Suchindran CS shares how he passed the PMP exam, walking through his preparation strategy, the challenges he faced, and what worked. He offers advice for others pursuing the certification and feedback on the course that helped him get there.
Foreign.
I am such an and I am working as a project manager in emudra.com in Bangalore presently I am working from home due to ongoing pandemic and it was during this situation that I took a decision to upskill myself in the project management area. So. And that is where I was inquiring my close friends on where exactly I need to go, how exactly to go further and that due diligence has happened for a very long time and my close relative Padmanabhan has referred me to Mr. Shaikhar in the first place and that is how the initial stage got set up for me to interact with Mr. Shekhar from Info Career and then gradually there has been an initial plan to start three months before the day I spoke to Mr. Shekhar it was in the month of April 2021 but I couldn't do so due to some personal commitments because my mom was unwell and so I had to defer that plan and once I spoke to Mr. Shekhar in the month of April then we aligned to have a plan on how exactly the PMP learning will go forward which will have a learning path then the effort that we need to put in and then your assessment path and this is the path we need to focus and learn. The overall curriculum will be covered within the learning path. The rest two paths are up to us and how quick we gear it up and we take it forward for the examination and that is how the high level roadmap was. And then last June July I enrolled for the course took up the entire one month session with Info Carrier and it was a very lengthy course during the weekends and probably I used to have commented too much of knowledge on Saturdays and Sundays especially and but though I had been given a positive response that even though it is possible probably you will learn once you learn the concept it will stay in your mind and so that was a very good motivator for me to just be on track on the learning path. So once that course got over then there had been a sequence of assessment tests that I need to undergo just to gauge myself that okay, that I am ready for the chapter wise tests. So in that one probably I took a bit time because after the course got ended I had to take some a week's time for one particular chapter and then that is how I finished the chapter test and gradually there had been a good initiatives that were taken from Info Carrier wherein they had launched some programs like Hackathon programs which could accelerate which really accelerated my learning. I happened to miss the Hackathon one But in the month of November I enrolled myself for Hackathon 2 and then accelerated my preparation Chapter wise engaged myself that I'm ready for the chapter wise test and I'm good to go for the big bank examination and get ready for it. So to prepare for that one I had to just re spend invest time daily around four to minimum four hours. But even though sometimes I could wake up early in the morning and spend the early hours or sometimes I happen to have a free time after I after 8am till 11am in the morning so I ensure that I learned for four hours and that is how I kept my learning on. And then last December I approached Mr. Shekhar and said okay, I want to go for the first mock test and assess myself on how exactly I am in and what exactly the way forward and so on and but unfortunately the first test didn't go well and I happened to share my overall constraints like in terms of my luck favoring me and I am not suitable for this. I I was totally demotivated and I am I should thank Mr. Shekhar once again for having a separate session on not to get demotivated and giving enough pointers which helped me to stay on track for taking up the subsequent mock examinations. And so after the second test also didn't go well but there were some been some chapters where I lagged which was identified which was where Mr. Shekhar could spend enough time with me on how exactly sorry to spend enough time with me to spot where exactly the gaps are and then those gaps were all identified and fixed and then I took up the third exam which gave me the enough confidence to schedule the examination. And finally yesterday I had scheduled the examination from home and took it from home and just got through it achieving about target and this is how my overall journey for PMP had been. And over to you Mrs.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing it. And now the question what people will ask you is how was the exam? And what kind of questions you get if you can remember anything which will help other people to share a little overview about how exam was there.
The exam broadly covers the eco outline which is given in the website it covers more broadly and there will be no you the questions that comes will not be as direct. Most of them will be scenario based and the scenario will be in a manner we must be able to decode what type of project management approach they are following and how they are following. So these things we must get that capacity while we learn during the course to decode that and questions were revolving practical scenario questions were revolving around them. I cannot literally say that predominantly there were only agile questions. Predominantly there were only other project management type questions. It is I was not nothing of that what the entire 180 questions was a blend of project management styles, project management types and also no and scenario based questions only. And the good thing is I did not get any sums.
And the content whatever we are given in the road to project success and icleap.com like the late I think you would have been seen there's upgradation in the content what we provided in the road to project success from six months back and then now whatever you see the packathon do you feel that is it sufficient to support the exam or anything else we want you to upgrade or increase or reduce whatever it is there available in the hackathon.
See the content that is there in the hackathon to start with is sufficient. But once we get the grips of that particular content some more content has to be in place that will cover all the project management technologies which I personally felt was not missing and I had to personally gear up on that. So I would suggest that we cover all the project management types into the course curriculum as well so that people get a visibility while they learn the concepts. How exactly to distinguish for a predictive life cycle. How exactly to distinguish for agile right from day one that was missing.
Thank you for shar and what do you want to say to PMP aspirants people who want to go for this exam?
Yeah, PMP aspirants just don't lose the spirit that just and or don't get demotivated. You will really have your day once you take up the examination. But it is the path that you need to clearly define and stick on to it that you will be taking up the examination and that's it. I would say and keep preparing in all fronts and always how exactly a question can come as a scenario based with the basic knowledge base that we have you receive from Info Carrier and that should be the way to go and you can knock it out. Yeah.
And so when you took the exam and then you saw congratulation okay. And you got a scorecard saying about target. How was that experience? I was really surprised in the first.
Place and really it was a very surprise and I really couldn't control myself. Oh this is how I achieved and I have finally achieved it. And so that is how my feeling was. But really it was nothing I could say out.
And I really want to appreciate you for the effort. What you are taking and continuously being in communication and trusting us. Okay. So thank you for that kind that trust with us. And I know that in the last one month after the gold pack, whatever you are taken, so there was so much of revision, so much of activity which you are done. And especially thanks for taking all our inputs and working on it. And even the last two days before you said that you want to postpone or something like that, then I said no, just stay there and.
Exactly, sir.
Yeah. And thanks for taking our inputs. Okay, so anything else you want to share?
Nothing specific otherwise, but the only thing which I wanted to reemphasize is that don't lose the momentum and keep going and you will have your day one day. That's it.
Sure. Thank you. Thank you for sharing and thank you for sharing your experience children and on the behalf of Info Carrier and we congratulate you once again. Please be in communication. We will move to a new group of community, so please stay there and so that we can add value for you in future sessions also. And we also conduct lot of free programs. Whenever you have a time you can attend and start earning your PDUs. Any opportunity pops up to us and we will publish it over there. And if this works for you, you can also explore or any opportunity you come across also you can publish in that forum so that it will benefit others. Also please stay in in that group so that we can be in communication with each other.
Of course, yes, sure. Yeah, we'll stay in touch and we.
Can just keep moving forward accordingly. Sure. Thank you. Thank you.
