How Avinash arun Kumar's Passed the PMP Exam? | PMP Success Story #pmp #chennai #infocareer

Foreign.

I work with Airbus India. I work as a project coordinator for a NATA 31 project or flight warning system. I have a small team, roughly around eight team members internal and three subcontractors working with us for the project. And so the PMP was very essential for me to make sure that I used better practices or best practices globally approved so that I can get more value for the team and for the company. And so you know I was actually I missed the bus on the PMP with my previous company. I was working with Rolls Royce and I think my manager did the PMP with Info Career. So it was, it was a transfer. I was supposed to do it in my previous company. I missed it, but he still told me that I have to make sure that I do it. And he introduced me to, to you specifically. I think I spoke to you first and he told me the same thing. He just told me that just follow whatever they tell you, their process, their methodologies, the question banks, everything is more than enough for you to get the insight not only on to just passing the exam, but also understanding where I can improve my weaknesses in the project management area. So that was that. And when I started with the 36 hour training I think I started to understand how important the methodologies were for training. And I did take the weekend classes, weekend batches which were about four hours long and it was in the morning, I started in 20, 21st April was my first class and I think it ended in me. I did engage myself to do the question bank on the IC leaf and there were many, many developments that happened and I was disengaged with the preparation but I made sure that I kept in contact with the WhatsApp group. I think that that was really essential and it was very helpful to see your daily questions at least kept me thinking about the PMP on at least if not anything, at least for 15 minutes in the day. And I tried to reengage as much as I could but due to certain circumstances I was not able to give that continuous determine that time. And in the month of August I was blessed with a baby boy. So that prolonged most. It took at least three, four months of my time. And finally I decided that I will and I think you shared some success stories of other team members, other PMP aspirants. And I think one of the most important one I faced was when you said a person tried to shut off their mind whenever there were distractions to just say shut up and proceed. And what I was not what I was missing Is I was not able to tell myself that it's just a process I have to follow because everything was laid down for me. And I think the hackathons. I joined one of the hackathons and I think I could not complete it fully but on the timescale. But I made it a point to complete the videos over a span of time. And I took that success story very seriously in the last one month and I had a gap, fortunately I had a gap of two weeks. And I decided that okay, this is the time and I'm going to clear it. I took up the hackathon videos. I tried to do the IC leaf exams diligently. I made sure that I did everything accordingly. Started with the big big Knows intermediate advanced. I made a small note with me where I made the answers which I made which I answered wrong. I wrote them and found out where my weaknesses were or how I'm approaching the answers. And of course the guidance on approaching the exam was very helpful. Reading the last line and then approaching the main question and then trying to eliminate from D to A, that was really helpful. And I saw how effective it was during the final exam as well. And after that, yes, the mock drills, the Mock 4 mock exams, that was the. I would say was the most important part of the whole exam. Because when I started with the first one, I was very slow at the beginning. I was not up to the market timing though you told me that I should take one minute and keep a reserve time of 40 minutes. It went very slow because maybe little bit of nervousness and anxiety that creeped in. And especially after a long time, after almost eight years of job carriers, going back to the times where we had to sit through four hours of exams was a very big challenge, at least for the working professionals. But I think the mock drills were very helpful in those challenges. It made sure that when I was, when I started the second one, I think I was up to the mark. I was able to understand how I should attempt the questions and make sure that I had a eye on my, on the time. And I think the, the. I think the improvement was, was there. I was able to see after the first mock test when you gave me a feedback what I should do or how I should approach. Especially with the files that you had shared. I use that I imply I tried to put them into play. During the second mock test, there was improvement, especially the third one was really good. I did not have time for the fourth one because I had gone ahead with the final. I wanted to finish it. That week I could not get a slot a later date and I didn't want to postpone it after postponing it for so long. So I determined and I think you gave me the confidence saying with three tests it's more than enough and I'm ready to take the exam. On the day of the exam everything went smooth. It was the environment also was very much almost the same as what I saw on IC Leaf. So I was not very new to the pattern. It was not something I had to think as a challenge. I just had to follow the same principles, read the questions from the Last line, get D2A, eliminate, always use the assumptions you gave me and also the Agile document which you asked me to refresh every day that helped me a lot and I think yes, when I saw the when I first saw the certification, the congratulation message first thing is I felt sad that why I did not do it long back but eventually I thought that is life. So I at least made it a point to make sure I complete it. And I was really thrilled. It was, it was a very good journey and the only thing I would say is it kept me reengaged and the support staff was contacting me at least once in a month asking me what is my plan, what is my status. It kept me rethinking that I have something pending and I've just not been able to do it and I have to do it and eventually get this through because and the other thing also that has struck me the most is when you told me that we as project managers we need to be first clear about our objectives and we need to first clear our milestones. Only then the team will be able to help us clear theirs and eventually get the value for the organization. So I was feeling very bad that I failed in that aspect when I committed myself a long time ago. But I thought that let me now start a new journey and this was not just a PMP knowledge that I have learned, but it is also life value that I should not prolong certain things and there is a team dependent on certain decisions that we take. I think that really helped me the most and I'm sure that I will use and I've already found many weaknesses in my current project. I started to implement them. There were many things that we didn't know that we could use, especially on the quality side because that was something that we were not looking into at least on the artifact front. We were just doing some run throughs and walkthroughs but we didn't know the importance of documenting and how to relate it to the lessons learned and see how it is effectively implemented. And also with the resource management and the conflict concerns were something that was a weakness in my team which I'm going to use now to improve. And I hope I succeed in that.

Definitely. Definitely. I mean I think that is a pattern which you learned now rightly pointed out whatever we are done till now that we are not at all aware. Okay. At that time we didn't aware. But now it is given a platform for you to notice it. Okay. The moment you got noticed. Right. You took action.

Yes.

So that is not nothing wrong in the earlier you are not done it. Okay. So this cycle right now you said no one aspect saying that now I see that same pattern is there in other places also. And now I need to work and this is what is take away for our mentoring activity. Now you don't require us now you. You need to just deepen it. And as we progress, the old devil will come and say that you are late, you are late, you are late. It will say, but tell that they will shut up. Okay.

Yes.

Just proceed. Okay. So that's awesome whatever you just said. So it's a very awesome sharing. So right now whatever is shared, one of the best sharing what I saw in this videos. Okay, whatever I've been meaning thank you for sharing very precisely all these things. Okay. So thank you. And I have a. And also congratulations for even a new member in your family. Okay. From Info Carrier. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Congratulations. Okay, and so tell us how was the content? Okay. The road to projects IC life. So anyway you said it. But is it sufficient to the the exam or anything which we need to add Tell us little about Road to project success content and ICliff content towards the exam perspective and your day to day activity also.

Yes, sir. So I think the. The training. What I felt is the way the training went on the class, the 36 hours. Of course we had it on virtual. But I think that to be honest that was more than enough with that had had we engaged ourselves earlier with IC Leaf and kept that mindset going. I think that was more than enough. But I think InfoCare has taken not one step, two steps ahead by compressing even that material into the hackathons and to show how much we require, how much of knowledge we require to get our mind thinking. Because this was. This exam was something that put us on scenarios and very memory. So we just need to know how to think from like many of them have been saying all the Tutors like Natarajan sir and others have been saying that we have to always start thinking from the bigger perspective an organization which has everything and to have that mindset in all the knowledge areas. I think the emphasis was very clear in all of the videos and the Hackathon videos as well. So I feel yes, like you said, that it is not a process that needs to be tested, it is proven. I just followed the same and I felt, to be honest, since I did it in a very short time, I reengaged very fast. And there were also some knowledge areas I did in bits and pieces last year but I fastened them up using the Hackathon. So just by seeing half an hour of few of the videos I was able to recollect whatever I did and also connected back to the initial 36 hour training. So I think that was sufficient. And the question bank no doubt was really helpful so that I think the number of questions that I answered I was confident that if at all there was a answer I was not able to get right, I'm sure that was the second best answer if not the wrong and I may have not understood one or two words in that which would have determined that right answer otherwise the question bank was very, very helpful. And yes, like other people who shared that the question banks from IC Leaf was actually tougher compared to the actual exam. The actual exam felt very, very easy. Even there were certain questions where even I took her back saying that can it be this easy the answers. So I was just thinking am I not seeing it in the right way? But then when I went progressed with few of the other questions then I started to realize that my approach was perfect. That's why it was very easy for me and I was applying the techniques that were given. So yes, so so far I think it is I will just stick to the same thing. It is a proven method and I have already engaged my wife into info career. She's now in the preparation phase. She finished her 36 hours, she's in the preparation phase and I have told her the same I've given her the same experience not to prolong to make sure that at least within the next one or two months to complete it. And I also have given three, four of my team members there were two or two of the activity leads I'm sure they will be contacting. So you and I have given them the same advice. I have told them that you just have to just follow the thing and just give that time whatever is being requested. And I also gave them some talk Talk about the hackathons that went and. And it was very. It was really great to hear that you conducted many hackathons within a short period of time and it was well spaced, well planned and to actually engage them. And I forgot to mention so the Saturday my mastermind sessions also was a very, very good engagement concept that was employed. And I think 20 questions a week was actually really a good number. Sorry, I think it was 20 to 40 questions a week was very, very good to actually give you a good perspective for that week. And also when you realigned to certain people's request that they studied something and they wanted something similar in the same weekend, I think you were able to quickly do that as well so that people were able to appreciate what they've learned and how the actual questions were. And I think that was also a good thing. But yes, like I would just want to say that from the time we finished the training, classroom training, if we just followed everything within a month's time, we were able to get the pmp. I think the issue is from our side that we were not able to commit. But otherwise I have the feedback wise, I have nothing on the downside. Actually even the icle when it got improved the website, I think I was part of both the links, the older link and the new link. I think the older link, the navigations were a little slow and there were some questions which had the pop ups which were not coming in. And there were some repetitive questions as well in the bank. But the new IC leaf had a much better UI and it was very easy to see the review, to quickly review the questions. And also and when we were supposed to see how much we scored on a long run, we were able to just hover over that. And it used to give us the percentage so that I did not review those questions, only the ones I did very bad with. I was able to see that. So that way it was fine. The question bank was very powerful and of course it was good that you set it at a higher standard so that we become very comfortable in the new when the real exam comes in. So at least 20% difficulty level was low. That is what I felt. So the essential thing was the mock. Mock was very important for having the timing challenges because 180 questions and for a professional, working professional sitting through that was tough, but that was really essential. And the way you made it happen back to back keeping one day and you told us what to do before, after also you gave us steps to do it at the time we actually scheduled the main exam so that our mind is awake during that period as well. That was really good. That was. And it didn't. I was not even when I felt walking into the exam hall, I was not anxious. I knew that already. I knew I'm coming out with the pmp. So it was really helpful. It was very confident. I felt very confident doing the mock drills. So I think it was. It is nice. I think you will just continue doing the same.

Thank you. Thank you, Avinash. So a lot of questions which I normally ask you already answered the questions. So thank you for that excellent sharing. And so please be in communication. And we would have been moved you to a new group of people and stay there. And so we'll be sharing you a lot of activities and you can earn PDUs to renew your certification. Plus we also give you certain opportunities or you can also do a networking among those people. Okay. They all are certified practitioners. So anything related to project management you can do except forwarding messages. Okay. So anything you can do it on the project management. Please stay in this community so that both of us we can work and then contribute to more people. Okay.

So surely, sir. Yes.

So thank you for your time and please convey our regards to your family members who should have been. Who would have been stood for you on all this preparation. And without them, this may not be possible. Yes, we may be catalyst, but they are the backbone. Okay. So can we.

Definitely.

Okay.

Surely.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your time and joining this call. Okay.

Thank you, sir. Have a good day.