It’s a week before you write your PMI Exam to gain your PMP Certificate. You’ve already
accomplished so much to get to this point, but you feel like there is more you need to do.

•  You’ve accrued the appropriate work experience 
• logged the required contact hours 
• have been studying for months 
• taking practice exams and your scores
  are somewhat decent (65-75%) 
• but have yet to perform well (80%+) 
• and now its crunch time. 

That was me. A historically average exam taker preparing to write the most important exam
of his life. All along, I knew that this exam was not going to test my knowledge or memorization ability.
Rather, it would test my application of the knowledge I’ve learned.

For some reason, it did not click until the week before the exam. It was clear to me I needed to acquire the PMI mindset.
Because this is the key to passing your exam! Don’t get me wrong. You need to spend time understanding the content and be knowledgeable of what the PMBOK contains. What good is a mindset without a library of knowledge to reference? What can you do with a library of knowledge if you do not have the right mindset to apply it?

You must have both. 

However, in my personal experience and in conversations with others, it is far more common to read and consume PMI related knowledge than acquiring the PMI mindset. This warrants extra attention to acquire said mindset. 

What the rest of this post contains is nothing new. It is just presented in a way that helped me pass my exam at Above Target on the first attempt and I want to share it in hopes of helping others towards achieving our shared goal. 

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You have years of personal and applicable experience that curated your idea of Project
Management. Unfortunately, you are not studying for an exam based on your experience.
You are preparing to take an exam on what the PMI (Project Management Institute)
understands and defines Project Management to be. You will be better equipped to answer
their questions if can you think and answer like they do.

This idea was first presented to me through an insightful YouTube Channel, PMP With Ray.
Ray is a wonderful teacher that creates relatable and digestible content in preparation for
the PMP exam. In his “How to Answer Situational Questions“ videos, he discusses the 12
Project Manager Ideals. This will help define the framework required to answer each
question on the exam.

12 Project Managers Ideals

• Holds safety, quality, and governance non-negotiable during a project
• Holds scope sacrosanct while driving a project
• Never bypasses steps/processes/documentation to accelerate delivery or closure
• Is always proactive rather than reactive and always has a Plan B
• Owns up to issues and problems rather than delegations – escalation is last resort
• Holds every department accountable for their work
• Questions and Analyzes every change request critically
• Puts team before self and demonstrates servant leadership
• Invests sufficient time to identify and engage stakeholders
• Communicates at the Right Time, to the Right People, the Right Information, the Right Way (the 4 R’s)
• Knows how to prioritize to meet the best interest of the project and the company
• Knows and exercises authority and credibility in the right way to ensure best interest for all

Read the above 12 Ideals. Then read them again. In our everyday jobs there will be times
where fulfilling these ideals is difficult, inconvenient, or just not considered. But being aware
of them, understanding them, and applying them to our careers will help solidify them when
studying and taking the exam. Some may come easier than others and that is okay too. Over
time they will strengthen. Continuous development is part of any significant undertaking. It’s
also why the PMI requires 60 PDU’s (Personal Development Units) every three years to
maintain your PMP status. We need to be moving forward. Passing this exam is not just an
obstacle, but a beginning. We do not stop once we’ve passed the exam. We’ve proven we are
understanding of the material but now get to live it out. Once I finally understood this I was as
confident as I could be going into my exam.