Continue to read to find out what she has in store for us …

Start of Interview

Personal Details

1. Your name
Name is hidden (as requested by the candidate)

2. Your Qualification
Degree in Engineering

3. Your Industry
Information Technology (IT)

4. Years of Experience
10-15 years

Details of Training Attended

5. Where did you attend the PMP preparation training?
Chennai

6. What is the mode of your training?
Class room based

Details of Exam Preparation

7. How long did you prepare for the exam?
45-90 days

8. In your opinion, which is the best book for PMP exam preparation?
Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep, Ninth Edition

9. Did you take part in any online forum during the preparation?
No.

10. Most useful online resource for PMP exam preparation
The PM PrepCast^TM

11. How did you prepare for the exam? What would you like to change if you would revisit the exam preparation period?
Go through PMBOK 6 right from the beginning.

Opinion on the PMP Exam Content

12. Easiest knowledge area?
Communications Management

13. Most difficult knowledge area?
Integration Management

During the Exam

14. Time taken to complete the exam?
Time was just enough

15. Can you share few words about your experience going through the actual PMP exam?
I felt I should have taken more mock exams.

Final Word

16. One last piece of advice for candidates preparing for the exam?
Read PMBOK 6 thoroughly. Be consistent and persistent with preparation. All the best.

End of Interview

Conclusion

I thank the candidate for sharing her lessons learned. She has clearly two suggestions: focus on PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition and ensure that you have adequate practice.

It is always encouraging and motivating to hear such success stories. When are you going to share your happy moment?

If you need any help in your PMP journey, please feel free to contact me.

If you are already a PMP Credential holder, please share your success story. You can use the PMP Lessons Learned form to share your lessons learned. It should not take more than 5-10 minutes, but has the potential to encourage thousands of PMP aspirants.

There are numerous software like MS Project or Oracle Primavera, available in the market that can help project managers achieve the above mentioned task easily. However, such software can be very expensive, tedious for smaller projects and may not be easily accessible to all the project team members. In this case what can we do?

This is where Microsoft Excel can come in very handy.

I will be conducting an one-day workshop at Chennai on behalf of Madras Management Association on 12 September 2019. This workshop covers how MS Excel can be used to plan small projects, update and monitor the project progress so that the team members can be enabled to act accordingly.

Workshop Contents

The workshop will cover the basics of project management and how MS-Excel can be used to create Gantt Charts, update and visualize the project progress, perform Earned Value Analysis, etc. The following topics will be discussed during the workshop:

• Overview of Project Management
• Triple constraints of project management
• Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Activities, sequencing of activities and Critical Path Method
• Creating a Gantt chart using Microsoft Excel
• Updating the Gantt chart to reflect the progress of the project
• Comparing the planned vs actual progress
• Calculating the Schedule Variance and the Schedule Performance Index
• Limitations of MS Excel in using for project management

Key Takeaways

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• To understand the fundamentals of Project management
• To understand the various relationships between activities, how to sequence activities, determine the duration of the project and identify the critical path
• To utilize the power of MS-Excel to plan, update and monitor the projects

Training Venue

Madras Management Association
MMA Management Center, New No.240,
Pathari Road (Off Anna Salai)
Chennai 600 006

While you might find extensive content online for the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination, it is extremely difficult to find relevant and good references for the Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) examination.

When I decided to pursue the PMI-RMP certification about six years ago, I did not find enough resources for the examination; I had to depend primarily on the PMP course content to help me prepare. This is where uCertify’s dedicated course on PMI Risk Management Professional might come in handy. Let us take a look at what does the course offers to a PMI-RMP aspirant.

Where Should I start?

Initially, I was a little bit confused where to start. But I figured out that it is better to start with the Study Planner. It helps you to plan your study step by step, leading to the PMI-RMP certification exam.

The following is the suggested study plan:

• Step 1: The Plan – Understand what to expect and set your goals
• Step 2: Pre-Assessment
• Step 3: Lessons, Flashcards, and Quizzes
• Step 4: Performance Labs
• Step 5: Practice Tests and
• Step 6: Post-Assessment
• Step 7: Final Preparation
• Step 8: The BIG Day

The Plan

This section helps you to set goals for the examination. You can set a target date for finishing the course to take your final exam. The system monitors your progress and provides a forecast on your current estimated completion date. This is a good feature to keep track of your progress and whether you can meet your target date.

Pre-Assessment

This section contains 100 questions, which has to be answered in 120 minutes. This section is to assess your knowledge of the course topics before you begin the course.

The questions are at a level that you would expect in a real PMI-RMP examination. Most of the questions were around the topics related to risk management, communications management and stakeholder engagement.

Most of the questions were multiple choice questions with single correct answers; however, I did come across few questions where I had to choose multiple correct answers.

The Pre-Assessment results are very detailed and presented well. By reviewing the results, you should be able to identify your areas of strengths and weaknesses. It might help you to focus on areas where you need improvement. You could review the results domain-wise You could also drill down to individual questions, to see why you got it wrong. Or, even if you got it right, is it by accident or whether you have really understood the concept clearly.

Lessons, Flashcards and Quizzes

It contains seven major topics:

1. Project management framework
2. Risk management planning
3. Stakeholder communication and engagement
4. Risk identification
5. Risk analysis
6. Risk responses and
7. Risk monitoring

Within each topic, you find a complete write-up about the topic. So, you can read it like a book, chapter after chapter.

You can prefer to read the text, or you can watch the videos by the PMI-RMP Certified Trainer. She goes through the entire course content and presents it through video lessons.

In addition to this, there are flash cards, quiz and knowledge checks under each sub-topic for you to practice.

The quiz comes in three different modes; learn with immediate feedback, test under exam conditions and review answers without taking the test. Learn with immediate feedback mode helps you to answer each question and check the answer immediately without completing the entire test. Test under exam conditions mode allows you to attempt all the available questions under the sub-topic before evaluating it. I was unable to test the mode “Review answers without taking the test”; I tried, I only got the message “You are not allowed to see the result of this test”.

Knowledge check is another way of testing your understanding of the concepts. It uses exercises like matching a description to relevant project management term, True or False tests, etc.

There is also a section on Glossary.

Performance labs

Performance labs provides a simulation of a scenario, for example a conversation between a project manager and his daughter who is learning project management. I liked this feature of the course, as it was interesting to put myself into an interview kind of scenario and answer the questions.

There are about six lab sessions. It is a good way of testing your understanding of the concepts.

Practice Tests

Two sets of practice questions are available, with 125 questions in each set. The practice tests come in three different modes:

• Learn with immediate feedback: It allows you to submit the answer for each question immediately and check the answer. There is no time pressure.
• Test under exam conditions: It is a timed test, with 125 questions to be answered in 120 minutes. To see the answers, you have to complete the entire test or end the test prematurely.
• Review answers without taking the test: I am unable to test this mode as I was getting an error message “You are not allowed to see the result of this test”. Not sure why.

Post Assessment

The post assessment test contains 100 questions, that has to be answered in 120 minutes. It is advised to take the post-assessment only after you’ve done all of the practice test sets with a score of at least 70%.

Test History & Performance Analytics

The system also captures and stores all your history. You can review your progress any time by visiting the test history and you can analyze your performance.

Conclusion

Overall, I am impressed with the way the course is organized. Considering limited options available for candidates preparing for PMI-RMP examination, this course by uCertify seems to a good resource for the PMI-RMP exam preparation.

I particularly loved the various modes of practice available. They have provided pre-assessment tests, flash cards, knowledge checks, chapter quiz, performance labs, practice tests and post-assessment mock exams. Since all these requires a hands-on participation by the candidate, he has a better chance of retaining what he learns.

I am surprised that certain videos are still referring to the PMBOK Guide, Fifth Edition though the current Edition is PMBOK Guide, Sixth Edition. Though it may not be a big downside, I hope the videos are updated to the latest edition of the PMBOK Guide.

Please share your views on the above course.

In this article, I am presenting the Online PMP Exam Preparation Course by Management Plaza. I go through the training programme in detail and will present the positives and negatives of the training programme.

Why should you consider the PMP exam preparation course by Management Plaza? At the end of this article, you should be able to understand why this highly engaging online PMP exam training might be the one you are actually looking for.

About the Course

Management Plaza is a Registered Education Provider (R.E.P.) with PMI and this course is registered with PMI. Completing this course will help you to fulfill the 35 contact hours requirement by PMI to apply for the PMP exam. The course content is in line with the latest edition of the PMBOK^® Guide, that is the PMBOK^® Guide, Sixth Edition.

Course specification

The following information is as displayed at the website of Management Plaza. Please confirm the details before signing up, as there could be changes since the time of posting this article.

• Accreditation: by PMI
• PMI contact hours: 48 – This course is formally approved by PMI as a PMP or CAPM preparation course and can be used to satisfy the prerequisite of those exams.
• Compatibility: PMBOK^® Guide 6 (latest edition)
• Length: equivalent to a 7-day classroom course (20 hours of video)
• Number of lessons: 95
• Free lessons: first 30 lessons
• Time limit: 12 months after the purchase
• Certification of completion: issued automatically at the end of the course

Free Trial – The First 30% is FREE

You can evaluate the course before buying the course. The first 30% of this course is available for free, so that you can make sure it’s what you’re looking for before you buy it.

You can watch the free videos even without registering. But I suggest you to sign up and register. It enables you to save your progress.

In addition, they are also providing Pass Guarantee and Money-back Guarantee (both suhject to terms and conditions as specified in their web site).

The Trainer

Nader K. Rad is the trainer for this course. He is a project management author, trainer and advisor. He has about 20 years of experience in construction, process plant, and IT projects.

He has been an official reviewer or contributor for the PMBOK^® Guide, PRINCE2^® 2017, PRINCE2 Agile^®, P3.express, and EXIN Agile Scrum Master.

The Interface and The Navigation

The interface is clean, simple and minimal. It contains the following details:

1. A progress bar that shows how much you have progressed so far in the course
2. The lesson number, title and the video
3. Below the video is a list of activities
4. A checkbox to flag the lesson for review later
5. Navigation menu at the bottom (back button, link to table of contents and next button)

Once you finish watching a video, the table of contents updates the link to the lesson with a tick mark. The video you are currently watching is shown with a pointing finger. The videos flagged for review are shown with a flag next to it. The videos you are yet to watch are shown in black color font.

Presentation Style

The trainer makes the presentation very engaging and interesting, by citing several stories and sharing his personal project experience. This approach makes it easier for us to relate the concepts to real life projects.

Once in a while, during the presentation, he asks a question and pauses slightly. We quickly think about the question and search for the solution. It gives the feeling of being in a live training session.

He finishes each video with a question that lets us think. He starts the subsequent video by answering that question. This way, we can see whether our line of thinking matches with the standard project management approach. Interesting way to make the candidates retain the concepts better.

Generally, in most of the training programmes, the slides would be filled up with text after text; they will bore you with textual content. But it is completely different here.

Significant effort has gone into the preparation of the presentation slides. The slides were prepared to sustain the interest of the viewer. The trainer is not just reading/ explaining the sentences displayed on the slides. To understand what I am saying, take a look at the following snapshot taken from the Control Quality process.

The Course Content

PMP^® and CAPM^® Exam Preparation Online Course by Management Plaza contains 95 videos. The entire course is divided into five sections as follows:

1. The Big Picture (10 videos)
2. Process Groups (7 videos)
3. Knowledge Areas (60 videos, with each of the 49 processes covered under one video each)
4. Agile (15 videos) and
5. Miscellaneous (3 videos)

Let us see what is covered in each section below.

Section 1: The Big Picture

The Big Picture section contains 10 videos, that is equivalent to about 72 minutes of content.

The 10 videos under this topic are wonderful. It prepares you with the basics of project management.

The trainer quickly runs through the important concepts of project management, without going into the details of PMBOK Guide or the PMP exam. He does not go into each process, but touches on the knowledge areas.

I find this a great approach. It gives an overall view; the big picture is presented without dumping the audience with too much details. It prepares the candidates so that they are ready to receive more details later on in the course.

Section 2: Process Groups

This section is covered by seven videos. The content is equivalent to about 60 minutes of training.

The trainer goes through the processes, one by one, process group wise.

He explains what happens in each process, without going into the details of inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. It is just enough for you to get a feel of the 49 project management processes, and how they are grouped under the process groups.

Section 3: Knowledge Areas

The first two sections are more about giving you the overall picture, while section 3 is the main part of the training. It goes into the details and explains. each and every process.

There are totally 60 videos available under this section; and provides more than 15 hours of useful content.

Each process is covered in detail; one video is dedicated for each process. Having one dedicated video for each process has its own advantages. When you want to revise a particular process, you could just go to the Table of Contents, and then choose the video of the exact process you want to revise.

The trainer covers all the inputs, tools and techniques and the outputs of each process. His explanation for each of these ITTOs also might be very helpful for candidates to remember the ITTOs. I am always against memorizing the ITTOs; it does not help. Trying to understand the ITTOs is a better approach.

Section 4: Agile

The first video in section 4 starts with explaining the various development approaches. It explains clearly what is a predictive approach and what is an adaptive approach.

Surprisingly, the course has so much content on Agile. You may choose to watch the videos. Some of them may not be necessary from the perspective of the PMP exam; but, watching the videos once might help you understand how Agile practices and PMBOK processes align together.

Section 5: Miscellaneous

This section covers topics like Professional and Social Responsibility, History of PMI and the PMBOK Guide and The Exam.

The important concepts in Professional and Social Responsibility are very well covered.

This section also covers everything you should know about the PMP/ CAPM exam, the advantages of becoming a PMI member, the application process, eligibility requirements, etc.

Integrated Flash Cards

It is indeed a great idea to integrate the flash cards just below every video. The flash cards start to appear from lesson number 19.

I was inclined to try the flash cards, either before watching the video or after watching the video. It was a little bit addictive to keep playing the flash cards. It is also good to see some flash cards repeat once in a while. This helps me to reinforce my learning.

PMP Exam Simulator

You also get access to the PMP Exam Simulator as part of the online training programme. The simulator contains more than 1000 questions. Each time, you get a full length mock exam of 200 questions, with the questions being  randomly generated from the pool of 1000+ questions.

Certificate of Completion

Do I get a certification upon completion of the PMP online training programme? Yes, the certificate will be available online once you complete all the videos available in the training programme. You can show it to PMI, if needed, to prove that you’ve had 35 contact hours of formal training in project management for your exam.

Suggestions/ Areas of Improvement

The overall course is excellent and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who is interested in taking up an online training programme for the PMP exam preparation. However, there are small areas I thought can be improved, which I have listed below:

1. One thing I found difficult to understand was the sequence of videos when it comes to each knowledge area (Section 3). I thought it was logical just to follow the sequence as stated in PMBOK Guide. For example, I would have preferred to cover the processes in Scope Management in the following sequence:

5.1   Plan Scope Management
5.2   Collect Requirements
5.3   Define Scope
5.4   Create WBS
5.5   Control Scope and
5.6   Validate Scope

However, the trainer has pushed the Plan Scope Management process to be the last video within the scope management knowledge area. He covers 5.2 to 5.6 and then moves on to 5.1. He, in fact, follows the same approach for all knowledge areas. The Plan xxx Management process is covered in the last video of each knowledge area. I am not sure why he has taken this approach. However, it is a small issue; and, some of you might like it this way. In case you like this approach, please leave a comment below.

2. While explaining the Sequence Activities process in Schedule management knowledge area, the trainer covers the following four types of relationships:

Finish to Start (FS), Start to Start (SS), Finish to Finish (FF) and Start to Finish (SF)

But I felt the explanation given for the four types of relationships is inadequate and not clear. He clearly explains FS relationship with an example. However, no practical examples were given to explain the other three relationships, namely SS, FF and SF. I hope the videos are updated with real project examples to explain them in detail for easier understanding.

3. I would have loved to have few exercises on the Critical Path Method (CPM), so that candidates can get some hands-on practice to understand the calculations. The video explains the CPM very well; but candidates cannot get better without getting their hands dirty. My suggestion to the trainer is to add few exercises below the video.

4. I could not find a way to jump straight to a particular video. For example, I wanted to have a quick look at the Section 4 (Agile), which starts from Video No. 78. I could not find a way. I have to watch the videos one by one, in the given sequence. However, after watching it for the first time, the interface allows to me jump to any video I wanted to. This approach makes sense for candidates who are going through the PMP training programme for the first time. But, if someone is using the course as a refresher, they may find it irritating. I suggest a navigation that allows candidates to jump to any video they like.

Conclusion

Overall, I should say it is a wonderfully crafted course for PMP Exam Preparation. The trainer has a good experience in project management; and, it is showing off in his effortless presentation. His examples and references to real life projects are good. It is a great online course if you don’t mind the slightly higher pricing.

Have you tried the PMP Exam Preparation Online Course by Management Plaza? What is your opinion about the course? Share your thoughts below.

Within a few minutes, the phone started to vibrate again. It’s Venkat again. I answered the call and before he could say anything, I said “Venkat, I am in a meeting. Can I call you back shortly?”. He disconnected the call.

Once I became free, about an hour later, I called him and asked “Yes, Venkat. What can I do for you?”. He said in an ecstatic voice “Manick, I have a good news. I cleared the PMP exam today. Thought of sharing this news with you”.

Really a good news. I congratulated him. It was a moment of pride for Venkat and a moment of happiness for me, the trainer.

Venkat managed to pass the PMP exam in his first attempt. Let us find out how Venkataraghavan passed PMP in his first attempt …

Start of Interview

Personal Details

1. Your name
Venkataraghavan

2. Your Qualification
Degree in Engineering

3. Your Industry
Oil and Gas, Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC)

4. Years of Experience
More than 15 years

Details of Training Attended

5. Where did you attend PMP training?
iTechGurus Education Solutions, Chennai

6. What is the mode of your training?
Class room based

Details of Exam Preparation

7. How long did you prepare for the exam?
45-90 days

8. In your opinion, which is the best book for PMP exam preparation?
Rita Mulcahy’s PMP Exam Prep, Ninth Edition

9. How did you prepare for the exam? What would you like to change if you would revisit the exam preparation period?
I spent slightly over two months studying the PMBOK Guide and Rita’s book. The class room training and the instructor suggestions to understand the concepts were very useful.

I did not get too bogged down with math stuff and just limited myself to understand and practice some.

The practice tests will improve your confidence and bridge the gaps. Lesson Learned is that some of the practice tests may be demoralizing and demotivating, but should ignore them, gain confidence by continuing with other mock exams.

If I revisit the preparation period, I would focus on greater visualization of the process and tools in real projects.

Opinion on the PMP Exam Content

10. Easiest knowledge area?
Procurement Management

11. Most difficult knowledge area?
Risk Management

During the Exam

12. Time taken to complete the exam?
Time was just enough

13. Can you share few words about your experience going through the actual PMP exam?
No ambiguity in answers, but need complete process insight to comprehend the questions.

Final Word

14. One last piece of advice for candidates preparing for the exam?
Understanding over memorizing will be beneficial.

End of Interview

Conclusion

I thank Venkataraghavan for sharing his lessons learned. It is always motivating to hear such success stories, right?. When are you going to share your happy moment? I am sure the tips shared by Venkat and others help you in your preparation for the PMP exam.

If you need any help, please feel free to contact me.

If you are already a PMP Credential holder, please share your success story. You can use the PMP Lessons Learned form to share your lessons learned. It should not take more than 5-10 minutes, but has the potential to motivate thousands of PMP aspirants.