PMP exam prerequisite - Capturing project experience

As we wrote earlier, one of the prerequisites for the PMP exam is 4,500 hours (7,500 hours for secondary education) of project management experience. In all our training courses, participants ask the important question: how should this be administered? Project management experience is recorded by filling project sheets. This means that for each declared project, the PMP candidate must complete a data sheet with the following content:

• Project name
• Project start and end date
• Role in project
• Industry
• Job title
• Name, address, telephone number of organisation
• Name, position, contact details of verifier
• Number of hours spent on project management by process group
• Max. 550 characters description of the tasks carried out during the project

THE FOLLOWING TIPS MAY HELP YOU WHEN APPLYING:

• The role in the project and the job title do not necessarily have to be the same. Consider, for example, that a controlling expert may lead a project, in which case his role in the project is project manager and his job title in the organisation is expert.
• Only provide a verifier who is quickly available in the event of an audit (and who will of course confirm the hours)! Do not enter a person who lives abroad or whose contact details are uncertain! In the event of an audit, all the necessary documents must be sent by post to the PMI, signed by the relevant persons, within approximately 45 days.
• Hours spent on project management there is no rule for the allocation of the process between process groupsor expectation. It is possible that a project is taken over "on the fly", in which case, for example, the initiative process group hours may be zero. In addition to all this, our own experience suggests that it may be an order of magnitude estimate, a rate:
  • Initiative: 10-15%
  • Design: 15-20%
  • Implementation: 30-40%
  • Monitoring and surveillance: 20-25%
  • Closure: 5-10%
• The 550-character description may seem like a lot at first glance, but it's not at all - in fact, it's not! To ensure that all important information is captured, feel free to use abbreviations (e.g.: Initiation - IN; Planning - PL, Monitoring and controlling - M&C). apply the exam preparation training knowledge gained, using the tools and techniques learned there (or individually from PMBoK). By doing so, PMI will make sure at the time of application that the experience gained in practice (not necessarily according to the PMI methodology) can be put into the context proposed by PMI. The following structure is proposed for the descriptions:
  • Project objective in a few words
  • Key deliverables, deliverables and possible challenges per process group
  • A few words about the result

It is important that neither during the preparation of the descriptions nor during a possible audit, PMI cannot and will not ask for any confidential information! It is not necessary to attach any project documents or even to name the specific client or customer. We hope that with the above suggestions we have contributed to more qualified professionals with real experience managing projects in our country.