project Management Methodology, I’d suggest you consider what AACE’s John Hollmann, PE, CCE has researched and authored, with the TCM Framework. http://www.aacei.org/tcm/ Especially for anyone who is doing projects funded through the capital budgeting process you will find that AACE’s TCM Methodology, while IMPO, inappropriately named, is the ONLY fully integrated Portfolio, Program and Project Management Methodology which is NON-PROPRIETARY. And more importantly, unlike PMI, AACE has put this on the internet for FREE DOWNLOADING, under the principles of “gnu” or “copyleft” licensing. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html . Meaning you are free to adopt, adapt or improve upon it, PROVIDED you give appropriate credit to the source AND any derivatives also are kept in the “public domain”.
Sorry to Muhammad and anyone else who feels these emails are too long, but there MUST be a reality check and I tend to see a lot of people in this forum looking for “shortcuts” to get their PMP, without fully realizing what the certification does and does not represent, and the dangers inherent in taking the exam simply for the sake of having PMP next to your name. As a life-long (not accidental) project manager, I feel my best role is one of providing some context to offset the marketing hype.
Bottom line(s)-
Is the PMP “valuable”? In the appropriate and proper context, yes.
Is it going to remain valuable? Not if we lose sight of the fact the objective should NOT be in getting our PMP, but in applying what we’ve learned to produce/deliver better projects.
BR,
Dr. PDG, Jakarta, Indonesia
Exam Application and Audit Tips from Venghatesh Srinivasan, a PMP From IIPM
(1) Make sure that when you submit your application , please fill in your supervisor name as someone whom you can easily contact, so that in case if you get selected for audit it would be easy to get his signature on audit documents. In case if you have changed companies ,ensure that supervisor you are filling in is reachable.
In PMP terms supervisor is anybody who knows what you have done in the project. It need not be your manager. One of the supervisors i have filled for a project in my application went on vacation and i have to wait for 2 weeks to get the audit documents completed by him. Also if you are working in India, please put someone who is in India as your supervisor. In my case one of the supervisor i put in is in UK, he sent me the filled in audit documents without putting his signature on the flap of the cover. I had to request him to send it again.
(2) When people are sending you filled in audit documents , please get the tracking no of the courier. Also ensure that someone is there to collect the courier. In case if you have put office
address, inform receptionist and give your mobile no so that you can collect it in person.
(3) PMI randomly selects an application for audit and if your application is selected for audit, you need to download the audit documents (pdf files generated from the information you have
submitted) from the PMI website. While sending the audit documents please ensure that you send a color xerox of your mark sheet, Color xerox of degree certificate , Color xerox of IIPM 35hrs PM course certificate, audit documents filled in by your supervisors along with a covering letter clearing stating what documents have been enclosed by you. Thanks to IIPM siva for telling me to send color
xerox.
(4) Fill in only 6 years of experience even if you have more than that. If i am correct PMP considers only the last 6 years of experience. if you fill more than 6 years then your audit documents is going to be more if you have done lot of projects which in turn means you have to chase lot of people to sign the audit documents
--------- My PMP Experience ---------
Date: Nov 5, 2007
Please note that this write-up is NOT about how you should approach the PMP preparation and exam-taking. I just have explained how I did. You may have to tweak/modify these to suit your needs. So, please excuse the plenty of ‘I’ and ‘My’. Our PM education, PM experience, and even command over ‘Exam English’ vary widely.
Scores:
|
Domain |
% |
|
Project Initiating |
75 |
|
Project Planning |
93 |
|
Project Executing |
75 |
|
Project Monitoring and Controlling |
76 |
|
Project Closing |
100 |
|
Professional and Social Responsibility |
93 |
|
Average |
85 |
Exam Center: Chennai Prometric. Ambience was good. The calculator they give has Square root function (I had a concern for that – Can you guess where would we need to calculate square root).
Exam:
Started the exam tutorial at 8:40 AM, wrote down the formulae and mnemonics on the sheets, and then started the exam. Actually, the exam will automatically start after the 15 minutes for the tutorial, but then I didn’t need 15 minutes to write down.
Marked only those questions where I had 50% confidence. If I had no idea (or had much less confidence) about a question, I wrote down the question number and a key phrase about that question. I did get some clues for a couple of questions from other questions.
Answered all 200 questions in one sitting, and then took a 2 minute break. Reviewed the marked questions, looked at my watch. I had too much time. Reviewed Questions 1 To 25. Then decided to start from Question 200, went back all the way to question 25. Changed a few answers on the way.
The reason I went from 200 à Usually you are tired towards the end, and so you may not have paid enough attention to the question. Also, when you reach 180 or 190, you may be in a hurry to finish. So, chances for mistakes are higher towards the end.
Hit the end button with confidence. Passed PMP, and signed out of the exam center at 11:25 AM. I didn’t need even 3 hours to finish and revise the exam. This could be due to many factors:
- I had good amount of one or two line questions – including calculations on CV, PV, SPI, CPI, EAC, ETC, PTA. Remember, not all calculations need calculator. And, don’t get distracted by so many numbers given in the question.You need only two numbers for most.
- For longer questions, I started with the last sentence, then read the question, and then looked at answers. I skipped plenty of first and second paragraphs during the first round, scanned them during the revision.
- I had already taken about a dozen exams over a decade (MCSD, MCDBA, Security+, Brainbench, etc). So, I have a pretty good command over Exam English, and exam taking experience.
Exam English can be grammatically wrong, have tortuous sentences and good amount of diversionary details (Now you know the reason behind #2 above).
I don’t read the entire lengthy questions for two reasons:
1. It kills time (I never had a time issue in any of my exams, including PMP)
2. It diverts you. In PMP as well as in Practice tests, i'd have got a few questions wrong if i read the whole stuff
Exam Preparation:
The exam slots are only at 9 AM and 1 PM. So, I forced myself to take the following practice tests around 9 AM in the week before the exam date. (You better get used to answering questions at the exam time)
Headfirst 200 http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/free_exam/
Oliver 175 http://www.oliverlehmann.com/
PMStudy 200 http://www.pmstudy.com
I didn’t see any value in counting the right and wrong answers, and tracking / charting the ‘progress’. I had read several LLs, where in people talk about which practice exam most resembled their actual exam – and almost everything on the planet came up in their lists. The lesson for us is that there’s absolutely NO practice exam that could possibly resemble our real exam.
[I got 34 wrong on Oliver's 175 Q. Scored 92% in Headfirst PMP. My wife scored/counted them. I never bothered about these percentages.]
So I used the above list only to practice sitting in a place for 3-4 hours, and sharpening my exam-practice skills (like brain-dumping, what to mark and what to write-down, doing calculations etc).
Learning:
A few opinions:
1. There’s no one single BEST book for PMP
2. I don’t believe in taking a pre-test (50 To 75 questions) before I start to study. You can’t realistically measure your knowledge on a huge subject like PM with 75 or even 200 questions.
3. I don’t believe in sticking to one author’s products (Books, CDs, online, class room, or what ever). I need second opinion not just in medical matters, but also on any serious matters.
Some folks think that they would be better of with just one definition, and that they may get confused with a second opinion. F. Scott Fitzgerald said “The test of the first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”
Materials:
I primarily used PMBOK, Head First and Rita’s Exam Prep – in that order. There are Pros and Cons with each one. If I were to give the exam in early 2006 (and NOT later part of 2007), I’d have rated Rita’s as excellent. This book, which primarily ‘teaches to the exam’ is just outdated. So, forget her statements that talk about the PMP questions – like up to 4 questions on xyz, at least 10 questions on abc. I also don’t like her head-in-the-cloud attitude displayed in many statements. I like the process chart, check lists and the chapter end questions.
HeadFirst is recent (so more closely mapped to the exam), explains things in a new light, BUT has plenty of errors – Way too many errors, and the errors are in diagrams too. So, if you are using this – get the errata first, and also download their ‘Critical Path Drill’ PDF. Forget the critical path pages in that book.
I read chapter a PMBOK, same chapter in Head First and then the same chapter in Exam Prep. Then I used the CD from IIPM Chennai to take 60 questions on that chapter.
Besides the above three, I also consulted
a) Kerzner’s “Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling” for a few topics (Procurement types, GERT, PERT Vs CPM and Organizational Types),
b) Vijay Verma’s “The Human Aspects of Project Management - Human Resource Skills for the Project Manager” for Motivation, Conflict and Communication.
c) Newell’s book “for addition and multiplication rules in risk assessment. In financial measures study CB ratio, EVA”
---------- Helpful Stuff for your preparation ------------
For revisions, i used Notes from Prad_RajRani_TEJAS
Please read the below Lessons Learned. They have excellent pointers to exam:
Nagesh http://forums.pmhub.net/viewtopic.php?t=12205&sid=079b74d022aa29dc7d81a001782fdacc
Suren http://forums.pmhub.net/viewtopic.php?t=12586&sid=079b74d022aa29dc7d81a001782fdacc
Verma: http://forums.pmhub.net/viewtopic.php?t=12564&sid=ac9960ab482b685ce4ebaba76b0bf805