share my experience and lesson learnt preparing and passing PgMP certification (PMI program management certification) , in order to support aspirants and develop program management.
Since April 2016, with my business partner Harish, we also propose to accompany aspirants on their PgMP journey : http://achievup.com/pgmp-certification-preparation-online-coaching/
2. Statistics (August 2015)
• Total cer<fied PgMP : 1406 in 63 countries
– United States 764 (54%)
– Canada 109
– India 92
– UAE 34
– Australia 31
– Saudi Arabia 30
– China 24
– France 24
– Singapore 23
– Brazil 20
– Switzerland 18
– UK 18
– Germany 16
– South Africa 16
– Ireland 15
– Jordan 12
– Qatar 12
• In 2015, just in 6 months 213 new PgMPs are added. This number is much more than any of the
previous years.
• Complete list available on PMI website : h]ps://cer<fica<on.pmi.org/registry.aspx
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3. You will do it !
Dear colleague,
I hope this document will help you to save your precious time,
Personally, I did not find the PgMP exam itself very different from the PMP exam.
However I found the exam preparation more complex because resources and experiences
are still limited and/or not perfectly known. This makes the learning process sometimes
uncertain and ambiguous …
This journey is a great opportunity to develop knowledge with passionate colleagues from all
over the world who believe program management can really help organizations to capture
more benefits and develop further the world !
Cheers,
Celine.
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6. Overview of my journey
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sept.-14 oct.-14 nov.-14 déc.-14 janv.-15 févr.-15 mars-15
Mo<va<on (1=low; 5 = max)/ effec<ve work
Further work on concepts
Linkedin group
Work on line with others
Coaching Harish
Build my own ar<facts
It will be a lot
of work …
Great my
applica(on
was accepted !
Stuck at 50%
of correct
answers :
how can I
progress ?
I am ready !
70% of work
It took me about 6 months and I think 150-200 hours to prepare the certification
(2 or 3 times more than PMP).
But I could have saved many hours, by working together with other world wide
applicants and building my own artifacts from the very beginning…
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7. Application experience
• Read the standard first to link PMI perspective to your experience
• Develop an excel sheet for your experience, to calculate hours per domain
• Make sure that all your references are OK to certify your experience
• In writing your application :
– Put you from ‘strategic perspective’, despite you might first think about you have done it, express the WHY, your
strategic approach
– Use the “I” style instead of the “We” in order to point out what YOU did
– Ask somebody (if possible a PgMP) to read it to check if it is understandable without knowing your context
• Other comments :
– This exercise took much more time than for PMP, and is a very good way to reflect one’s experience and think
about it. I asked review by people who were references.
– It helps to do it directly on line to get words counting : you can save your application until completed.
– A challenge I faced : In my program management experience, I did not complete all programs I had started
because of moving to other roles or maternity leaves : I simply referred to the experience I effectively worked and
wrote that I made a hand over to another program manager.
My application was accepted in less than 10 days, without any audit.
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8. Resources (1/2)
A few personal comments about uncertainty and ambiguity sometimes in preparation …
– The standard is very synthetic and some concepts are ‘implied’, not always
detailed;
– There are sometimes some differences between standard & ECO
– There are sometimes non consensual questions and interpretations…
– Questions available on internet are not always correct
– Experience helps, but before relying on it for the exam, PMI way should be
considered first
– The scope of knowledge is wider than just the standard and can refer to PMBOK
or other PMI sources when applicable to program management
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