Greetings!
I'm Pablo Legazcue a business oriented IT professional with overall 18 years experience. I have successfully passed the PMP exam in first attempt on March 1st, 2016. Find below some tips that hopefully will serve as orientation while preparing the exam:
• The PMBOK is 619 pages long. Determination and focus is needed to absorb all its content. My approach was first to take the PM PrepCast as part of the preparation. The PM Prepcast turned out to be not only instructive but also fun to follow. An Excel sheet helped me track progress and stay focused, this sheet also helped to keep track of which videos I wanted to see again later.
• Previous experience with other IT frameworks helped to move faster, however do not be overconfident, PMBOK has its own terminology and interpretation of some of the project management concepts. The day of the exam only think the PMI-way.
• If possible prepare you own assets, ie: study guide, brain dump, progress tracking sheet, the time invested will pay off. Ex: By the time you finish refining your brain dump most of its content will be already in your head.
• I strongly recommend using the PM Exam Simulator. Start in “learning mode” and when in doubt look at the hints or seek the answers in your documentation; then transition to focused time-based quizzes once you have the awareness of which Knowledge Areas are the problematic, your objective should be identify gaps and improve your overall score; finally go for the 4-hour exams as these will help to test your resistance to long duration tests.
• Memorize all the formulas -no shortcuts here- and ensure you understand the purpose of all the ITTOs. Even if you feel you are not ready consider taking the "ITTO exclusive" exam on the PM Exam Simulator, you will learn a lot and also gain confidence.
Good luck to all.
Pablo Legazcue, PMP, ITIL, CMMI
