PMP Preparation Guidelines

Many people have been requesting for the guidelines for PMP preparation. So posting this on the Knome to enable everybody's access to this. This was from my own and one of my PMP Circle Mates (Tanveer Shaikh's) preparation for PMP one year back.

During first 3 months of my preparations, my focus was more on learning concepts of various project management methodolologies, in last 15 days I gave many full length tests that helped me in gauging my preparation level over time.

Books Recommended : 

- PMBOK Official guide

- PMP Exam Prep - Rita Mulchy

Total Preparation Duration : 

3-4 months

You may use following few points as a guideline to prepare yourself.

1) If you start with PMBOK but you'll find it boring and difficult to understand.

2) If possible create a study circle of fellow PMP aspirants

3) Read PMP Rita Mulcahy.

4) Get a copy of RITA Process game (from the Rita Mulchy book) and practice with it every alternate day. It will ensure that you imbibed the PMBOK processes logically in yourself

5) Register for PMI Membership - it enables you to seek discount on PMP exam

6) Read PMBOK. Now, this book would not be that boring and would make much more sense

7) Register for PMP Exam - it takes couple of hours in gathering all the material that is required to fill the application form

8) Once Application form is approved, you may go and seek the exam appointment

9) Practice with following free online tests

- http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=350915&rl=1 (70 que) - Tough Nut ; Lengthy Questions

- http://www.preparepm.com/mock2.html (28 Qns)

- http://www.pmstudy.com/enroll.asp - (15 qns)

- http://www.techfaq360.com/pmp_4thedition.jsp (200 Qns) - Easy; Wrong Scoring; NOT SUGGESTED

- http://www.passpm.com (50 qns) - NOT SUGGESTED

- http://www.pmsuccess.biz/Free_Simulated_Test.asp (100 qns)    -    Seems precise to PMP

- http://www.pmzilla.com/pmzilla-free-pmp-tests - (25 qns)

- http://certchamp.com/pmp-sample-questions.jsp (200 Qns) - In the spreadsheet - Repeat of many questions done already - NOT SUGGESTED

- http://www.preparepm.com/mock1.html (70 Qns) - few good questions

- http://www.oliverlehmann.com/pmp-self-test/75-free-questions.htm - Few very detailed numericals

- http://edwelprograms.com/  - Few very tricky questions, few answers are wrong

- PMP Prep - PMP Exam   -Many questions were already done as part of RITA

- PMP Prep - SuperPMP Exam- questions were lengthy, scenario based. Few questions were repeat from other RITA tests

- http://www.ajithn.com/login.php (200 Qns) - Many wrong answers given on test.  - NOT SUGGESTED

- http://www.pmstudy.com/practicetestsindex.asp (200 qsn) - Seems Very close to PMP, found few answers arguably incorrect.

10) Revised through Rita Mulchy. - 3-4 days before actual exam

11) Revised through PMBOK - 2nd time. - 2 days before actual exam

Note : 

Currently PMP is based on PMBOK 4th edition. PMI is going to change the base of PMP exam to PMBOK 5th Edition from Aug 1, 2013. So ensure that you are following correct course material as per your target exam date.

Hope this information helps. Should any of you need more information, I am just a click away.

Do you remember a place called library?

Do you remember a place called library, where we used to go to read technical books and refer journals? This would be the question our next generation would be asking among themselves.

There is no doubt that reading a paper book gives you much more pleasure than could give you a e-book and so quite understandably, in today's digital world, people read books for pleasure and personal satisfaction rather to enhance knowledge.

Why would anybody wait for a book when the same and even better information is available real-time just by punching few keys.

So, with the leveraged market for smart-devices like new generation phones, and tablets, do you foresee a world where this aspect of our world would be truly paperless?

TacTics – Celebrating Technology

TacTics Annual Symposium on "Architecture & Design of High Performance Systems" is one of the most celebrated events in TCS. Last time I was invited to attend this when it was in Mumbai in Dec-2010 and I had found it absolutely wonderful platform to know the nuances of the IT systems in various business domains.

This year as well, the focus was on High Performance Computing and speakers included few well known academicians and IT architects.

Although started with few technical glitches, event took off with the presentation by Prof. Kishore Trivedi (Duke University). He spoke about one of his the research papers.

But the highlight of the 2-day event was the presentation by Ashok Kris, who is leading the research team that developed Knome (In-house Collaboration tool like Facebook). In a spellbound presentation, he explained the nuances of the technologies and the challenges his team faced while developing the product.