A Journey to PMP...

Like many, I thought of it years ago before actually getting on to it. Yes, it needed some mandatory requirements to be fulfilled as highlighted in the PMI's website and people in this part of the world consider professional certifications as one of the most important touchstones. So it took all the more important and serious thought when I looked for progression in my career!

A minimum of 4500 project hours to be justified was the most important of all and thanks to my exposure while in Singapore, it wasn't hard to be fulfilled. And IMAGE International, the school where I took my mandatory classes (to fulfill 7X5=35hours) helped in a lot of ways to get started. The classes were helpful and what mattered most was the interaction among the participants. Starting from December 2010 until January 2011 the classes were interesting and I felt glad to be back to school after many years.

So when I decided, my target was March 2011 to become a PMP. And after the classes, I had about 2 months but yes, unless you fix a target date you won't do it. Hence our schools have exam dates, projects have deadlines but life has no end date and decisions we make ourselves don't get executed because there's no external compulsion involved! To begin with, I just booked the slot during the Chinese new year holidays (was on Feb 2nd or 3rd)  for March 14th and told myself that the date can always be postponed if I feel I'm not yet prepared. 

Thanks to my dear friend nidhi who corrected me, not to postpone but stick to it. Yes, how often do you have the privilege to get project deadlines postponed? Almost never. And a successful project is the one that completes on time and on budget. So, completing the exam was a project in itself and I stuck to my date!

Head First's book for PMP is by far the best book I've come across. It was like reading a novel or watching a movie for me. But the PMBOK cannot be neglected since the exam is completely based on it. As many say, its true that PMBOK is quite dry and made me sleepy when I read it first. But as days progressed it was more relatable and got better to read. Out of the 2 months of self study time, I must say for atleast 2 weeks I didn't study AT ALL. Thanks to the end of classes, that made me feel I've achieved something and needed a break (which wasn't quite justified), then the Chinese new year holidays for almost a week when I was away from my books holidaying and also those on-going world cup cricket matches during critical weekends near the exam! But in the end, its those 6 weeks of neat dedication, cautious planning that paved the way!

There were a few podcasts like PMPrep and pm411.org (just the free episodes though) that I listened to while traveling to my work. Head First's sample questions and exercises, PMBOK that I did read 2-3 times (I can't believe I actually did that) Many have noted that PMBOK has to be read atleast twice which is very true. And a few mock exams I took set me up for the day. 1st exam I took with just 2 weeks to go got me 79% that made me happy. But the 2nd exam with just 2 days to the D-day got only about 52% and I was down with confidence. I did not want to go to the actual exam with such low self-believe and I made up my mind that I'll take another mock exam a day before the actual exam and score some decent marks to feel happy and hopefully stick to the date. Yes, it got me about 77% and that's it! I looked forward to the 14th of March. 

My academic formula was to not read anything on the day of the exam, a real good sleep the previous night and listen to cheerful music as if there was no exam or result! That according to me is needed to shadow any kind of nervousness or fear and do well with a good presence of mind in those critical hours!

So for the D-day, its best to be ready with some brain dumps to dump in those 15 minutes that one gets in the exam hall (during the introductory slides) I had thought of dumping all the formulas I had memorized but again thanks to nidhi who had said write whatever else you can in those 15 minutes. And I wrote all the 42 processes, along with their process groups and knowledge areas (a complete chart) which the whole exam revolves around. It helped in a BIG WAY as the exam progressed.

The 4hr exam wasn't easy, nor extremely difficult but definitely challenging and very interesting in the way the questions were framed. The PMI ethics would stop me from discussing the actual questions, but as planned I was about 100/200 questions in the first 1.5 hours when I took a break and went out, drank some water and relaxed a bit. The next 100 questions took about 1 hour and in 2.5 hours I was actually done! But I had made a resolution that I would sit for all the 4hours because that was my biggest challenge since I had never had this habit of sitting throughout an exam (be in school, college or any other certification) So I spent next 1hr in carefully looking at the questions I had marked for review. I had marked almost nearly half of them for review!! A second look at the same question probably got me answer it rightly. And with almost 10-15 minutes left, I submitted my exam for evaluation after which a survey about the exam popped up at the end of which there was a congratulatory message for passing the exam. There was no percentage of marks obtained or any such detail but just a PASS.

So, what's next after PMP? I ask myself! There's another project that will begin, but the journey to PMP will remain green. A great learning and lot of planning that I'll take forward wherever I go! 

Thanks IMAGE, my fellow students and instructor, PMI (the website and its blogs), Head First, Podcasts, mock exams. And, last but not the least my dear friend nidhi and my better half - two people who get more credit for this than myself!

Chow!!!