My 10-Day Study Guide for Passing the PMP Exam

I recently found myself with some unplanned downtime so I thought I'd take the opportunity to work on getting my PMP Certification. It seems to be cropping up more and more as a requirement for Strategy Consulting engagements in Ottawa, but also has solid international recognition.

Throwing caution to the wind (and about $800 CAD for the exam fee), I booked my exam and set aside 10 consecutive days for my preparation, the first of which I spent running around town finding study materials.

When you try to research what to actually study for the PMP exam, you will find that the information is not exactly definitive.  The Project Management Institute (PMI) indicates that you should review the latest edition of the "PMBOK": A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)—Fifth Edition, but not solely. They indicate you should also review credible sources of project management methodology, but do not cite anything in particular. This made it pretty unsettling for me, knowing I had a very limited time to prepare!

In any case, I Googled what I could about the exam, talked to a few others who had taken it, and put together my own work plan of attack. I am very happy to report that my plan was a success, and I passed the exam on my first attempt - exactly 10 days after I went out and got the materials to study.

Here is a run-down of my 10-day preparation program. I hope this is of help to anyone considering taking the test! Please note that the contents of the PMP exam will be changing later this year, so my guide will only be appropriate if you are taking the exam before November 1st, 2015.

Happy studying... and celebrating! Don't forget to celebrate your success. That Chocolate Raspberry Damnation Cake never tasted so good as it did last night at 'Memories' as I pondered my morning's test result!

Timeline	Activity	Key Outcomes / Goals
Day 1	Source Your Study Materials – Chapters Indigo online ships to your door in about 2 days, or you can find all of them in local or University e-Libraries. 1.      PMBOK: A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 5th Edition by PMI 2.      PMP Certification All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition, by Cynthia Snyder 3.      The Pmp Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try, Fifth Edition, by Andy Crowe 4.      Optional: McGraw-Hill's PMP Certification Mathematics  Source Some Sample Tests (There is one at the back of the Dummies Book and another in the Andy Crowe book, but you may also want a few others): ·        Free PDF (Paper-Based) Test with 175 questions – (I did this one)  ·        Headfirst Labs Free Online Test – (I did not do this one) ·        Free Online Test (I did not do this one) Start Reading the PMBOK Guide Aim to read 4 -6 chapters (out of 13). Actively read by making notes of the key points or terms you are not completely familiar with.	Understand the overall structure of the PMBOK methodology Get a sense of what you need to know for the Exam Become familiar with the 5 key processes: 1.       Initiating 2.       Planning 3.       Executing 4.       Monitoring & Controlling 5.       Closing   Get through 4 to 6 Chapters
Day 2	Finish Reading the PMBOK Guide Complete chapters 7-13. Reward yourself for getting through the first book!	Understand how the knowledge management areas work with the 5 project processes.
Day 3	Start Reading the Dummies Guide Work through Chapters 1-5. Make notes, clarify anything you aren’t sure of, and make sure to do the mini-practice tests at the end of each chapter.	Start to understand some of the mathematical equations and problems. Understand the Critical Path Method.
Day 4	Continue Reading the Dummies Guide Work through chapters 6-13. Don’t worry, if you can’t quite make it, leave a couple of final chapters for the next morning.	Get more familiar with the formulas and understand EV calculations.
Day 5	Finish Reading the Dummies Guide Take Your 1st Practice Exam at the Back of the Dummies Guide I scored 72 on this – Being half-way through my plan, I felt I was in a good position to meet my end goal, but didn’t want to fully trust it yet.	Test yourself for the first time.
Day 6	Start Reading the Andy Crowe Guide Work through Chapters 1-4. Use the same approach that you did for the Dummies Guide. By now, this will all start to become quite familiar and you will begin to solidify key concepts. Take the night off – go out and enjoy yourself!! Breaks are key.	Reinforce your knowledge of the ‘order’ of key processes.   Take a good BREAK!
Day 7	Continue Reading the Andy Crowe Guide Work through Chapters 5-10 Use the PMP Mathematics book to review some of the key calculations and do some more math problems.	Continue reinforcing key concepts. Become proficient in EV and Critical Path calculations. Create your own Formula Sheet and practice writing it from memory.
Day 8	Finish Reading the Andy Crowe Guide Work through Chapters 11-13 Read the PMI Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct (In the PMBOK)	Become confident that you could now do a test and score at least 75%.
Day 9	Take Your 2nd Practice Exam Do the exam at the back of the Andy Crowe Guide. Time limit yourself, turn off the phone and take a break in the middle. Score yourself, and then carefully review each question you did not answer correctly. Make sure you understand how to derive the right answer. I scored 84 in this test, so my confidence was building. Review any areas that you are still weak on – practice writing out the key formulas from memory.	Become proficient in recognizing an activity as either an ‘input into’ or an ‘output of’ a process. Don’t memorize, just recognize. Understand how to eliminate wrong answers from test questions and get down to 50-50 choices.
Day 10	Take Your 3rd Practice Exam and Do a Final Review ·         You could start the day by doing another practice exam – I did the Oliver Lehmann Test on Paper and scored 82. ·         Flip through each chapter in the Andy Crowe guide one more time, reviewing the key points and the Key Outputs of each process. Do some practice problems for critical path, EV and time estimation. Write out your formula sheet several time from memory. ·         Re-read the PMI Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct ·         Review any terms you still tend to forget. ·         Stop all study activity by 8-9pm, watch a short TV program, and get to bed early!	Conduct a final review, reconfirm any areas you are uncomfortable with.   Make sure you can reproduce a formula sheet from memory.   Relax and get lots of rest.
Day 11	Take the Exam!	Finish all questions, and pass the test! Celebrate!!

Some Other Comments From My Experience:

• I worked about 3-4 hours every morning, another 1 in the afternoon and about 1.5-2 every evening. I took one whole night off.
• The hardest thing about the test is trying to remember whether an activity comes before a process (is an input into), or after it (as an output). Make sure you know some key differences like Quality Control vs. Quality Assurance and you should be fine.
• The actual test questions were a lot longer than some of the practice questions. It meant I had to spend more time reading questions on the exam to try to understand what they were actually asking. I finished the exam with about 20 minutes left to review some questions, but I did not have time to go through the whole exam again.
• The material is actually pretty interesting and makes you think back on many of the projects (good or bad!) that you have done in your lifetime. The 2 study guides I used were excellent, and made it really easy to understand the concepts, while breaking it into logical chapters that I used to measure my progress.