My journey to achieving PMP

August 11^th, 2011: As a result of my post titled “Is a Project Management Certification Worth it?”, I was involved in several constructive talks and was even hinted by few individuals that I shouldn’t have made comments especially since I wasn’t certified.

October 18^th, 2011: My friend, Paresh Nagar whom I hadn’t heard from in several months sends me an email regarding his interest in registering for a PMP Exam preparation course running between October 29^th 2011 and December 10^th 2011. I immediately contacted Paresh wishing him luck and he asked me if I wanted to join him for the course. I unfortunately had to turn it down primarily due to my intended travel plans that coincided with major portions of the course.

October 27^th, 2011: The 1% probability that my travel plan would get cancelled due to an external event occurred leaving me dejected. Well, destiny has its games! My wife calls and informs me that our friends, Paresh Nagar and Lupita Arrese, who also happen to be her work colleagues, had just received their copy of PMBOK 4^th edition delivered to their office. I was like “WOW – that service coming from a training provider is something that I haven’t heard in a long time”. What next? She continues that I should use our travel cancellation as an excuse or reason or hint to enroll myself for the course too. Here we go again; I started the debate with my loving wife on “Is PMP certification really worth it?”

I took her viewpoints seriously and spoke to the training vendor Platinum CPD situated in Knowledge Village, Dubai, UAE. I was personally attended by the Managing Partner of the institute, Anas Abu-Hamam, who impressed me with his professionalism. He answered my queries and put me at ease despite being a last minute entrant.

October 29^th, 2011: Attended the 1^st of the 5 full day classes. I was pleasantly surprised that the instructor, Omran Zbeida, was one of the contributors to the PMBOK 4^th edition. His name was on the book too. As with any instructor and with all due respect to all, I initially had reservations about this instructor too – not from a knowledge perspective, but from a communication perspective. Within the first few minutes, I knew that I had nothing to worry about. The instructor demonstrated fluency in his presentation & communication skills that would keep me awake for the full day. Yes, this is extremely important as you wouldn’t want to be in a situation where you cannot follow the class due to reasons ranging from language, accent, pitch, tone, pauses, content delivery, etc… Omran was right up there!

Mid-November, 2011: My friend, Karthik Chamy, contacted me in regards to my blog post and we continued discussions on the same subject. Yes, we did take it positively and reached consensus! He later told me that he had just cleared his PMP examination. Needless to say, he was extremely excited with a sense of achievement all over him that was very much evident during our talk. Once again – congratulations mate!

December 10^th, 2011: My 5^th and final day of the course. You might be wondering, how can a 5 day course stretch so far, well – it was conducted on Saturdays with two Saturdays skipped in between due to public holidays. In hindsight, such breaks are not ideal – at least for me.

December 12^th, 2011: I became a member of PMI (Project Management Institute)

December 14^th, 2011: Application for PMP submitted

December 19^th, 2011: PMP Eligibility received. My wife was asking me when I intended to write the exam – I told her at the earliest. She reminded me that I should factor in exam preparation timelines along with personal family commitments.

December 20^th, 2011: PMP Test scheduled for 5^th January 2012 @ 07.30am. Why am I in a hurry? Well, I like to work with deadlines and plan my work around it. Yes, despite the personal commitments including wedding anniversary, attending to guests living with us and in midst of the festive atmosphere, I selected this date. Why 07.30am? Well, I prefer early mornings and the other choice of 12.30pm doesn’t sit well with me.

December 27^th, 2011: PMP Test rescheduled for 2^nd January 2012. Are you thinking that I’m insane? As if 5^th January wasn’t too far and that I’ve rescheduled to 2^nd January 2012? My wife despite being confident of my abilities was visibly concerned and asks me again if I did the right thing to reschedule the exam to an even earlier date. I smiled and she got her answer.

December 31^st, 2011 & January 1^st, 2012: Nothing related to the PMP journey, but I had a nice long walk with my wife to watch the fireworks off Burj Khalifa (the tallest man made structure in the world at 829.84m). Just using this space to tell the visitors to never forget spending quality time with your family even if it means to forgo something important! Know your priorities and manage your work around it.

January 2^nd, 2012: I had my exam scheduled at the Prometric centre in Knowledge Village, Dubai, UAE at 7.30am. As indicated before, I like early mornings so found this time to be my best to take a go at the test. Fast forward four hours and the computer screen displays: “PASS – Congratulations”. Don’t quote me on the exact wordings as I didn’t store that in my memory cells

That was my journey and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone mentioned on this post and others who were part of this journey. I’ve been introduced to few new concepts during this journey which will certainly benefit me in the longer run. And yes, I still stick with my viewpoints mentioned in my previous post even after being certified. For those who are interested in the details on my study plan, resources used, tips, pointers, etc… please be patient as I work towards compiling a comprehensive subsequent post.