TOPIC: PMP Exam Lessons Learned - Passed on First Attempt (Aug 8, 2017)

First, I researched several estimates on how many hours to dedicate to study. The average recommended amount of study hours seems to be around 120-185 hours total. (minimum 80 hours over 12 weeks, or a maximum of 250 hours over 6 months)
*I noted that not many PMPs seem to recommend studying more or less than the above, although I did meet a PMP in my local chapter, (a project management professor at Fanshawe) who studied three weeks during his summer break – I’d say that’d be an exception case.

The most standard recommendation seems to be 1 hour per day for six months total in order to balance study/work/personal life.
I ended up passing the audit process April 3rd 2017 and writing August 8th, 2017 (4 months and 5 days) I estimate my actual hours of study to be:
• April 3 to May 26th (work days, approximately 1 hour) = 50 hours
• May 29th to Aug 7th (work days, approximately 2.5 hours) = 120 hours
• Total = 170 hours
However, this does NOT include the eight prep tests I took on weekends, ranging about 2-3 hours each, so add an additional 20 hours for exam prep and I’m at 190 hours. I think it really comes down to how much of your real-life experience matches with PMBOK best practices. If your practical experience includes WBS creation, change control processes, development of project management plans, etc. then you probably won’t need to study as much.

Study Tools
Numbers below are my recommended for order of steps you should follow as you study.
PMBOK® Guide *Required
1. First read-through *material is probably covered by your contact hours – if not read the PMBOK® completely through start-to-finish, note any concepts you have never heard of before
2. Memorization of the “Project Management Process Groups and Knowledge Areas Mapping” matrix (currently page 61. On PMBOK 5th) **be able to draw this out 100% correctly every time and regularly practice drawing it once it is committed to memory
3. Get a firm grasp on the official definitions in the Terms and Definitions section (I made cue cards to help with this)
*memorization – depending on your time you WILL want to completely memorize the outputs of all of the project management processes and ideally you will also want to memorize the tools and techniques used to create each output. PMP does test your knowledge of how/when you would use particular outputs/tools and techniques; or they will give you a situation ask you what output/tool and technique you would use to solve the problem.
**Don’t worry about memorizing the inputs for each process as almost always the inputs to a process are just the outputs from the previous processes in the knowledge area plus: organizational process assets, enterprise environmental factors, and the project charter or project management plan
Prep Books *At least One Required
The prep book I used was Rita Mulcahy’s PMP® Exam Prep, Eighth Edition—Updated. My thoughts on it were it was very easy to read and definitely highlighted important areas of study. I would recommend to others.
4. First read through start-to-finish. Mark areas that seem especially important, or you think you’ll need to memorize later
5. Secondary read through – CHAPTER BY CHAPTER *Start with the most difficult knowledge areas first and work your way around to the easiest one.
a. Go back and also read PMBOK knowledge area section before moving on to the next chapter
b. Do (or re-do) all practice problems and sample questions.
c. Write out notes on each chapter as you go
PMPrepCast *Optional, useful
Cornelius Fichtner’s PM Prepcast (there is a free podcast and a paid full version) I would say you don’t need to purchase the PM Prepcast (although there are some really good applied concepts overviews) but the real value is from the interviews with PMPs he does.
Listen to one or two interviews from people who have taken the exam and are giving Cornelius their lessons learned. This will help you stay in study mode even when you don’t have time to sit down and work through your prep book or the PMBOK because you can listen to podcasts while you drive or workout.
Free Simulation Exams *Required
6. Practice with sample questions
7. Complete full 200 question exam simulation exercises
(This link has a pretty extensive list at the bottom). You can practice sample questions at will, or you can attempt 200 question exam simulations.

During my actual exam I used all four hours allotted, but got through my exam simulations in two-to-three hours usually. I completed eight practice exams. The recommended number of exam simulations to complete is between 3-10, and candidates should complete at least 1000 total practice questions.

Tips:
• Block off 4 hours for each 200 question practice exam – do these on the weekend, and then practice a few sample questions throughout the week
• REVIEW QUESTIONS YOU GET WRONG, understand the correct answer
• After each exam, make mental notes of what strategies worked or didn’t work for you (were you too tired? did you get hungry? when did you find your concentration was slipping? If you changed an answer did you end up changing it to the right or wrong answer?) use your “lessoned learned” to better prepare yourself for the real thing

Project Management Webinars *Optional
If you purchased your PMI membership then you have access to the on-demand webinars on projectmanagement.com. Be aware that there is a pretty big swing in terms of the quality on some of these. If you want to check them out, there are some really good ones, I would suggest: if you just finished a chapter in your prep book and PMBOK, do a quick search to see if there are any related webinars on a topic in that chapter – often hearing/visualizing the information in a different context helps encode the information better. If you want more: check out the ones that are highly rated or seem to be on an interesting subject.

More often then not, the most popular ones focus on “cross-cutting” skills a project manager needs to be successful – this knowledge can help with some of the situational questions on the exam.

Memorization
8. Memorize what you can from the below
The PMP Examination Outline
• Have a good understanding of each task in each process group – better yet, commit the entire thing to memory *sometimes the correct answer on the test will include something word-for-word what is on the outline
“Download Sheet” preparation
• Create a chart with 5 columns (one for each Process Group) then go through your notes and identify outputs, tools and techniques, or activities that would apply to ANY process in that process group *For example, every monitor and control process (Control Risk, Control Scope, etc.) will all have submitting change requests for corrective or preventative measures as an output
• Identify the elements that are present in all subsidiary plans of the project management plan (example: defining roles & responsibilities, and identifying processes that will be followed during execution, etc.)
• Identify all the elements and components of a project charter
• Memorize formulas (EVM, Expected Monetary Value, Present value, communication channels, etc.)
• Chart all 47 processes and practice writing out the tools and techniques then outputs of each process
In the days (and weeks) leading up to the exam, most of my study time was just spent making sure I had the information above committed to memory. I would get a blank sheet of paper and just write out everything I could remember; then I had a master copy I would compare to, then I would go back again and re-write it all out to make sure I included the items I had forgotten. First knowledge area by knowledge area, then later, all together as a whole.
Believe it or not, while VERY time consuming, I found doing this exercise over and over again really helped me understand when and how you develop each output.
*I would only start this memorization process AFTER you have gone through the PMBOK and your prep-book second read-throughs – you really need to understand the concepts before any kind of memorization will help you!

The Actual Exam
My exam was scheduled for 8AM. PMI strongly recommends arriving 30mins prior to your scheduled start time. I was there about 40 minutes early, ate my breakfast in the parking lot, drank a coffee, then went in at 7:30AM. I didn’t have to wait until 8AM, I was immediately checked-in.
I was given a locker key to put my purse, but I was instructed that I would NOT have access to the locker during the exam. I did bring snacks, and they had a cubby for test-takers to store their snacks.

I was given a physical calculator (there was an electronic version available during the exam as well), a booklet of scratch paper and two pencils. I was instructed that you CANNOT write on the scratch paper until AFTER the Prometric tutorial and the first real question comes up on the screen. I was aware that this change was made recently, in April 2017 I believe, but many PMP prep materials will advise you to use the 15mins to write out your “download sheet” and the EVM formulas. So know that you will not have that opportunity – if you want your sheet, you have to use part of your four hours.

Prometric does have the 15min tutorial available online. Yes, the interface really does look like that. There are couple features that are not in the online version that will be available to you during the actual exam:
• Highlight feature allows you to outline in yellow keywords, sections or details – if you are marking the section for review, you can use this to highlight keywords that are causing you confusion
• Strike out feature allows you to cross out answers you know are wrong – this is helpful both as you answer the question initially, and if you have to go back to review. It visually lets you narrow down the choices

I took two breaks to use the bathroom and eat my snack. The check-out/check-in procedures are really quick. Both breaks together were less than 10 minutes of my test time.

As soon as my time ran out, a pop-up appeared saying as much, and I just had to hit the okay button. My results were instant – I don’t even think I read the whole screen, just the first word in big bold letters “CONGRATULATIONS”. After that there was a required survey on the Prometric experience, and it’s quick. You get a print out of your results, and you’re on your way!

Dear Sarah,

Congratulations and thank you for your time sharing the lessons learned in very detail! I have not thought of checking out webinars during my preparation.