I am currently unemployed for about 6 months (**** the Spanish economy) and am using this forced time off to brush up my CV and my knowledge. I have been managing projects for 10+ years so I'm studying for PMP. There are over 600K PMPs in the world, so I assume there will be a bunch on 2+2 as well. If any of you owns this title, please let me know about your PMP experience:

• How did you study for it ?
• How was the exam? Tougher than you thought? Easier? Did you pass on your first attempt?
• Did it provide any value to your career (promotions, salary raise, better job selection, etc.)
• Do you think it made you a better PM?
• What processes or techniques do you think are (have been) of most practical value to you?
• What do you think sucks of the PMBOK guidelines and never gets used?
• Are you actively pursuing PDUs to maintain your title?
• Anything else you have got to say?

Thanks!

I considered this profession for a while, early in my career.
Being a PM can mean many things especially if you are working on small jobs or working as a PM for your self. You may consider yourself a General Contractor instead of a PM, but since you mention PMP you are probably talking about the level I am thinking about.

my 2c on it and why I didn't go down that path.

I only worked on a few large projects as an engineer. The PM and the
assistant PM discussed the project with area managers and engineers daily but spent most of their time focusing on legal and $ issues with the owners of the project (usually a government department) all the real building was planned and executed by the engineers.

It might have been that the project was too big and seen as a cash cow by the construction company, but near the end of the projects, the PM would be
building case files for post construction legal claims. The biggest project that I worked on hired a full time photocopier to copy documents to work order change claims. There were over 10,000 pages of claims at the end of the project.
The owner of the construction company that I worked for had a full time lawyer who spelled out the company's end of project philosophy. "Plan to go to court and they will settle, if you plan to settle, they will take you to court."
I would have liked to see the Minister of the Department of Highways when my company dumped the 10,000 pages of claims on them. I heard that the DOH settled very quickly.

I was not interested in that part of PM but it is a huge part of actually being a PM and making a project "profitable" for the builder. The PMP on the other side of the fence (representing the DOH) was a huge consulting firm stacked with engineers all concerned with building a project to code and meeting the DOH requirements, on budget, on time etc.

It is weird, but I think of being a PM as a salesman who is well versed in legal, and has a background in construction.

I got my PMP while working for my previous employer. Took some online course to satisfy the classroom requirement (the course also provided study material for the test, which I used). If you've been a PM for 10 years, the test shouldn't be hard. Just make sure to brush up on your PMBOK terminology.

As for employment - I didn't get a raise or anything, I was just doing it to improve my employability/marketability since my employer paid for it. I ended up going to get my MBA, so the PMP is pretty much useless. As a result, I'm not actively pursuing PDUs and my title will likely expire fairly soon (I don't know exactly).

I got my PMP this summer after I redeployed from Afghanistan and didn't have much to do. By far the best resource is Rita Mulcahy's book and the Lehmann questions online. The test is surprisingly difficult. A lot of people complain about the math but it's super easy. The hardest questions are the "applied knowledge" questions, many of which have two very good choices to choose from. I'm not even a project manager outside of my role as a military officer so I don't know if this certification made me a better PM. I certainly learned quite a few things studying for the test.

^^

The math doesn't bother me at all. I don't even need to learn the formulas, it is really common sense.

lol@10K pages of claims after a project.

Thanks for the replies.