
The Post PMP Exam Brain Dump — For Those on the Fence or Just Curious.
As my social media indicates, I just passed my PMP Exam!
I mistakenly only allotted 48 hours to study for this (including sleep and eat time). It was poor project management on my part. I underestimated the exam greatly, but by the grace of the PMP Gods, I passed.
1. Determine Need + Experience
The PMP, or the Project Management Professional Exam, is the “gold standard” industry certification for project management. This has been on my to-do list since I started in Government IT consulting, but have been waiting for the right intersection of need and experience to acquire it.
-Need: Because it isn’t meant to help you get a project management job, only meant to reinforce your already existing capability to do so. It’s also expensive. A quick breakdown:
- Required instructor training ($1500–2500) (Minimum $)
- Additional Books and Materials ($50–200)
- Time Off work (Minimum 35 + 4 Hours for Exam)
- Studying time ($$$$)
- Joining PMI ($129)
- Exam Fee ($400–555)
- — — -Is this worth it for you, at this point in your career?
-Experience: Because the PMI has a system of requirements and audits on the number of hours you have actually run a project in each phase of the project management life cycle process. Some people do fidget with this, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk of audit, since they do require names and numbers of the client or supervisor you claim to have run the project for.
- Bachelors degree + 35 paid training hours + 4,500 hours experience
- No Bachelors degree + 35 paid training hours + 7,500 hours experience
- 40–50% Fail Rate
- Only 10% of Bootcamp takers even take the exam (heuristic #)
Also, the concepts tested in the exam are so obscure to many other PMP takers who actually have 15–30 years industry expertise, that if you aren’t quite ready for it, it may not even really be worthwhile.
2. Choosing the Bootcamp
So you do choose to do the bootcamp.
This may be the first test of your actual ability to “evaluate vendors.”
I made a HUGE mistake with mine. (Will not go into this further since I haven’t decided what to do about this faux pas of mine yet. BBB complaint? TBD)
Evaluation Factors of a Good Bootcamp
a. Who are the instructors?
Do they come from a credible background in both instruction of PMP material AND actual project management experience? You are there for a whole week. Make sure you aren’t just learning from test gurus. It will have a much higher ROI (return on investment) if the instructor teaches with real life context.
b. Do they provide the appropriate accommodations?
Food, refreshments, classrooms with windows, projectors, printed books, pens, visual guides, worksheets, materials, sticky notes, high lighters, scrap paper — all these things = so important.
c. Do they have a solid money back or retraining until pass guarantee?
Some do guarantee pass, but only in terms of letting you attend bootcamp again and again until you do. Just be aware of this. It’s not a real $ back guarantee.
3. The Studying Process
Yes, there is a formula for studying to pass for the exam. Sadly, there is not a shortcut. You have to study strategically NOT linearly. What I mean is, no matter how much you read an exam guide or material from cover to cover, it will not help you on the exam. Unlike other exams, knowing facts, will not help you on the exam. I only caught onto this 24 hours before exam. oof.

I can go more into this later, but here are the quick things about the way you should study.
- Expect to go back and forth through the material, not straight through. Certain instructors run down the “knowledge area” laterally (X-axis), some go “horizontally” (Y-axis). In order to “pass” the exam, you need to locate yourself on both the X and Y axis.
- After you figure out what I mean by #1, focus on the ITTO’s (Inputs, Tools, Techniques, and Outputs) of each. So at each “intersection” of a knowledge area and a process is a list of “outcomes or outputs.” You need to know if I gave you the “Output” of “Stakeholder Management Plan,” what the input, tools, and techniques were to achieve this “output.”
- I made a one sheeter of all the Inputs, Tools and Techniques of each Output, going from Top to Bottom. For the First Process of “Initiating” there is a (Top:Project Charter) to (Bottom: Identify Stakeholders.) (And so on and so forth.) Use this helpful guide from Examspm.com.
- Answers from the exam are usually testing for your conceptual understanding of the ITTO’s and your ability to locate where you are in the X and Y axis. There are 49 possible “places” you could be.
4. Characteristics of the PMP Exam
It is a 4 hour exam. They do a pocket, ankle, accessories, and metal detection test to verify your identity.
Here are some characteristics of the exam I noticed:
- The more confident your abilities to manage a project, the harder it is.
It is a seriously unique exam. It is not testing your ability to manage a project, at all. In fact, it will purposely prey on your real life expertise in running actual projects against you. The answers to questions are always PMBOK theoretical answers, not real life. For example:
A team member is late in submitting a critical deliverable causing a delay during the executing phase. What is your next step as a project manager?
a. Bring up the issue to the greater team without specifying the team member in order to prevent future errors
b. Have a meeting with his functional manager to ensure that it doesn’t happen again to ensure quality to the clients.
c. Update the risk management plan with the team member’s planned absence for future reference.
d. Update the issue log with the delay to schedule
2. To get the answer for the question above and all the other questions, you need to make some incredibly counter-intuitive assumptions.
I. You must always think in terms of a multi-million dollar sky scraper project. NOT relate the experience back to you as an IT manager or functional manager. The impulse, when you don’t know the answer will always be to relate to your experience. DO NOT DO THIS.
II. The answer is most likely the appropriate ITTO. Look for the words in the question that will help you locate yourself on the aforementioned X-Y axis. The only two answers in that question containing an ITTO is “C-Risk Management Plan” and “D- Issue Log.”
III. The reason to know the ITTO’s is this. Risk Management Plan is done in the PLANNING processes, not the EXECUTING processes. It is also a plan to HOW to manage various types of risk, NOT a RISK REGISTER which documents WHAT the actual risks are.
IV. So the most likely and completely not-obvious answer choice is D.
Fight every attempt to say A or B, which is honest to God what I would actually do, not update some sort of spreadsheet. This is NOT a behavioral exam.
5. The Honest Return on Investment
- Get to demonstrate your theoretical understanding of project management on your resume, profiles, and at interviews.
- Cool badge from Acclaim to put on LinkedIn.
- Street cred from your fellow project management colleagues who went through a similar torture.
- A SERIOUSLY eye-opening and completely enlightening dive into the core foundations of project management.
But here is the deal. I don’t think certifications demonstrate your ability to run a project. As I’ve said before, it doesn’t even help you get a project management job, if you weren’t already qualified for them before. What it does do is give you an empirical understanding of the practices around managing people, processes, and projects. It helps you understand at least the theoretical basis of what to do with risk should it arise.
I am convinced that, while the PMP is not necessary to be a good project manager, the study of the PMBOK should be a self-enforced requirement to be an effective manager and leader in the professional environment.
GOOD LUCK!
