Aside from software development, I also enjoy studying other related fields like marketing, project management, and product management.
Any reasonably sized software needs planning to be executed properly and after you "finish it" (a software product is never actually "done"), you need to market it to the public in order to make sales.
In this article, I will describe the process I took to become a Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute (PMI), one of the most sought certifications, not only in project management but in the market as a whole.
I was able to start my studies and take the test successfully in 2 months, studying between 3 and 4 hours a day, every day, weekends included, and get the results below:
Overall performance:
Performance by domain:
What is the PMI and the PMP?
The PMI (Project management institute) is the main organization when you think about project management.
Project Management varies a lot from place to place, from project to project, and from industry to industry, but there are some standards across all of those that are considered general best practices.
The PMI publishes the PMBoK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), which is a guide of best practices in project management.
The PMBoK is not a methodology, the project team needs to decide which processes will be applied according to their needs.
The PMBoK is usually updated every 4 or 5 years with new practices and a review of the current ones.
PMP Certification requirements
To apply for the test, you have to meet some criteria as described by the official PMI page:
- A four-year degree
- 36 months leading projects
- 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification
OR
- A high school diploma or an associate’s degree (or global equivalent)
- 60 months leading projects
- 35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification
You can find everything you need to know about the application and the certification process itself on the official page of the exam at Project Management Professional (PMP)®.
What do you need to prepare
I had 3 things at hand to prepare:
- The PMBoK
- Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep
- An exam simulator
The PMBoK
This is PMI’s official resource to study. In a sense, it contains everything you need regarding topics.
The problem is that the PMBoK alone is a little too dry to study for the exam and it doesn’t have exercises to practice.
This is simply because the PMBoK is a reference book, not a study guide.
The best way to get a copy is to register as a PMI Associate. As an associate, you get a free copy of the PMBoK and you also get a good discount on the exam fee.
Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep
This is the book you want to have with you as your best friend.
Unlike the PMBoK, Rita’s book is a written course to help you organize ideas and absorb the topics of the exam with questions at the end of each chapter.
This one is a must, although kind of expensive, but not so much if you compare it with a live or online course that might cost you thousands of dollars instead of a few hundred like the book.
And the book has a huge advantage compared to a course: you can resell the book to somebody else and recover most of the investment you made or you can even buy a used copy from someone and save a buck.
Exam simulator
I did the exam back in 2018 and the simulator I used is no longer available, so I won’t recommend any specific simulator because I only recommend things I have used and can guarantee they actually work.
You can search for a "PMP exam simulator" on the internet and find lots of them.
Look for reviews to find a good one, these might be pricey, but they are worth it if you want to pass the exam.
A good simulator should allow you to practice questions by specific areas, so you can focus on one at a time when studying.
And, of course, they must have a good enough amount of questions so you can practice at least 2 complete exams, similar to the one you are actually going to take on the test day.
How to study
You might not be able to take the exam in 2 months and that’s ok! Actually, most people take between 3 and 6 months of study before taking the exam.
I will describe the process I used to study, each person has a rhythm and different constraints in life, so adapt this to a schedule you can actually keep.
1 – Read Rita’s book in parallel with the PMBoK, then answer the questions at the end of each chapter of Rita’s book.
2 – Once a week, at least, answer questions on the exam simulator by area. Do not attempt to mix questions of many areas at first, let each one sink in.
3 – Review the areas in which you are not scoring well in the simulator. You don’t need a perfect score and a good simulator will tell you where you should focus to get better.
4 – Repeat steps 1,2, and 3 until you finish all the chapters in Rita’s book.
5 – As soon as you feel comfortable, try as many complete exams simulator as you can, I would say something between 2 and 4 are enough.
I did 2 complete exams, on two different days, a week before the test.
You mustn’t let anyone distract you, lock yourself in a room and simulate the environment of the test so you get a feel of how to behave on the test day and how to manage your time appropriately.
The exam day
If you followed all steps described before and had good scores on the simulator, don’t worry, you are good to go!
Just one last tip: don’t get stuck on a question.
The exam is 4 hours long and has 200 questions, this means you have, on average 1.2 minutes per question!
Some questions will feel easier, some will feel harder, that’s normal, no one has all the answers, if you feel stuck on one question mark it for later and review it at the end if you have some time left.
Prepare well, keep calm, and good luck!