How to prepare and get a PMP certificate in two weeks

The Certificate of Project Management Professional (PMP) from the American Project Management Institute (PMI) remains one of the most popular in the world and is becoming popular in Russia. According to our observation of sites with a job offer, the desire to have a PMP certificate for vacancies “Project Leader” or “Project Manager” was mentioned in 7% in 2011, 12% in 2012 and 23% in 2013. And although in the description of most vacancies this was not a mandatory requirement, the trend is visible to the naked eye.

Not so long ago, there was an interesting discussion in the project management community on LinkedIn that ensures that PMP is available to the employer. The conclusion of the majority of participants was that it is expressed only by knowledge of terms and theory, but by no means by the practical experience of the owner. In the case of external projects, the company, of course, can use the presence of certified PMP as a competitive advantage in the commercial offer. But in practice, even a person without project management experience will be able to obtain this certificate, which is quite high in the world, having spent from two weeks to a month depending on the intensity of training. In this article we will talk about the “weak points” of the PMI requirements - whether or not to use them depends only on the professional ethics of each. However, for comparison, we describe the "official" and ethically correct way.

We mention that the exam is paid. It makes sense to first become a member of PMI ($ 139), in order to get a discount for the exam (for members of PMI $ 405) - as a result, the exam will cost $ 544, and membership in PMI will allow you to get your legal copy of PMBoK, as well as access to various materials , webinars, etc. If you register for an exam without a PMI membership, the exam will cost $ 555, so a PMI membership pays for itself.
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Exam Requirements

So let's start with experience. Officially, PMI requires 36 calendar months of project management experience (during which at least 4,500 hours were spent directly on project management). In the application you need to divide the clock by area of ​​knowledge. In case you are unlucky and the application falls under audit (see “Audit” below), then as confirmation you will need a letter from the managers confirming that you really managed these projects. No confirmation of work experience, the person who wrote the letter, even the existence of such an organization is not required. Theoretically, you can write the letter yourself, indicating the contact with the second mobile number - or ask a friend. Do not take as practical advice - just an indication of the "vulnerability" of the process.

Higher education is also desirable for taking the exam. It is confirmed by a scan of the diploma and a free translation into English. Sadly, this requirement is also easy to manage even in the case of verification: PMI does not verify the authenticity of the diploma. An audit requires a free translation, not a notarized one — this allows not only dishonest candidates to avoid risk, but also honest saving a thousand and a half on notary services. However, there is the option of obtaining a certificate without a higher education: however, it will take 60 months of experience instead of 36, during which 7500 hours were spent directly on project management. Another item requirements - courses. You need to dial 35 contact hours - that is, hours of training in project management. Any online or offline course will do, even if it was 20 years ago. V differs from pdu, which are needed to maintain certification, contract hours are not required for the course to be conducted by a registered PMI training provider. It is only important that there is confirmation of the training completed.

It is possible to fill in an application for several “approaches”: it can be kept mono half-filled for 90 days. Most often within a week after filling in the application, an answer comes in that the application has been verified and you are allowed to take the exam. If the answer did not come within two weeks (this happens) - then you need to write or call PMI: for some reason (this happens quite rarely), the application “hangs” somewhere in the middle of the process and without letter / call comes to approval. Many are afraid that their application will be audited, but ...

Audit

Some believe (including the author of one of the articles about passing the Habré exam ) that the application is being audited for some reason: incomplete information or a “suspicious” type. In practice, this is pure “random”: the system randomly selects 10% of all applications and sends letters about the need to send confirmation of documents through courier service. You should not panic: regardless of whether you are an honest candidate for a certificate or not very risky audit does not create any audit.

You attach a copy of the diploma (PMI hopes for your honesty, but does not verify the authenticity of the diploma), its translation into English in free form (notarial translation is not required - do not spend extra money), certificates confirming training and receiving the PDU (or a free letter from the coach, confirming that you have completed the course), as well as a letter (or letters) from the manager (s) confirming your practical experience, in an envelope. In practice, the validity of the letters (and their authors) no one checks. In absolutely isolated cases, they call the telephone number indicated or write a letter to the contact e-mail. The identity of the respondent is not verified.

The envelope should be sent by courier to the address of PMI. For some reason, everyone writes about the German DHL, but in order to save, we would recommend the American Pony Express. Firstly, it is more logical, since you are sending an envelope to the United States, and secondly, at the time of this writing, the price in DHL was over 3,000 rubles, in Pony - less than one and a half.

Within 2-3 weeks after that, a letter arrives about the successful completion of the audit. Thus, an audit can only increase the cost of obtaining a certificate (both for an honest and not very honest candidate), but not to ensure that the candidate meets the requirements.

Exam preparation

Reading PMBoK once is necessary anyway - even if you want to go the shortest way. This can take 10-12 hours and can be quite a boring process. Well, then there are several options. The book PMPExam Prep by Rita Mulcany, which in the past was the only alternative method of preparation, today has become a bit of an archaic and not the fastest way. It has useful exercises, and it improves PMBoK's understanding, but there are much more interesting books on project management and a much more effective way of preparation. The main one is websites and programs with a set of questions. In this regard, PMP is not very different from the technical exams from Microsoft or Cisco: there is a long and laborious, but more honest let with reading literature and practice, but there is a quick and less time-consuming, but not very ethical way of "filling the hands" on questions which then meet on the exam in one form or another.

The number of sites with a database of questions in English is very large. Unfortunately, they are all paid - for free, you can find only a few dozen questions of dubious quality. However, this article will provide an opportunity to significantly save on this.
So, assuming that you have chosen a less laborious way, you begin to answer hundreds of questions. If the general level of correct answers exceeds 60%, then it is important to understand which areas of knowledge you already know enough, and which are still insufficiently developed. There are 47 project management processes in PM BoK, and if you are focused only on those that are not well enough to know, this will help save a lot of time. And the more you know - the higher the need for such detailed statistics. Therefore, it is advisable to choose a site with questions that provides the ability to track your progress. In this case, you can adjust the preparation and work out questions only from areas of knowledge where the level is lower than the others.

It is very important that there is a detailed commentary to the questions that would explain the correct answer - these comments are important if you do not know why your answer was not correct.
In the process of preparation it is important to remember all the processes, their inputs and outputs. For better memorization, there are various tools, like a puzzle of project management processes. This will help speed up memorization. In addition, it is desirable to remember and formulas - in the exam there will be questions for which they will be needed.

When there is a feeling that most of the questions do not cause difficulties (on average, it takes about 30 hours), then it makes sense to try your hand at the exam simulator, which is also available on many sites. And if you have scored at least 80% of the correct answers on it, having packed in the allotted time, then you can consider yourself ready for the real exam.

Just below - how you can get a discount on access to all the tools you need to prepare.

Exam Language

If you take the exam at one of Prometric centers in Russia, you will be asked to choose the exam language - English or Russian. It looks very tempting to take the exam in Russian, especially for those who are not fluent in English. However, the translation of questions into Russian leaves much to be desired. Some questions are not fully translated at all, thus reading only the Russian version of the question is impossible to answer.

The good news is: even if you choose Russian, you will see the English version of the question below. Therefore, if the question in Russian looks incomprehensible, you can always read it in English.

But if your knowledge of the English language is not very good and you plan to rely only on Russian questions, then accept the loss of 5-10% of correct answers in advance - in this case, you need to be prepared with the expectation of it.

Exam

Obvious advice: before any exam you need to sleep and not be nervous. Remember, the exam is not much different from the simulator that you passed. At the same time it will be enough and lower result for a successful delivery.

It is important not to forget your passport with you, you will not be allowed to take the exam without it. Things will need to be left in a special box: they will only be allowed to take the simplest calculator with them (which you need to use - it can be useful).

At the very beginning of the exam, it is desirable to write down all the formulas on a sheet of paper that will be provided to you. This will help to calm down, even if during the exam the formula flies out of your head - you can look at it on the sheet. Do not write off. There is video surveillance in the room, the probability of “getting caught” is quite large.

During the exam there is an opportunity to mark the questions in order to return to them later. However, do not abuse this. 4 hours is enough for the exam, but not enough to delve into each question twice.

In any case, mark one of the answers. Even if at random. Despite the fact that, perhaps, then plan to return to this issue. The answer at random gives a 25% chance to "get" into the correct answer. And if you drop 1-2 obviously wrong options, the chances are still increasing!

There are many questions on the critical path method in the test. To answer them, it is best to draw network diagrams on paper - even if the answer seems obvious, it is sometimes easy to confuse.

A little more about time. According to statistics, most people have 3 hours to answer all the questions, another hour remains to double-check the answers - it makes no sense to fuss. Most of the questions will be identical to those that you have worked during the workout, so it will not take you much time. On the other hand, some questions will be more verbose, and it will take time to read the “water”, getting to the heart of the matter.

Immediately at the end of the exam, you will know the result. If you had more than 80% correct answers on the simulator, then with almost one hundred percent probability the result will be PASSED.


And finally, a small bonus. Especially for Habr's readers on the INPMI.ru website is available the promotional code HABRAHABR2014 , which gives a 35% discount.
Thus, for 2 weeks, practicing for 3-4 hours a day or for 4 weeks for 1.5-2 hours a day, you will be able to prepare and successfully pass the exam!