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Working with PMP over 1500+ students over past 7 years, talking to them one-on-one before and after the exam, I have come to realize this –

Strategizing for the PMP exam is as important as studying for it.

Imagine going on a treasure hunt in the woods.

How awesome would it be to have a well drawn out map, knowledge of the pitfalls ahead and nature of the trail, so that getting to the treasure is straightforward and devoid of dangers, although still challenging.

For this reason I included the first one-on-one coaching session with the student of PM Exam Last Mile prep program to be to share the study strategies, techniques, and best practices.

The benefits of these strategies have been confidence in their preparation, increased predictability of the outcome, and the priceless peace of mind.

This is thus visible in the results the students have been getting!

Today, I am bringing you these strategies in the form of a video course.

Presenting..

PMP® Exam Secret Strategies!

[continue reading…]

Shankar Rajkumar passed his PMP exam recently. And as it is a custom now a days, I let out a YooHoo! cry (yes, Shankar is a student of PM Exam Last Mile prep program 🙂 ) and asked him if he can share his exam strategies and study advice.

He told me that he had successfully used some of the points that other PMPs had shared, so it would be his honor to continue along the tradition.

So, let us get straight to the point!

First off, what made you take up PMP exam?

The gold standard in Project management and world wide recognition are the key factors to choose PMP certification. I didn’t need any other reason.

Now that I am certified my ability to take on complex and challenging projects will improve.  I am able to applying thought of Tools and Techniques and the knowledge areas to my current projects.

It gives me such confidence on a daily basis knowing that I understand the intricacies of complex projects now and can think through the right way of managing my projects.

Which study resources did you consider, and eventually used for the exam preparation?

It can be overwhelming to go over tons of materials out there. I think if you can choose a limited number of (2 or 3) books or courses, you will be able to cut down unnecessary confusion, and study with focus.

I used the following study resources for my preparation –

• PMBOK
• Rita Mulcahy
• PM Exam Last Mile prep program

How did you approach the exam and what was your study plan?

I had begun my study with PMBOK, and I went one complete round of study with it.

Then Rita Mulcahy’s book for 2 rounds of study.

I went over PM Exam Last Mile prep program twice – and the videos, cheat sheets and mind maps for revision. [continue reading…]

4th July is here, and as a mark of celebrations I am offering 3 days to work with me and get your PMP sooner than you thought possible, and in all likelihood with best possible score.

Announcing Special Bonus!

Join the program by taking up the celebratory discount offer today, and you will get my Signature Course, ‘PMP Secret Strategies’ as Bonus!

Click to know more, let’s work together towards your PMP goal.

>> https://bit.ly/happy4july

Cheers and all the best,
Shiv

I trust you will use this best opportunity to get in now, and get out with your PMP certification by next month end.

This week I’m happy to bring to you the exam experience of one more student of PM Exam Last Mile prep program – Arti Kumari. I am amazed at her smart ‘FAST-M’ PMP® exam study plan, which she will share with you in this article.

Arti is an accomplished techo-project manager, an awesome public speaker, adventurer, and traveler. She has a Masters of Computer Science and currently settled down in Washington DC, USA.

Arti works as a Program Project Manager/Scrum Master at Freddie Mac – a financial institution and is in housing mortgage sector. She is a constant learner, and one of the few that knows they perform even better under pressure!

I am sure you will find her FAST-M approach, along with tons reference study material links useful in your own preparation as well.

What made you take up PMP?

I am from technical background and have hands-on on almost dozens of technologies. I implemented various methodologies i.e. Waterfall, Rational Unified process, Xtreme programming, Agile, SAFE etc.

Throughout my journey, I found myself constantly inclined more towards process, quality, structure, organization, communication etc., hence I wanted to be a Project Manager. Because I feel this is something I am made for and I am good at.

Being a detail oriented person I have been working as Project Manager for many years. In order to strengthen my basics and establish myself as PM, I felt that PMP certification was essential.

I want to make my way in Federal positions in future and having PMP on my resume sets a stronger ground for my future search. When I think of project management certification, PMP is the most trusted certification and is globally recognized. Not to mention that it covers all possible aspects involved with managing projects in any industry.

So, PMP certification was on my TO-DO list for a long time. If I say a decade, will be about right. PMBOK, on and off I’ve been reading since PMBOK 3rd version.

You were part of the ‘Last Mile’ program (thank you!). Could you share how it helped you?

With one or the other reason I kept keeping my PMP® certification on the backseat for a decade. I was struggling to get into PMP® certification mindset. PM Exam Last Mile Prep Program gave me PMP® mindset.

Especially the weekly calls with Shiv pushed me to finally prepare my study plan.

I am a visual person and mind map was exactly what I needed to start my journey. In addition to the mind maps, I loved the softness in Shiv’s teaching style. It wasn’t overwhelming on my brain. In his teaching he is focusing right on the content, which was very helpful to engage my mind all the time. He has no fillers, which made me easy to listen to his audios while sleeping in the nights. I went through entire Last Mile course from first lesson till the last lesson religiously.

What I loved the most and will never ever forget is the mnemonic way of remembering 10 knowledge areas! After watching this video I could recall them at any point of time without even consciously thinking about it?

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to watch brain-friendly PMP® videos. Click the Bell icon on any video, to get notified in future when I upload new videos! – Shiv

[su_button url=”https://www.pmexamsmartnotes.com/subscribe2pmpvideos” target=”blank” style=”3d” background=”#f66c10″ color=”#fefcfc” size=”8″ wide=”yes” center=”yes” icon=”icon: heart” icon_color=”#f52223″ text_shadow=”1px 0px 0px #645757″]Subscribe to access free brain-friendly PMP training videos![/su_button]

What was your PMP® study plan?

Here is my 5-step PMP® exam study plan – I call it as FAST-M approach.

Step#1 – First round study (F)

My approach was one process from Shiv’s ‘Last Mile’ course videos and then corresponding read from PMBOK, then the audio of the same knowledge area from the course in the night during sleep.

I am not a fast reader and hence these short reading approach helped me a lot. Every knowledge area I finished with the exam associated with it’s chapter. [continue reading…]

“PMP exam prep online is easy if you begin with a proven strategy and get a mentor to guide you along the way”, said Naveen as we began talking, “no one knows better than me, having begun PMP way back in 2013!”, he smiled.

This week I am super glad to bring PMP success story of yet another student of PM Exam Last Mile Prep program – Naveen Kumar Pulluri. Naveen studied his Master’s in Finance & Accounting and is working as Principal Consultant with a global company. Currently placed at Cincinnati, Ohio, he handles Financial Application projects (complete suite of Oracle Hyperion).

Naveen loves watching movies, cooking and experimenting different cuisines, gardening, and leisure reading.

Beginning his PMP dream in 2013, he experienced several ‘false-starts’ but never gave up. And last week his tenacity and perseverance paid off when as he walked out of the test-center – 3 inches above the ground. 🙂

Let’s hear about his PMP adventure!

What made you choose PMP certification over others?

Many years ago I was asked to take up a project and that turned out to be a disaster!

My second project fared much better. And I began thinking about the failure.

As I analyzed, there were plenty of things I did wrong and I wished I had guidelines to execute projects better.

That’s when I got to know about PMI and the PMP. With a little bit of research I understood that PMP exam covers all facets of project management, so I decided to stick with it.

That was at the beginning of this decade. In 2013 I decided to pursue PMP seriously.

I failed in my first attempt, which made my resolve stronger to pass the exam this time. Now that  have passed it I am planning to take up PMI-RMP.

My PMP preparation helped me understand why I could not deliver my initial projects well. Now I feel more confident. Guided in the right direction.

I am looking forward to apply this knowledge and consistently get better at executing projects. And improve the skills in project management. With PMP now I can confidently handle projects and even ready to take bigger and more challenging projects.

What were your study resources?

I started my PMP exam prep online with the crash course that my company provided. But I could not complete the syllabus and failed the internal exam.

Though I bought Rita’s PMP book, I felt that the required rhythm is missing. That’s when I started searching for easier ways of preparing for the PMP exam. And fortunately got to know about “PMP Exam Notes, Tips and Resources”.

After I was able to validate the mind map based teaching methodology of Shiv, and all the cool mnemonics I enrolled into “PM Exam Last Mile Prep Program” – the unique combination of online self-paced course and weekly strategic 1-1 coaching with him.

I took plenty of free mock tests to practice the time-management aspects of the exam. The ‘Last Mile’ course has a specific strategy to take the exam that allows me to answer more questions in less time, that I used successfully. [continue reading…]