PMP FAIL! ...and then pass it.

I failed my PMP test. Then I passed it. Here’s what I learned.

---

As I answered the first few questions, I got that sinking feeling I had not felt since high school; I knew I was going to fail the test even as I was taking it.

And I smiled.

My going for the PMP certification had been years in the thinking, planning, re-setting my expectations, re-planning, having those plans collapse, on and on and on.

I was always too busy. I was too busy actually *running* a project, a program, eventually a portfolio, thank you very much.

What the heck did I need this certification for anyway?

I was also too busy being a parent of one, two, then three small children. I was too busy teaching my first, second, third, fourth, fifth year of graduate students.

I was too busy…well, just too damn busy to answer the question of why I didn’t have my PMP.

But, for better or worse, I knew I had to take it. As the years tore past, the impetus did not shrink, as I had hoped. It only grew.

The PMP accreditation has become recognized across multiple industries and a vast number of countries around the world.

While it had grown in international acceptance, I had also grown – in job responsibility and people I oversaw. I first had my own team, then task leads, and then managers under me. I was in charge of one person, four people, twenty people, seventy-five people. Some had earned a PMP, and I had seen it improve their career prospects tremendously. As someone trying to win new work, I had to make choices on people I would bid on future projects – and the PMP is a differentiator, because it makes a proposal more likely to win.

I care about my people, and I regularly saw what the PMP did for them. I also saw how it helped my company win more work.

I realized that I wanted to push more of my folks toward it.

Once I realized I needed to push them toward a PMP, a simple truth came out of the shadows, wandered over, and sat on my chest: How can I encourage my own people to get a PMP if I didn’t have one myself?

I realized that I owed it to them.

I immediately got myself into a new boot camp (I’d taken one a few years before), started studying, and set myself an exam date. I also set an expectation for myself, going all the way back to my time as a grunt infantryman, but is good advice for anything you really just have to learn: I would grind toward the goal. I would fail as many times as it took until I passed the damn thing.

As I settled into that grind of studying and got more and more familiar with the material, I got a very clear-eyed fifty-thousand foot view of it as well – this thing underlying the PMP certification called the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK?).

I remain startlingly positive about it.

The test is not on applying PMBOK? in the real world. The test is on how the PMBOK? is applied in PMBOK? world.

But that’s actually a useful thing, as bodies of knowledge typically must be learned as entities unto themselves. The real world comes later, after you've proven you know the principles and gotten certification.

For me, there is a also similarity between the PMBOK? and military doctrine.

Military doctrine is a codification of teachings (a body of knowledge) on the fundamental principles on how military forces are to be used to achieve national security objectives.

The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)? is a codification of teachings on the fundamental principles of how to manage a project.

For those in project management, the PMBOK? is a common frame of reference but, more than that and much like military doctrine, the PMBOK? is a guide to action. It is authoritative, but it also requires judgment in real world application.

It is not what to think. It is how to think.

Oh, the PMBOK? is not perfect. And it will be continued to be tweaked, argued, discussed, and debated for years to come, probably well past my lifetime.

But as a codification, a common frame of reference, it is authoritative. It's an extraordinarily useful starting point to look at any project management question.

But by authoritative, I also mean – it’s really freakin’ big.

There are 47 processes and, within those processes, 618 ITTOs (Inputs, Tools and Techniques, and Outputs).

The major trick to passing most of the exam is just knowing *where the heck you are* within those 47 processes; whether the question is asking about a process, or somewhere inside the process, to one of those 618 thingies – an input, a tool or technique, or an output.

Leading into my first attempt, I knew it was a pretty tight timeline between when I finished the boot camp and when I would take the test. I gave myself a week of study after the boot camp. I knew it might not be enough. But I also thought proximity between boot camp and test was very important.

It wasn’t really. Which leads to my first lesson.

1.      Lesson one – You will have to study, boot camp or no boot camp, so take the time but make it a regular habit

Boot camps are great. They give you a leg up on the studying. But they don’t replace it. You’ve got to spend the time doing the studying. An hour a day. Several hours a day. Whatever it is, it’s less the cramming, and more about the consistent habit, really knowing the PMBOK?. That’s just going to take time. (I do have an excellent shortcut that will help in the mastery of it, but that’s below.)

Even after a boot camp, you get back whatever time you put into it studying for the exam. I know a couple of folks who never took a boot camp. They just studied their behinds off and took practice tests. They passed it.

Wait, doesn’t the PMBOK? involve memorization? Yes absolutely, but frankly, the memorization is the beginning of understanding the PMBOK?. It’s just the starting point for the studying and really knowing the material. Now, some people can take a boot camp, cram the rest, and pass. However, all too many can’t.

I couldn’t.

Plan on taking the time, putting in the effort, and reading and re-reading a study guide.

2.      Lesson two – Take practice exams until you hate them…and then take some more.

My wife is a professional violinist (one of the top 50 in the country – I have the stats to prove it). And I know more about training and preparation to develop a skill than I can put into words here.

But the bottom line is, if you really want to do something that’s hard, you are just going to have to get comfortable with failure.

You’re going to fail a lot at first. But that’s the nature of getting good at anything. The more you practice, the less you suck at it. One day you’ll find you’re pretty damn good at it.

Take those PMP practice tests a ton of times. I also recommend simulating real conditions (like timers, no materials with you other than a pencil, some scratch paper, and a calculator).

The reason I smiled when I was taking the PMP test that I ultimately failed? Before going into it I had a sneaking suspicion I had not put in the time I really needed, and it hit me as I was in the exam that I had also taken too few practice exams. I smiled because, when you accept failure as a given, then the PMP exam was actually going to be an outstanding opportunity to REALLY practice – I was taking a practice exam, one that simulated the environment perfectly because *it was the environment!*

So I couldn’t help but smile.

I was going to fail. But, oh man, it was going to set me up beautifully for my eventual success. It was a great starting point to launch into a flurry of taking practice exams over the next several weeks.

Which I did.

3.      Lesson three – Build a “memory palace”

This one is my killer. I wish I had done this one out of the gate. But you can.

It’s not a silver bullet. But it’s pretty close.

I’m a middle-aged person. I like to think I’m pretty sharp, but my short term memory is, well, slipping just ever so slightly. For anyone, though, those 47 processes and 618 ITTOs in the PMBOK? can seem overwhelming. It’s not, if you put in the time (reading and taking practice exams, as mentioned above), but especially if you build a memory palace early on. You can remember extraordinarily *large* volumes of information through this technique. I found great (and simple!) instructions on how to build a memory palace here:

https://artofmemory.com/wiki/How_to_Build_a_Memory_Palace

It’s not exactly a shortcut in that it does take time to place this stuff around your house, and then use it to memorize. But I turned my house into a memory palace – with 3x5 cards taped in various spots. I literally walked myself through it daily, until I could walk myself through the PMBOK? mentally, anywhere I happened to be.

It’s not only extraordinarily effective, it’s faster than you think. I had those initial 47 processes taped up and memorized with 95% accuracy after the first day of setting it up around my house.

Those 618 ITTOs took a little longer. But not as long as you think. And it made the studying and practice exams infinitely *more effective*. When I was weak in an area, I could with pinpoint precision tell you where I was weak. That helped me practice it even better.

4.      Lesson four – Don’t bother reading the PMBOK?

Don’t read it. The PMBOK? is the knowledge itself. Not a study guide.

There are many study guides out there (I’m partial to Andy Crowe) that are great. Use them. Use the practice exams in them. I also turned to online videos for other areas that can be hard to understand in a book (such as cost estimating).

But don’t bother to read the PMBOK?. I still haven’t read it through (although I have skimmed it). It is written in passive voice, and will put you to sleep faster than you can say "Schedule Performance Index."

The offical PMBOK? guide is so dry it is actually counterproductive to learning the PMBOK?. Good for reference later, after you get a PMP. Not for study.

5.      Lesson five – No, the PMBOK? won’t automatically make better PMs; but that’s entirely because of them as people, not the PMBOK?

Shock of shocks, the PMBOK? may do exactly zero for how some managers actually manage a project.

But that is more a reflection on where those managers are with their experience in project management, and who they are as a person -- it has nothing to do with the PMBOK? being good or bad. The PMBOK? simply is what it is.

Yes, it will improve your career.

And it might, depending on who you are, do even a bit more than that.

It won’t tell you what to think.

It will show you how to think.

But whether you do or not? It’s also much like a horse being brought to water.

You can learn the PMBOK? and get a PMP.

What you then do with it is entirely up to you.