How Anandhraj Natarajan's Passed the PMP Exam? | PMP Success Story #pmp #chennai #infocareer

Foreign My name is Anand Raj so I'm basically automobile engineer. I have around 15 plus years of experience so I used to work for Daimler India Commercial Vehicle limited in Chennai so currently we have relocated to US Currently I am in Michigan Ann Arbor. So I am looking for opportunities. In fact I have learned some of interviews here and hopefully I will be joining in a company in March so things are in line. So this is brief introduction about me and I started this journey or trying to get The PMP certification 2017 exactly I think. Yeah. And I got Info Career reference from my brother. He also took PMP from Info Career and he got in 2018 itself he got his certification. So I started that and you know the the initial hesitation of all the PMP takers they start with the full enthusiastic and when they see the PMBOK and Rita Mulkai they will lose this team. Same thing happened to me and you on the training itself. You told me that this happens so it happened to me. So I lost the interest. The reason is it was too difficult for me to memorize the terms and process and terminologist. So in fact I am not the person who can memorize things. So I always want to understand the things and write it in my own way. So in PMP the terminologies and the process is more important at that point of time. So I lost the interest and again I was trying to restart once again whenever I think okay I should do it then same thing again and again coming and stopping me. But the opportunity opened at the PMBOK6 where the PMP moved rightly moved from memorizing and memorizing the process to understanding the process. And that is what again rekindled the interest of PMP again in me. And of course I used to follow the info carrier websites and info carrier WhatsApp group so I know what is happening around it. And I used to attend all the boot camp or the programs or the short meetings you give. I used to attend and I used to follow this because the PMB always in me. I want to get it done. So this is happened in I think 2020 then that is okay. This is the time we should get into it because it is rightly moving from memorizing things to understanding things. And as I took the training and following things in Info Career I already started to behave like a project manager because that is what it's important in the bmp rather than understanding, you should behave yourself as a project manager. The thinking like Agile way of thinking. It is a project management way of thinking that is more important in PMB and with all your inputs and the mastermind session that is the one of the brilliant session infecareer is having it and it gives you the understanding about the scenarios and the explanation by the instructors and particularly by you and by Karthikeyan and Natarajan. They are giving a good explanations about how you should think. And whenever we. You know, sometimes we used to. I used to score 50 percentage and less but it won't demotivate me because it is adjusting my way of thinking. So that is what happened in master. You know, the mastermind session that is excellent session and all your. The IC LEAF test it was initially the beginner. It started to create the interest and slowly increasing the intensity through intermediate and advanced scenario based. That was good. And the time based thing is good. And this is a. You know, critically maintaining the balancing interest versus the confidence level because when you make things more complicated you lose interest. But that IC LEAF test is descend may be intuitively descent in such a way that the interest and the complexity slowly increased and balanced better way so that you don't lose your confidence. And similarly you increase your increase your knowledge on the pmp. That is what the IC LEAF did. And finally the mock test that is the best in IC Leaf. And I took the mark test first. First test and I was thinking. I scored 70 plus. I was thinking maybe by fluke but it is not so. It is not so. When I took the second one then I gained the confidence and I talked to you. You gave me good inputs and feedback that helped me. And third and fourth then I am prepared for the exam. So. And I'll tell you sir, this mock test the scenario I won't say questions are similar but scenarios similar almost as similar from the pmp. So that helped me a lot sir. So that is how I was. I am able to get the PMP and I. I just want to give you one feedback sir. And you used to tell me when you take or follow info carrier. Don't follow some other, you know, way of studying all those things. And I. I tried to do that by something because sometimes you know, you get. You know, you. You get okay, this may be. May not be the right way. Then you try some other sources also. And I tried one or two books and you know the YouTube videos. But again you tell the students this one sir. From my experience they will distract you from your way of preparation. Just follow info career just to follow what you have been telling that is enough for PMP. And when you Try to follow multiple sources. You. It will derail you distract you sometimes. Because I took one sample mark test available in the YouTube and it lowered my confidence because it is. It is like. You know, very tough. Or it may be a different way of saying that so that you know, it teaches you that it tells you that you are not prepared properly. So if you want to prepare follow my thing. Some some kind of a deviating thing. We should not be doing it. And have confident on info career. Have confident on the the question banks and the way of teaching info career. Sure you will clear. That is what I just want to tell you know, in this feedback session. Sir.

Thanks Anand. Thanks for the sharing. Definitely it will add a value for more people.

Yes.

So tell us little about exam. Okay. So how was the exam? What kind of questions? You got it?

Yes sir. I will tell you. So first thing is I I suggest people to take exam in the test center based not on the online list because this exams are closely watched and any disturbance or any noise or any you know, disturbance in the video it is. It. It is a problem for the exam taker. So it is most mostly you want. You. You want to take it in the test center not on the. You know, online from. If there is no other way, please go forward. But ensure that everything is proper and go because it is highly proctored. And even when I get into the exam center they frisk. I mean they. They personally not frisked but they told me to frisk myself and show the packets. And it is. It is similar to need to. You know, the. The checking. So you be prepared for that. So that is the first input and the second is the pmp. And again and since I took in us here the getting the test is not easy because this proctor, this test centers they are taking more and you know, some other test also. Not only it is not specific to PMP so they are taking other test also. So getting a slot for exam is not easy. I wait. I waited for almost 25 days to take the exam. So prepare yourself before you take or book the schedule because it is costly to reschedule all those things. So that is one thing on the scheduling part. And another thing is the exams are very good. The reason is mock test. I took the mock test seriously and I considered the mock test as a same like examination so that I it won't be distracted. No passing in between. So do it. You know. And I I got your instructions like taking food and taking intervals and what time you should take. Follow that and no don't deviate from that instructions and because I tried to take some of the exam not on the marks some test at the night, night time or in between like like that. But it is not working well. It is nothing to do with your knowledge. It is. It is the mindset because the PMP test your. You know, the project manager mindset not on your knowledge or all those things. So the mindset is more important. So it is better to follow your instructions when you take mock test and similar way, same timings. I took that exam also morning 8:00 o'clock. I scheduled the exam because so no other external disturbance will be there similarly so and when I approached that the exam it is similar to my mock test. Very similar to my mock test and scenarios are almost similar. Maybe some some changes on the numbers. All those in scenarios are almost similar. So I didn't any. I didn't feel any difference between mock test and the exam. That was the good part in the exam. And the questions are mostly scenario as I told and I got two questions on the N value management calculation based questions. But I have a calculator was not needed. It is mostly like a comparison question so you can easily do it yourself if required. There is a calculator attached in the PMP so you can use it. And I and I didn't scribble anything on the scribbling pad because it is all thinking no need to write or something like that. So it is. It is good. And the questions it was more than 50 percentage of questions either agile or hybrid management. So they are always giving priority to agile. It looks like all the industry wanted to move or at least adopt some agile way of working that has been rightly tested in the pmt. That is the best thing. I request students to have this agile mindset. That is more important because there is a slight difference between hybrid and agile. We must understand because sometimes when we learn agile we always think about purely agile. Purely agile like no plan, okay? We will not follow any plan or we will not have any baseline something like that. We will always think. But hybrid is not like that. And even they are testing the tailoring approach. They are not. You know, when PMP want to validate your agile mindset it is not excluding completely the predictive approach because they appreciate and they accept that the predictive also important. So it is a proper mix of predictive and agile. So it is not agile is different and predictive is different. It is not the way they want to test. So it is. It is a proper mix they want to test and that means that we should have it because sometimes we always think right. When Agile question comes, if there is a plan, we say that that question is wrong because it is talking about the plan. But it is not like that. The plan also important baseline is also important because basically they want to test the. The tailoring approach or how you want to process this scenario. And no organization want to go without a plan even though they want to go to Agile. Because now we always say that okay, in Agile fix the cost and the time and change the scope. That is also not possible because always they will have the scope in mind. They also have the vision how the product or service should look like. Just because you are running out of time and cost, they don't want to stop it. So this is also closely followed. And Agile always promote, you know, empowerment and team, all those things. But it doesn't mean that directive way of leadership. It is not record. That is also record. I got one good question and I hope I am right in that question. So it was giving me, it was telling me that one particular scenario. How will you manage that? Particularly in the conflict management. Okay, so there is a conflict between two people, okay. It has not been resolved by any of the conflict methodology. So how it is managed. So like empowerment, all those things also is there. But sometimes you have to take a stand that you know, okay, take directive approach. Okay, please do this. Okay, take a voting and close this up. Don't okay, leave it to the team. You decide yourself. It is agile way of think. But still, you know, in some scenarios that may not work, that kind of things also they test. I think I am right in that answer. But I am just telling you about.

The idea of testing.

One more thing I just want to include is multiple choices. Multiple choices is as not like 2, 3, but it is like a matching, you know, a B left and right match the scenario. Like there are three scenarios given in left hand side and three approaches are given in right hand side like Agile Predictive Hybrid. And three scenarios are given left hand side match the match these scenarios. That is one, you know, new thing. I got it in the testing. And so that is also we should be ready. Maybe it may take little bit more time, like one or two minutes extra. But I got two questions in that way. So that is a good thing. This is the basic feedback from the testing, sir. And the feedback is go through the markup test and review your result and have the PMP way of thinking. I mean project manager way of thinking. You may be a cast or you may Be working on a production but you should have the project management way of thinking if you have it and that you can clear the PMP. And if you follow info career, I'm sure you will have it.

Thank you for sharing that. And you've done fantastic job. Okay, I'm telling about this exam related one. Definitely add more value for people. And the last last question to you, okay. In the last two months, whatever preparation you are done. Okay. Your way of working, the way of thinking, lot of things you it wasn't reflected in the day to day project management. How did this course help you? In the latest version you saw last version also. Now you saw previous version also.

Yes.

So how do you relate this?

It's. It's a. Actually it's a good point. You asked this. It is actually, you know, whatever you learn it. We are. I don't know about others but as Indians we don't differentiate our carrier our home and our knowledge everything differently. We. We always, you know, try to match things or try to implement the knowledge from one. Wherever we learn from one one area to other area we like to implement. Same thing happened in the mbv. What what it exactly tells you that is there is no yes or no kind of thing.

Okay?

There is always a scenario based. Okay situation based. One situation it may be right but another situation it may not be right. That is a good input. When you learn this project management thing or the project management way of understanding and conflict resolution, that is the best thing I learned. Whenever we think conflict, we always go with assertive or sometimes aggressive way of think. Okay, do this. Okay, don't disturb or don't do this like that. But it is not so. It is not so. It is like, you know, listening, okay. And how to do it or how to manage the situation. That is more important. And one more important thing, sir. I wanted to tell you the PMP questions always when you read the question then you will jump into answer always. But it is not right. You have to read once or twice and you have to understand the keywords like you know least. Okay, what not to do or what first thing you do. Okay, what you do is different or what the first thing you do is different. So it allows you to think or it makes you to understand the it makes you to, you know, understand the exact scenario at that point of time. That is more important. So I learned this one from PMP preparation only. We always like to, you know, we always, you know, whenever we get a question, we always want to reply, not respond. But the PMP preparation Makes you to respond, not to replay. So that is where and active listening. Like maybe it is it is reading, but it is similar to active listening. You. You want to understand what they want to. You know what they are telling. Exactly. Okay, that is that tacit information what is given in the question. You want to understand. These are the preparation thing. It is. It is sure going to help you in your personal and professional way. Even though if you are not working in a project management area, it is going to help you. So that is the feedback about the preparation. But it is a good move from PMP moving from assessing the terminology to the assessing your mindset. That is what motivated me to take the PMP again and this one and this Hackathon series. The Hackathon series is again motivated me that the 45 days it is. It is worth the igniting thing. So I appreciate info carrier to go in the hackathon way. And again info carrier. Sometimes I used to think whenever you used to tell me that don't read any books, okay, Other books are then given by the pmp. I was thinking oh, it is easy to overconfident statement. But no, no, it is. It is. It is making you or it is not. It will not allow you to distract. Okay. Because there are a lot of books you just go into, you know, Kindle Unlimited or you know, wherever you go, you will have n number of books PMP books and in net or a lot of books are there, but everyone. I will not say others are wrong, but the preparation way is different. So I request or I suggest these students to follow the info career way and believe in it and have the agile mindset you are going to create. For sure.

Thanks thanks for endorsing. So it gives us confidence that we are in right direction.

Sure, sir.

So much of things work. We are done the results is you people okay?

Yes sir. Yes. Because. Yeah, yeah yeah. Because you know, I I have a skeptical, you know, mind always, you know, pmp, you know, before the taking the exam. Okay, whatever. Are we prepared? Is it right or wrong? We don't know how to do it. So our, you know, the. The assessing point is taking the exam. So when I took the exam then came to know that this is the best way or this is the right way to take the exam. And I I appreciate infectious in right way and continue to be in right way. That is a very good thing, sir. And and I also one more thing. I request the students to listen to or talk to some PMPs already who have cleared it. Okay. Just to clear that one or two months or something like that that is giving me a confident. I talked to the recent the the PMP certified person called Subhas. Maybe you might offer talk to him. So I contacted him through WhatsApp and I took some inputs from. Okay, so how was the exam and all those things. And he again told me do the mock test and if you mark test you clear in a good way and you are going to clear it. Don't do any, you know things. So it is I request you for students have some skeptical thinking talk to the PMPs who have cleared earlier through Info Career so they are going to give you the confidence. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you Anand. Thank you for joining this call and sharing your experience and please convey our wishes to your family members who would have been so fast for you.

Yes, yes.

The entire journey. So please convey our regards to them and on the behalf of entire Info Career. So Natarajan, myself and other trainers Leela and my Watchandra Shekhar we wish you once again for your career success. Please be in communication. Our people would have been moved to a new group of a community. Stay there and you can also contribute. Get contribute. Stay as a forum. We just want you to be staying that forum so that we can continuously add a value for you.

Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you sir. Thanks for your all your support. And you know, without your mentoring or without your words it may not be possible. And the last audio you sent that was also giving me good confidence and it's a good one sir. Good one. Please continue to do.

Sure, sure. That audio I listened myself. I wrote one exam last week, four weeks before and I was not ten for writing exam. Okay. My own audio I listened myself and I got boosted.

It was a good idea and it was giving me a good confidence just before the exam. So it was a good idea sir. Thank you.