1. Not regularly preparing for PMP
2. Not planning, neither tracking and nor logging the PMP preparation efforts
3. Finally, just going ahead and taking a date for the PMP examination without any preparation effort so as to cajole myself into preparing for the same – if for nothing else than out of sheer shame for failing the PMP

Preparation Collateral

1. Read PMBOK Edition 4 from the first page to the last (well not the very last page, but till the appendix)
2. Solved each and every question from the  Head First PMP free exam @  http://headfirstlabs.com/PMP/free_exam/HeadFirstPMP_PracticePMPExam.pdf (this is a piece of gem. Though i did not read the Head First PMP Book which is supposed to be read before solving the practice test, it would be a safe bet that this book would also be pretty good)
3. Re-read my MBA notes for Project Management (especially for project selection – the PMBOK is not very robust in this area)
4. Re-read my notes for Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification (For people who are not conversant with Lean Six Sigma – the best option is to read glossary of terms for Lean Six Sigma and DMAIC)
5. Brushed up on Organization Behavior/Human Capital stuff for Human Resource Management knowledge area ( Just goto wikipedia and read up on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, XY Theory and other HR frameworks. PMBOK is really weak in this area)
6. Read up on Risk Management from Rita Mulcahy’s book. I had too as  PMBOK is weak especially in the contract area

Note: I did not like the PMP Prep book by Rita Mulcahy… I would choose PMBOK over it any day as the primary study instrument. I know that Mulcahy’s book is not supposed to a substitute for PMBOK, that said – the book tries to explain things in a manner which for me was not always consistent with the PMBOK (I may be completely wrong in this regard). For me PMBOK (however boring and pedantic) is the best option for PMP preparation.

Time

• End to End Serious Preparation Duration : 4 weeks
• Every Weekday – 3 hours ( 2 sessions of one and a half hour each)
• Every Weekend – 5 hours (3 sessions)

Note: Before i started to study for PMP, I already had a MBA (in which i had a full fledged PM course – which more than satisfied my PMP PM course work requirement), Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and CAPM certification – so these times are a bit on the lower side.

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PS. On the exam day – took 2:15 minutes to complete the 4 hr exam. Passed pretty easily. A lot of stress for really nothing.  

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PPS. Proud to be a PMP 

Till date I have completed the following:

1. PMI CAPM certification in 08/09
2. Renewed PMI membership in 06/10
3. Downloaded PMBOK Edition 4 from the PMI website 15/10

Planned actions for Day 1:

1. Prepare a time-table for PMP certification preparation (Use MS Visio – Calendar stencil)
2. Print out the first three chapters from the PMBOK

So, began July. Early in July my roommate and me made road trips to Atlanta and Pittsburgh, where we are going to be posted in our jobs. We finalized our apartments and signed out leases. It was fun driving across US, a total of 1,700 miles in a span of 5 days. It was spring time, the weather was great, but it rained for a few hours during our travel as we passed through Virginia(oh, beautiful Virginia). It was at this time as i drove on the freeway that i began to think, that it is this, this infrastructure, this intricate lattice work of roads, a seamless movement of men, machines and goods that India needs. It is the proverbial sustainable competitive advantage. But it is not easy or quick. It takes time, money and that all important political will and commitment to achieve the foundation that US built through the 1900s. Enough said about that. By the way, the aim of the road trip was to finalize the apartment to stay in and so i did. My apartment is right in downtown Pittsburgh. It has a beautiful view of the city from the 10th floor, it is a bit pricey , but it is close to office and near anything that matters in Pittsburgh, so i guess it is worth it.

So, began August. I gave my PMI CAPM certification exam and passed with flying colors(pardon the self adulation). I made some new friends in Columbus, got hooked to Counter Strike, tried out hookah at the local Egyptian restaurant and visited a couple of local clubs. All in all, August was fun.

And so it ends, a three month vacation between my MBA and first post MBA job. This was perhaps the largest vacation since the 3 month vacation between BE and Infy. Now that it is over, time to change gear, real life beckons!

Somethings must be done, like reducing staff but there is a civil respectful way of doing it and this way sometimes is not consistent with Effectiveness and Efficiency tenets and a trade off must made.

Isn’t it ironic that when we are physically stuck our mind races

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

This is last paragraph of the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost. So so true… at least for me…

I had always used the outlook calendar regularly for planning meeting at my previous job, but now that I was back to school for my MBA, I has discontinued this practice. This was mainly due to the acrimonious relationship between the outlook calender and vCalendar(used by my college to send event dates) and also due to the fact that most of the meeting requests now came through ‘simple emails’ and not as ‘meeting requests’. This made recording the time of meeting in outlook calendar a troublesome task. Sometime early this year in late January, i made conflicting meeting commitments and then did not even go to a single one as it just slipped my mind in absence of reminder in outlook. This was the trigger for change.

I upgraded my outlook from 2003 to 2007 and this solved the problem that i was having with vCalendar and I also started taking the pains of entering the meeting timings and agenda from ‘simple emails’ into my outlook calendar(essentially having the same effect as accepting a ‘meeting request’). In outlook 2007, you have the facility to have various categories and each of these categories has a different color. You can assign categories to emails, meetings and practically every possible item in outlook. This way i was able to get my meetings streamlined and events prioritized and segmented. Next, I extended this procedure to include other time sensitive recurring events like paying rent, electric bill, gas bill, telephone bill and Internet bill. Then, at the very start of the winter quarter in January, I chalked out the entire quarters’ timetable, with exam dates, assignment due dates, lecture dates and times. I also included reminder of 2 days for midterms, 4 days for finals and case reports. Though it looks very time consuming to put all this stuff in the outlook calendar, it really is not. Using ‘recurring event’ feature in outlook you can easily key in the class time table for the entire quarter or semester.

Having seen the results of this in terms of forward and current visibility of my own schedule which allowed me to better plan my activities better, I started scheduling everything thing in my outlook calendar. From studying for financial management to buying groceries and from following up with a contact i made in a consulting firm to doing my laundry. I am now hopelessly dependent on outlook, but it has significantly improved my life. I had always planned my life, but this level of scheduling just made living the plan easier. Being inherently lazy, easy in my mind is always better.

P.S. This post sounds like an advertisement for Microsoft… but it is not…