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Head First Pmp: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Passing the Project Management Professional Exam

Head First Pmp: A Brain-Friendly Guide to Passing the Project Management Professional Exam
By Jennifer Greene PSE, Andrew Stellman, Greene Jennifer, Stellman Andrew

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Product Description

Learn the latest principles and certification objectives in The PMBOK Guide, Fourth Edition, in a unique and inspiring way with Head First PMP . The second edition of this book helps you prepare for the PMP certification exam using a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. You'll find a full-length sample exam included inside the book.

More than just proof of passing a test, a PMP certification means that you have the knowledge to solve most common project problems. But studying for a difficult four-hour exam on project management isn't easy, even for experienced project managers. Drawing on the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First PMP offers you a multi-sensory experience that helps the material stick, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.

This book will help you:

  • Learn PMP's underlying concepts to help you understand the PMBOK principles and pass the certification exam with flying colors
  • Get 100% coverage of the latest principles and certification objectives in The PMBOK Guide, Fourth Edition, including two new processes: Collect Requirements and Identify Stakeholders
  • Make use of a thorough and effective preparation guide with hundreds of practice questions and exam strategies
  • Explore the material through puzzles, games, problems, and exercises that make learning easy and entertaining


Head First PMP puts project management principles into context to help you understand, remember, and apply them -- not just on the exam, but also on the job.


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #20204 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-08-04
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 831 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

*Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene are both veteran software engineers and project managers. They created Stellman & Greene Consulting in 2003, with a focus on software development and management consulting. Together, they have written bestselling and highly acclaimed books for O'Reilly, including "Applied Software Project Management" (9780596009489) and "Head First PMP" (9780596102340). *Jennifer Greene has spent more than 15 years building software for different kinds of companies. She's built software test teams and helped companies diagnose and deal with habitual process problems so that they could build better software. Jennifer founded Stellman & Greene Consulting with Andrew Stellman in 2003.


Customer Reviews

One of many books you need to conquer PMP - not the only3
I passed my PMP exam recently. In spite of my years of experience, I found that the exam needs a truckload of preparation! I started with PMBOK Guide, Rita Mulcahy, some others, and settled on HFP. The HFP is not the first book you should read, and certainly should not be the only book you read. Unlike the somewhat snide (and ineffective) Mulcahy book, this book would give you tons of useful mnemonics to remember stuff by. After reading this book, I was having a much easier time answering questions in other books, such as Mulcahy's.

The PMP examination is not for the faint of heart. At the minimum, you should know the PMBOK Guide by rote (esp. the I-TT-O, Glossary, and the formulae). You need to supplement that knowledge using other books. These are the list of books I found useful (in no particular order):
0. PMBOK Guide
1. HF PMP
2. Mulcahy
3. Kim Heldman
4. Andy Crowe

Unfortunately, HF PMP does leave out many vital topics. This will hurt you in the exam, if you have not covered it elsewhere (e.g. Calculating CPPC and FPIP using numbers, GERT, etc., amongst many other examples). But for the topics covered, you will have a strong help from this book in retaining that information!

I would strongly encourage the authors to:
1. Consider revising the book and adding the missing topics - priceless addition, given that the authors do a wonderful job of any topic they cover in the book.
2. Add a GLOSSARY OF TERMS that may be referenced in the PMP Exam, even though these may not be covered in detail in the book (cite a ref.).

It will be worth the price you'd pay for such a book!

THIS IS A MUST HAVE BOOK5
This is the book. I have read 4 different books to study for the PMP (without taking any classes) and this one by FAR is the easiest, simplest, and best book that is out there. The exercises reinforce the concepts in new and different ways (matching, crossword puzzles, short answer, etc). Even when I thought I had to memorize the formulas, I now discover I don't need to because the book explains the concepts in such simple terms that the formulas go together and just "logically" make sense. They explain a lot of terms from both a project manager AND a sponsor's perspective. This is by FAR the greatest book. The concepts are SO simple. I do recommend using PMP Practice Questions Exam Cram 2 or some book with test questions in it to go along with this book only after you have read this book.

Even after being through project management in the real world I learned a few things to help me in my current job. Anyway, I rate this a NUMBER ONE MUST HAVE. I look forward to more books in this series or any other concept out there that I want to learn. OUTSTANDING JOB TO O'REILLY, the Publisher. I give kudos and more kudos.

Engaging Coverage of Brain-Unfriendly Body Of Knowledge5
If you don't mind reading the PMBOK guide for your exam preparation, then, I suspect, you would enjoy memorizing a phone book or have an unusually strong taste for suffering. In either case, don't read any further and don't buy "Head First PMP" -- reading it may be too much fun for you and dangerous to your mental health!

For those of us, who find the PMBOK bo-o-o-oring, "Head First PMP"'s approach is the *only* way to learn. Let's admit, that the topics covered by the exam, while are very important, are not very exciting. To learn them well, it is important to dig deeper into the reasons for the best practices. Following the style of the "Head First" series, the authors of this book took the subject of the PM science and turned it into a fun-to-read and easier-to-learn-and-internalize collection of graphics, questions, answers, mental games and scenarios, stories. They deconstructed the topics to their essence and then reconstructed them in a way that makes sense to everyone who is willing to focus and think. The book is very engaging and, in my opinion, is a must to read, at least to make sure that you understand all the answers.

I'd like to point out the difference between this book and other books in the series -- Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, Design Patterns, Java. Those books cover topics that are interesting (at least to me) in nature, and had been covered in other publications with various success. The "Head First PMP" book is different in the sense that its authors "dared" to apply the "Head First" approach of "you'll learn better when reading is fun" to a topic that while important, makes me think of an ominously laughing dentist holding a jack hammer.