MT&DC is the only Polish training company that has been granted Project Management Institutes (PMI)® permission to administer Project Management Professional examination. PMP® is a professional credential for project management specialists, based on a rigorous examination and meeting the highest standards in the project management profession. The certificate is recognized by the majority of large companies and government institutions all over the world.

The first PMP® examination in Poland took place on 7 December in Falenty. 31 project managers took the exam, representing companies such as Oracle, Motorola, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Elektrim-Megadex, PTC Era, Hewlett-Packard, Alstom Polska, Foster Wheeler Energia Polska, and Polish Energy Partners.
PMP® examination in Poland is no different from the one delivered in other parts of the world. It is a 200-question test in English. The examination is supervised by a committee of two delegates from Project Management Institute (PMI)®. To pass the exam you need to correctly answer 137 questions (67%) within 4 hours.

As weve been informed by PMI, there are about 20 PMP® certificate holders in Poland. These people have taken the exam abroad. There was a PMP® examination in Budapest late this September and three our students from ComArch company took a chance there: Iwona Słowik (Quality Systems Agent),Wawrzyniec Sosnowski (Production-Implementation Center Manager, Financial Markets Sector), and Artur Ziajko (Quality Systems Agent). All three successfully tackled the complex examination and came back from Budapest with PMP® certificates! It is an enormous success, as few people boast PMP® credential. All the examinees unanimously state that the exam is difficult and stressful but definitely answerable. The trickiest part are the ambiguous questions where you have to select the most suitable alternative out of the four listed below. It effectively means that a perfectly correct answer may not be the best or most appropriate one. Another difficulty is the language, which according to Artur Ziajko in some cases resembles a legal jargon packed with words to be found only in voluminous dictionaries.

How to prepare for the exam? Here you can find some advice from our ComArch colleagues:

 Artur Ziajko, ComArch

It took me a long time to prepare for the exam and now I believe the time was not wasted. Actually, my preparation consisted of three stages, as gathering professional experience in my work should be considered as the first stage. The second stage was a program of courses organized by MT&DC under the auspices of ESI and George Washington University. At this stage I completed the full range of Project Management Academy topped with Master's Certificate in Project Management. The third stage was 2 months of self-study, 2 3 hours a day. At this stage I used the materials received during the courses organized by MT&DC, worked a lot with PMBOK®, and utilized ESIs preparatory materials. PMBOK® Guide deserves particular attention as a source of terminology used in the examination questions.

 Iwona Słowik, ComArch

My preparation for PMP®?
First professional experience accumulated by being involved in and managing IT projects. Then, the project management training program organized by MT&DC and topped with Masters Certificate in Project Management. Just before the exam I studied PMBOK® and PMP® preparatory materials published by ESI, as well as course materials. It appears that the examination is based on the PMBOK® Guide content and, therefore, you need to know it in detail, with particular emphasis on processes and their elements. However, to understand PMBOK® concepts you need knowledge from other sources.

 Wawrzyniec Sosnowski, ComArch

I would divide the preparation in two stages: studying the materials and preparing for the exam itself.
The first one covers experience and courses for project managers (both items are PMP® eligibility requirements); the second is self-study.

According to ESI, preparation itself requires at least 6 weeks of work. In my case it was 4 weeks of around two hours of study a day (evenings & weekends) + 2 weeks of around 3.5 hour of work a day. During preparation you need to get thorough knowledge of PMBOK® Guide (chapter by chapter with details). What is very helpful in the process of both studying and verifying your knowledge are the materials by ESI:
- a set of sample questions (10 chapters with 40 questions each) these are not strictly exam questions but they are close in nature
- a set of 600 pointer questions (10 chapters with 60 questions each) flash cards, each with one question and the answer on the back
- a set of 9 CDs with a "discussion" of all the topics interesting supplementary materials (good knowledge of the language is a must).
A preparatory course would make things much easier.

How helpful are the training courses organized by MT&DC?

I. Słowik: The training program I've taken at MT&DC was very helpful in the preparation for PMP® exam. PMBOK® Guide uses project management concepts and structures these concepts in patterns. MT&DC courses explain the concepts and indicate practical applications. The knowledge from the training was a good basis for the work with PMBOK® Guide and preparatory materials.
W. Sosnowski: I believe I have benefited a lot from these courses. PMBOK® Guide only gives you terms and definitions, but it wont teach you useful formulas, how to use the tools or what action is recommended in a given situation, etc. Self-study is important; however, often we dont know what to focus on and what to skip. What counts in the first place is that:
- training courses offer a lot of practical knowledge even though its not subject to direct verification at PMP® exam, it is a key element in real-life practice
- most of the formulas, practices, tools, etc. featured inPMBOK® Guide have been discussed in detail during the courses and then used in simulations
- training courses offered by MT&DC in collaboration with ESI are recognized by PMI, so the courses Ive taken must have been verified successfully.

A. Ziajko: Training courses offered by MT&DC within Project Management Academy framework are very helpful, as it would sometimes be difficult to understand PMBOK® Guide without them. They give you a solid basis for studying PMBOK® Guide. For the mist part, the knowledge from the courses is enough to give correct answers to questions containing all sorts of formulas, e.g. related to earned value technique. PMA courses have paid off we wouldnt have stood a chance without them!

“PMI”- is registered mark of Project Management Institute, Inc.
“PMP”- is registered certification mark of Project Management Institute, Inc.
“PMBOK”- is registered mark of Project Management Institute, Inc.

2002-12-07