My Journey to Passing the PMP Exam

  Career Development   Using PMI Standards  

My journey to project management was not a typical one. In fact, a few years ago, I had no idea what project management was. I had just started working as a product development engineer for a mid-sized medical device company in southern California. After being there for a few weeks, I was thrown into the role of project lead. Project lead is code word for "dedicated project managers are unnecessary, so you engineers will fulfill the role."

Leading cross-functional teams, keeping track of the critical path and presenting project progress to senior management were all new to me. I didn't get any training from my employer, either. One of my engineering colleagues suggested that we take a project management introductory class offered at a local university. The company agreed to pay for the class, and I never turn down free training! I learned that what I was doing at work was called project management, and that effective project management could be the difference between project success and failure.

I loved the class since it was helping me be more effective at work, so I decided to continue taking classes and earn the project management certificate through the local university. For the next couple of years, I took a couple of classes per semester after work that had titles such as "Controlling Project Costs and Risks", "Project Procurement …

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