Back in March we kicked off our own internal “project” here at Arras People, the APMP qualification by self study. The plan was to take the exam in August after working through the newly available self study guide and accompanying resources available through Parallel Project Training. We’ve formed a little study group and meet up every 2 weeks to talk through what we have learnt in the latest block of learning from the materials.
It looks like the project might be going off track though – the examinations will have to be put back to September or October due to a few resource conflicts (check out that project lingo!) or in other words, the business of project management recruitment takes precedence over the studying!
In this post I wanted to talk about the types of materials we have available to us and just how we are planning this self-study. We have the self study book which covers each section of the APM Body of Knowledge, we also have a copy each of the Body of Knowledge (BoK). In addition to that we have podcasts available for each section and also an online learning system which includes slidesets and little quizzes on each section of the BoK. In fact, the only thing we don’t have is a teacher or trainer!
So we have all these tools available to us but guess what? We’re only using the self study guide at the moment. Is there such a thing of too many sources of information or different types of learning resources? I think it has been a group view that we are using one method to work through the entire BoK first – we then have to think about how we actually apply the things we’ve learnt to the examination procedure. In other words we are going to have to start practicing questions and memorising various points and formulas.
The podcasts are going to be great for gaining another perspective on the various areas of project management (in fact, have a look at the various podcasts available, Paul and John’s style is excellent). The online learning system will hopefully give us the refresher we need as we re-work through the various sections and the BoK itself will be used to double check terminology and the APM view of the world. All we need then is practice questions to work through and I’ll let you know what we managed to find in future blog posts
If you have any project management study tips to share, leave a comment and let us know, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated (and tested out by the study group)
Could you let me know how you intend to take the examination. My understanding is that if you wish to qualify by self-study you have to attend one of the APMG open examinations, which do not happen too often. I am considering taking the self-study option with a group of my colleagues but organising the timing of the exam is proving to be a bit of a challenge.
Twitter: projectmgmt
Hi Dave
If there are a number of you the best option is to approach a APMP training provider and they will allow you to join the exam part of a APMP course that is already running. We are going to go with Parallel Training, you can contact Paul @ Parallel if you want to enquire paul.naybour@parallelprojecttraining.com. I’m thinking that we might need a day session – morning doing some sample questions and having a bit of a refresh with the exam in the afternoon.
Twitter: parallelprojects
We can either run in-house exam days or public exam prep and exam days. For more info visit http://www.parallelprojecttraining.com/event/122/apmp-distance-learning-exam-day.html