PMP Success Stories

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PMP Success Stories

This page contains summaries from different individuals who passed the exam. The purpose of this section is to give you an idea of their background prior to taking the exam, how much effort they put into studying, and what they found most difficult about the exam. Please submit your success story to email@pmpstudygroup.com! Carl Stumpf (consultant, the author of this site) George Wingerter (consultant, former colleague of Carl Stumpf) Greg Radcliff (consultant, former colleague of Carl Stumpf) Julie L. LaPlant, PMP (a reader of this site who submitted her thoughts) Rich Hoffecker, PMP

Carl Stumpf (author of this site)

Carl Stumpf is a management consultant with over nine years of project management experience and eleven years of management consulting experience. Here is the report from PMI with his name on the passing list! His specialties are information technology and financial consulting. My experience in studying for the exam is somewhat unusual because I spent a long time studying for the exam on-and-off before taking the exam due to various career changes that I was involved with (unintentionally). For example, I set up a study group to prepare for the Project Management Professional exam and, out of our dozen members, over 1/2 were laid off by our company in mid-stream during the course of our study effort. I scored an 85% on the exam. My highlights are as follows: Carl Stumpf did not take any official preparation classes My brother, John, had already received the ESI materials through his employer. The ESI tests proved to be invaluable. I found the ESI practice exams to be more difficult than the real exam. I went through the exams three times, moving my scores up from approximately 70% (barely passing) to around 95% I purchased the Mulchahy training guide and found it to be highly useful. For some of the items that I had trouble focusing on, such as the (obsolete) network diagrams, Mulchahy had simple rules to memorize that were sufficient to pass the exam. The Mulchahy practice CD, which mimics the exam format and offers 200 randomly mixed questions (i.e. a cost question, then a quality question, etc...) also was very good practice I bought the Kerzner Project Management reference text but had difficulty slogging through that very thorough book. It is overkill for what the exam requires (in my opinion) I did not have any problems with time. I probably marked about 30-40 of the 200 questions and finished my first pass through the exam in about an hour. I reviewed my work over the next 2 hours and probably changed my answers on about 20 questions I did not study very much. I had studied on and off for several months but really

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focused on studying for the 2 weeks prior to the exam. I read the PMBOK chapter, took the ESI exams, and took the Mulchahy exams I memorized the 37 PMI segments (i.e. Project Integration Management - Project Planning, Project Execution, and Overall Change Control) and wrote them down on the scratch paper when I entered the exam room. This was most helpful. I also memorized the earned value formulas and the PERT formulas. If you memorize these formulas those questions should be easy Even if I had my PMI materials with me at the exam site they would not have been much help for the questions that I found most difficult. These questions had very complex wording and offered more than one choice that appeared to be reasonable. Many of these questions were "What would you do FIRST" in a given situation which is hard because my instincts are so different than those described by PMI. In general, I was able to narrow it down to 2 answers out of 4 and picked the one I liked best In a bizarre coincidence, the woman at the test center who was running the classroom knew me from grade school. I went to school with her daughter and she recognized my last name. It is a small world...

George Wingerter
George Wingerter is a Project Management Professional (PMP) who is a very capable consultant and former colleague of mine. George recently passed the PMP exam. Below is a summary of his background and the effort that he spent preparing for the exam, along with his comments on how to prepare most effectively: George did attend a PMI Certification Seminar. See the hyperlink for an example of such a seminar held by the Midwest PMI Chapter. George has been a consultant for many years, with an engineering-related background. He has strong experience in the Financial Services industry vertical He decided to take the PMP exam and become certified to improve his credentials and polish his project management skills George contacted PMI and submitted his credentials to take the PMP exam. These credentials were accepted by PMI. He had 13,000 hours over the related time period qualifying for PMI purposes His studying time frame was five months at approximately forty hours a month for a total of 200 hours George took a 4 day preparation course conducted by PMI but it was mainly on how to prepare for the exam rather than coverage of exam topics. This would probably be more helpful for less experienced managers George started studying with the PMBOK. He carefully reviewed the graphical pages that began each of the chapters describing the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. During his studying he would relate items to each of these sections George used the ESI exam preparation materials that we are using for our PMP Study Group He went through all of the exams and "mixed up" the order of the questions (so that they did not all relate to a single chapter - this is the manner that the final test is delivered, as well) When George saw an area that he did not understand very well or needed more

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background information (whether it was a reference in PMBOK or a sample exam question), he looked it up in "Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, 7th Edition" by Kerzner. This is now a recommended book for our team, not to read cover-to-cover but to keep as a reference and to read through complex areas that you may not fully understand such as Earned Value George did not buy the ESI books "lite pack" or the expanded pack. George felt that 90% of the information in the exam was either directly from PMBOK or closely related to a reference from PMBOK During the exam, you can "mark" a question and come back to it. George marked about 67 questions and came back for a final answer. There is no penalty for guessing so all questions should be answered Prior to studying, George scored a 63% on a practice exam. He passed the exam with a score in the high 70's which seemed pretty common with other individuals that George contacted. Scores at the 80 or above range are apparently rare The areas that were the most trouble to George and others taking the exam are SCOPE and QUALITY chapters of PMBOK Per George, there were only a few questions (15-20) that required calculations. Scratch paper, pencils and a calculator are provided at the testing facility George received his notification that he passed about 15 seconds after completing the exam In summary, George's study preparation materials were pretty consistent with what we are using. We are now recommending the Kerzner book and having less of a recommendation for the non-ESI exam prep materials. Our focus is on PMBOK and directly related materials, rather than starting to walk through dozens of potential books on detailed topic areas. Remember to focus on terminology and where the item falls in the PMI "monographs" by chapter. George did study a great deal, about 40 hours / month. Our PMP team probably needs to move up our studying level to something closer to this level to improve our opportunity to pass the exam.

Greg Radcliff:
I spoke with Greg and asked him to provide any comments that he thought might be useful to individuals studying for the PMP exam based on his experience. Below are his comments: I passed in the low 80% range, so I guess somewhere in the middle. I have the following 3 suggestions:

1. I think the hardest thing about the exam for me, was being able to sit down and read 200 questions. As such, I think one of the better recommendations I could make is to practice by doing 200 questions at least once prior to the exam. Even if it's doing a subset of each of the ESI or Mulcahy question sets. It's harder than you might think to focus after being bombarded with new questions for 4 hours straight.

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2. Another observation is that a lot of the exam questions were more lengthy than the questions in either the ESI or Mulcahy material. LOTS of "extraneous" information, and lots of "What would you do FIRST", or "What is the BEST way to handle the following situation..." type questions. For this, I thought that the Mulcahy CD (PM Fastrack) was most helpful in studying. 3. Something that I did that helped me quite a bit was to take time every day writing down the PM Area (i.e. Project Scope Management) and corresponding Processes (i.e. Initiation, Scope Planning, etc.) and label each process in the PM life cycle (i.e. initiating, planning, etc.). Do this until you can do it in your sleep. It helped me answer a lot of questions geared towards "Where in the process are you"?

Julie L. LaPlant, PMP:

Here is a summary of my experience: I took the exam on 9/4/01 and passed. I studied quite a bit. Although I didn't keep track, I'd say that I studied at least 200 hours over a period of 4 months. I think that the PMP Exam Preparation Class that ESI taught was invaluable in helping me target my studying efforts. I am amazed at the BREADTH of material that is covered. In addition, people need to have a DEPTH of knowledge, as well. Without the ESI books, tests, and "PMP Challenge," I think it would have been difficult to pass. My strategy to pass was by "eating the elephant one bite at a time." I studied a little bit every day. However, towards the end, I was studying several hours a day. When I went for my daily 1-hour walk, I'd flip through the "PMP Challenge." That helped me a lot. I felt that there were a LOT of "scenario-based" questions on the exam. There were more than I had anticipated. Although I finished my first pass through the exam in three hours, I felt "pressed" for time. Several questions were long. Some questions were very easy, but there were several difficult questions. There were a lot of questions that required me to know "inputs, outputs, tools/techniques." I'm glad that I made an attempt to know these well. Prior to taking the exam, I didn't write down formulas because I knew them in my head. I wrote down all 37 processes in the diagram. That diagram in the materials ESI provided was very, very helpful. Knowing that diagram and the inputs, tools/techniques, and outputs is probably the best way a person can prepare. I didn't see a great deal of overlap between the 200 questions on the test and the 360 questions in the ESI exam booklet. I wish that more of them had been the same, but they weren't. Of course, the concepts were similar. The exam seemed to start off tough; this tended to make me panic and squelch my confidence. Then, I forced myself to calm down, and the questions started to seem a lot easier. After I calmed down and finished the test in 3 hours, I was able to go back to the initial 20 questions and then they made sense to me. I find it hard to take an exam if I am feeling "panicky," so it was important for me to calm down and regain my confidence. The thought of "not passing" prior to the exam had never crossed my mind. So, when I was in the exam and really thought there was a

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possibility that I might fail, I panicked! Answering 200 questions in one sitting was grueling. When I was on question 30 out of 200, I wondered how I was ever going to finish! In the end, I passed with a pretty healthy margin. The PMP exam is certainly not a test that people can walk out of feeling like they "aced." There was just so much to know. I am glad that I prepared as much as I did. I'm glad it's over.

Rich Hoffecker, PMP

I just wanted to thank you for your help in passing the PMP exam. Here are some thoughts that I would like to pass on to others who are preparing for the test. Of course I read through the PMPOK. As a reference I used in "Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, 7th Edition" by Kerzner. This book is way too difficult for a straight through read. I was disappointed that it did not have great examples of how to work some of the IRR and PVquestions, also some of the other areas seemed to not fully work out the "how's" of a problem. I used PMIQ exam prep. The questions were similar to those on the exam but only in concept. The most helpful tool was something that I created from your study notes. I simply blanked out the processed, tools and techniques and the outputs, and printed out many copies. Every day for the month before the exam, I would pull out one of the copies and fill it in starting by simply coping the original then slowly by memory alone. This was a great help in cementing the process concepts. I have attached a copy of what I used, maybe it will help others. These study tools and knowledge gained from over 4 years of project management helped me pass the exam with a percentage in the high 80's. Thanks for your help, Rich Hoffecker, PMP

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