My PMP Experience!
I have cleared my PMP for quite some time now. Here are few notes from my journey which you may find useful.
1. Self-study is very good; but, I would recommend to go for some class room training through knowledgewoods or pmstudy like. This not only helps you to gather needed PDU for taking the exam, but also it helps you to prepare better for the exam.
2. I found class room training very useful even after having prior project management experience at work place. Discussing different concepts with fellow practitioners really helped me compared to reading through books.
3. You may come across various book for the exam. And, every author has their own idea/ concept to explain things. But, ultimately what would matter to you is the PMBOK. Hence, if you have prior project management experience - you may not need another book apart from PMBOK and the classroom sessions.
4. If you really find PMBOK difficult to understand (few my colleagues complained that way), take help of some very simple written book. I found Head First book easier and simpler that Rita Mulachy.
5. For me, I started with Rita and then attended the classroom. Classroom sessions changed my viewpoint as well as confidence level. Then I started with PMBOK and what I figured out that many things are bit different and relatively simpler in PMBOK (compared to other books).
6. Make sure you have a good grip of PMBOK and take the mock exam as provided by different vendors (for me, my classroom sessions were packaged with 20 mock exam and application filing process - the same is true most of the providers in the market).
7. Try to understand the processes conceptually. Questions around what is input or what is output to a process are very few and those can be answered if you got the basics right.
8. While preparing for the exam, try to map all your study concepts to your real life project examples. Its not that you will be able to map 100%. You may not experienced all the concept and processes at your workplace. But, this will minimize things you have to learn from scratch.
1. Self-study is very good; but, I would recommend to go for some class room training through knowledgewoods or pmstudy like. This not only helps you to gather needed PDU for taking the exam, but also it helps you to prepare better for the exam.
2. I found class room training very useful even after having prior project management experience at work place. Discussing different concepts with fellow practitioners really helped me compared to reading through books.
3. You may come across various book for the exam. And, every author has their own idea/ concept to explain things. But, ultimately what would matter to you is the PMBOK. Hence, if you have prior project management experience - you may not need another book apart from PMBOK and the classroom sessions.
4. If you really find PMBOK difficult to understand (few my colleagues complained that way), take help of some very simple written book. I found Head First book easier and simpler that Rita Mulachy.
5. For me, I started with Rita and then attended the classroom. Classroom sessions changed my viewpoint as well as confidence level. Then I started with PMBOK and what I figured out that many things are bit different and relatively simpler in PMBOK (compared to other books).
6. Make sure you have a good grip of PMBOK and take the mock exam as provided by different vendors (for me, my classroom sessions were packaged with 20 mock exam and application filing process - the same is true most of the providers in the market).
7. Try to understand the processes conceptually. Questions around what is input or what is output to a process are very few and those can be answered if you got the basics right.
8. While preparing for the exam, try to map all your study concepts to your real life project examples. Its not that you will be able to map 100%. You may not experienced all the concept and processes at your workplace. But, this will minimize things you have to learn from scratch.
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