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This is a special episode of The PM PrepCast for the launch of our new PMP Exam Coaching program.

Yes -- you read that right. We are going to tackle the issue of failing the PMP exam and I’m fully aware that you may not want to hear this. After all, if you are a PMP candidate then you are probably preparing for this exam like a madman or crazywoman so that you PASS the exam. And so it’s only natural that you are pushing the thought of failure away.

But… let’s look at this from a different angle: From the angle of lessons learned and how to proactively avoid failure.

My interview guest Dan Ryan (The PMP Exam Coach) has coached hundreds of students for the PMP exam. Many of them failed the exam before they came to him for help. He picked them up, motivated them, pointed them in the right direction and stood by their side on the road to PMP exam success.

That is what a coach does and if you want to know more about what type of coaching we offer, please visit www.pm-prepcast.com/coaching for all the details.

So listen to this interview not with fear about failing your PMP exam. But instead listen to it with the attitude of a project manager who has access to information from previous, similar projects and who uses information as lessons learned to make sure that your own project -- your own PMP exam -- does not fail.

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.

Podcast Introduction

Female Voice: Welcome to the Project Management PrepCast™, helping you prepare for their PMP® exam. Here's your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner.

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome back to The Project Management PrepCast™ where we even tackle failing the PMP® exam in a positive and constructive way to help you our student. I'm your instructor, Cornelius Fichtner.

And yes, you heard me right. We are going to tackle the issue of failing the PMP® exam. And I'm fully aware that you may not want to hear this because frankly you are probably preparing for this exam like a mad man or a crazy woman so that you pass the exam, and it's only natural that you're pushing the thought of failure away. But let's a look at this from a different angle, from the angle of lessons learned and how to proactively avoid failure.

My interview guest, Dan Ryan, has coached hundreds of students for the PMP® exam. Many of them failed the exam before they came to him for help. He picked them up, motivated them, pointed them in the right direction and stood by their side on the road to PMP® exam success. That is what a coach does and if you want to know more about our PM PrepCast Coaching program, please go to www.pm-prepcast.com/coaching for all the details.

So listen to this interview not with fear about failing your PMP® exam. But instead, listen to it with the attitude of a project manager who has access to information from previous similar projects and who uses this information as lessons learned to make sure that your own project, your own PMP® exam does not fail. Here it is.

Podcast Interview

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello, Dan! Welcome back to the program!

Dan Ryan: Thank you very much, Cornelius! Always a pleasure.

Cornelius Fichtner: So today we want to talk about how a coach can help if you have failed your PMP® exam. But let me first ask you this: What exactly do you do as a PMP® exam coach? How do you personally see your role?

Dan Ryan: Well, it's very diverse actually. Overall, I'm a facilitator. So I'm going to work with the person who has failed the PMP® exam to help them correct their mistakes and pass the exam. But on a deeper level as a PMP® exam coach, you have to be able to identify where a student's weaknesses were, what caused them to fail the exam, alright, and then you have to influence the factors of change just like a project manager. So if that person had trouble with math or if that person had trouble with risk or quality or a certain area, those are the areas you attack first, you wouldn’t necessarily try to start working on something they were particularly strong in, okay? We're not going to try to improve strengths. We want to improve weaknesses.

And as a coach, you do that through a variety of methods. Those methods include lecturing, tutoring and actually training them on the actual materials to clarify to them and to give them the information. You might also provide them with artifacts like spreadsheets, PDFs, Excel documents, which contained necessary information for them to study to improve in certain areas. You will go through practice exams with the candidate making sure that they know how to approach PMP® exam questions in a way that will get them to pass the exam.

So it really depends on the student, on their needs. Everybody is different. Everybody is at a different point in their journey for the PMP® exam. As the coach, you have to come in. You have to assess what's going on and you have to apply a custom program for them to get well so to speak.

Cornelius Fichtner: From our previous interview, we know that you have coached somewhere between 250 to 300 students for the PMP® exam. So as a PMP® exam coach, do you often work with students who have failed their exam?

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete PDF transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.