Journey towards PMP

Hello everybody,

Recently I completed my PMP (Project Management Professioanl) certification from Project Management Institute (PMI), USA.
I thought I should do something to the project management community and PMP aspirants in general. Then this very idea of writing a blog striked in my mind. This is my first post towards this. I dedicate this first post to all my eFriends at PMPExamforum.

Completing PMP is really a achievement for me. I heard it is very difficult to learn once anybody starts working. I felt the same throughout my journey towards PMP. Now I have a feel of satisfaction.

I was introduced to PMP by one of my colleague, Shambhavi in year 2007. I was not sure whether to do it or not. I talked to my then manager Dr. Ravi Guttal and he gave a green signal to me. I got a training from Seed Infotech in September 2007 which gave me the required 35 contact hours for PMP exam application. Ideally, one can finish the exam withing 3 months from the training. But somehow it slipped. There were personal reasons, office work load. I was parallely persuing my Six Sigma Black Belt. There are many more reasons, but major reason was I was not sure whether to do PMP or not. Though there was delay for my exam, I was studying intermittently.

Major focus was obtained once I got audio prepcasts from Cornelius. That was late December 2008. These prepcast, while hearing, gave me a confidence boost that I can now appear for PMP exam. After that I started preparing and was serious enough from February 2009. Why? PMI introduced a new version of PMBOK and exam pattern will be based on this new version from 1st July 2009.

I got my exam date on 5th June. In fact I selected this date purposefully. I selected Hyderabad as my center cause I was more familiar to Hyderabad than Mumbai. The other reason was I can meet my old friends.
Exam was OK. Planned (??) preparations let me pass the exam. I am a PMP now, WOW !!!
I felt relieved while coming out of exam center.
Evening, I celebrated this success with my friends. This was my bday too !!!
Now my (re)certification will be aligned with my birthdate.

Catch you next time,
Mahesh Masurkar, PMP
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