How I passed the PMP Exam in 60 days!

The Project Management Professional (PMP) exam administered by the Project Management Institute (PMI) is the most reputable professional certification in the field of Project Management.

This blog post describes my personal experience in preparing for, taking, and passing the certification exam, which I believe will be helpful to anyone preparing to take the exam.

I will start by stating that I am not a novice in the field of Project Management and Business Analysis, I have a background in Engineering and have successfully achieved multiple professional certifications in Business Analysis, Project Management, and Agile Scrum. I also work full-time as a Senior Business Analyst where I support the delivery of large and business-critical IT projects, so I already have extensive practical experience in Project Management.

Nevertheless, having sat for and successfully passed multiple professional certifications, I have come to understand and appreciate that there is a massive difference between the practical experience required to do a job and the theoretical experience required to pass a certification exam. My first warning to anyone looking to sit for the PMP exam is please do not assume that your practical knowledge of Project Management is enough to pass the exam…IT IS NOT! A lot of people make this mistake and pay dearly for it. Having some prior knowledge is helpful, but not sufficient to pass the exam. This is because the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) stipulates how to manage projects under specific conditions and will test you based on the best practices in the guide.

I have broken down my experience into three broad categories namely; Before the Exam, During the Exam, and After the Exam to make it easier for readers to grasp. This contains raw gems that will help you in your quest to become a certified Project Management Professional.

Before the Exam

• Timeline

I prepared for about 2 months, the first month was quite passive during which I created a study plan, did a sample exam to gauge how much knowledge I had and how intense I needed to take the preparation. This initial exam simulation gave me an idea of what the questions were like, which helped me during my preparation and reading as I knew what to look out for and which parts of the PMBOK I needed to pay more attention to and possibly memorize if need be. The second month was more intense as I was studying for about three to four hours a day after work.

• Mnemonics

These are ways to improve information retention. I tried to utilize existing mnemonics to memorize the 5 Process Groups, 10 Knowledge Areas, and 49 Processes in PMBOK but found it difficult to remember. So I created my Mnemonics using my past experiences and easily relatable words and it worked like magic! I would recommend you create yours as well if you have any difficulty remembering any predefined mnemonics.

• Resources

During my research, I read about some people using the PMBOK only and passing and also some people using the PMBOK Guide by Rita Mulcahy only and passing. I used both. I used PMBOK to learn the core concept and used the PMBOK Guide by Rita Mulcahy to understand it better. For some topics that I needed to master, I watched YouTube videos (created by Saket Bansal from iZenBridge Consultancy Pvt Ltd) where these topics were explained in detail. Just be mindful of the year the video was made as some videos are based on the previous five editions of PMBOK and not the latest edition which is the sixth edition.

I also found Edward Chung’s website (edward-designer.com) extremely useful as it contained a lot of useful tips.

I only read the PMBOK once because I was already familiar with the terminologies since I had project management experience and I am also PRINCE2 certified. I also have a lot of Agile knowledge and experience, so I didn’t read the Agile section at all. For a newbie, I would advise reading it at least twice from cover to cover if possible. I also watched lots of YouTube videos to understand specific knowledge areas and processes. Blogs were also very helpful. Edward-designer’s website contained a lot of useful tips. The last three days of my study were spent on solving past questions, reviewing the answers, and focussing on specific topics that I did not understand very well.

Past Questions — I solved multiple past questions during my preparation to gauge my progress. I did the SimpliLearn full exam. I also did the Oliver Lehmann 100 Questions and 200 Questions. In addition to those, I reviewed the questions in the PMBOK Guide by Rita Mulcahy as well. These will help you understand the terminologies, their meanings, what type of questions to expect, and how to answer them. It will also help you identify the trick questions and the thought process required to effectively tackle them.

Memorize Table — Although I did memorize the table containing the 5 Process Groups, 10 knowledge areas, and 49 processes, I did not find this useful as I referred to it only once during the exam, hence I don’t think the 10–15 minutes I spent writing it down was worth it. I have heard other people say this was extremely useful and helped them succeed in the exam, so I’d suggest you err on the side of caution and memorize this.

Memorize Formulas — I didn’t bother writing these down as I had a good grasp of all the Earned Value Management (EVM), and Communication formulas. Being an engineer by training, my love for calculations was reignited with these sorts of questions, and I learned these by understanding the underlying concepts for each equation. It is easy when you think practically about the problem and not just try to apply the formula, so I would suggest that you learn these and only memorize them if you need to. YouTube videos helped me a lot, especially with the EVM calculations and the more EVM examples you look at, the more you will understand the concept.

During the Exam

• Management Theories

During the preparation period and simulation exams, one of the frequently encountered questions was on the Management Theories, e.g. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, etc. I studied hard for these sorts of questions as they were all over the past questions; however, during the exams, I didn’t get any of these…not even one! My advice is to study for these as well as you never know if they will come out in the exam or not. Also, knowledge of the various Management theories has helped me in my general appreciation of life and work and what motivates people in general, so I would recommend understanding this.

• Calculations

Although I thoroughly prepared for the calculation questions and was hoping to get loads of calculation-related questions, I got less than five which was rather disappointing given how prepared I was for these sorts of questions.

• Exam Questions

Most questions were related to Change Requests, Risk Management (Please master these!), and how a Project Manager will manage issues with the team and issues that had to do with schedule, budget, and scope. Please pay specific attention to questions where they ask “what should the Project Manager do next” — the trick here is that most of the options will seem correct and apply to the situation at hand. However, you are expected to identify the Project Manager’s immediate next step and not one of the possible next steps.

• Actual Exam

Please note that you will not be allowed to take anything into the exam room. I was provided with a locker where I kept all my things. No food or water was allowed into the exam room. I went through a thorough search, emptied my pockets, etc. So please be prepared to do this.

Before I started I spent the first 15 minutes on the brain dump. And then proceeded to answer the questions.

During the exam, I adopted my golden approach which focussed on speed and accuracy. This approach required that I quickly and as accurately as possible complete all questions. I would always select an answer for a question during the first run and only mark the ones that I am not very sure of for review afterwards.

I finished all 200 questions in about three hours and had 45 minutes to spare. I took a 10 minutes break to use the washroom and stretch as I have been sitting down for over 3 hours straight! This provided a good opportunity to clear my head/relax and then returned to the exam room to review my marked answers. I used the remaining time to do this.

Please note that you will be given a laminated paper to scribble/write on, which I mainly used for brain dump and calculations. Whatever you write on this laminated paper can then be rubbed off. This threw me off as I was concerned that after investing 10–15 minutes downloading my brain dump, I might then mistakenly wipe them off. This took me unawares, so I thought I’d mention it as it might help someone.

• Elimination Method

One of the key techniques I always use to answer multiple-choice exam questions is the elimination method. This is where you identify and eliminate the incorrect answers thereby leaving just one answer which will most likely be the correct answer. I used this to answer many questions as most times it was easier to identify the incorrect answers than the correct answer.

After the Exam

• Results

PMP exam results are usually presented instantly after the exam and to my delight, I successfully passed the PMP certification exam with flying colours. Out of the 5 Domains, I achieved above target (the highest score) in 4 Domains, and Target in the remaining domain. All this with just 2 months of preparation.

• Conclusion

As with any other exam, PMP is only difficult when you are ill-prepared. Once you are prepared, you stand a solid chance of successfully passing the exam and more importantly improving your knowledge of Project Management. Also, the value of guidance, research, and past questions cannot be overemphasized.

If you have any questions regarding the exam prep & if you think I can help you with some additional strategies, book a call with me

If I can do it, then you too can do it.

Good luck!