The International Community for Project Managers (ICPM)

You have come this far and after weeks of study, you are now ready to take your PMP® exam. You know you have prepared yourself physically and mentally and that you are ready to tackle the exam questions confidently. And that is the attitude needed to forge ahead - an attitude borne out of determination to pass this important exam, so positive that others can actually feel it from you.

But as in any endeavor, you will need to be ready for the actual battle - in this case, the PMP exam. The day before, you should have a good rest and eliminate any distractions. For instance, be sure that you take a day-off from your work on the day of the exam. The last thing you need is be concerned with issues regarding your job. Empty your mind of these kind of distractions for the exam. Rise early and have a good breakfast, avoiding anything unfamiliar, or any exotic food that would give you an upset stomach. (This actually happened to me and I was feeling quite ill throughout my 4-hour exam.)

Dear PMP® Student,

Are you frustrated because you are trying to balance life, family, friends, work and on top of it all you need to find the time to study for the challenging Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam? My name is Cornelius Fichtner, PMP and I was in your shoes in 2004 when I was preparing for my exam.

I had just started a new job, moved to a new house and I had a tight budget to get ready for my PMP® Exam. There wasn\'t a single product available that would make it easier for me. So I created my own.

Are you wondering if you can take the Project Management Professional (PMP) ® exam or not?

You might have various concerns regarding the PMP Exam such as your designation, size of the organization and benefits of PMP certification in career development. Well, then here I am to address some of your concerns and help you develop an in-depth understanding about how the PMP certification can be beneficial for you.

YES! You can take the PMP exam even if your title is not project manager. To take the exam you need to have the appropriate authority and responsibility rather than the designation: The PMP certification is a credential for those who lead and direct project teams.

There is a lot of interest at the present time in the role that Enterprise 2.0 web applications can play in enhancing business performance. In a survey lately conducted by Trampoline Systems, a London-based provider of social networking software, 94% of U.K. and 82% of U.S. businesses believe the new technologies will be beneficial to use at work. Other recent researches show similar results.

This keen attention to Enterprise 2.0 trend is easy to explain. Many organizations today suffer from the lack of internal visibility. They are using software systems, which let them create a detailed plan with a structure that is imposed from the top. This plan often reflects the initial vision of managers well enough. However, plan is hard to keep up-to-date, as it takes a lot of time and effort from the managers. They need to pull information from their employees, manually update the plan, after that communicate the changes to the staff and report to corporate executives.  This huge onus of routine jobs leads to managers’ reluctance to update plans regularly. The result is most probably an obsolete project or strategic plan, sitting on a shelf. In many organizations, such a plan will also miss a lot of the field knowledge coming from the bottom-up.