Officially PMP certified - here’s how I did it!

Just so happy to announce that I’m officially PMP certified!

A big and wholesome thank you to the PMP Reddit community here.

I studied for 15-20 odd days with a full-time job. It was stressful to say the least, to work all day and study everyday after work plus weekends! But all the efforts were worth it after seeing the PMP certificate!

Here is a chronological list of things I did to successfully crack my PMP in the first attempt. Hope it helps you with your preparation.

1) Andrew Ramdayal’s Udemy course : since I already had the 35 PDUs, I glanced through Andrew’s videos - for Agile and Hybrid. I did religiously go through all of Predictive/Waterfall methodologies though.

2) I found Ricardo Vargas’s 6th Edition YouTube video very helpful to study through the different processes within Waterfall.

https://youtu.be/GC7pN8Mjot8?si=c49jM7p5zoNEObDT

Worth going through it when you begin Andrew’s videos on PM Waterfall processes - once before and once after for things to fall into perspective.

3) Then play the Process Mapping Game on pmaspirant.com to get your processes nailed down. Don’t worry too much about the ITTO’s - I did stress about it quite a bit before the exam. But just use common sense and logic - no need to waste your time memorizing it (I didn’t).

4) David Mclachan is the man! His videos on waterfall and agile are 🤌🏻

Not only are his questions/videos amazing, he also conducts them so well. I often studied them when I was bored of just consuming theory and it worked well for me!

Waterfall : https://youtu.be/xIH-u81XCxM?si=CrsMrccyV8LlC7G_

Agile : https://youtu.be/tNIHysh2ZW4?si=Yxm2VV7o8Si1RYV7

5) Purchased the 3rd Rock cheat sheet and went through it atleast 4 times before the exam. Same goes with my own personal notes.

6) Debate of SH vs. TIA for mock exams: I spent a lot time debating which exams to purchase and after a lot of research decided to go with SH. Wonderful decision - don’t regret it. It comes with over 17 mini exams and 2 full length mock tests. Used it to the fullest!

Did the mini exams throughout the weeks as I studied.

Took the full length exam the Friday before the exam and one on Sunday. Spent the days after reviewing what went wrong. Scored consistently the same in both consecutive exams - which built my confidence around what my weak and strong areas were.

All the best to the Reddit community here who are studying towards their certification and congratulations to the ones who nailed it. You were all a terrific help - Kudos! :)