Any PMP's in here..........?

[WdyCrankbait]

Hey everyone,

    I am studying up to take my PMP (Project Management Professional) exam soon and I wanted to know if there any already in here?  I would love to pick your brain about the test if you don't mind.

 

Thank you,

Wdy

[flyfisher]

I am not but i have friend who is and he said that the test was way harder than he thought it would be.  I want to say he didn't pass the first time but did on the second.

Good luck!!

[TOXIC]

Yes, I got mine from George Washington University here in Washington, DC  but it was back in 2006 and I doubt I would be of much help.  I used it to round out a section of my resume.  

[adrenalnjunky]

Lol- I've actually had to answer this in a few different forums, so I just keep it where I can copy/paste, lol.

 

I took it in Dec 2016. I've been running "projects" for the better part of 12 years, and the company I was with wanted to pay for our training and get us certified. I did the required hours of pre-exam training, and didn't really focus on those all that hard. I revisited all of the online training for a week leading up to the test, and I crammed hard for the last 3 days, and passed first try. This after having months of "instructors" tell me all the horror stories about how detailed/tricky the test questions will be, and how you will have to know all of the functions and formulas, definitions and what not, cold. I did the approach where you immediately sit down and regurgitate everything you have stuffed in your head onto scratch paper they give you, so there I had a reference guide. That being said I only used 4-5 of the formulas for the most part, and didn't have to go back and use a lot of the definitions and concepts. It was strangely surreal, as I was expecting something a lot more "mean", I was in classes with folks that had not passed it 4-5 times. Hell, one series of session was led by a guy that had not passed it yet, and even his "instructions" on how to complete your application process and what documentation you needed going into it weren't accurate. (How does that make sense?)

I know there are different versions of the test each year, and I also heard there are changes coming for 2018 - the new version of the PMBOK guide and the included Agile methods they've started incorporating.

I did find the "Head Start PMP" guidebook to be one of the best, it made things make sense in a "layman's terms" type of real world manner. 
 

[WdyCrankbait]

But we are the best forum I hope!

 

Thank you Junky!

 

Wdy

[NYWayfarer]

I have been a PMP at my job for close to 15 years without a “exam”

 

Common sense. Can’t teach it, can’t learn it, can’t test it. That’s what you need to lead, period. I have developed a line of questioning during interviews to determine if an individual has it. If they don’t I pass no matter how much edumacation they have. I learned the hard way. I had a highly educated individual that I gave a simple task of alphabetizing some work come to me. She asked how do that when all the peoples names begin with the same letter...

 

I facepalmed. Then I told her you look at the second letter...

[TOXIC]

13 hours ago, NYWayfarer said:

I have been a PMP at my job for close to 15 years without a “exam”

 

Common sense. Can’t teach it, can’t learn it, can’t test it. That’s what you need to lead, period. I have developed a line of questioning during interviews to determine if an individual has it. If they don’t I pass no matter how much edumacation they have. I learned the hard way. I had a highly educated individual that I gave a simple task of alphabetizing some work come to me. She asked how do that when all the peoples names begin with the same letter...

 

I facepalmed. Then I told her you look at the second letter...

Common misconception of what "Project Management" entails.  There's a big difference between completing simple projects with oversight and being a professional Project Manager.  Same misconception I had going into the program.  The application of statistical formulas to control the progress of large projects where manpower, supply logistics, timeline quotas, contingency planning and a thousand other variables involved in Project Management.  Sure, it can be dumbed down to small projects where more common sense applies but for our project we used building a manned rocket for NASA as our model.  Thousands of employees, a complicated supply chain, a strict timeline, cost containment, budget and on and on.  I never want to go through that again.  My hats off to whoever chooses that career path.  I took it because I was in charge of locating, leasing, moving and building out an office location for 400 employees in downtown San Francisco.  My project would have been laughed at by the professional Project Managers and the types of projects we did in the class.  Lesson learned.