PMP Journey - Stay Motivated & Consistent!!!

The day has finally arrived when I can add PMP certified in my profile. I got “Above Target” in all Process Groups, except Executing, and an overall “Above Target” score.

I would like to thank everyone who kept me motivated throughout my journey.

My motto of writing this article is to share my experience with all the PMP aspirants who think of giving up. 

My journey for PMP started almost a year back, when I moved to Singapore, and I won’t say it’s too tough but it’s not easy too. The only 2 things which are mandatory to achieve success are - consistency and planned effort. Like every other PMP aspirant I too stumbled upon several hurdles. Following are some of the challenges I faced:

1. Moving to a new country, and hunting job in completely different culture kept diverting my focus.
2. Change in lifestyle and new personal life challenges kept me busy, and finding time for study was tough. Because of that there were several months of gaps in my preparation. And whenever I re-started, I realized that I forgot many base concepts.
3. Hailing from science background, I am used to look for “one” right answer in MCQs; but PMP is different. Most of the questions in the test papers have more than one correct answer, sometimes even all four. The best suitable answer has to be chosen, according to PMBOK.
4. The test demands 4 hours of continuous focus, without even a water break. And it was hard for me as I like having little breaks to re-center my focus.
5. I started studying in March with version 5, because I wanted to finish it before version 6 comes out, but it couldn’t happen. Many base concepts are different in version 6. Hence, I had to forget lot about version 5 and re-establish my base knowledge. 
6. The application process for exam is critical. Although, my application got accepted in the first attempt, I couldn’t appear for version 5 exam because I have single name “Shreya” with no surname; and last name is mandatory for scheduling the tests. Hence, I had to request PMI to allow me scheduling the test with my first name only, which took many days with several follow-ups.
7. When I got approval from PMI to schedule the test with my first name, the version 6 already came out, and I just began going through it. But I became quite impatient and appeared for the exam without even preparing properly. My score was strange, I scored “Above Target” in the 2 most critical process groups - Executing and Monitoring & Controlling; “Target” in 2 - Planning and Closing; and in Initiating (which I used to consider easiest) my score was “Needs Improvement”. This literally crushed my motivation and I felt like giving up.

Here are few tips which I followed to reach success:

1. After wasting so many months, I considered PMP as a project itself, and in November I decided to give my regular focus towards preparation. The first thing I did is to schedule a date “1 February” as the end day of the project. Then even in busy days I used to go through either few pages of PMBOK or solve few questions. It helped me to build a strong base.
2. As I was already done with the online classes (Simplilearn institute) months back, I decided to read the whole PMBOK first, though it’s dry, I considered it as a mandatory task of my project. I even did fast reading of the pages whose concepts were clear to me, so that I finish it as soon as I can. 
3. While studying, I used to relate the concepts with my professional project experiences, and some concepts of my MBA degree too.
4. Once I was done with PMBOK, I started giving tests. Initially, it was hard to take whole 4 hours tests (with 200 questions) in one sitting. So, I began with 20 questions at a time, then 50, then 100, then at last 200. 
5. Again, sitting for 4 hours continuously without diverting focus was the hardest part for me. But then I realized, I can finish the test just in 3 hours, if I get used to the patterns of the questions. It would allow me to take little breaks. So, I started figuring out what are the usual patterns. For that I attempted as much questions as I could. 
6. As I was prepared enough to finish the test in 3 hours only, I took two short 5 minutes water break during the exam, and I revisited the marked questions in remaining 45-50 minutes. Luckily my exam centre was small, entry and exit process didn’t take longer duration.
7. Although PMP hasn’t declared any passing score, it is assumed to be between 67-70% for all the 5 process groups (Initiation, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Control, and Closing), individually. Therefore, it’s mandatory to prepare well for all the segments, in order to pass.
8. Just to be safe and feel confident, it is recommended by mentors to score >80% score consistently in several 200 questions practice test papers. But I made sure that I take test papers from only verified sources. There are several web and app based sources, but most of them either have questions which are too easy or the concepts are wrong. 
9. Also, it’s better to go through 3000+ questions before appearing in the exam. This helps in increasing the pace and makes it easy to understand the twists in the questions.

I wish good luck to all those who are planning for PMP. Just stay motivated and be consistent. Thanks for reading. If you have any queries or you need any suggestions then please reach out to me at- [email protected]

I’ll be happy to help!!!

Cheers,

-Shreya