One day sitting in the conference room, I was just thinking ‘what next’ from a career perspective. As a Project Manager in one of the IT companies for the last few years, I learned lot many new things in those years but still, the back processor of my mind feels that I can still improve my skills in terms of project management. Suddenly the thought of PMP came into my mind. I had heard this name from someone in a past conversation and remembered that something is there for managers that is considered all over the globe, has a proper process guideline, and real value addition.
I did some research on different management certifications and came to the conclusion that PMP from PMI is the best value-added certification from a career perspective. Along with this, sudden doubts also came into my mind – it’s not easy. It will take months of effort and it’s challenging for me to start reading books after 10-12 years once again. This time it was August 2016. In September 2016, I was blessed with a baby boy. And PMP disappeared into the near future. I filled PMP application in the month of November 2016 and at that time also there was no plan to start preparation at all.
Starting My PMP Journey
In March 2017, I received a call from Mr.Joseph (ProThoughts) regarding PMP certification training, and after a certain follow-up from Mr.Joseph, I came to know the new book from PMI will launch in September 2017 and the examination process may change shortly. But at the same time, I thought it was sales fundamentals and I wouldn’t cave in to such kind of proposal. After a few days, I received a call from another institute and they said almost the same thing. Now, I checked the reality and I came across the same thing that both institutes described.
I wanted classroom training and I further investigated certain institutes and came across ProThoughts as the best among all and decided to go with it.
Challenges Ahead
Due to some family circumstances, I was not able to join the March 2017 batch but I knew one more batch would come in May- June 2017. Until that time, I made up my mind and informed family members about the certification and its challenges. I even informed family members that once I attend the training, I need at least 4 months to study and prepare myself for exams. During that duration, I won’t be available for any weekends, any festivals, or any social functions. Special challenges to my wife, as I have a 5-year-old daughter and a 6-month-old son. All agree on it and I appear for the training in May 2017.
PMP Preparation and What I Learned
It was 4 full days of training on alternate weekends. Now I have some knowledge of what PMP is and what can be the syllabus. Frankly speaking, I am not a person who reads once and remembers everything. I need revisions multiple times to go in depth about any study material.
As you all know PMP is all about scenarios. There is PMBOK available but it’s somewhat difficult to understand if you are a first-time learner. There is an alternate book available that is focused on by ProThoughts and it’s rightly suggested. It’s Rita Mulcahy which has a lot many examples and is somewhat easy to understand. You need to understand the book well from PMI’s perspective.
Your routine management experience and book experience are almost different. So, if you do not mold your thoughts in terms of PMI’s perspective, it’s difficult to understand or even clear the PMP certification. As per my knowledge, we need to study multiple books at least for reference purposes. I read Rita’s book 2 times simultaneously.
While you are reading it the first time, it may happen that you will not get some concepts straight away, but you need to focus your thoughts and don’t worry if you will not be able to understand the first time. When you read it next time, definitely you will get things in proper shape.
In between while I was reading the book, sometimes I was doing exercises for the questionnaire to build the confidence level. Till July 2017 EOD, I managed to complete the book a couple of times with around 600-700 online questionnaires.
Mock Exams & Continued Guidance From ProThoughts
Now it was time to give the mock test. In the first full mock test, I got around 65% and I felt some level of confidence. But the journey from 65% to 75% journey is not easy. In the last 2.5 months, on average, I was reading for 3-4 hours on a working day and around 10-12 hours on a non-working day. And believe me, on working days 3-4 hours daily reading is too difficult after 10-12 hours of routine office hours.
I thought “Let’s have some more questionnaires and I may reach 75%”. But unfortunately, it was not the case and it stayed around 65-67%. The frustration level reaches up to the next level as and when the day progresses. Initially, I thought that on 15 Aug, I would go for the final exam but anyhow I was not able to get confidence till 10th August.
I took guidance from my coach Mr. Saurabh and he guided me brilliantly. He insisted, that 100 more hours of effort were needed and insisted on taking lighter reference of PMBOK as well. Actually speaking it’s quite frustrating, that I won’t appear for the examination on 15. The same discussion was done with the family members and they suggested going with the suggestion and insisted I give some more days of effort, which took away some of my frustration levels. And I focused and started reading PMBOK for the lighter reference and after that, I took the mock exams and I reached up to 70-74%. Confidence level suddenly boosts up to a certain level.
Exam Day
I took a date of 28 August for the examination and the final day came. It’s early morning at 4 AM and I start doing revisions once again. I took the Morning time for the examination and reached an hour early. Heartbeats were higher than the normal routine. I took deeper breaths and went to attend the exam. After 4 hours of examination, 10 seconds felt like 1 hour which took my system to generate the result. Finally, the result was in front of my eyes with positive outcomes and I cracked the PMP exam.
I want to thank ProThoughts as institute and Mr. Joseph for the initial information. Special thanks to Mr.Saurabh Parikh and my family (My wife, daughter and parents), without whose help and support it would be difficult for me to crack the examination.
—
If this PMP Success story by Jigar Shah inspired you to take the next step in your career, feel free to consult with our experts on your path ahead!
About our course: PMP Certification Training
Explore more about PMP:
