Registering for PMP exam

Finally the PMP (Project Management Exam) is going to be held in Colombo. The date has been fixed for 20th of November. To be able to sit for the exam you have to complete the registration by the 20th of October.

Filling up the registration form for the PMP exam is a project by itself. Since I posses an accredited educational qualification I have to show 4500 hours of project management work experience. This gets more complicated when you have to show a breakdown of time spent on each of the process groups; initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & control and closing.

My life was made a bit easier by the fact that the application form is available online and it can be filled and saved to continue later. Also, as you go along filling it, the application itself tells you how much more you need to cover in order to become eligible. This is the most interactive exam application form that I have filled. I have to admit, this is IT used in a practical manner.

I realized that I needed to run through my projects as I needed to first workout the time I have spent on each of the projects that I have managed earlier as well as to gather the time I have spent on each of the tasks so that I can work out the tie spent on each of the process group. Life was made simpler again by a spread sheet that was forwarded in the PMP study group email. This spreadsheet calculates the contact hours when you put in the dates. Good for me!

So now I have raked my brains and have come up with the projects that I have managed along with the time lines. A lot of my former colleagues helped me to find the dates lines of older projects. And having the old emails archived helped to a great deal too. The spreadsheet tells me that i have covered my 4500 contact hours. So now I am off to the online application form to put it all across to PMI.