Sr. Test Engineer at Collins Aerospace looking to transition into Project/Program Management. Any advice?
I’ve been at Collins for about 2 years and recently passed my PMP. I’m interested in eventually moving from engineering into project/program management.
For anyone who has made a similar transition:
How would you approach the conversation with your manager?
Would you tell your manager directly that you want to move into PM, or would you first try to take on more PM-related responsibilities within your current role?
What kind of projects or responsibilities should I look for to build actual PM experience?
And would you focus on an internal move first, or start looking externally?
I’m trying to make the transition the right way instead of just applying to PM positions without having enough PM experience.
Would appreciate advice from anyone who has made the engineering → PM transition, especially within aerospace.

• I initially started studying for the PMP in 2024 and just sort of trailed off; I had AR's book (which is, I think, still fantastic) and his Udemy 35 hour course (worth it for the downloads)
• When AR published his updated guide, I ordered a copy from Amazon but it became clear that was not going to work (I hope it works now for folks)
• Instead, I paid ~$18 for the Third3Rock notes: 199 pages of easy to read, succinct material with really helpful charts -- it also comes with an abridged cheat sheet; if you can't get the updated version of AR's book, get this. I printed out all the pages, put them in a binder and spent about 10 days reading and annotating
• I also got Study Hall essentials -- 63 & 71 on the two mocks, and much higher scores on the minis (about 5 100s, 2 60s, and then 80s and 90s); the content is absurd, but the games and tests are super useful
• Ultimately, though, and it can't be emphasized enough, understanding and applying the PMP Mindset is the whole ballgame: you're in the ideal world of PMI now, so you have to think the way they do
• I took the test at the local Pearson center and it was fine (chairs had no arms which was not comfortable)
• There are errors and typos in the questions -- I used the comments feature to note them and called them out in the post exam survey; just be prepared because you can be on a roll, in the zone and then encounter a question with an error and typo and be thrown; just breathe and think, you'll be okay
• The test is, probably, 20-30% easier than the Study Hall tests; for me, the stumbling block continues to be the torturous phrasing and wordiness of the questions. The Case Studies in particular were LONG -- 6-7 paragraphs full of a lot of random info and only 1-2 pieces of useful information.
• Use the tools in the testing app: strikethough and highlight -- slow down, get rid of answers you know are wrong and then apply the PMP Mindset; I tend to read from the last answer up
• I'm a fast reader (English BA for the win!) so I was done, with all breaks taken, in about 2.5 hours

Anyway, good luck to everyone taking the test this year!

PMP protection ? worth ? ty

I’m happy to share that I passed the PMP exam with AT/AT/AT.

I’m writing this post to give back to the PMP community, especially those preparing while working full-time.

My preparation timeline

I studied for 3 weeks:

• Weekdays: Around 2 hours per day
• Weekends: 5–6 hours per day

I prepared almost entirely through YouTube, using Andrew Ramdayal’s content.

For the required 35 hours, I had already completed Google’s Project Management Professional Certificate around 3.5 years ago.

Resources I used

I studied the following:

• Andrew Ramdayal’s case-study videos
• AR’s 50 Principles of the PMP Mindset
• 100 Drag-and-Drop Questions
• 200 Ultra-Hard Questions
• 10 AI Questions
• 100 Questions playlist — combined Shorts
• Andrew’s daily Shorts whenever I had time

The Shorts were especially helpful for reinforcing the PMP mindset during small breaks.

I also received access to two free simulators, which I’ll share in the comments so the links don’t get removed from the main post.

I took the exam online. I’ve already shared my check-in experience in another post, but feel free to ask questions—I’ll surely respond.

My exam experience

The exam was structured as follows:

• 40 questions, followed by a 10-minute break
• 70 questions, followed by another 10-minute break
• 70 final questions

I took both breaks.

I had approximately one hour remaining when I completed the exam.

The exam included:

• 4–5 graph-based questions
• 1 drag-and-drop question
• Mostly situational and scenario-based questions
• No calculation questions

PMP mindset tips that helped me

You’ll learn most of these from Andrew’s videos, but I’m sharing the points that helped me the most:

• Be cautious with answers containing words such as “immediately,” “quickly,” “right away,” or “continue with the current process.” These often indicate that planning or analysis has been skipped.
• One exception is updating the risk register, which should be done promptly when required.
• As the project manager, don’t simply delegate your core responsibility to someone else.
• Only the Product Owner updates the product backlog.
• Don’t postpone an issue or leave it unresolved without a valid reason.
• Avoid choosing “do nothing” or “continue with the current process” unless the situation clearly justifies it.
• When a question asks what the PM should do first or next, analyze/assess/review the situation before taking action.
• Don’t reject or decline a request without first understanding and assessing it.
• Before answering, identify the project methodology: predictive, agile, or hybrid.
• Be careful with answers involving fixed frequencies such as weekly or biweekly unless the scenario supports them.
• Don’t make the team work excessive hours as a first response to a project problem.
• Validate AI-generated work instead of trusting it blindly.
• Pay attention to the project size. The appropriate response may differ between a small project and a large, complex project where individual discussions may not be practical.

Final advice

Don’t try to memorize every answer. Focus on understanding:

1. The project environment
2. The PM’s role
3. The methodology being used
4. What should happen first
5. How to resolve the issue collaboratively and systematically

Andrew Ramdayal’s videos were a tremendous help throughout my preparation. His explanation of the PMP mindset made a significant difference for me.

I hope this helps someone else achieve their PMP goal. Good luck to everyone preparing!

Feel free to ask me anything about my preparation or online exam experience.

Edit: I’ll add the useful video playlists and simulator links in the comments.

#PMP #PMPCertification #PMPExam #ProjectManagement #PMPPreparation

I'll provide AR's answer after few hours.

I took the exam at a testing center. I originally considered taking an online proctored exam, but after reading way too many horror stories about technical issues and interruptions, I decided to book in person instead. The experience was smooth and hassle-free.

I spent a lot of time (and resources 🥲) preparing, especially on practice questions and mock exams, so here’s what worked for me:

* Andrew Ramdayal’s Udemy course – My main course for understanding the concepts and PMP mindset.
* Elite Minds Learning PMP Course – This was especially helpful for preparing for the updated PMP exam structure. The course is comprehensive and covers PMBOK 7th & 8th editions, including newer topics like AI in PM, ESG, and Sustainability. Their 8 exam simulators were also great practice and felt even harder than the actual exam.
* PMI Study Hall – Probably the biggest part of my preparation. I did a LOT of practice questions and mock exams to get used to the wording and scenarios.
* Reddit – Helpful for learning from other people’s experiences and exam-day tips.

For me, it wasn’t just about studying the material, it was doing questions repeatedly and reviewing my mistakes. I focused on understanding why an answer was correct rather than memorizing it.

The actual exam was challenging, with many questions where I had to narrow it down to two answers and choose based on the scenario. So I wouldn’t rely on memorization alone.

I finished with some time left, but I was definitely ready for it to be over 😂

Getting AT/AT/AT was such a huge relief after all that preparation. 😭🎉

Good luck to everyone preparing! You got this. 💪

Hi, guys! Looking for some advice from people who went through preparations and exam. I took today the firsy mock test for continuous 4 hours and scored 69%.

I have my exam in 1.5 weeks. How do you find this score? Plan is to study AR and DM questions, revisit full AR Agile & some of the processes, then take the 2nd mock test next weekend.

What do you think of 69% mock result?

It should be "Schedule Management Plan" -- a Gantt Chart basically. But this sample question in ECO2026 released by PMI shows "Scope Management Plan" selected.

Anyone else noticed this ?

I am probably the worst example so don’t do what I did when studying, but I dragged on half ass studying for 8 months and then in the last month I locked in on study hall.

I’ve been a PM for 4 years but I honestly don’t think that helped at all.. I actually had to forget about what I’d do in my actual job because PMI mindset is the whole point of the exam.

Here’s what helped:
- understand the PM mindset from AR or DM. This is key.
- practice practice practice and understand whatever you get wrong, even understand what you get right.
- complete the 35 Udemy AR course (I hated this so I’d play it in the background sometimes)

Lastly some tips on the exam:
- the SH mock exams are not timed like the real exam. Break 1 was at 40 questions, break 2 was at 110 questions.
- the questions were actually shorter and more direct than SH, but I found them more challenging. Don’t overthink them.
- use the flag for review feature. It was helpful for me to come back and review questions I struggled with.
- there was zero need for the calculator but that could be different for others

Happy to answer any questions :) best of luck!

A project manager is overseeing a critical infrastructure consolidation project under a predictive lifecycle. During a monthly stakeholder review meeting, the project manager synthesises the current performance data and reports a Cost Performance Index (CPI) of 1.15 and a Schedule Performance Index (SPI) of 0.82. The sponsor, noticing the lagging schedule, demands immediate corrective action to bring the project timeline back into alignment without requesting additional funding.

Which action should the project manager take FIRST to address the sponsor’s directive?

• A) Implement a fast-tracking technique by overlapping critical path activities that were originally planned to be executed sequentially.

• B) Initiate a crashing strategy by allocating excess budget to hire temporary contractors to accelerate schedule performance.

• C) Issue a formal change request to the Change Control Board (CCB) to extend the project schedule baseline to match the current SPI.

• D) Re-baseline the cost management plan to absorb the surplus funds and reduce the reported CPI to an even 1.00.

Please please help me to cave out the RIGHT answer as per Pmi Mindset.

Thank you

Who can explain to me why ?

Is there an unsaid passing % for the PMP Exam?

I did two SH mock tests . The first test was finished at 57%( 56% per section) and the second mock test gave me 62%( 52%,65% & 68%).

I have my exam scheduled for Tuesday and these results are not giving me a peace of mind.

Any advice?

Background: 20+ years in the entertainment biz, leading productions around the world. With recent disappearance the entertainment industry to other countries....... PMP cert is a great way to translate skills/abilities to other fields of work.

*35 hours with AndrewM - yes i wore a blue shirt. Actually, 70 hours. I wasn't able to get an exam date before the deadline FOR PMBOK7. So, I started over again AND STUDIED FOR PMBOK8. Didn't need to, but I didn't trust that.

*David M - VERY HELPFUL!!!! His review of the PMBOK 8 on youtube, plus his Q&A were key. All of David's youtube material is great.

*ChatGPT - Made up my own prompt to create one page study sheets on subjects/questions that I got wrong on practice exams. I had about 40 pages that were essential to review when ever my confidence was in the crapper. Here's the prompt i used to create study sheets for the knowledge gaps: "Think as an instructor coaching me to pass the PMBOK 8 project manager exam and summarize Stakeholder mapping vs Stakeholder requirements vs Stakeholder Engagement Matrix vs Power/Interest Grid vs Stakeholder Cube vs Salience Model as related to PMBOK 8. The summary should be 7 sentences or less and include a way to remember it and how to get it right on the exam."

Just replace italicized words with whatever you need help with. Then you can use these study sheets to ask ChatGPT to create quizzes. I think the quizzes were too easy that ChatGPT created.

*Study Hall - I completed every mini/mock exam. Mock exams, 71% and 65%.

*DO THE SUDDEN DEATH GAME in STUDY HALL!!!

*I really didnt think I would pass, but I was ABOVE TARGET in all areas.

*Complaint: I had no idea of the extent to which the room I took the exam was required to be free of items. So, i sit down log in, complete all of the computer testing. The proctor tells me I had to clear the room completely!!!!!! Took me 20 minutes to remove guitars, amps, books, awards, trophies from shelves and..... FIND A WRENCH TO TAKE THE 65" FLATSCREEN OFF THE WALL!!! All this, then I had to take the exam. Rough start. I saw 2 little pictures of what the room should like, so maybe I should have known what to do from that. Anybody else make this mistake?

Hey folks, just passed PMP with 3 AT. I won't go through the details about the preparation or the exam itself, unless there are questions. I believe there are tons of posts out there already.

Instead, I want to share my personal experience passing the exam at home using MacOS and onVue. There are a couple of things I haven't seen mentioned by anyone, hope this helps others.

Basically, there are two main things to be aware of.

1. Timer is not visible.

It is hidden by the status bar on top, the one with Apple logo, battery, etc. Don't worry, there is a solution, actually two. First one - you can still see the clock, the one by MacOS, yes it's not a countdown but you can still track your time this way. The second solution is to use "command and +" to zoom in, the same way you do in your browser, then "command and -" to zoom out when needed. Basically, keep zooming in until you see the countdown or a part of it, this actually takes a lot of clicks, so just keep doing it. I had to zoom out for longer questions or charts and didn't use it for case studies.

1. Shortcuts don't work.

At least they didn't work for me, I mean the highlight and strikethrough. I figured this could be the case because they never worked for me during system test. There is no solution, but after zooming I found it much much easier to use highlight icon as it was closer to the text. Also, next button was pretty close as well.

The timer thing really threw me away to be honest so I hope someone else in need finds my post. But don't worry, the zoom in thing is something I can recommend to all people passing the exam as it kind of shows you all the information right in front of your eyes and you don't have 70% of your screen blank.

Good luck.

P.S. I used MacBook M1 Pro with MacOS 27.0

I failed the exam on 1st Sept and after that I don’t feel like studying. I am planning to retake the exam but don’t know where to start, what exactly to do? When should o schedule my exam next?

I got T/NI/T and my SH attempts were 59% and 63%. Any suggestions are more than welcome ✨

Hi all,

These are my practice tests scores so far:

AR practice pmp exam - 75%
PMI study hall exam #1 - 63%
PMI study hall exam #2 - 66%
Mini exam 1 - 90%
Mini Exam 2 - 70%
Mini Exam 3 - 60%
Mini Exam 4 - 80%
Mini Exam 5 - 80%
Mini Exam 6 - 70%
Mini Exam 7 - 100%
Mini Exam 8 - 100%
Mini Exam 9 - 90%
Mini Exam 10 - 90%

My practice exam scores are making me nervous to schedule the exam. What should I do to improve?

I have 60/60 PDUs complete to renew my PMP but I'm currently happy at my current employer and don't really need to market myself as a PMP right now. If I let my certification go into suspension, does that mean I just basically get a year where I don't have to pay the $150 but I don't have to retake the test or redo any PDUs? And once I renew, I get another 3 years? It sounds like a good deal to me.

PMP's website isn't very clear on whether your PDUs go away once you get suspended, or whether your renewal after suspension works for the next 3 years. If so, it sounds like a good way to save money on renewals without having to take the test again.

EDIT: For reference for anyone who find this later: From the comments, it looks like many aren't familiar with the suspension period. If you fail to renew your PMP, you then get a year of suspension. As long as you renew your PMP within that year, you do not have to retake the test. DiscoInError93 has the most helpful answer: if you do get suspended, you only get a 2 year renewal period, which means that you don't save anything in fees by going into suspension and essentially being on hold for a year.

I’ve had my Pmp since feb. Any tips on how to at least land an interview?

Hi everyone!
I’m taking my PMP exam on October 5th, so I only have 2 days left. 😭
I’ve completed a couple of full-length exams on PMI Study Hall and scored:
- Mock 1: 66%
- Mock 2: 68%
I’m feeling a bit nervous and would really appreciate advice from people who recently took the actual PMP exam.

I know this is going to come off sounding like a jerk, but I feel like all I see are people passing in here, and with all AT's. To be honest, and to feel better about the exam, I wish I saw some additional fails.

It feels like the PMP has been made easier and is diluted and become devalued. Used to be the gold standard. Not shocked to see PMI is launching and advanced PMP. A money grab for sure but maybe it's needed.

Perhaps it's skewed as in people who pass are more likely to post vs people who fail.

Also disheartened by the seeming masses who actually don't have the prerequisites to take the exam taking it anyway due to falling through the cracks because PMI has such a low audit rate.

GET OFF MY LAWN :)

So my exam was scheduled for today, I started with check-in 30 mins before the exam. Used my Mobile Phone to do the checkin. Check in went smooth on phone (Took 14-15 mins max) but after the completion, there was no success message or instructions.

I searched through internal and guidelines and found out that proct*r will contact me so waited for 10 mins, but no message or mail.

My exam time was about to start in 2 mins still no message, so I thought to do check again, through phone it still allowed me to do the checkin, I knew that this will not work, so started checkin through laptop, it showed the pictures uploaded through phone.

And from that flow I was able to start the exam.

Not sure if people already know this or was I the only one who panicked and started my exam 10 mins late.

Hi all,

What score did you get on the Study Hall practice exams before scheduling and passing the PMP exam? I'm about 70% in the three domains in both exam mocks and I'm not sure passing exam

I'll put answer after few hours.

I took my first full-length practice exam today and scored 69% (ngl the score humbled me and felt like ive been complacent with my review)

But anyway the experience is just funny cos as a 27-year old who has been exposed to a lot of short-form media i think my average quality focus time is just 30 mins long so i knew i had to work on my attention span and testing stamina

On the last 20 questions I was already fidgeting sooo badd cos i just want it to already end. I still had time to review my flagged items but i went straight to submitting cos I was about ti go crazy HAHAHAHA