PMP (PMBOK4) Quick Reference: Your "Pass the Exam" Project

Date: Jun 18, 2012

Claudia Baca walks you through the steps of how you might proceed to build your study project to help you pass the Project Management Professional (PMBOK4) examination.

It’s time to determine your game plan for studying and passing the exam. In this lesson, I walk you through the steps of how you might proceed to build your study project. I know this might seem like overkill to some, but I think you’ll agree that it will be time well spent after you pass the exam. Remember that this is a comprehensive exam that examines your knowledge of the entire domain of project management from start to finish, from the perspective of the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination specification and the PMBOK^® Guide. It will be a grueling 4 hours of your life that is also expensive. Wouldn’t it be nice to only have to do this once instead of partially planning it and studying for it, and then having to do it over again? Besides, you can consider this exercise as a “practice what you preach” session. This plan proves that you are serious about your profession. So first, you need to ask yourself: How long do you want this project to take?

Look at your life, your workload, and your goals for this credential. Then, determine the length of the study project. You can take a couple of different approaches to determine the length of the project.

First, determine if you have any major milestones or life events that you want to schedule around. Say, for example, that you are unhappy in your current job and have set a goal that you want to be in a new company as a PMP before the end of the year. With that major milestone and knowing that it’s January, you realize that you should probably spend 6 months to get your credential and 6 months job hunting.

Now, let’s look at a life-event scenario. You know you are a procrastinator, and even if you plan to study 10 hours every week, there’s a good chance that little studying will be done before the test date. You also work well under pressure, so you decide to set the date of the exam immediately and schedule it at the end of your two week vacation in August.

If you have no major constraints in your life or milestones that you need to work with, the best study project plan is to take the exam when you are ready.

Now, you also need to ask yourself: How much time can I devote to studying each week? Will I be able to devote only Sunday afternoons? Can I study during lunch at work every day? If you just barely pass the experience requirements, you might need more time. If you are a slow learner, you might need more time. Only you can determine how much time you can devote to studying. Just know that this is an intense 4-hour exam, and you need to have a lot of terms, knowledge, formulas, and processes completely understood and memorized. There is no set formula for the amount of needed study time.

You need to factor your desired end date with the amount of study time needed to build your project schedule and its potential end date. In your factoring, remember that the credential handbooks suggest that you schedule the exam

At least 6 weeks before your preferred date
At least 3 months before your eligibility period ends

Before we start laying out a recommended approach, I want to make sure that you viewed and listened to Lesson 3, “How Do You Learn Best?.” Now is the time to make sure that you understand your primary learning mode or combination of modes. Once again, the modalities are visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic.

You want to factor in ways to study that incorporate your primary mode. That way, you get the most out of your study time.

Start with the Fundamentals

Now that you know how long you want the project to take, how many hours you can devote to study time, and your primary learning modality, let’s talk about a general approach for studying for the exam. You should start with the fundamentals of the PMBOK^® Guide and set a baseline via a sample exam for where you are in your understanding of project management.

I recommend that you study on your own for a while, and then see where you stand. For studying on your own, consider these activities:

Read the PMBOK^® Guide.
Review the entire video mentor.

Determine what terms are not familiar to you and research them. For example, the PMBOK^® Guide Introduction states that a project manager must have an interpersonal skill of motivation. You heard the term “motivational theories” before and want to make sure that you understand these theories for motivating teams. Go to your favorite search engine, type in “motivational theories” and study that term. Of course, there are other ways to research and understand terms. Pick the method that’s best for you.

When you start to feel comfortable with the material, take a sample exam. Be sure to see Lesson 15, “Working with the Exam Engine,” on how to use the sample exams that are included in this video mentor.

Analyze Your Results

When you finish taking the first sample exam, analyze your results. Look at the results for each category and determine what your weaknesses and strengths are.

Step back from the results and ask yourself, “Were there entire sections of the PMBOK^® Guide that I don’t yet understand?,” or “Are there terms that I don’t understand?” With this knowledge in hand, it’s time to start some concentrated study activities. For concentrated studying, consider these activities when using your strongest study modality:

Build study aids for your weak areas.
Read the PMBOK^® Guide again.
Listen to the PMP prep video mentor again.

Do this until your comfort level increases, and you feel that you are ready to test yourself again. Analyze the results of the exam and repeat the self study and concentrated study activities until you achieve a passing score of at least 80%. Go back over the areas that you believe are your strengths. You don’t want them to become weaknesses because you’ve ignored that area of study.

Your “Pass the Exam” Project Scenarios

I now present a few study plan project scenarios. Look these over and determine if there is anything that you can reuse for your study project schedule.

Scenario 1

This first scenario, depicted in Figure 4-1, is a person who can schedule the exam when he feels that he is ready to pass it. This schedule is also built for a person with the primary learning mode of kinesthetic. First, the person starts with the self-study activities of reviewing the video mentor, reading the PMBOK^® Guide, researching unknown terms, and taking a mock exam. He analyzes his exam results and determines where he needs additional work. Because he is kinesthetic, he creates flash cards and a card game where he matches terms with processes. He then begins his concentrated study activities, such as reading the PMBOK^® Guide sections while pacing, playing his card game, and listening to and watching the video mentor PMP prep lessons while writing process names in the air. When he feels more comfortable with the material, this person takes another mock exam and again determines where he is in the process. He continues doing the concentrated study activities until he has a passing score of at least 80%. Then, he schedules the exam for 6 weeks out. From there, he does more self-study and concentrated study activities until 1 week before the exam.

Figure 4-1. Schedule for Scenario 1

Scenario 2

This next scenario is for the person who wants to schedule the exam to coincide with her vacation, which is scheduled for the week of June 15. This procrastinator knows she won’t get enough studying done beforehand, and she will cram for the last two weeks. This person is also auditory. Her schedule is depicted in Figure 4-2. She starts her project schedule by securing the final day of her vacation as the exam test date. She goes through the study on her own activities, and then takes a mock exam. When she starts into the concentrated study activities, she makes a tape of herself talking through the points that have turned out to be her weaknesses. She also joins a study group that meets three times a week to discuss the processes of the PMBOK^® Guide. She does her concentrated study activities, including listening to the video mentor and repeating what she hears. She also reads the PMBOK^® Guide out loud and listens to the tapes. When she feels comfortable with her understanding, she takes another mock exam. She reanalyzes her weaknesses, does the study on her own, and completes the concentrated activities until she reaches the last week before the exam.

Figure 4-2. Schedule for Scenario 2

Scenario 3

The last scenario, which is depicted in Figure 4-3, is the person who has a 3-month time period to get the exam taken because her employer made it mandatory that all the project managers be PMP before April 1. This person also has a primary learning mode of visual. The first thing this person does is set the date for the exam. She doesn’t have much time and needs to start studying quickly. She will go through the usual routine of self-study, taking the mock exam and analyzing her strengths and weaknesses. In the area of concentrated study, because she is visual, she creates study aids that consist of diagramming and other visual aids, like mind maps, to help focus her study time. She reads the PMBOK^® Guide, listens to the PMP prep video mentors, and takes notes. She continues with the self-study and concentrated study activities until the week before the exam. Note that this person will spend as many hours as she finds every week to study for the exam. It looks like she will only have one chance to get the exam right in this scenario.

Figure 4-3. Schedule for Scenario 3

By the way, you probably noticed that each plan goes as far as the week before the exam. Lesson 16, “The Week of the Exam,” covers that week in detail.