Project Management Professional exam

Anyone here have the PMP designation from PMI?

I’m just starting to study. Any pointers?

I found this video helpful

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I WISH it was that!

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Seriously though, could you spell out your TLA so that someone might know WTF a PMP is?

Oh sorry. Thought it was kind of widely known.

https://www.pmi.org/certifications/project-management-pmp

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Let us know if you see a 40 something pixie wine enthusiast marathoning junior senator with spreadsheets at the exam. She likes to accumulate letters.

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I took the exam in 2014. The most important parts for me were to take a class that followed Rita Mulcahey’s book on PMP exam prep, and then go over the book myself and go over all the questions at the end of each chapter.

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Got mine a couple years ago. I’ve since forgotten a bunch of it. My company is large enough that they hold 4-day boot camps (which automatically checks the education hours box), so I did that and then took the test the following weekend. We also used the Rita book.

I’ve always been a pretty good test taker so I didn’t study that much. My basic approach was to memorize their structure and the inputs/outputs for each step. Once in the testing facility I immediately sketched it out on the blank paper, which gave me a visual reference, and that was basically all I needed.

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Found my Rita book. It’s 9th edition and corresponds to the 5th edition PMBOK. I believe I took the test right before they upped it to the 6th edition.

One tip I heard several times is to “forget” what you currently know about project management and focus on the PMP version, their sequence of activities, etc. I recall a few things seeming counterintuitive to how I’d learned project management, whether through training or experience, and it was easiest to just shrug and accept it and move on. A few people struggled trying to fit their own prior knowledge into the PMP structure, hence the recommendation to view it in a vacuum.

To be more clear on my approach (after refreshing my memory on their terminology :slight_smile:), the “structure” I was referring to was the matrix aligning Process Groups on one axis and Knowledge Areas on the other axis, like the below:

Memorizing this, including each of the activities within each cell and the inputs/outputs for each activity, was enough for me to get through the test. The above is basically exactly what I sketched out on my paper as soon as I started the exam and it was pretty easy to reference it for sequencing of activities, etc.

For what it’s worth, once you pass the test, I found the PDU process pretty easy and was able to report enough items from my usual work activities (which includes occasional trainings) to meet the requirements.

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Thanks. I’ve been a pm for 15 years so I agree hardest part will be forgetting my process and using theirs.

I’m using version 7 of the pmbok.

Does this qualification help with job applications or pay? I can see that PM skills are useful but I’ve never seen anyone in my teams claim that we needed to have a specific qualification.

It’s pretty commonly listed in contract ‘key personnel’ requirements for my work (consulting, often related to project management / program management). I can’t recall what Clovis’s rationale was for pursuing it.

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Well coordinated orgies.

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lol this is basically the worst thing in the world.

just be kinda smart and organized. that’s the only requirements for being a project manager. i’d never work for an organization that requires a certificate for that