Project Management Professional, PMP® is a globally recognized professional certification. It validates the experience and competency of a professional to plan and lead projects. It is worth spending the time to pursue this certification not only because it is globally recognized but also it provides a concise framework of most project management processes and applicable tools and techniques.

I recently passed my PMP® exam in first attempt and completed the certification. If you like to pass this exam very first time, spending just enough time and energy, following are the 9 tips for you.

1. Don’t get confused

I found, there are too many information on preparing and passing PMP® exam. Various exam preparation materials, courses, exam strategies are suggested based on peoples own experience and business purpose. What you need to do is to develop your own strategy based on your own study habit. Since each person’s, study style, prior experience, understandability, availability, interest and preference are unique; strategy to prepare and pass the exam has to be distinct as well.

2. Key is the PMBOK guide

First and foremost reading material is the PMBOK guide published by PMI. It contains globally recognized standard and guide for the project management profession. It presents project management processes with inputs and outputs that considered as good practices for most projects most of the times. It is necessary to read and understand PMBOK guide. This will not only help you pass the test but also provides great concepts and tools for real life project management. There are many good books, guides, articles and web materials available that can be used as references for further clarification. Nevertheless, the key is to read and understand the PMBOK guide.

3. Focus on tools and techniques

The most important part of PMBOK guide is the tools and techniques. You must have a clear understanding of each tools and techniques described in PMBOK guide. Also, you should know when, why and how they are applied in a project scenario to enhance probability of success. For better comprehension, use books and online contents. For example, affinity diagram is used to organize ideas based on their relationships, it is used when large number of ideas generated through brainstorming sessions, it helps prioritization or further brainstorming.

4. Understand the basic structure

You should have a basic idea on how and why the processes, inputs and outputs are connected. After reading PMBOK guide, you could easily make this connection and write it in a piece of paper for review. Try to find out why something is an input to a process and what are the logical outputs from that process. This will help you remember the connections, especially when you think of it logically. For example, Activity Resource Requirements is an input to Plan Procurement Management to identify what resources are available and what need to be acquired from external sources.

5. Before the exam

Before exam, review all the topics that you covered. This will help you remember new concepts that you have just learned. Especially go through the structures, equations, tools and techniques. Read the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Don’t spend too much time on few topics that you may find complex, rather go through all topics you have already covered. Rest well and be confident that you will pass the exam.

6. Schedule the exam

You should think about scheduling the exam a month or two before you’re ready. Because it may not be easy to find an exam date in your preferred location and day. You can reschedule anytime paying some additional fee, though, I’d recommend to stick to the initial plan.

7. Test center experience

Plan your day to be in the test center half hour early. I chose a morning in the weekend. I reached the center an our ahead. Receptionist asked me to put my wallet, cell phone, watch and any other similar items in a locker and go directly to take the exam, even I was an hour ahead. It is not allowed to study anywhere in the center. Inside the test area they did a whole body scan. Finally, someone took me to the designated computer desk to take the test. They provided me with a pencil, papers and a calculator. There’re noise cancelling headsets on the desk. There’ll be a 15 minutes’ instruction on using test taking software prior to start.

8. During the exam

Here’s the best part of all the fun activities described above, taking the exam. The most important element of passing this exam is you’ve to be very confident and focused. Questions are mostly scenario based, consists of a problem statement and what would you do to tackle the problem. It may require you to think about what process group you’re in, what document you’re using, what document you might have missed, what tool you should apply or might have applied and similar kinds. You might lose your focus seeing repeated appearance of similarly worded this type of questions, so be very calm and collected. Some questions are too long, you could easily skip them in first pass and review later. There’re only a few low hanging fruits, rather I found most of the fruits are hanging at certain distance, still catchable but not in few seconds. Don’t forget to review and answer all skipped questions, even if you don’t have time to read and answer them correctly.

9. After the exam

After the exam, there’ll be a survey on your test experience. Then you’ll be provided with your test results in terms of pass/fail and your performance at each Process Group as Proficient, Moderately Proficient and Below Proficient.

Finally, I hope all of you pass your exam and certified as Project Management Professional, PMP®. Please leave a comment below if you’d like to add something from your own experience that might help others preparing and passing their exam.

Free PMP® Practice Exams

http://www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm

https://www.simplilearn.com/pmp-exam-prep-free-practice-test

https://www.edwel.com/Free-Resources/PMP-Certification-Practice-Exam.aspx

http://free.pm-exam-simulator.com

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