Episode 324: How to Get Your PMP Certification with Bryan Bowers (Free)

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This episode is sponsored by The PM PrepCast for The PMP® Exam:

This is another episode in which I am proudly introducing you to one of my successful students who was able to pass the PMP. His name is Bryan Bowers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bowersbryan) and he is a student of the PMP PrepCast.

There are two reasons that make me especially proud of helping him pass. First of all, Bryan has taken over a dozen certification exams, and second he says that “this was by and far the most brutal exam I have ever taken”. And so I feel very satisfied that it was my exam preparation course that showed Bryan how to prepare for PMP.

In this PMP lessons learned interview you are going to hear him talk about his journey to becoming PMP certified from start to finish.

Episode Transcript

Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.

Podcast Introduction

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to episode number 324. This is the Project Management Podcast at www.pm-podcast.com and I am Cornelius Fichtner. Welcome.

This is another episode in which I am proudly introducing you to one of my successful students who was able to pass the PMP exam. His name is Bryan Bowers and he is a student of my PM PrepCast. There are two reasons that make me especially proud of helping him pass. First of all, Bryan has taken over a dozen certification exams and second, he says that this was by and far the most brutal exam I have ever taken.  And so I feel very satisfied that it was my exam preparation course that showed Bryan how to prepare for and crack the PMP. So in this PMP lessons learned interview, you are going to hear him talk about his journey to becoming PMP certified from start to finish. And now, let's journey on. Enjoy the interview.

Podcast Interview

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to the Project Management PrepCast, your gluten-free PMP exam preparation course. This morning we are bringing you another PMP exam lessons learned interview and we're coming live from Modjeska Canyon, Modjeska Park to be precise. And with me is Bryan Bowers. Good morning, Bryan.

Bryan Bowers: Good morning. Glad to meet you, Cornelius.

Cornelius Fichtner: Yes, this is probably the closest to home that I have ever done in an interview because I didn't notice you live pretty much next to where I do. So we decided to meet here in the Canyon. And so you probably hear people playing in the background, with cars driving by, there's a fire station nearby, and the alarm will go off unless we do this. So this is going to be an interesting conversation. So as you all know, we are not allowed to talk about specific exam questions that Bryan saw during his exam but we can talk about with your experience, how you studied and your general tips and tricks and ideas that you have for those who are still on the path to their PMP exam. But first of all, congratulations on passing the exam.

Bryan Bowers: Thank you, thank you very much.

Cornelius Fichtner: Always a great milestone right? You must be relieved.

Bryan Bowers: Yeah. This was by and far the most brutal exam I've ever taken. I've taken 12 certifications, being in the technology industry, and this was by and far the most brutal exam I have ever taken.

Cornelius Fichtner: Wow. So that means your name is shorter than all the letters after your name.

Bryan Bowers: Exactly. That's exactly what it is.

Cornelius Fichtner: When did you pass? How long ago was it?

Bryan Bowers: Five days ago.

Cornelius Fichtner: Oh wow! Okay, so really a brand new PMP. Have you already checked online in the registry, is your name already popping up? I wanted to do that this morning, I completely forgot.

Bryan Bowers:  You know I didn't check. I did get the email from them saying that I am now PMP but I did not check online yet. 

Cornelius Fichtner: Okay, good, good. So first things first, if you have to do this again, what would you do differently?

Bryan Bowers:  You know, I think I was really prepared for the way that I was going to do it, and so for the most part, I think I nailed it. I mean again certifications being in the technology industry, you're pretty familiar with that and you sort of know how to prepare for them after passing so many. So I was somewhat prepared for the study method. However, the exam itself and the breadth of the exam was pretty, pretty interesting and pretty tricky and challenging but in the end, definitely doable.

Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. And why did you choose to become a PMP? I mean there’s so many letters after your name already. Was there a reason to do PMP on top of everything else?

Bryan Bowers:  Yeah definitely, for me, it's, I own my own IT consulting company and so it's something that is going to give me a lot of the formal education that I need to be able to do better in my practice with my industry. But the other thing too, is I maybe potentially transitioning from my company into full-time corporate work again. And as I was looking at some of the job requirements and postings, PMP was definitely something that was, if not required, definitely recommended for a lot of positions that I would be looking at.

Cornelius Fichtner: So, do you see value both in your current company as a company owner but also going back into the corporate world then? 

Bryan Bowers:  Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, a lot of the work that I do was sort of fly by the seat of my pants. It was definitely project management but it wasn't very structured and I see a lot of value to the PMP as a business owner being able to do the kind of tasks and the things I - you know, I never knew the word breakdown structure. To me, project management before was just a Gantt chart. And so it was eye opening to me to see all the other stuff that was behind the scenes. And so it's definitely made me a better business owner, a better - able to do the things that I need to do with my current company but also in the corporate world as well.

Cornelius Fichtner: Interesting, because one the things that I focus on in my PMP training is I want to make sure that my students become better project managers, that they come out of this not just with the knowledge “Oh, I know how to pass PMP exam,” but, “Oh wow, I am now able to manage my projects better and bring them to completion,” you know, more successfully, right? So do you feel that this has actually happened to you as well, that you're a better project manager now because of this? 

Above are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete PDF transcript is available to Premium subscribers only.