ERPAdmin's PMP thread (finally.)

erpadmin

Your suggestion is noted, but there is a method to the madness.

All accounts suggest that Rita is more difficult to grasp than Crowe. By reading Rita first, I can jump straight into Crowe and then jump into his online component. I want to start the online component before I begin the exam. Also, after reading Rita, I feel I'll be more confident to delve into the practice exams. Also, I want to see if I can make use of Rita's Process Charts (maybe I can, maybe I can't....won't know until I get to Chapter 3.)

Since I got home early, I can read chapter 2 and let the Rita-ness sink in. Then leave chapter 3 for tomorrow morning. I have to do it this way because there is NO way I can read this stuff at work to have it properly sink in. This is like working out at the gym. LOL.

Quantumstate

When I was reading Rita, I'd start the day by reviewing the chart, item-by-item, and then read the chapter for the day. I got the order of things after a while, but by chapter 9 or so I sluffed off on the chart. Maybe I knew I had it pretty good by that point.

erpadmin

Well, I got chapter 2 of Rita out of the way. Took the chapter quite serious (much like I did for Security+ and Project+.)

I read the scenario, then the answers then the scenario again then the answers and then planted my answer. After finishing my answers, I proceeded to the answer key. 19/25=76%. Now this means I can go to the next chapter, but I had to figure out "what the ---- went wrong?"

One of the questions was for me a 50/50 shot (to those with Rita, it was question #6...) I was leaning toward the correct answer but I thought maybe it should be the other one. The others were trick questions I got tripped up on. But the one that got me was the completion of lessons learned. I guess PMI wants stakeholders to complete those....but I was thinking the PM would be the one completing it.

I guess this is just something to keep in mind going forward, but if something that silly can trip me up, I imagine what's in stored for me later. Keep in mind that right now, I'm just reading Rita and I'm only reading a chapter at a time. I will be reading at least one chapter a day, but if I can do two, it's bonus (like today.) I have time until my PMP exam, but 76% in a Rita exam seems to be pretty good from what I've read earlier. But I will be going back to stupid stuff like the difference between a project expediter and a project coordinator. Since that's been coming up a lot, I'm gonna make sure I get that down pat. That, and of course the Project Life Cycle (which I did write down from the PM Prepcast.)

So far so good though.

Quantumstate

Remember that PMI wants lessons learned to be from a 'postmortem meeting' of team members and the PM.

Ya get used to dicey sh*t in Rita. You run the questions backward and forward in your mind, and still get them wrong. But it's good because it'll prepare you for the kind of questions you'll see on the exam. It's what keeps the shoe salesmen out of the business. I mean they had some challenging questions that blew my mind, but using the PMIism logic you eventually come to the right conclusion.

Today there was another guy taking the PMP exam, all decked out in white shirt/tie/buzzcut uniform (to take the test?!), trying to look all managerey but scared to death. I was in my Parker Paint T-shirt and jeans, and didn't tell him I was taking it too, because I was obviously comfortable, although still studying.

I generally made mid-70's in Rita, but failed three chapter exams, most memorably Ch 3 and Quality Management.

universalfrost

Quantum, i dressed the same as you,,,, shorts, sandals and a raggedy old shirt... most of the other folks were in business casual or more formal.... i just dont care what I look like for a cert, i want to be comfortable and not dressed in a monkey costume (already have to wear the darn suit and tie at work, so why would I tortue myslef on my time off???)...

i gave up on memorizing rita process chart after a few weeks (was actually causing me to get confused) and i just stuck to figuring out the logical process flows and what this came before that and why that was the input/out to this.... Crowe was the best at that for me, but it didn't "click" until about half way through the 2nd pass of his book....

for me i started with crowe, stopped after chapter 4 (all his straight to the meat and potatoes writing was putting me to sleep at that point because I had not yet grasped the PMI concepts) and then went to read RITA all the way through... after i finished with her book i restarted Crowe (finished the 1st pass of it) and once i was finished I started taking 20-50 ?'s practice tests from RITA ( i found the ?'s on Crowes website to not be that well written and were not like the writing style of the actual PMI/PMP exam questions)...

on my 2nd full pass through Crowe (the last week before the test) it was all making sense to me and the ITTO's were actually easy to remember and the order of the processes was making sense.... that worked for me... your milage may vary...

erpadmin

I see what you guys mean about Chapter 3. Apparently, even RMC knows how bad Chapter 3 is. I need to read that chapter with a clear head. I am understanding the exercises but knowing how the Process Groups works the Rita way is terribly confusing and I almost want to deal with just the "meat and potatoes" myself with Crowe (this was what some of the Amazon reviewers on Rita had warned me about.) Between my fiancee screaming at my dogs as I type this, and myself needing to get to work, I am going to have to table that chapter and attack it from fresh perspectives.

Do you guys think I should skip Chapter 3 entirely and just focus on the rest of them? Maybe my approach to Chapter 3 is wrong?

Edit: What I think I'm going to do when I get home today is to reread my notes from the PM Prepcast and then barrel through to the chapter. I'm going to talk to my fiancee and tell her not to be so loud in the mornings and evenings. After rereading the deepfriedbrain review of Rita and contemplating my PMP studies on the way over here, I have to remember to ignore the negativity that is pervasive throughout the book (e.g. "This is not enough to pass the PMP exams." "If you don't sell your first-born to Beelzebub, you will not pass the PMP exams..." etc., etc. [Gross exaggeration, of course, but there is a lot of stuff like that throughout the book...if you are missing knowledge gaps, blah, blah, blah.] I think I'll be ok tonight.

Quantumstate

You need what's in Ch 3. The other chapters build on it. I remember posting at about page 43 that Rita was dreadfully boring, and UF chimed in that he saw it that way too, which gave me hope. None of Rita was easy for me, but once she takes you all apart and puts you back together again her way, you'll be much more ready for the exam.

True Rita is not enough. But Rita -and- Crowe definitely is!

And, you may need to go to the library to study, as you have to get into it.

erpadmin

Thanks...I'm gonna give Chapter 3 another try after I get home. I will literally not rest until I at least read through the chapter and perform the exam. If I fail it, I will reread it.

I have time, so I'm not totally stressing out.

erpadmin

Well, I reread chapter 3 twice and (before I took the exam) and I still got 60% (once.) I'm going to go on to chapter 4. My professor in my other course wanted more elaboration with me on one of my readings, and that had to go up the queue. (I'll talk about that in my grad school thread.)

I'm still on track to finish Rita's book by the imposed deadline. Then I'm gonna take a day or so for a mental break and jump into Crowe. By the time I'm done with Crowe I should be able to handle passing a good majority of the free PMP exams available (plus the demo one from Crowe's site.) I'm very fortunate that I chose October 27 as my exam date. Between work and school (I had to do some work stuff today, as a matter of fact) I'm finding it difficult to sleep. I've been doing a lot of morning stuff though, so I'm grateful for that. I'm starting to visual my name having those three letters come after it. ERPADMIN, PMP....ahh yeah. LOL. I'm moving on to Chapter 4.

Quantumstate

Cover Rita and Crowe, and you'll be fine man. I failed three of Rita's chapters, as I've said. In general I made mid-70's on her chapter tests otherwise, but I studied carefully.

tc613

I wish you success ERPAdmin on your path to becoming a PMP. I recently finished up at WGU for my bachelors.

This thread has encouraged me to follow the same path.

Please let us know how things go on your exam date.


TC