PMP Lessons Learned: What Not to Do During PMP Exam Preparation?

Yet another Aspirants who just passed the new PMP® Exam in 2019! Thanks and congratulations to Sachin Inkar who just passed the PMP® Exam!

PMI has just announced the new PMP® Exam originally scheduled to be released in Dec 2019 will be postponed to Jul 2020, that’s a great news for those who would like to get PMP® Exam based on the current exam format! That means this lessons learned is relevant to you!

The lessons learned by Sachin on this PMP® Exam prep project is detailed below:

I am working in IT for more than 14yrs now , I graduated in IT and have studied Project Management as a subject during college. So I was confident that I will do well in it. To my surprise it wasn’t the case.

This was my first major certification after 10 yrs. When I got hold of the PMBOK® Guide guide I thought I will never finish this. The size of PMBOK® Guide scared me and I started looking for notes. To get my mind in studying mode wasn’t easy. So I decided to take CAPM® exam first as the syllabus is the same for both exams I still had to read PMBOK® Guide. One of my friends recommended me “Rita Mulcachy’s PMP® Exam Prep”. I started reading that, I watched PMP® videos from “Pluralsight” and finished my mandatory training for PMP®. After close to one month I was still not confident of completing the syllabus on time. But I kept reading and taking notes. Eventually I finished the syllabus and slowly all dots started connecting. I registered for CAPM® and managed to clear it. This made me more confident. I register my PMP® one month after that.

I am sure there are enough material and right plans available on how to approach PMP®. Let me tell you what I did not do which I regretted in the exam.

Although I pass the exam but I will highly recommend any aspirant to not do this.

Never took training from an actual PMP® course –

I would highly recommend candidates to enroll in a training course. This provides you with many benefits which you will realize before / during / after your exam.

Never Read PMBOK® Guide –

You should read PMBOK® Guide at least once. No other study material covers each topic in details as PMBOK® Guide does. I remember I had 4-5 different questions in the exams about “Kick-off Meetings”. The book I referred to had only a paragraph of 5-6 lines to describe it. But PMBOK® Guide explained the concept in great detail.

Never took a complete mock exam –

Yes , that’s real. I realized in 1 hr into the exam how big this mistake was. My mind was not ready to concentrate for those 4 hrs. I felt tired and I literally had to force my mind to stay focused. I wont suggest anyone to do this blunder. Please take enough practice tests so you mind don’t feel exhausted during the exam.

If I had to give advice to any aspirant who is in similar situation:

Don’t take the exam lightly and don’t be overconfident irrespective of your background. PMP® is a difficult exam where you need to invest time and stick to a plan and approach the exam with a plan.

Please refer to good quality PMP® questions –

There are tons of exam questions available , the actual exam questions are difficult so you have to refer to a credible source. I attempted close to 1000 questions from various sources. I don’t think there is any best source available but 400 questions from Rita Mulcachy’s book were very useful as some of the questions I had in exams were very close to the practice questions I did.

Some of you must be thinking I am lucky to pass the exam but I did fairly well in the results. But in all honesty my approach to the exam wasn’t the best. I realized during the exam why so much planning and efforts is required to clear the exam.

• Initiating: Target
• Planning: Target
• Executing: Target
• Monitor & Control: Above Target
• Closing: Above Target

I have to Thank Edward Chung , I stumble upon his site week before my exam and I found lot of useful material. I went through all his PMP® notes for each chapter diligently. I used it as a tool to revise my learnings and went back to PMP® exam prep material where I needed more information. I would highly recommend his work which he has shared with everyone. I wish I was so good at making notes.

~ Sachin Inkar, PMP®

Thanks Sachin for the very detailed PMP® Exam lessons learned! I find it especially useful to know the things not recommended for PMP® Exam preparation as an after-thought. You are really talented to write from another perspective.

To Aspirants: Wish you PMP® success!