SearchSelecting – or choosing not to select anything at all – a PMP preparation platform is a big decision. Should it be a bootcamp? A class? Nothing at all?
If you’re one of those people that can prepare for the PMP by reading the PMBOK alone, a lot of power to you. I couldn’t.
But, how do you pick?
Go and Google “PMP bootcamp” or “PMP preparation course.”
I’ll wait.
….
Wow, right? There are hundreds of viable results. Better yet, there are almost no reviews of any of those courses. No way to know if Option A will have better or more valuable results than Option B. And further, in a lot of cases, there’s little to no information about the course or bootcamp itself.
You’ll often get the standard “Money Back Guarantee” and information about the number of days the course is offered, but little information about the types of study aides, the format of the courses, or the actual instructors teaching the courses.
In an already high-stress game – PMP exam prep – I was having trouble deciding which course to even go with.
Here are a few questions that we used to help us choose – hopefully these help in your decision making matrix:
- Is this company a PMI® Registered Education Provider? This should be listed right on their site, but you can also search for them on PMI’s website.
- Will I get my contact hours’ requirement fulfilled by this course? PMI requires 35 contact hours for PMP qualification.
- What is the cost? PMP prep courses range from the hundreds into the thousands. Make sure you compare the benefits to the expense.
- Are there offerings in my city or only online? Some courses offered were online only. We looked specifically for courses offered in our city.
- What’s my learning style? Some students require slower paced learning – I’d recommend a class over a bootcamp in that instance. Some students do better at self-paced learning – for that, I would recommend an online course such as PMPrepCast.
- Can I contact the company easily to ask questions? This is a given, but if the company isn’t readily available to answer your questions before you sign up, what happens if there are issues?
Hopefully these questions provided a little context or direction in selecting your preparation method. Stay tuned in early 2017 to find out how our selection panned out!
