A Guide to Becoming a PMP and Being a PMP

PMP is one of the most important industry-recognized project management certifications, which demonstrates your knowledge, experience and competency to handle projects. Benefits of becoming a PMP are written widely on many websites. In this article I would like to provide some experience for PMP candidates to be successful on the exam, and also for those who already obtained the PMP certification.

You can find the official procedure to obtain a PMP certification here on PMI’s website. In short, you should:

1. Fulfill PMP requirements (a combination of academic degree and project management experience)

2. Apply for the PMP exam, pay for the exam, register to take the exam and, finally, take the exam.

3. Once earned, a PMP certification should be maintained.

Below I will discuss with you my experience regarding these steps.

1. Fulfill PMP requirements

PMP requirements state that

To apply for the PMP, you need to have either:

• A four-year degree (bachelor’s or the global equivalent) and at least three years of project management experience, with 4,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.OR
• A secondary diploma (high school or the global equivalent) with at least five years of project management experience, with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.

While the academic degree is cleared, many are often confused about the experience requirements. Many even tell a “paradox” :  ”To get a job as  a project manager, you should have a PMP certification. But, in order to become a PMP, you should have project management experience”.

In fact, it is not a paradox at all. The key here is that project management experience mentioned by PMI is not experience working as a project manager! Project management experience mentioned by PMI is, in fact, experience working in project in ANY role. So, you do not need to be a project manager to fulfill PMP experience requirements.

Then, how about the 35 hours of project management education?

You can find many project management courses (online and offline) that will provide you with 35 hours of project management education requirements. In choosing project management courses, be sure to look not only for the number of hours they give you by the end of the course, but also their content. It is very important, because on the PMP exam you will meet many terminologies that may be strange to you at first.

I recommend you using The PM Prepcast , provided by Cornelius Fichtner, a well-known trainer for the PMP exam. It costs you cheaper than many other courses but it also gives you clear, understandable and interesting video lessons about the PMP exam. And it does give you 35 project management education hours, as required by PMI. Also, you can take the lessons everywhere you go on your portable devices (BlackBerry, Iphone, Ipod, Ipad).

2. Apply for the PMP exam, pay for the exam, register to take the exam and, finally, take the exam

These steps are quite straightforward, however, I have some advices for you here

- Register to be a PMI member before applying. Applying for the PMP exam without membership and applying for the PMP exam with a membership are financially equivalent. However, PMI membership will give you many advantages: you can access all PMI standards and journals in electronic form on the PMI website. Also, you will have opportunity networking with other candidates.

3. Maintaining a PMP certification

Believe it or not, becoming a PMP is an interesting journey that does not end up with taking the exam. Once became a PMP, you should maintain your credential every 3 years by earning enough PDUs. There are many resources on the Internet helping you with this. Here are my recommendations.

- Taking project management courses is NOT the only way to obtain PDUs. Be sure to look at the PMP Handbook to see a list of activities that can provide you PDU.

- One of the very interesting way to earn PDU is listening to The PDU Podcast, again from Cornelius Fichtner. You can earn your PDUs everywhere.