You will find many articles on PMP certification experience but this one is unique.
In this post, I am sharing the journey of a Reddit user. You can take a look at his Linkedin profile as well. He passed the exam without using any of the popular methods.
It is hard to believe but he did not take a formal training, did not follow Rita’s book, and read the PMBOK Guide minimally. You just have to go through his expedience to realize his success mantra.
Read On.
PMP Exam Experience
First off, just wanted to thank everyone in this sub for helping me get to where I am today, your advice was very helpful.
I acquired both PSM and PSPO certs back in June from scrum.org. My employer then wanted me to pursue the PMP, which I started in July. When I graduated from university in 2014, one of my last classes was project management and was based on the PMBOK so that counted for my 35 educational hours so I didn’t go to any crash courses. July/August were more exploratory for me as I was relearning concepts previously learnt years ago. I started to really ramp up as of late September.
PMP Study Material
- PMBOK (very minimally, only as a reference guide)
- Rita (really didn’t love her book, TMI, stopped using it after cost management)
- Andy Crowe (his book saved me and made me start understanding the framework)
- Joseph Phillips Udemy (never finished it, once I got my hands on Andy’s book that became my primary study resource)
PM Practice Exams
- PMTraining: I did every question they had, averaged 82% by the time I was done. The questions were a little easier than the actual exam but not by much.
- Andy Crowe: Practice Exam: found it much harder than PMTraining, and even a little harder than the PMP exam. Only scored 67% on this one.
- PM PrepCast: only did the 3 sample exams, found the questions much too ambiguous. Averaged 68% on them.
The Exam Day
It was a roller coaster. At some points I thought I’d be getting on a roll, then I’d hit 10 questions in a row where I wasn’t confident in my answers. Not much EVM questions, maybe 3-4. Only had to use the calculator twice. Just so many change request and risk questions. If you ever start to doubt yourself, push through it, whether it’s before or during the exam. You got this!!!
Over To You
Are you following the popular study material for your exam prep? Which study materials are you using?
Would you be confident for the exam without taking a formal training?