Preparing your PMP Exam application - Part 2

Hours of experience in each process group

As in the example below, each process group needs to have the hours of experience calculated. You do not need to have the experience in all process groups on each project. However, you need to have some hours of experience in all process groups as below:
    * Initiating
    * Planning
    * Executing
    * Monitoring and Controlling
    * Closing
It may seem difficult for some people to have enough hours of experience in all process groups whereas it is not if you look at each phase of a bigger project as a project itself.
As a matter of fact, each phase needs to be initiated (for example by the phase kick-off meeting), planned (updated initial plans), then executed and monitored at the same time and finally closed.
If you have calculated your experience hours in the way I described here: Calculating the hours of experience, now it is the momen when you capture your calculations in the next 5 forms of your PMP Exam application.

When you are done with the process groups, you need to generally describe your project summary. It is not so easy to describe a big project in just under 500 characters. I am writing on how to do that in one of my next articles.

.
Summary of Experience
Finally, you will see a table summarizing your experience data. The application in the example below would not be accepted because the required number of hours is spread over less than 36 months.

 

But the PMP Exam application is not over yet.

You need to write about your project management related trainings and education. Collect your certificates and papers confirming the number of hours you spent during each training.

Preparing your PMP Exam application - Part 1

Having registered to the PMI.org, it is time now to start the PMP exam application procedure.

Here is what you need to do:
1. Go to the website: http://www.pmi.org/certapp/
2. Login using your Username and Password, which you generated during the PMI.org registration process
If your login is successful, you will be taken directly to the Project Management Institute Certification Program website.
3. Choose the option: Apply for PMP Credential. Here you will need various data to complete the exam registration process
Inside the PMP application, during the first two stages you confirm your contact address, e-mail and telephone.
This data is important to maintain the contact with the PMI reviewer during your application review process.
Once you are inside, pressing the appropriate buttons will navigate you through the application.

Step 1: Application | Review attained education
Prepare necessary details to fill in the form regarding your education

Step 1: Application | Edit / Add experience

Your Project Management Experience - Your Projects List

This is the most important part of your PMP Exam application. Make sure to collect the data mentioned below for EACH PROJECT you managed or took part in. This is especially important when referring to the actual hours spent on the project. I am writing how to calculate them here in this post.
Choose the role you had in projects - Contributor, Supervisor, Manager, Project Leader or Project Manager, Educator, Consultant, Other.

Step 1 | Add/Edit experience

a) Describe details of the client organization in which you managed the projects

Each project description needs to be verifiable. Please note, that the Job Title referrs to the person you worked for.

b) primary contact person 
who will be able to give reference about your role and involvement in the project. This information is used when your exam application gets audited (and this happens occasionally).

That is all the data required to describe only one project. You will have to describe other projects to be included in your application in exactly the same way.

Free PMP Exam questions

I would like to share with you my small collection of links to the free PMP Exam question banks on the web. However, there is a disclaimer I would like to make. PMP Exam teaching experts claim that most questions that are free on the web only resemble real exam questions. The actual questions are much harder to solve and phrased differently.
In my opionion reviewing these free questions that are available on the web can still add value to your studyng because they give you an impression of the exam difficulty level. If you do not know most of the answers to free PMP-like questions, then you can be sure that you are at the beginning of your journey to the PMP certificate.

Here is the list:

Link	Description	Registration
http://pmpbank.googlepages.com/pmpquestionbank	Includes 280 questions and a preparation worksheets based on PMBOK4	No registering
http://www.pmstudy.com/enroll.asp#PMP	Completely Free Simulated Practice Test.Best way to understand Final PMP Exam format. (200 Questions, 4 hours - available for 1 day, maximum 100 users in 24 hours)	Registering required
http://pmhub.net/pmsuccess/Menu.htm	400 Free questions and what is more - each question with explanations	No registering
http://pmzilla.com/pmzilla-free-pmp-tests	Tough and situational questions	Registering required

(Technorati: QFHJ76ZFBD55)

PMBOK 4 - What's new (webcast)

For those of you who want to find out the basic differences between the 3rd and 4th edition of the PMBOK Guide, here is a short webcast which explains the main differences and introduced changes.

PMP Exam Overview - webcast

There is a lot of free material about the PMP exam on the web. I have found a short webinar divided into 4 parts which will tell you some more general details about the PMP exam.
They come from a pretty well known author Corenlius Fichtner.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Registering an account with the PMI - Step by Step

You have to be registered with the PMI if you want to start your PMP application process. Some of you reading this post probably would be happy to learn that registering with the PMI.org is free.
I would like to show you how easy it is to register an account on the pmi.org web page.

Step 0 - Begin
- open up your web browser
- type the address: http://www.pmi.org
- find the 'Register Now' link as shown on the picture below

Step 1 - Personal Information
- Title
- First Name
- Middle Name
- Last Name
- Nickname (although I do not know why it is here and who might be using it)
- E-mail address: very important to maintain contact with the PMI

Step 2: Default Address - important for mailing, billing and shipping

- Country

- Attention - important in the business type of address
- Address
- City
- State / Province
- Postal code
- Phone number

Professional Information - also required

- Company Name

- Job Title/Position
- Primary Organization Focus (for some reason, there is no Consumer Products business in there)
- Functional Area
- Optional mailings preferences

 

Step 3: Creating username and password
The simplest part - just choose your username (and check it out) and password. Also choose a security question in case you loose the password.

If you are done, you can begin your PMP exam application.

How to pay less for the PMP Exam and get more?

The PMP Exam fee
The fee for the PMP Exam is not low - at least not for me.
Assuming that you will sit for the Computer Based exam (CBT), the fee is $555 (check the PMP Handbook for latest prices). I guess that for most of you it is a lot of money and lucky you if your company pays for it.

The benefits
There is an easy way to decrease the fee and take advantage of various benefits the PMI.org offers. Project Management Institute is very well known for investing in knowledge of its members. On the PMI website here you can review how many benefits there are. For me the most important benefit is the online access to business and project management books and articles in eReads & Reference.
This library gives you an access to full text books about project management and many, many more subjects.

The calculation
If you join the Project Management Institute, the fee for the PMP exam decreases to $405 - it is $150 less.
The cost of joining the PMI for the first time is: $129 (Review the latest prices on the PMI.org website here)

Let's review the fee options below:
Option 1 - Non PMI Member
$555 - PMP Exam Only

Option 2 - PMI Member
$405 - PMP Exam
$129 - PMI Membership
TOTAL: $534
Saving: $21

As you can see from this short analysis, if you are committed to sit for the PMP exam, it is better to join the PMI organisation, take advantage of their benefits and save $21.

Calculating the hours of experience - Part 3

PMP Hours Calculation Sheet
I have developed a model in MS Excel to calculate the hours needed for the PMP exam application.

To use the model you need the following input data:
  1. A list of non overlapping projects from the last 3 years
  2. Project exact start and end dates. If it was only one or two phases of a bigger project, the dates of your assignment started and stopped.
  3. Percent of time engagement on each project (e.g. 50% of your total time available)
This is a minimum amount of data to use my model.
DOWNLOAD THE WORKSHEET HERE

Now all you have to do is to follow my description step by step:
1. Delete example projects - cells: B10:E13
2. Input your data: Project Name, Start Date, End Date, Estimated % of work - on each project separately
3. Observe the cell C5 - TOTAL HRS if it is higher than 4500 hours of experience (or 7500 hours)
4. If you have more than 4 projects on your list, copy all formulas from column G to column AR

Where is the trick?
The most important information is the dates of your assignment and the % of Full Time Equivalent where 100% is full time job.
All the rest gets calculated based on two splits - numbers distribution mechanisms:
a) percentage split between process groups - 10%, 30%, 25%, 25%, 10%
b) percentage split between processes within each process groups. The meaning of each column heading has been explained in the second worksheet - process descriptions.

Other options
Of course you can change the percentage splits to reflect your your effort hours on the project. Also, you can ignore the splits and enter the detailed hours manually.

I hope you will enjoy using my PMP Experience Calculation model!

Calculating the hours of experience - Part 2

I remember quite well that calculating the hours of experience for the PMP Exam application was difficult for me because I had no clue how to approach it. I took me weeks to find ideas on the internet that allowed me some progress. As probably most people who are not consultants, I was not obliged to maintain my weekly timesheets. I had to find some other way.

To calculate the hours I had to use partly the Status Repots, project schedules, team meeting notes and other project documentation. But still I needed some guidance how to do calculate it all.

Examples
I can't remember on which discussion board I found this clue, but I made a note of it.
The person wrote:

If I have a Project X which Started on 01/01/2001 and ended on 30/12/2004,
Number of month experience of Pming = 4 x 12 = 48
Number of days = 48 x20 (Average 20 working days per month ) = 960
So the PM experience gained from Project X is 960 x 8 (assume that we work 8 hours per working day) = 7680
So with Project X I have already covered the required number of PM hours for the PMP exam
I distributed my total hours of PM experience in 5 areas as follows:
1) Initiation 10%
2) Planning 30%
3) Executing 25%
4) Controlling 30%
5) Closing 5%

The remark about distribution of hours across the 5 project management process groups has inspired me how to calculate it. But have a look at another example I have made a note of:

1 Month has 21 working days in general
But if you are on leave or not well, etc...
1 Month has 18 working days
So for 12 Months ---- 12 * 18 = 216 working days
Total hours in a year is -----216 * 8 = 1728
For last 3 years ------- 3 * 1728 ----- 5184
Now you need to break this up as per how many projects you did per year.
Thumb Rule for each project:
Initiation - 7 %
Planning - 30 %
Execution - 30 %
Monitoring & Control - 28%
Closing - 5%

As you can see the logic is very similar despite the differences in distribution of hours across the process groups.
In Part 3 of this article you will see how I prepared a model which calculated the hours of experience almost 'automatically'.

Calculating the hours of experience - Part 1

In order to be eligible to sit for the PMP exam, you also need to calculate the hours of your experience. These calculations will be needed for your application process.
Choosing projects
First of all, you must be careful which projects you choose to report in your application. As the PMP Handbook states, you cannot count overlapping projects' hours. You are only allowed to choose the hours from one project at a time.
See my example below that illustrates that:

How many years should be included?
As you can see, it is very important to review your projects from at least 3 years back. It is the PMI requirement to have at least 3 years of experience but not more than 8 years.
It is not easy to report these three years of employment history because, let's face it - not many project managers maintain their project repositories, timesheets, executed schedules and complete documentation. This makes it a lot more difficult to make necessary calculations for the PMP application process.

Example:
In the example above I have shown how the hours can easily be estimated if you do not have hard data.

Step 1: List the projects from at least the last three or four years

Step 2: Put the projects on the time scale. To make it easier make the quarter your basic calculation element

Step 3: Assume your effort on each project. In my example project MS Sharepoint requires 60% of the time. Of course in this type of analysis you have to initially ignore that the numbers of effort hours on each project is initially low, later higher in execution and eventually low again.

Step 4: Put the hours only of the most effort consuming and non overlapping projects. In my example these are 3 projects: SharePoint, Tempus and Query. I had to discard projects CISCO, Columbus,TACO and Wombat, because they were overlapping with other projects. If you have many overlapping small projects, your 3 years experience may not be enough to apply for the PMP exam.

Step 5: Have a look at the final number.

Final Remark
Generally, if you are employed as a full time project manager then 3 to 4 years of experience should be enough for your PMP exam application process, as long as you do not manage many smaller projects at the same time and require only 4500 hours of experience.
If you calculate your experience in the same way as in the example above you will know if it is enough to calculate the last 3 years or if you will need more time of experience to be added.

In Part 2 of this article I will show you how to make appropriate calculations if you have no timesheet documentation of your projects.
You can download the Excel worksheet of my example by CLICKING HERE.

Eligibility criteria for the PMP exam

The PMP credential is probably different to most tests. If you take a language test as an example, you can sit even the proficiency test in Chinese and nobody will ask you for any prerequisites. As long as you pay the exam fee, you can sit this exam (and fail of course).

In order to sit for the PMP exam you must meet certain educational and professional experience requirements. Only meeting these will open the door to the exam.

Education requirements
1.Category A: High school diploma, associate's degree or equvalents.
In real terms all project managers without tertiary education  fall under this category. In this case you have to collect the history of your last 5 years of experience. PMI requires documenting 7,500 hours of experience that were spent on project management activities.
2.Category B: Bachelor's or Masters degree or equivalents.
In this case only 3 years is enought to apply which translates into 4,500 hours of necessary experience.

Other conditions that have to be observed:
1.Formal Project Management Education - in theory it can be any formal project management training (what excludes self-study).
I think however, (but I may be wrong) that it is better to attend the training that is organised by the PMI Registered Education Provider. These providers have their courses listed and agreed with the PMI. Each course listed with them receives a unique number that can used to prove meeting the education requirement.
In both categories the course (or courses) has to be 35 training hours long. The good news is that it doesn't matter when you attended the course and that you can sum up the number of hours.

2.Number of hours of formal experience
PMI requires that any applicant should be careful with calculating the months of experience. They cannot overlap which is often the case when you run a couple of project at the same time. You can only count the months and hours of experience from one project. In this case it is better to choose the project on which we spent more hours.
In my blog I am showing how to calculate the hours for the PMP exam application process.

There is more details on the eligibility criteria on the www.PMI.org website. Simply right-click this PMP Exam Handbook link and save the pdf file.