PMP Success Story: PMP Journey Taught Me To Never Give Up No Matter What Happens

By Revathi Easwaran, PMP

Introduction
I always had a dream of building my career in project management. Hence, I decided of getting PMP® certified. As we all know, PMP certification is highly valued and to power my passion I went for it without looking back.

PMP Coaching Experience
I did my research to find the best institute in order to prepare for the PMP exam. After all online searches and enquiries, I finally chose a provider for getting started. Mr. Satya Narayan Dash was our coach and the training was for 4 days, spread over two weekends. It was during the end of December 2016.

My whole experience of that training was very informative and easily understandable. Satya’s way of teaching was to the point and interactive.

He had always encouraged learning everyday so that the content stays in our mind. As I remember, in the last day of training I was able to remember all the 47 processes across the 10 knowledge areas and 5 process groups, even without thinking. Here, I would definitely have to appreciate Knowlegehut for providing very good facilities, which enabled better learning.

Own Study
I had plans to schedule my exam as soon as I am ready so I started my studies. I spent minimum two hours a day for my studies. By Feb 2017 I registered in PMI and submitted my application. My application was not selected for audit and I proceeded with payment.

I didn’t want to refer too many books and confuse myself so I went through only the PMBOK® Guide 5th edition and few other books such as Rita Mulcahy and Headfirst. I read until I was clear with the concepts and each knowledge area. I had made my own notes based on PMBOK5 which helped a day before the exam for revision.

Once I was done with my studies, I started with free mock exams from source such as Oliver Lehmann and few others. I was initially scoring very low so I went through my earlier references again.

I also purchased and installed few Software and Mobile Apps which I used to answer questions during my free hours - thanks to Bangalore Traffic! For mock questions, I also had used couple of other books. 

I believe spending time everyday for your studies and practising mock exams will only help in achieving this certification.

PMP Exam Experience
Finally, I scheduled my Exam on 21st Dec 2017. I couldn’t take the exam earlier due to my work load. I was very clear that I won’t panic and do my best. Day before the exam I just went through my own notes. 

I didn’t have any strategy in mind before sitting for the exam. I had picked the first slot at 08:30 am and reached the Prometric centre 30 mins before. When the exam started I didn’t want to waste my time with the exam instructions. Hence, I quickly skipped those and started attending my questions. I was having an eye on the timer as I don’t want to rush in the last minute.

Types of Questions Faced

I faced following types of questions.

• I had more questions from Communication Management and Stakeholder Management. 
• There were few questions on calculating Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and Cost Performance Index (CPI).
• Also, I was given a graph and asked to identify if it was ahead/behind schedule or over/under budget. 

The questions were not lengthy but were very tricky. You will find all the options correct and selecting the exact one was difficult.

I finished my exam with 30 minutes to spare. From that, I used the first 20 minutes to review the questions which I marked for checking. Final 10 minutes I was unable to hold the tension and hit on the finish button after skipping the survey. I had my heart out by the time the congratulations appeared on the screen. 

Yes, I did it!! I’m a PMP now!

Suggestions for PMP Aspirants

Do’s
- Please carry only your ID proof when you go inside the exam centre.
- Reach your Prometric centre 30 Mins before. I had my exam started 10 mins before the exact scheduled time.
- Be clear with the process flow and what comes next.
-  The exam requires both mental and physical readiness so be strong and make sure you have your food before you sit for exam.

Don’ts
 - Don’t panic and believe in yourself. If you had put your time and effort on studying it won’t be wasted.
 - The real exam questions are very different from the mock questions. Never expect easy and straight forward questions in the exam.

Conclusion
I would like to use this PMP as a means for my career growth. Moreover, it has given me a lot of self confidence and taught me to never give-up no matter what happens. If you have decided and made your mind just go for it and it will definitely happen.

Brief Profile
I’m Revathi Easwaran. I’m currently working for HCL Technologies as Release Manager with 9 years of IT experience.

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PMP Protein: Organizational (Project) Management – A Facelift

By Manjunath R, PMP

Management is neither about blaming one another for the failures. Nor it is about beating around the bush. Management is neither about putting the ball in other’s court. Nor it is about implementing and practicing irrelevant standards. Management is definitely not about controlling people.

Management is alignment of thoughts, processes and efforts in line with vision and mission of an organization. Management is about streamlining and channelizing the energy flow towards achievement of a common goal. This needs a lot of insight into the abilities, weaknesses, strengths, egos, interests, ambitions of people involved. 

Directing the people may bring short term success, but eventually fails to bring out the long-term goal seeking attitude and commitment. It is so obvious that the human nature is so influenced by the environment around. If the environment is kept aligned with the goals, then, for sure people will also have the same influence in their actions.

In order to design the management tools for strategic alignment, we need to have an understanding of laws of nature. If we observe nature, we will understand how it works. Seasons after seasons come and go. They are all connected and self-driven. No one creates a path for the river to reach the sea. The river flows in a gradient obeying law of gravity. Tools, techniques and processes should be so designed that they should collectively lead to the success effortlessly. 

An important factor which influences the strategic alignment to the vision and mission of an organization is the kind of people involved. Whether they are self-motivated, visionaries or they have to be groomed, the kind of people will decide the fate of the organization. 

If likeminded people with positive attitude sharing a common passion work together for a common goal, work becomes fun and goals are achieved effortlessly. 

One more important factor which influences the strategic alignment is awareness of the purpose of the establishment of the organization. Most of the people are unaware of the purpose of the establishment of the organization in which they are working for decades. Nor they will be aware of the vision and mission of the organization. With people like them, organization may run, but, can’t grow tangibly or intangibly. Neither will the organization have any social value nor productive working atmosphere. 

The working atmosphere should be so high with energy and enthusiasm that people should forget everything else while working. Creating such environment will also lead to personal growth and happiness of each individual. 

The best way to create an enthusiastic environment is to make the stakeholders beneficiaries of the success or failure. It need not be only tangible. It’s the sense of ownership which adds the flavor to the involvement of people.  

Fear is one major factor which spoils the working atmosphere, thus bringing down the productivity. This is also major factor leading to employee attrition. Fear may be due to boss, client, customer, not meeting the deadlines, not meeting quality standards etc. Fear also brings down the confidence level of an individual, thus bringing down his/her capabilities. Efforts should be made to identify and keep any kind of fear out of the system. 

Many organizations start working without creating ambient atmosphere to work. It is like jumping into the freezing ocean without proper accessories and gears. Even a champion swimmer can’t be able to make it. Organizations should focus on creating proper tools and techniques which motivate, appreciate, elevate one’s capabilities, so as to make them a better person. This will have tangible benefits like increased productivity and intangible benefits like employee satisfaction and development. 

Creation of tools and techniques is an iterative process. It needs continuous improvement from time to time. Regular feedback from employees will surely help improve the process.   

As Technology changes from time to time, human behavior also changes. Keeping this into account processes should be altered and framed. 

Author: Manjunath R 
Manjunath R is a project management professional in construction industry . He is a graduate Civil Engineer. He is passed out from BIET (VTU) Davanagere in year 2005.He has been involved in construction industry as Deputy General Manager working for PDD Infratech. He has worked with several reputed organizations in Bangalore. He is having 12 plus years of hands on experience. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from Project Management Institute (PMI). 

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PMP Success Story: Do A Lot of Practice, Understand The Concepts Thoroughly Along With The Flow of Processes and How They Are Interlinked

By Kiran Patil, PMP

Introduction
Though I’ve been managing projects/programs for past 6 to 7 years, I didn’t have this globally acclaimed credit - PMP® certification, which all project management professionals aspire to have. Hence, I decided to take the plunge and get myself evaluated against the global standards.

PMP Coaching Experience
My classroom training for 4 full days was really worth every penny. The seamless flow of various topics of the course and the teaching methodology gave a lot of crucial insights and inspired me to take up the certification. Course coverage, tips and tricks and Satya’s insight into various topics were all excellent. 

Since I had already been practising many of these processes in my day to day activities as part of my project/program management role, I could certainly absorb, relate and recollect many of the concepts, flow of various processes, key documents, etc. These gave me more confidence to attempt this certification.

Own Study
During the last day of classroom training itself, I bought Satya’s book “I Want To Be A PMP”. I started reading your book to understand the concepts in detail. I spent about an hour or two in weekdays for the first 2 to 3 weeks and about 3 to 4 hours per day on weekends. Once I had finished going through all the processes, I started the practice question sets.

After 3rd week, I couldn’t spend even a minute on any of the weekdays. But I increased my study time over the weekends to about 6 to 7 hours per day. 

In between, I started going through the PMBOK® guide 5th edition to obtain more details on few of the concepts. But I didn’t go through PMBOK guide for all processes in detail. I felt I could get more inside information and the key strategy to answer various situational questions based on the practice questions and their responses. 

When I read through the book or the PMBOK guide, I felt I was able to understand the concepts theoretically, but when I attempted to answer the questions, I was going wrong. 

Hence, I decided to practice more and more questions, understand the responses and the criteria for choosing that 1 option among the 4 options. This strategy started to help me improve my performance. I was gaining more confidence and started to apply the logic better and relate the concepts to the options provided and was able to choose the correct option.

I completed the 6 practice question sets, went through all the questions at the end of each chapter in Rita Mulcahy’s book and the 3 sets of full length practice questions provided in the book “I Want To Be A PMP”.

This exercise took me all of 2 to 3 months and now I was better equipped to tackle the PMP certification. 

Book Review - I Want To Be A PMP
The teaching methodology and the simplified way of depicting the various processes drove me towards buying this book. 

To be honest I had not gone through any book before attending the classroom training. Since the way of teaching and tips and tricks shared during the classroom training were impressive, I decided to buy this book during the last day of the training itself.

In the book, definitely the questions were very helpful, along with the key tips and tricks, flow of various processes, consolidated flow of all 5 process groups, etc.  The content for the exam is vast and the book covers all topics. 

PMP Exam Experience
There is only one exam center in Bengaluru, the Prometric exam center in Prestige Shantiniketan, Whitefield, Bengaluru. I scheduled my exam on 19th Dec 2017.

I had initially thought of not taking the break until I complete 1 round of answering all 200 questions, because the entire process with security check while coming back takes around 4 to 5 minutes. I had practiced the same at home too during preparation.

But then, not everything goes as per the plan, right? In the actual exam, I could complete only around 150 questions at the end of 3 hours. I took a break for 5 mins and I completed all 200 questions and had 15 mins left to review. I hit the submit button with 50 seconds left and waited with anticipated breath for the final result.

Types of Questions Faced
I received very few mathematical questions, hardly 3 to 4. Almost all the questions were situational. There were no direct questions like definition of quality, definition of project management, definition of program management, tool and technique, key output, etc. There were no questions on VMGSOT, benefits, various motivational theories, critical path method, deriving total float and free float and operations.

I felt I had more questions on execution and closing phases of the project.

I had no issues with respect to infrastructure, exam center, exam software, ambience, exam center staff, etc. Everything was smooth and it was a good experience.

Suggestions for PMP Aspirants
Dos:
-    Understand the concepts thoroughly, the flow of various processes and how they are interlinked to each other. All the processes need not be sequential always and will have overlapping.
-  Practice a lot of questions and understand the approach used to answer them from their responses. Then relate that approach to the concepts and flow of processes.
-  Choose the sources appropriately and practice those questions only.
- Identify the key words in the questions and their responses to narrow down your options.

Don’ts:
-  As mentioned by Satya, don’t dive into internet and try to answer thousands of questions which might sometime be illogical or incorrect with respect to questions and their responses too.
-  Don’t get too tensed and lose confidence if you get few questions incorrect. 

Conclusion
Real life practices will many times different than the suggested project management standards as per PMI. But I would like to pitch in these concepts wherever possible and try to streamline the project management processes in my day to day activities.

Brief Profile 
Name             : Kiran N Patil
Current Role   : Program Manager – Product Integration
Experience      : I work for Edgeverve Systems Ltd, an Infosys company. I’ve overall 15+ years of IT experience, in which I’ve performed various roles of developer, module lead, team lead, project manager and program manager both in India and USA. I’ve been managing projects/programs for last 6 to 7 years.

PMP LIVE LESSONS - Guaranteed Pass:

• PMP LIVE LESSONS: Guaranteed Pass or Your Money Back

Book  for PMP exam:

• Book for PMP Exam Prep: "I Want To Be A PMP"

You may also like:

• PMP Success Stories of Year 2020s
• PMP Success Stories of Year 2010s