My PgMP Journey & Lessons Learned. (A must read for PgMP Aspirants)

Alhamdulillah, By the Grace of Almighty Allah, I have passed my PgMP Exam. I believe, this is one of the toughest exam to crack. The Efforts and dedication required for passing this exam is very high but yet it’s rewarding.

A special thanks to my family who were always there with me in this journey throughout. Without them it was never possible. They were the key stakeholder who have invested their contributions in this.

All who are trying or looking forward to accomplish this certificate, must know that the path is not easy but remember that you are here because you want to differentiate between yourself and others who have chosen the easy path. Nothing is stronger than your will power, with small and steady steps, even the toughest mountain can be climbed.

My drive on the road of PgMP started from the time I competed my PMP milestone and within few days one of my friend from PetroFab playfully told me that ?“Doing PMP is just a small achievement , but if you get PgMP then you can feel proud of something”. That was the day. Now I knew, I had one more initiative in my hand and accordingly, I started initial assessment by defining the objectives, requirement & risk in order to ensure the alignment with my personal objectives and priorities.

The roadmap which I drew towards my vision was not easy at all because I had lot of external challenges due to which I had to do course correction several times.

I was initially mentored by Dharam Singh who is an excellent teacher. He has a vast experience in this field and has a huge contribution in giving maximum number of PGMP’s to the society. And personally he is a very good motivational speaker. I remember, he used to speak with me for hours from San Francisco just to encourage and help me to shred out all my negative feelings.

I, and my Brother Mahmoud Assaad from DEWA took training with Dharam Singh in Dubai. Mahmood was very generous enough to share with me his notes as well as knowledge which helped me a lot to conquer this journey (May Allah bless him with all the good thing in this world and hereafter).

Dharam Singh helped me in preparing my application. The process was very easy, within one week I got the panel review passed and was ready to go...

That’s it... The easy part was only till here... After this stage all hell broke loose, one after other, I was constantly tested and challenged by several situations in my work & personal life. Keeping hold on your mental calm and taking out time for studying was nearly impossible. I used to barley get any time for myself. All what I learnt from this part of life is to “Stay away from narrow minded people, those that bring you down. People with whom you hang around will eventually determine the person you become. Keep good company. Have a vision and remain focused in your life, no matter what the obstacles and challenges you will face, don’t give up and you will succeed.

As I initially told, I did some major course correction to my life and left behind all the factors which was stopping or not helping me from achieving my target.

I give special credit and thanks to my reporting manager Ms. Jameela Al Ali– Director of IT Operations- AFZA, who is such a professional lady and has very high morals. Once I started working with her, things started getting easy for me. She taught me how to handle the transition period between the work and your home. How to concisely shift from work mode to home mode? How to focus on boosting productivity while you are at work? All these things were like a boon for me and I quickly started to grab this opportunity and focus on my studies once I am at home.

Before I could seriously start for my preparation, luckily I came across Harish Lakkavalli from ACEPRO, and I must say that he is the best teacher as he has a very simple and innovative style of teaching. You will never loose concentration while he is teaching and he will never let you feel board of the subject.

He is also a contributor to PMI for Preparing the SPM book. Very simple and humble person. I wouldn’t be where I am without him. You can challenge him with any doubt of this subject and I bet on it that no one can clear your doubt as good as he does.

Technically speaking, whatever study time I initially got was not effective at all. The last one month of the study before the exam was the key to success. I took 1 month vacation form my office and fully dedicated my time towards the study.

• Study Material Used: ?The below are the materials which I used for studying...

?1.?????The standard for program management fourth edition form PMI

This is the main reference book from PMI. The whole exam is based on this book. Get to the level where you make yourself familiarized to each and every word in this book. The whole secret of passing lies in this book. You miss this book, you miss to pass!!!

Target: Must read at least 2 to 3 times.

2.?????PGMP Exam Test Preparation from Ginger Levin.

This book is the killer book, has 20 practice questions from each chapter and 2 set of 170 questions each.

Target: Must Acquire Minimum 60%

3.?????PGMP Exam Preparation Study Guide from Jean Gouix

Has 10 practice question for each chapter and 2 set of 170 questions each.

Target: Must Acquire Minimum 70%

4.?????The Complete Reference Guide for PGMP 5th Edition form VCare(Dharam Book)

It has 10 practice question for each chapter and 2 set of 170 questions each.

Target: Must Acquire Minimum 80%

• The most important booklet which you should not miss to read is the ECO

Must have overall understanding of each task from each domain. It’s not necessary to by heart the task but it’s definitely important to at least know why and when each task is performed.

• Study Strategy: ?

First and foremost thing I did was to prepare a study strategy which included matrix in it. Example: I identified the critical success factors as well as the necessary KPI’s.

One of the application which I used for Scheduling my Study is “Study Checker” from Android. This application was really handy to keep note of my study time and constantly let me know whether I am aligned with my schedule of lagging. As the time was less, in the last days I studied minimum 3 hours and maximum of 12 to 13 hours a day to keep hold on my target.

• Question Answers Practice :

My Target over here was to solve as many questions as possible and this helped me to have deep understanding of the concepts.

1.?????Ginger Questions: Excellent for Challenging you brain and thought process.

2.?????Dharam Questions: Will help you understand the Standard & ECO better

3.?????Jean Questions: Easy & also will help you understand the ECO better.

4.?????Alaa Questions: Will help you understand the Standard & ECO better

5.?????Harish Question Set: Excellent explanations and will make your concepts strong and clear.

The below are the results which I got in my mock tests while I was attempting for the above set of questions.

For calculation questions, I only practiced the below.

1.?????Payback Period

2.?????IIR

3.?????ROI

4.?????NPV

5.?????Pert

6.?????EV

7.?????Communication Channels.

As my projects concepts were very clear I didn’t go through any of my old PMP books.

The day of Exam, on 15th July 2021, reached Apricot Tower in Dubai at 07:00 AM, sat in the reception studying till 9:00 AM. Entered the test room at 9:30 AM.

The Exam was super tricky, but as I had a very good amount of questions practiced, I could make out the reasoning in the questions and accordingly answered.

I could finish my exam in 3 ? hours and rest of the time used for reviewing the answers. As I neared the last tick of the minute, I could literally feel that my heart will pop out. At one moment, I just closed my eyes and started praying to Allah to give me an excellent result.

As soon as I got the pass sign on the screen, I bowed to Allah in Gratitude and ran towards the reception to collect the result.

Lucky to be in one of the less than 100 PgMP’s in UAE.

The Final Lesson: Do what nobody dares to do. Dream High and work hard to achieve you dream.