In this interview, Helena Liu talks with Biplab Nayak, a project manager at Nova Scotia Health Authority in Halifax, about his journey to earn both the PMP and PMI‑ACP certifications. Biplab outlines his five‑month study timeline for each exam, emphasizing time‑bound practice, solving thousands of questions, and a process‑group‑wise study approach. He highlights the resources that helped him—ExamPM’s PMP material, GreyCampus and Joseph Phillips’ ACP content, and supplemental Udemy questions—while noting gaps in GreyCampus’s ACP coverage. Biplab contrasts PMP and ACP exams, describing PMP questions as longer with direct keywords and ACP questions as shorter but more scenario‑driven, requiring full‑paragraph reading. He stresses the importance of memorizing formulas (especially Earned Value Management) and mastering critical‑path concepts, leveraging his mathematics background. The certifications have directly benefited his work: he applies PMBOK processes, calculates critical paths, and introduces hybrid agile‑waterfall practices in financial analytics projects, earning recognition from auditors. Biplab also shares career aspirations, including pursuing a PhD in project management in the US and aiming for senior leadership in data‑science analytics. He concludes with advice for future candidates: consistent daily study, correlating theory with real‑world experience, multiple readings of ExamPM material, and disciplined practice, noting the professional payoff of job security, salary hikes, and increased interview opportunities.
Chapters
a lot for your inspiration since 2018. And I think, yeah, 2018 registered with Exam PM, and then I cleared to PMP and PMI-ACP both. So I'm working— wow, yeah, I'm working as a project manager in financial analytics in Nova Scotia Health Authority, which is basically a provincial governing body.
Yeah. Wow. And then where are you located? Where are you working at right now?
I'm working in Halifax. Halifax.
Wow, okay, congratulations! Congratulations on passing both your PMP and ACP. I'm so glad that Examspm was part of your journey in obtaining your certifications. So tell me, how did you— what was your study plan? Any tips that you have for people who are going through this process right now?
Yeah, so the main tips are to to solve the question and in a time-bound manner. In ACP, I secured, I think the last score was almost 93%. I'm 100% sure whatever the tough question, I can solve it. While I was solving the ACP, ACP is really tough. It's tougher than PMP, frankly speaking, because all the questions are real-life situations and situations are convoluted. It's not the simple situation, or there's no, there's not at all a single line questions like, what is Moscow, or how do I mean to say any, any acronyms. They didn't. In PMP, there is at least 5 to 10 questions are basically a direct question, so you can solve it. In PMP, I've seen that, but in PMI-ACP, there's no scope, and it's very, very time sensitive. So I have to run because I practiced in that way. So I practiced in such a way where whatever the convoluted question will come, I can tackle it because my strategy was there. I will just read one or two, I mean, one or two glimpses in the question. What exactly, if there is a keyword, picking the keyword. But then sometimes I have to read detail in ACP question compared to PMP. PMP question, you can know the keyword. You can actually identify what would be the possible correct answer among all those four options. But ACP, you have to read properly. So that is a challenge in ACP. But anyway, so if aspirants are really practicing in a timely ways and secure minimum eighty percent of any of the test series, whatever you provided, I think in PMP we do have four questions set, correct? And PMI ACP I got from Grey Campus. 2 questions, 4 questions later on. And then I just bought 2 extra from Joseph Philip from Udemy. I just paid $18, and that was really good also. So along with your entire material and extra questions from Joseph Philip, and I cracked it.
That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, Joseph is a good partner and friend of mine as well, so I know his material is also really great. So when you were studying, what did you find most helpful about ExamSpro? material when you were going through your certification process?
I will say PMP material is 100%— I think it is best in the industry for exam PMs. It's really, really good. I do have a couple of printout copies because I'm also using in actual environment, in my office environment. ACP Grey Campus, I would suggest one thing to the Grey Campus. So they should follow how PMI conducts the ACP exam, like 7 different domain areas, not like the tools and techniques and then the basic concepts. But in your PMP, more specifically Exam PM, that is absolutely correct. That's how PMI is basically conducting PMP exam.
Yes, yes.
Grey Campus can improve that part in terms of the ACP because Joseph Phillips material is completely 7 domain areas, like how you provided me for the PMBOK.
Right, right. So when you— I was gonna say, so what's your biggest lessons learned from the PMP exam? Like, if you could do it over again, would there be anything that you would do differently to help you get certified faster?
Yeah, so I would say the formulas, it should be in our fingertip. So as soon as we will see the question, we should know the answer. You do not have to calculate too much. And more specifically, I faced the question— yes, couple of questions in terms of the formulas, and I came from the mathematics background, so it's very easy for me. So actually, I, I, you know, I, I'm not even— I can say it's not a— it's a fraction of second I took to solve all those formula-based questions. I got almost 7 to 8 formula-based questions, all EVM formulas, basically.
Okay.
And then critical path, critical path. So 2 questions I got from critical path and I solved it. That was not too much tricky. It was basically easy in PMP and those areas. And yes, when we will read the quiz, I'm going to say the big 4 to 5 lines long questions. So we should read last line. first line, we will easily understand what it is saying last line and what exactly it is saying. So we will easily get to know the answers. But in PMI-ACP, it is not the case. We have to read the entire paragraph.
Yeah.
Okay. But one advantage in PMI-ACP is that questions are not as long like in PMP. In PMP, it is 5 lines or 6 lines. In PMI-ACP, it is maximum 3 lines.
Okay, so it's shorter questions on ACP.
Shorter questions.
And you said that after taking the exam, it has helped you in your work right now as a project manager. So in what ways has it helped you?
Yeah, it's really, really— for example, when I calculated the critical path in my actual environment, they appreciated that. And I followed all the phases in the project management. So, you know, in government bodies, basically a lot of auditing agencies are there, like Deloitte, like PwC. They used to see how we are following the processes. If I am adhering with the PMI PMBOK, they're 100% sure. These guys basically recruited me to save their audit, frankly speaking.
Wow.
There's so much process-oriented work here based on the predictive, as well as now they've asked me, can I introduce agile or hybrid predictive and agile in that way? We are basically— I actually introduced retrospective and some, I'm going to say, sprint-based, Not the pure Agile because it did not fit for this situation. It's because it's basically, you know, I am in a field of finance and it is financial analytics. So project is shorter. It's maybe 6 months to 1 year period projects.
Right.
It is basically hybrid. I'm using most of the time predictive waterfall and sometimes Agile flavor I'm adding.
Okay.
Sometimes the process improvement and tailoring the processes.
Right, right. Knowing both really helps, knowing both the Agile and the Waterfall helps with your job and being able to do retrospective, knowing all the terms and being able to do critical path, etc. Wow, okay. How long did it take you to get your PMP certification?
I was in a working profession, so you know I do have family, so I do have a commitment with my family as well. It took almost average 5 months. The solid 5 months. Yeah, 5 months for PMP, 5 months for PMP, both. So total 10 months duration.
Okay, and then you got— yeah, but now you got both, and then now you're free. Now you can do—
Yeah, you know, I'm actually— I'm applying for my PhD in US universities, so I'm looking for that. You know, there is a PhD in project management, a couple of universities, they are offering the PhD, and they are accredited by PMI. So I'm thinking, because I came from management background, my engineering and management both. My graduation is in information technology, and my post-graduation is an MBA in marketing. So I'm looking for leadership in PhD or maybe PhD in project management. I am thinking that way. So based on that, I will send the application to universities in the United States. Let's see.
Wow, congratulations. Well, maybe when coronavirus is over, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Right now, right now it's quite hard to travel to the US. What was I going to say? Oh geez, I lost my train of thought. Was there any study tactics that you used that really helped you speed things up or learn things that really helped you get your PMP faster?
Basically, the 2 things. When we will read the study material, we always correlate with our practical exposure. But we know that every organization is different because nobody is basically 100% following PMBOK. Some part of the PMBOK they are basically following. So we have to correlate where exactly we're using the same tools and techniques which PMBOK is basically teaching us. If we will do that, then it will be pretty much easier to understand the concepts from the material. Then while we're solving the question, Then we can easily see what would be the best possible answer for that particular scenario. So that's how actually I tackle those. And sometimes 2 times reading the study material, whatever Exam PM provided. I think 2 to 3 times would be best to reading the entire material and then side by side solving the questions.
Wow. Okay. And I guess kind of one of the last questions is like, in terms of your daily routine, like you said, it took you 5 months to get your PMP certification on your first try, I'm assuming. Yeah, first, first try. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Congratulations. So what did your study plan look like? Like, did you study for like a month?
1 hour per day and Saturday, Sunday maybe 2 hours.
2 hours. Yeah. Then what did you do? Like, did you go over all of the material from exams PM lecture by lecture and then—
Yes.
And then altogether, like, how did it— how did you do it?
So basically, I used process groups-wise. First, I actually target first process initiating, and then planning, and then executing, and then monitoring, and then closing. Every process groups, and then solving the question from the process groups, more specifically the process groups. And then when I completed all 5 process groups, then I actually first started trying with the 200 questions in a time-bound manner.
Right.
Frankly speaking, I solved almost 2,000 questions.
Okay.
Yeah, almost 2,000. So I would suggest, yeah, that then some of the questions are, you know, really similar how ExamPM provided. I have seen literally in PMP exam, so almost 5-10 questions was exactly similar word by word.
Oh wow, thank you.
Yeah, it's word by word similar. Yeah.
Wow, that's great to hear. So yeah, okay, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. Okay. So what's next for you in your career?
So I'd like, yeah, I'd like to be— now I am actually, you can say it's a senior project management profile. So I will be maybe senior vice president, but my domain is in analytics. So I mean, basically data science and analytics areas. So, you know, data science analytics is one of the lucrative areas nowadays, very high demand. Even though if I don't have a PMP, I had a good job, but if with PMP and Analytics, it's a very niche area. Some people came from analytics background that do not have a PMP actually, and PMI-ACP, forget about that, because those are the software professionals, they used to do it PMI-ACP. When I did it, then so many questions people ask, why you did it? I have seen that in ACP, how PMI conducted, it's not only the Scrum, it's not only the software development, a lot of other areas you can use like Lean. Like Kanban. We can use any other areas. I have seen VSM, Value Stream Mapping. It's basically vastly used in industry. It is particularly from Lean. We can use the VSM here and we can show the value add from the VSM. Those concepts, we actually get it from SAP. If I am certified, then auditors will be happy, senior director will be happy, and everybody's happy.
These guys know Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, awesome, awesome. I'm so glad to have for you, and congratulations again on passing your both PMP and ACP. I'm so glad that Exam PM was part of your journey in obtaining your certifications, and just want to say thank you so much for jumping on this call with me as well and sharing your lessons learned.
Thank you very much to you, and I will suggest Exam PM to every candidate and heartily follow. It's not like just now get registered and then just, you know, not following all the materials, not practicing the test, then it won't happen in there because PMP exam is not easy. Frankly speaking, you know also, PMP is not easy. Yeah, you have to devote your time.
Yeah, a lot of time to study, but it's worth it. It's worth it in the end because—
Yeah, definitely worth it. You have job security, you have a salary hike, everything. You have a better respect in industry. You, you will have a lot of interview calls. You know, last time I got 7 different calls. Yeah, 2 from Toronto because I didn't actually— not looking for Toronto, but very good offer from Société Générale from Montreal. So, but I rejected that offer because I got the provincial offer and my intention is to move to United States. But now COVID is there, so maybe 1 year later I will move.
Yeah, maybe 1 more year. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you very much indeed. Yeah, thanks for your help.
