ERPAdmin's PMP thread (finally.)

erpadmin

Nice that there is a separate sub forum for Project Management threads. Thanks, .

Well, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled postings...I went from studying for accounting (which I may not have to do now that I have options that won't require a separate bridge) to gunning for ITIL (which I will still do, but I'm tabling that for the moment) to now doing what I am now (as of today) am ready to do: gunning for the PMP.

What I did today was sign up for PMI membership today. Total cost for me? $42 for student membership. It was seriously a nobrainer...I get the PMBOK 4th Edition Guide for free (included as part of the membership as a download), you get a sweet discount for PMI ($405, as opposed to $555 without membership) plus, I get to visit a chapter meeting as a member for free as well (NYC chapter...) $447, as opposed to $555, plus the cost of the PMBOK guide...no brainer. The guide is in my dropbox folder as I type this.
My plan of action is two-fold.

1) Use Skillsoft to gain the necessary 35 hours needed. Since I'm WGU alumni, I get that for free too. I got confirmation from one of my classmates that my upcoming Project Management class also counts toward that requirement, but I have to up my timeline for getting a PMP cert because I'm getting a lot of hits from prospective employers that would like an erp admin to have PMP at the end of my name. (That's probably the only cert I would put at the end.) I do not expect Skillsoft to be that much help in the actual exam prep...just merely to get the 35 hours required to take the exam.

2) I'm debating whether to go the Kim Heldman route for my PMP studies. It got good reviews and one of them convinced me to go obtain the PMI membership to lower the cost of the exam (and obtain a lot more for the trouble.)

3) When I feel I'm ready, I will look into practice exams and treat them as if I were going for the real thing (as I've done with other certs.)

But this is pretty much going to happen now. I'm shooting for September at the earliest...December at the latest. I am terribly excited...I look forward to bringing this one home. The demand has become to great to ignore/put aside.

Webmaster

You're most welcome, and thanks for sharing your PMP mission in it, good luck!

Mrock4

erp- forgive me since I don't know much about PMP. When you refer to using skillsoft to gain the necessary 35 hours- are you referring to the Project management experience requirement for the PMP?

erpadmin

Mrock, I'm about to explain this right now.

One of the requirements for the PMP exam is that you have to show "35 hours of formal education" of an PMI-approved project management course. Skillsoft is an approved PMI vendor for providing that training. A WGU course like TPV1 (which is passing CompTIA Project+) does not qualify for the 35 hour requirement HOWEVER, the objectives for passing are somewhat similiar (that's not to say that if you pass Project+ you can sit down and pass PMP or even CAPM in one shot...BUT you will have a good foundation on studying and passing PMP/CAPM when you are ready for it.)

The list of Skillsoft courses that one needs to pass can be found in this spreadsheet. Further information and answers to other questions can be found here. When you tally the amount of "Estimated Duration" found in the "Active Library" tab in the spreadsheet, it totals 52 hours. You only need 35 hours (from Managing Project within Organizations to StakeHolders and the Communications Management Plan/Processes for Managing Project Communications out of the 52 hours available for the PMI/PMP related stuff.)

When you complete the course, there are a few things to keep in mind:
1) You have to make sure that all modules within a course are completed (with a green circle filled in.)
2) You have to navigate to the "Credentialing" menu on the left hand side when you complete a course.
3) You have to click on the Certificate icon to fill out a survey.
4) You click on the certificate icon again to turn the certificate from a fake-looking certificate, to the PMI certificate that will list the credit hours it took to complete the course. There will then be a serial number on the bottom of the certificate. This is what one will need to submit to PMI. This HAS to be done in order for PMI to recognize the hours as valid, otherwise they will not count it.

As with all Skillsoft courses, I would NOT depend on this to pass this particular exam, but I would definitely use this way to earn the 35 hours needed to fulfill the requirement. This can also be done to supplement one's TPV1 (Project+) studies to kill two birds with one stone. Also, if you're still a WGU student or a grad school student, you can join PMI membership for peanuts, and when you are ready to take the exam, you can save over $100 when you sit for the exam. Skillsoft is great because as long as you're a current student or an alumni, it remains a resources you're not paying extra for.

We come out ahead!! I already finished 3.5 hours. After I have lunch with a buddy who's picking me up, I'm just gonna keep going.

And I did went ahead and got the Kim Heldman book (Kindle of course.) I plan on reading that as soon as I am done with Skillsoft.

If there are any questions, let me know.

kgb

Not to de-rail your thread, but quick question.

If I read your above post right, are you saying once I graduate from WGU, I will still have access to the Books24x7 Skillsoft resource for free?

erpadmin

Yes, kgb...Skillsoft/Books 24x7 is available to all WGU alumni. WGU does have a disclaimer that the access can go away, but I can't see that happening with the amount of enrollments coming in. But what I wasn't sure of prior to now was that the Skillsoft classes would count toward that 35 hour requirement; it does.

spiderjericho

I understand the Skillsoft course, but why not use the resources that everyone else have been using (Rita M book and the other one by the guy with test questions)?

erpadmin

spiderjericho, I plan on looking at Andy Crowe and Rita (may she rest in peace), but I want to give Kim H. a chance because she did help me pass Project+. I may just go with Andy though after I'm done with Kim H just to see if it's needed. While I found her boring, since I'm already familiar with her format, I figured why not. Plus, even though I'm just blazing through the Skillsoft course just to get my 35 hours in, much of the stuff I'm hearing was covered in Project+ (albeit a tad bit more detailed...but this is still Skillsoft...) I'm hoping that once I read Kim H., and then supplement that with the PMBOK (not to read, but to get more detailed stuff about things like process groups, for example) I'm hoping to have a real good shot at passing. In the event that I do fail the PMP, I'll be taking it again in December after my Project Management class, which is taught by a PMP. However, I'm not going to take the exam until I am sure I can pass it with practice exams.

erpadmin

This is the certificate that you can ignore. If you see this, that means you completed the course. However...you have to go to the credentialing menu to get the real cert on the bottom. If for some reason you don't get the course evaluation menu when you go through credentialing, make sure that you have all green circles in the module that's part of your course. I had to call SkillSoft to confirm this.






This is the certificate that you want to put toward the 35 hour requirement. On the bottom, there will be a serial number which PMI will use to verify with Skillsoft that you did in fact go through the courses. Remember this is one of many you'll need to get the 35 hours.

erpadmin

Well, I did two more "classes" today. Man this is rough...couple of hours here, couple of hours there....breaks in between. So far so good though...here's what I've done thus far:



I started my PMP application already just so that I can put the classes I've done thus far. It's cool because PMI will tell me how many hours I need left, so I don't have to refer back to the excel spreadsheet as often. You use the PMI certificate from SkillSoft to do your copy and paste when inputting the classes in the PMI-PMP application. I'm just going down the line as to what I need to know how. What I plan on doing is doing at a minimum one more class tonight then leaving my house earlier then normal so that I can knock out some more hours at work. (Then knock out more again when I'm home.) I should be done by the end of the week with this. I don't want to start reading anything until I'm done with the courses and course work.

I've noticed too that a lot of people here have been getting high scores using that IT Project Management book by Joseph Phillips. I might need to add that to my studies as well (even if I don't use it for PMP, he sounds like he's a good reference for IT projects all the same.) He would definitely balance out the Kim Heldman book, if her PMP book is anything like her Project+ book.

erpadmin

Ugh...well it's been a week and two days since I started this trek on SkillSoft. This what I've been giving PMI so far:



As we can see, I'm only half way done to completing these courses; I seem to be doing more "lag" instead of "lead" [PMP terms. ] to complete these 35 hours. This wasn't exactly how I envisioned finishing these courses. However, I'm finding a lot of overlap between Project+ and these PMP courses. I'm going to have to do a better job in staying focused to completing these courses so that I can get my 35 hours in by next week (four day work week is almost at an end....) I'm gonna gun through the spreadsheet to see how I can accomplish this and set a hard date to finish next weekend. I really want to get started on reading the Kim Heldman book, but I don't want to be inundated with too much information. Even though I just want to take the SkillSoft courses to fulfill the 35 requirement, I do tend to pick up on things that might not have been so clear in Project+. Plus, I think that it will make my reading more understandable when that begins.

So I'm still chugging along...let's see how this week goes.

Quantumstate

It's not easy stuff, but you are making good progress.

I'm halfway through Rita myself, and bearing down.

universalfrost

i used RITA's 7th edition and Andy Crowes complete kit to pass the PMP on july 16th.. make sure to know the processes, their knowledge arees, the major itto's for each process and you are good to go!

RITA is a good understanding while andy goes straight into the ITTO's .... you need both IMHO and i didn't even touch the PMBOK to pass the PMP....

andy has all the information and ITTO's you need and RITA has all the practical application knowledge you need... combine the two and you are good to go..

erpadmin

Well I can finally post a status on my thread...yay!

I have completed the required 35 hours of the SkillSoft R.E.P courses. Initially, I thought I could just sashay into SkillSoft, just do the courses and call it a day...I severely underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete them due to a variety of factors:

1) Work
2) Home
3) Sheer boredom of the SkillSoft courses
4) Variety of other things...

While the majority was done during the weekend, I was able to sneak a couple of classes during the week. I attempted once to do a course at work and it was just not happening. I'm also going to add that if you obtained Project+, a lot of the stuff mentioned will be a rehash, but the PMP exam will be much, much deeper, and hence while the concepts are covered, you really need to know this. Having said that, if you were comfortable with Project+ and passed it on the first try (like I did) then taking PMP studies seriously will (hopefully) bring this cert home. Now I can focus on two things:

1) Figuring out my 4500 hours of PM experience and how that fits into each of the process groups (that really shouldn't take me that long...I have to go back years of emails)

2) Read my PMP study guide.

I also plan on utilizing this guy's blog: PM Study Circle - Helping you for your PMP Exam preparation. - PMP Exam Preparation (Project Management Professional) Study Materials, Lessons Learned, Tips & TricksPM Study Circle – Helping you for your PMP Exam preparation.. He seems to be legit and he explains a lot of the hard concepts.

I will try my best to give a synopsis of each chapter, plus a final review of my own (which will be different from the review I will give on Amazon.)


My goal is to take the PMP as soon as possible, BUT I will not rush taking it. I'm going to read the book, make notes, and if I have to reread it again, I will. But I will make full use of it.

One last thing about my SkillSoft courses, if you look at the excel spreadsheet I posted to earlier in this thread, you'll see that the courses for contact hours far exceed 35 hours. If you do the courses in order like I did, you will "lose out" on one half of Communications Management, all of Risk Management, Procurement Management and the Code of Ethics courses. I only plan on using those courses for PDU collection POST-PMP...I plan on supplementing my information from my real PMP study and using SkillSoft to give me PDUs POST-PMP. (They count for PDUs as well.) I will not be using Skillsoft anymore now that I have my 35 Contact Hours.

The one thing I will use SkillSoft for for sure will be Project 2010 training. In that respect, something is better than nothing. Nine hours of basic training + five hours of advanced can't be that terrible.

In any event, I'm happy SkillSoft is over and now my real studies can begin.

universalfrost

well you have the contact hours. now just submit the information to PMI, pay the cert fee and wait for approval or audit... i would not study really hard until you have the "green light" from PMI to take the test....

just my 2 cents....

erpadmin

What makes you think I won't get the "green light"? I'm really curious about that...

Because I am not going to pay full price for the PMP exam? Sorry but I have no qualms telling the rest of my TE brethren who may be graduate students or even undergrad students that being a PMI member at a greatly reduced cost will get them a discount for the PMP exam (or CAPM, or any other exam PMI offers...why hate on paying full price?)

Because I used SkillSoft to obtain my 35 contact hours? We can both agree that SkillSoft sucks, but since many of us get it for free through employment, school, or the military, plus it's a PMI R.E.P., it's a good way to get contact hours for nothing.

My ERP experience involved a lot of work I did from all of the Process Groups. Since I've been needing to quantify my experience anyway, I don't have a problem starting on this. I look forward to posting my "green light..."

[In the .0001% chance I don't get a green light, you have my word I will post that too.]

petedude

Intriguing thread, Erp.

I like the idea of a PMP, but unfortunately I haven't done a great job tracking practioner hours. Maybe I should consider a CAPM, then log hours, then go for PMP.

erpadmin

Well, I just submitted my application....

Man...I had to dig deep into documents, emails, etc, just to get a proper accounting. Then I had to do some math to figure out how many hours I did etc.

Good news is that I sent my application today. I'll know sometime this week if it's a Go/No-Go for PMP and then I will schedule the exam. I have an idea as to when it will happen...it will either be late October or Mid November. Mid-November won't be so bad, because I'll be almost done with the semester...actually, if I can schedule my PMP exam on the anniversary of my Project+ exam, maybe that won't be a bad deal....it's around that time.

And @petedude...23 Contact Hours Vs. 35 Contact hours and 1500 Project experience vs. 4500 Project experience....ehhh.....I'm guessing you got 4500 of project experience somewhere....look deep into your emails...

powerfool

You should no within two days if they are going to audit you or not.

universalfrost

they have 2 chances to audit; when you submit the initial application and then when you pay the fee to take the exam...

erpadmin,,,,,, only telling you to not study too hard until you have the exam certification paper in your hands so that you can schedule the exam... if you get audited (they also do random audits) it could take a few weeks for them to sign off on your application, that is after you submit your information and you have your past and present bosses attest to your experience. if you check some of the PMP forums, it can takes weeks or up to 2 months to get the green light.... and that is if you have everything well documented.

not trying to be a downer, just trying to provide insight as to the process.

erpadmin

Well, I took the assessment exam in the Heldman book. I got like half of them right. My M-O is usually to avoid those, as I usually read every chapter in the book anyway. Even if I get audited, and even if it takes me half a year to get through, it won't be a complete waste of time as I can just get a head start of what I need for my Project Management course that I'm taking in a couple of weeks anyway.

After my own research and what I found from you and others, if I am going to be audited, knowing my luck it will be when I pay my exam fee. (This way if I have a failed audit, they can potentially keep my processing fee.)

We'll see how this goes. I am confident I will survive the audit...I have project charters, project plans, emails, college transcripts, and every certificate from Skillsoft at the ready.

erpadmin

Well, I didn't get an audit, but I didn't get an OK either. My application was sent back to me to resubmit. HOWEVER, I had no indication on what they took issue with. So I gave the good folks at PMI a call, gave them my membership number and asked them for the deal. I told them I got an email a couple of days ago stating they are gonna review it. All the guy said was to resubmit it, to which I replied "I don't have a problem with that, but does this mean I'm gonna have to wait another five days?" He responded that he will have someone look at what happened, but was quite non-committal.

So I'm in a bit of limbo at the moment. Whatever...I'm just gonna read and wait now. I'll let you guys know what is up.

Quantumstate

Not much more you can do ATM.

erpadmin

Well, we have new developments. I would have normally wrote this post in my Grad School thread, but since I am gunning for PMP, I'm just going to link back to particular posts I make here (like this one) on my grad school thread (until I become a PMP, then I will post back to the grad school thread.)

My PM professor has posted up required readings and for week one, we are supposed to read Chapters 1 and 2 (done) of the PMBOK guide and Chapter 3 for week 2 (not started as of this posting.) Chapters 1 and 2 gives an overview of what a project is, the project life cycle, what the process groups are (the ipe(m&)cac) etc., and chapter 3 (when it starts getting meaty) goes over the Project Management processes in depth.

If any of you ever read my passed Project+ post (would have been around 12/2010), I used Text-To-Speech for the Sybex PK0-003 study guide. Suffice it to say, I'll be doing the same with PMBOK. This time, instead of my Kindle doing the reading, I have ezPDF Reader for Android on my ICS tablet, then using Evernote on my PC to type out notes of what I need. PMBOK went over the difference between a project, program, and portfolio (stuff that was in Kim Heldman's book, but I will also read that as well.) I also have optional reading from two textbooks (one I had to rent, the other I have available on Books 24x7.) My plan of attack is to wrap up Chapter 3 of the PMBOK tonight (it's approximately 30 pages, but I want to relax first and then get into it) and then view the audio Powerpoint presentation my professor did.

I have given myself tremendous overlap thanks in part to watching those SkillSoft videos (they're making sense now...lmao!!) In truth, the PMBOK reading isn't terrible, but I am glad that I have supplemental material to reinforce what I need to know. I am forced to read the PMBOK guide from page 1-582 but thankfully, that will be done in stages according to the class.

I'll continue to report my progress. Gonna take a break for now.

Quantumstate

Owing to what everyone has said about the PMBOK I've avoided it and spent full time on others. I am suspicioning that PMBOK is intended to be a reference in ongoing PM, and not necessarily as a study guide. But it is additional ammunition to read it now.

For me, I just need to highlight passages to be able to reference them for review. That might be hard to correlate with evernote, although you seem to have your system down.

I gather from the Amazon reviews that Kim's CD has the whole book in mp3, read by Kim herself, and apparently she is pleasant to listen to. Might be better than T2S.

It's amazing that T2S has gotten so good.

erpadmin

T2S has not gotten to the point where I can put some headphones on and call it a day. A lot of words still get mangled up. That's why I read what's being said in addition to utilizing T2S.

I have heard and stated the same advice about the PMBOK. However in my case, it is mandatory that I read the PMBOK. Of course, I could just drop the class, and say to heck with reading the PMBOK, but that is not going to happen...lmao. Partly because of how I was raised, I grew up with the understanding that the teacher is the authority. If there is required reading, and I want an A, then I will do what is necessary to get that A (or B...or B...I try not to set my expectations too high so that I don't get disappointed later, and that is serving me quite well.) However, I can say this...chapter 3 of the PMBOK ties all of the process groups and inputs and outputs together and I am incorporating that into my note...over the next few weeks, I plan on reinforcing that so that by the time I sit for the PMP, I will be quite proficient [Lord willing]...it's all clicking and I love it. As soon as I'm done with Chapter 3, I will review my professor's lecture on it (she emailed me back that she's not expecting an assignment for the first couple of weeks...but I will be "quizzed" on it.) and then go back to Heldman.

I have Heldman's Kindle book, so I don't have her MP3s, etc. However, I'm sure if I emailed her, she may hook me up. (She's a fellow state employee...she's just in a different state...lmao.) It is too convenient for me not to deal with physical books. (I don't need to smell the pages of a book to read it...just words. LOL.)

Quantumstate

There ya go. Yeah Ch 3 is supposed to be a bugger.So far in Crowe, I'd say that if you've done calculus, he is the first derivative, and Rita is the second derivative. Although Rita has lot more info, it seems like it is second-hand. OTOH Crowe seems to be bending over backward to not use Rita's excellent process chart.

erpadmin

Wow...today was a day full of "iterative processes...."

I just finished typing in the 5 process groups, and all 42 processes (grouped by the process groups, of course) into my Evernote. As a bonus, I had to copy and paste the inputs and outputs that pertain to those said processes. This was all from chapter 3 of the PMBOK. After I was done with that, I listened to the second lecture of my PM class that went over the process groups. Finally, at a very high level, we "learned" where the process groups and processes fit with 9 Knowledge Areas.

The takeaways I got today were this:

I have to learn all of the 42-9-5 for the PMP exam. The 42 Processes-the 9 Knowledge Areas and the 5 Process Groups and how they all fit in (just like UniversalFrost had stated earlier.)

The PM class is not a PMP prep course (I was cool with that), so we will not be going through all 42 processes. (I had planned on doing this by myself..

We do have to KNOW like back of the hand Table 3-1 of the PMBOK (good idea for the PMP exam anyhow) (page 43, which someone else had said but I can't remember who...)

The two inputs/outputs we're going to focus on throughout the semester will be Organizational Process Assets and Enterprise Environmental Factors.

Because we will be working in teams, we will be skipping on over to Chapter 9 of the PMBOK (Project Human Resource Management.) Since I'm actually ahead, I can take a break from that and focus on the Heldman book. She had promised that will tie all of the 42-9-5 stuff together. I have a printout of Table 3.1 and it's part of my notes. A lot of the stuff is starting to come back to me from Project+. I'm feeling very confident about grasping this (though not foolhardy to take the exam....[yet!])

Quantumstate

Mee 2...

Today I read 100 pages in Crowe. (of 491) I know what an ITTO is now! Project Management is beginning to take over my mind and steal my soul! I am living Project Management, I am dreaming Project Management, I am breathing Project Management, I am eating Project Management. HAAALLP!

erpadmin

Quantumstate wrote: »

I am living Project Management, I am dreaming Project Management, I am breathing Project Management, I am eating Project Management. HAAALLP!

No....don't stop until you pay the re-exam fee and pass the exam...but make sure you're really ready.

erpadmin

I just got the "Please continue with the PMP application process" email and hence got the go-ahead to pay PMI money. I have decided that D-Day will be December 22nd. Will let you know after I paid PMI their money...

I'm in no hurry to take this exam anymore. It is very easy to fail this exam and I'm going to use my class time to reinforce what I'm getting from the Heldman book. I'm also going to pick up Crowe sometime this week...I looked at UF's Crowe kit that he sold on ebay and I'm gonna do homework to see if I should bother with that or just his book. The most difficult thing for me though is to keep my focus on this exam, but I think I can do that since I'm taking notes off the PMBOK guide. Progressive Elaboration, the difference between a program and a portfolio, the 42-9-5 jazz (five of course is memorized...9 will be memorized) and how it all ties in together...and of course the formulas...this will be a fun few months.

My resolve is now stronger...I'm beginning to have a plan...now I gotta work on logistics. I'm gonna probably make a B&N run to look over more books that I may/may not pick up from Amazon.