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Episode Summary
In this episode of The Project Management Podcast, host Cornelius Fichtner continues his detailed guide on using the PMP Exam Simulator at www.pm-exam-simulator.com/. This time, he focuses on statistics' critical role in exam preparation. Cornelius explains how to interpret the data provided by the simulator to identify your weak areas and improve your study focus. By leveraging these statistics, you can tailor your preparation strategy to ensure you are ready for the actual PMP exam.
Click above to play the video episode in a new window.
Episode Summary
In this episode of The Project Management Podcast, host Cornelius Fichtner continues the in-depth exploration of the PMP Exam Simulator at www.pm-exam-simulator.com/. This episode is about guiding you through taking a full-length 180-question PMP practice exam within the simulator. Cornelius shares invaluable tips on when to incorporate full-length exams into your study routine, how to navigate the simulator, and the types of questions you will encounter on the actual PMP exam.
Click above to play the video episode in a new window.
Episode Summary
In this episode of The Project Management Podcast, we explore the first part of our series on using the PMP Exam Simulator at www.pm-exam-simulator.com/. We focus on the simulator's quiz function, a powerful tool for targeted learning and rapid improvement in your PMP exam preparation. By taking short, domain-specific quizzes, you can effectively check your understanding of specific topics and identify areas that need more attention.
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📍 In this 15-minute session, we dive deep into the significant changes coming to the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam. From the implementation of enhanced data forensics to the implications of a delayed feedback system, we've got you covered. Are you curious about how this might affect your PMP journey? Or how the instructors and PMI will navigate this transition?
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On 19-Nov-2021 PMI began using the PMBOK Guide 7th edition as one of the ten reference books for the PMP exam. If you are preparing for the PMP exam you probably have questions like: What does that mean for my exam? Do I now have to read PMBOK 7? What about PMBOK 6? Will I need additional training? Is my exam simulator updated for this?
The premise is, that there are some topics everyone gets wrong on the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam. Being able to answer tricky questions can mean the difference between a pass and a fail. Using data from thousands of mock PMP exams and insights from experienced classroom trainers, he identified, analyzed and explains the project management concepts that most students struggle to grasp.
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On Jan 1st 2021, the Project Management Institute (PMI)® rolled out an updated Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam. For example: The PMP® exam went from 200 questions down to 180 questions, 50% of the exam is now on agile and hybrid methodologies, and there are two ten-minute breaks. And these are just three of the many changes
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Are you thinking about taking the Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam?
Perhaps you are well into your PMP® studies already. Join Cornelius Fichtner, PMP as he shares a wealth of great information to help you prepare for your exam, as well as his up-to-date recommendations on how to best study for the 2021 PMP Exam.
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In this episode, we explore Cornelius Fichtner's recommended Ten Steps to Pass Your Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam.
When Cornelius Fichtner prepared for his PMP exam he was frustrated with the outdated, incorrect and often contradictory recommendations people give to help candidates prepare for and pass their PMP exam. And so, to help you avoid this frustration, he created this easy to follow, ten-step approach to preparing for and passing your PMP exam.
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Our topic today is the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam. And if you are a regular listener of The PM Podcast, then you know that I am a PMP® trainer and that my company offers PMP training. Therefore, spoiler alert, in this episode, my guest and I will not only help you get ready for the exam, but we will also be mentioning the PMP products and services that we offer to our students. So expect some promotions.
And my guest is Jeff Furman. He's been on the show previously, and today, we are going to talk about his new book "Boost Your PMP Score: Learn The Keywords In Sets: 2nd Edition: For PMP 2021".
The book's idea is that when you study for the PMP exam, you will come across many concepts, topics, and key ideas that seem to come in pairs. For example, the "project baseline" and the "performance baseline". They are related, but not quite the same. And in his book, Jeff gives you the list of these and an approach of how to make learning these more fun.
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If you are a certified project manager, and - in particular - if you hold a certification from The Project Management Institute (PMI)® then you know that your certification has to be renewed every three years. The process is quite simple:
After you are certified you have to earn a specified number of professional development units (PDUs)
If you are a Project Management Professional (PMP)® the number is 60, and for a PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)® it's 30
You'll have to report your PDUs with PMI® and at the end of the three years you pay the renewal fee, which starts the next 3-year cycle for you to earn the next set of PDUs
But... where do you find those PDUs? And how do you find free PDUs?
Well... you have come to the right place because over the last decade, I have published 458 episodes here on The PM Podcast, and most of them qualify for free PMI PDUs.
So here is the recording of a recent live stream where I presented how to earn PDUs from this very podcast. As always, with lots of questions from the audience.
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The Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam is not an easy exam. It is an advanced, experience-based exam that you can only take if you can successfully show that you meet all the requirements.
And the requirement that most candidates have a hard time with is the need to show at least 4,500 (in some cases even 7,500) hours of leading and directing projects. Even though candidates know all of their projects and how many hours they have worked on, they find it difficult to quickly identify if their experience hours actually count.
In this episode, Cornelius Fichtner helps you answer the question Do I Qualify for the PMP® Exam? by walking you through this simple, five-step process:
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If you are preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam then you have come to the right place. In this episode, Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, CSM answers about 40 questions during a live stream. (Our apologies that the audio and video are slightly out of sync during the first and last minute of the recording.)
The PMP® Exam is changing. A new Exam Content Outline (ECO) was published in 2019 and it will go into effect on January 02, 2021.
And if you are thinking about taking and passing your exam in 2021 then you may have lots of questions about this changeover. Watch this video to get your answer. And if your question wasn't answered, then please ask in the comments below. We'll answer you here.
As a project management trainer, I have always focused not only on teaching my students how to pass their exams but also on how to become better at what they are doing. Yes, of course, I want you to pass your exam and become certified but I always strived to ensure that what I teach helps you to better lead your projects and deliver them successfully for your stakeholders.
And that is why I think the changes that the Project Management Institute (PMI)® is making to the Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam on July 1st, 2020 is a good change, even though they could have managed the roll-out a bit better.
With this update, PMI® is moving away from the five current and somewhat ‘technical’ domains and shifts the focus of the exam to test a candidate’s knowledge of, and experience in the skills necessary to actually lead and manage a project. Specifically, the three new domains are People, Process, and Business Environment.
But why am I telling you all of this when we have a guest for you who is much more qualified than I am: Sierra Hampton-Simmons (LinkedIn Profile). Sierra has nearly two decades of experience as an expert in Certification Management and joined PMI in late 2013. Currently, she serves as the Portfolio Leader/Head of Certification Products. This means that she is responsible for the entire portfolio of Certification Products including the PMP® exam. So she’s the perfect person to discuss both the background and nature of the changes. You’ll even get to hear that PMI is making changes to the type and style of questions a candidate will see during the exam itself.
Project Management Professional (PMP)® Training on your mobile device:
Simona Fallavollita and Cornelius Fichtner
The exam for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification is driven by current practices in the profession. Because project management is evolving, so is the PMP exam. As a result of the release of the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition in September 2017, the PMP exam will change on 26 March 2018. This is to ensure that exam content is consistent with the guide.
This interview with Simona Fallavollita (LinkedIn Profile) was recorded at the magnificient Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. We discuss the how, what, why and when of the changes that are coming to the PMP exam.
Although the PMP is not a test of the PMBOK® Guide, it is one of the primary references for the exam. This means that students preparing to take the exam after the change can expect to see lexicon changes and terminology used within the exam as well as harmonization of process groups, tools, and techniques. Students planning to take the exam after the change are advised to use PMP Training materials that are updated to the new guide.
For your Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam on your phone with The PM PrepCast:
Margaret Meloni, MBA, PMP
Those of you who have, will or are preparing for your PMP exam, inevitably come across the term “Interpersonal Skills”. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) mentions them, your prep books talk about them, and you find me talking about them in my PMP exam prep training lessons as well.
Leadership, team building, motivation, negotiation or trust building are some of the terms you’ll find. But there is another dimension to these soft skills that we project managers need. And that is “emotional intelligence”.
Emotional intelligence and leadership is one of the topics Margaret Meloni has been coaching and training on for a long time. The “softer side” of project management is her area of genius and so I’m very happy to welcome her as our expert today.
For your Project Management Professional (PMP)® exam get PMP Training on your phone from The PM PrepCast:
Oliver F. Lehmann, MSc., PMP
The one thing I really like about project management is how unpredictable my days can sometimes be. I come to the office in the morning with a clear plan of what we are going to do today, and then something happens.
Maybe something breaks, a critical resource is unexpectedly not available today, or -- even more normal -- the customer wants a change and he wants it now. I love this challenge, because as a project manager I now have to re-evaluate the situation and change my plans accordingly. That is situational project management.
However, there's more to situational project management than just responding with a knee-jerk reaction. These times demand situational awareness, skill and finesse from us project managers.
Most of this interview is on technical aspects, but a little over 15 minutes are on leadership topics. That is why you can claim 0.50 'technical' and 0.25 'leadership' PDUs.
Every project that you and I have ever and will ever manage depends on people’s skills.
The sponsor relies on you as the project manager to successfully lead the team, you rely on the team to have what it takes to create all the deliverables at the required quality, and the end user -- the recipient of what you and the team deliver -- must have the skills to use the product you finally give them.
But what if the skills don’t match up to the tasks at hand? What if a team member is lacking a skill? What if the technology is so new and different that your users will have a hard time with it? The answer is of course leadership coaching, mentoring and training.
And there is no one better than Susanne Madsen (www.susannemadsen.com -- www.linkedin.com/in/susanne-madsen-1134312) who coaches and mentors project managers into project leaders to come on the program and help us understand these three similar yet different activities.
A coaching style of leadership can make a huge difference to how motivated and supported your team members feel when working on your project. And we know that better motivation tends to lead to higher engagement and therefore better outcomes. Ready to dive into this topic? It's a good one!
PDU Tip
This interview is 42:34 minutes long. This means that you can "legally" only claim 0.50 PDUs for listening to it, because in order to claim 0.75 PDUs the interview must be 45 minutes long. However... if you first listen to the interview and then also read the following article from Susanne about coaching and project management, then you can go ahead and claim 0.75 PDUs!
He not only says that the PMP salary you can expect is greater on average, but he also found many other PMP certification benefits. Having a shared vocabulary and enjoying a completely different and often steep career path are just two of them.
So if you are either already PMP certified or thinking about your own PMP Exam Prep and and wondering about the value of PMP certification, then this interview is definitely for you. Niraj and I explore the benefits of being or becoming a PMP from various aspects.
This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for PMP Exam Prep:
Jim Coughenour, PMP
Are you thinking about how to get PMP certified and wondering whether you should take a PMP boot camp, a PMP class, hire a PMP trainer, or whether to achieve this certification simply through PMP self-study?
Jim is an experienced PMP Trainer and he and I look at the benefits, disadvantages, cost and other factors that you should consider before deciding which way you want to go.
But even if you have already decided that maybe a PMP bootcamp is for you, then I recommend that you should still listen to our discussion because I also ask him to share with us his tips on what you should and should not be including as part of your PMP preparation.
Project Management for Beginners and Experts
Going beyond Project Management Professional (PMP)®, PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®, and Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)®
PM PrepCast, Agile PrepCast, PM Exam Simulator, PDU Podcast, PM Podcast are marks of OSP International LLC.
PMI, PMBOK, PMP, PgMP, PfMP, CAPM, PMI-SP, PMI-RMP, PMI-ACP, and PMI-PBA are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
