The 5 Steps to Achieve PMP^® Certification

Fábio is a project manager and personal coach in Brazil. He has over 20 years of experience working with IT in small, medium and large companies.

  Career Development   Using PMI Standards  

I believe that everybody can learn from the experiences of others. In this article, I will share how I planned for and studied to pass the PMP^® exam. I followed five steps:

1. Choose your preparatory course. You need to search at least three training centers and compare the material, benefits and costs. After that, choose the best cost/benefit for you. Tip: Make sure that you choose a Registered Education Provider (REP) that is a registered and authorized by the Project Management Institute.

2. Choose your study material. Pay attention when choosing the material. You will have a lot of options of books, courses, blogs and specialized websites that will offer everything about PMP certification. You have to choose (at maximum) three books; otherwise, you will not have time to read them all.

When I studied for the exam, I used:

• Preparatory course materials, with books and simulation exams
• A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide)
• The PMP Exam Prep textbook by Rita Mulcahy
• FASTrack PMP Exam simulation software (with over 1,600 questions)

I am sure that the material above is enough to study and pass the exam. You don’t need read all the books and materials that you find on the internet. Tip: Spending too much time searching for …

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