PMP - A handy chart for everyday study

One of the confidence boosting exercise I did was to be able to draw ITTO in less than 3 minutes in exam hall. Here's how I did it but before that I would tell you why it was beneficial?

1. It would save my time and energy for other important aspects of PMP studies.

2. It would build my confidence and avoid confusion during studies and exam both.

So lets get started-

You won't be able to do it in exam unless you're used to it.

So start doing this every time you study for PMP i.e. if you study for PMP every day, draw it every day - as simple as that.

How?

This image is an example of my one day's study where I started my PMP day with six A4 papers and fill in the keywords in 47 placeholders.

Mostly I would use single A4 paper for one day's studies and later I started using single big chart that's attached to fill in all clubbed up details under one big sheet for reference.

Reading or copying this sheet is of no use as that's only one way to to do the right thing..

With the process I am mentioning here you'll devise your own way to do it better.

Do you still call all 47 processes by their full names?

If yes, you're wasting your time. Once I know the full name, I can give them a short name and slowly my brain would start joining the short names with the full names. I write short name to save my time and call full name in brain as I will see full names in real world questions. 

So the first hint to make ITTO in 3 minutes is to write short names of 10 KA's, 5 PG's and 47 processes.

If you dunno what short names to give all these stuff. Pls read this -
http://withinaccess.blogspot.in/2014/11/the-47-processes-1st-headache.html

After you have short names for 10 KA's + 5 PG's + 47 processes, you can start with how to draw the process chart -
http://withinaccess.blogspot.in/2014/11/process-chart.html

please read above links only once and keep doing the stuff with paper and pen.. next time refer to only ur notes...else u'll not gain much from the processes mentioned here.

After about 3 times of making the process chart, you must be able to draw something like below image every time u start studying for ur PMP -

Initially, there could be mistakes, so make sure that process counts are right in each column as - 2-24-8-11-2 respectively.

let's talk in shortcuts now -

[It's good to count number of processes in each KA as well but only if you remember PG=P's count then also it's enough.. e.g.-P has 3-4-5-6 processes in C1,S1,R and T respectively..otherwise just 1...whenever it has more than 1, E's have none..E is 3 for H...hence there is none in it's M...M is 2 for I and S1...(hope u know which 2-2 are I and C)]

making above chart isn't enough...read aloud each of the short forms as their full forms .. use short forms only to write...never to call or recall

there could be no better description than Kim's study guide for beginners and no complete reference than PMBOK itself on ITTO..so for quick reference I had created an index for jumping to any of the processes I wished to -

I used same chart to create the index also

This is how I used that small chart for every little thing I did on a single day..

Get used to the chart and the short names and u ll save urself a lot of time and freedom from all sorta confusions