I'm going to describe my experience, challenges, strategies and successes with the PMI Program Management Professional (PgMP) certification preparation focusing on the final stages – getting ready for the exam. I highly recommend that you also read Ifthiquar Ahmed Jameel's LinkedIn article PgMP as a Program... (My journey). I personally printed it and used it as a checklist.
Initially I used the self-study approach which worked well for my PMP years ago. It turned out that although the PgMP appear similar, they could not be more different. There are specific obstacles that I encountered (listed below) which needed to be addressed before writing the exam. Bottom-line is that to avoid failing your first attempt I honestly recommend you to take the mentorship path.
1. What is the total cost to get PgMP certified?
In my case it was close to US$4500. (mentoring: $2500, books $450, PMI fees $1400, Udemy courses/tests $150). I recommend budgeting $4000.
2. How long did it take?
4-5 months (2 months of self-study and same for mentoring after).
3. Was time/effort worth it to get PgMP certified?
That I don't know yet. That also depends on your reasons to get certified. If it is required by your employer (to keep your job or get promoted), or you get excited about letters after your name - go for it. If you are a practitioner and you are focusing on improving your Program Management knowledge (my case) - you can probably just read the latest standard, do a 2-day seminar and claim the PDUs.
4. Why can't I do self-study like I did for the PMP?
Absolutely you can if you have the time and are not afraid to sit the exam more than once (cost of retake is US$600). Here are the challenges that I faced:
- Most PgMP third party materials (see below) are immature, messy, and full of errors. PgMP certification is great but, unfortunately you should not expect good quality preparation materials - handbooks, tests etc. (unlike PMP). I suspect it is because the ROI on PgMP is a fraction of that of the PMP. So be ready to build your own. That being said, I expect that demand will eventually grow due to general lack of quality Program Management (PgM) education.
- PMI materials (SPM, ECO etc.) - mix of good and bad, not really changing much through the years. You can learn a lot from the Standard (SPM), regardless of your current program experience or knowledge. It contains information, best practices and a lot of relevant knowledge. That being said, information is presented in a complex and often confusing way, some is a bit outdated, at times overweight, often a single topic is broken into mini topics and split in several chapters organized alphabetically (sweet!). Here are some more details presented in a funny way:
· Imagine you have one brilliant loaf of bread called Program Management. Slice it, then cut it horizontally, after that diagonally and at the end you throw all these pieces in a bag, shake it well and put a label on it saying "SPM". Now open the bag and put that loaf of bread back together (oh and while you were busy another 50 people put extra pieces from some other types of bread in the bag, just to give you some spares!).
· There are contradictions within the SPM itself and also between the SPM and the ECO (especially when we discuss sequence). For example - in one chapter it is written that you talk to stakeholders first then update records second, in another on the same topic it's vice versa. In the exam context there might be two distinctly right and justifiable answers.
· There are also some areas that are not necessarily connected to reality. For example, they do not align with what most business organizations do today (my observations). Therefore, same can be said of any "business school" material - it is not a precise science. Luckily, my assessment of the amount of gray area (hard to justify / back-up with evidence) in the SPM book is somewhere between 10 and 20%, or around industry average.
· Here is an example of "overweight". "Benefits management", "Governance" are described in 20 or so pages each in the SPM, while the topic could be easily summarized in 5 to 6 pages. Some terms are introduced and only used by PMI (PMI Standards Plus is a great tool btw). On the other hand, there is a lot to be said about "Stakeholder Engagement" and the respective chapter is well organized and to the point.
· Gaps - it kind of ignores Product Management (Product Owner does not exist), agile, lean, new generation software tools (roadmap tools like AHA! that bring project, program, product, portfolio, organizational goals into one integrated mix as opposed to independent Excel sheets). Hope some of that will be addressed in the next editions otherwise the SPM becomes a less relevant history book.
5. What is the most efficient way to prepare for the exam?
This is my recommendation:
5.1 Familiarize yourself with the material and the structure through a pre-recorded course or skimming through a PgMP book.
5.2 Order a paper copy of the SPM, insert ECO pages in the relevant sections. Don't be afraid to mark, highlight, staple pages to your SPM copy.
5.3 Use mindmaps to consolidate (free tool that I used: https://www.mindmeister.com), create a table of contents for each key document (business case, program charter etc.), visualize / stick it on the wall. Do not go too deep here and don't add content outside the Standard / ECO / PMBOK.
5.4 Depending on your availability either go for individual or group class. I choose Dharam's individual mentoring which is a combination of pre-recorded sessions, 1:1 weekly calls and his exam questions (link here). I recommend him for a simple reason - over 500 PgMP exam takers went through his more or less standardized training... otherwise it is just you learning from trial and error.
5.5 Keep building your personal SPM. Mark the areas that you see as basis for questions from the mock exams. See my suggestion below.
5.6 Mock exams and error analysis - I recommend going for quality, not quantity. Quality in PgM is not that easy to find. Dharam's question bank is good, Sultan's Udemy - mixed, Ginger can drive you mad. Regardless, none of them is the actual exam like. The purpose is to you to take each question that you didn't answer correctly and do a deep analysis. And by deep analysis, I mean more than read the provided justification and reference by the author. Sometimes I had half a page for a single question describing the logic, the question itself, the SPM/ECO reference, the pointers, etc. Just a few words may make the correct answer wrong and the wrong answer correct. On many occasions you will disagree (rightfully so) but keep on digging.
6. The exam - the Program Management Game of Chess.
Here, I can only comment on how I felt which is subjective. Different people feel differently about the same things. I felt like 170 Program Managers are asking me a question each as per their understanding and experience. Like in a chess game, where each of them gets rewarded if you make a wrong move and lose a figure. Your opponents do control the amount of information they provide you and the answers you can pick from. Time is also not on your side (but as Dharam Singh, PgMP, PfMP, PMP, RMP, SP,ACP,PBA,DASM,DASSM suggests the more prepared you are the less time the exam will take which I consider true). Honestly, I had to take an Advil (headache painkiller) halfway through this 4-hour chess masters. The good news is that you don't need to get every question right (and I doubt that many had), just enough to be above the passing line. I have a good understanding of the theory and funny enough on several occasions the correct answer was just not in the options provided.
7. Final words
In my professional experience most PMs I worked with were trained and certified, same for Agile Practitioners... I really can't think of someone that wasn't. The Program Managers I worked with are the complete opposite - most had backgrounds in functional areas, Operations, maybe some Project Management... but rarely with any formal PgM education. In Canada, currently the ratio of PMPs to PgMPs is 247:1. Hilariously, the employee in the exam centre claimed she never saw anyone sitting the PgMP exam before... at the same time I had 3 PMP candidates in the waiting room with me.
Not sure if that helps, but all this relates to my point above - Program Management field is not really as well defined as Project Management, it is full of inconsistencies (at every level), and there is a chronic lack of good materials. Just not much out there - no PgM practice guides (such as the PMI's Agile Practice guide) or any other solid material. Regardless, for the PgMP you can either try to figure it out on your own or get some pointers from someone that is in the business of providing such.
If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I will respond as per my availability. Good luck!
Thanks to my friend Holly, who edited my article and made it a better read.