Customer Reviews

Program Management Professional (PgMP): A Certification Study Guide With Best Practices for Maximizing Business Results

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I purchased this book still being a bit unsure about whether or not I was really ready to take the time to tackle the PgMP Exam. But, I figured that I'd at least start studying a bit to get prepared. I'm posting this review because I was impressed with how this book helps you prepare by not just re-stating what's already in the PMI Program Management standard--it steps outside the box a bit!

I can read the Program Management standard on my own and as such I was looking for a book that went beyond the standard. I think this book hit the mark. Some of the chapters that I found especially valuable both from a test preparation and a practitioner perspective:

Chapter 3: The Relationship Between Program Management and Organizational Governance

Chapter 5: The Relationship of Portfolio and Change Management to Program Management

Chapter 9: Developing the Soft Side of the Program Manager

Chapter 16: Managing Life Cycle Program Process Interactions Through Program Configuration Management

Chapter 20: Building and Implementing Your Personal Program Management Certification Roadmap

There are certainly other good chapters as well. And, there is a good amount of pages on the material that is in the Program Management Standard as well (probably a good 100+ pages). I just point these out as examples of how the book goes a bit "above and beyond".

I also like that there are "points to know" highlighted throughout the book. As I am going back through some of the chapters, I look at the points to know first and then can read the associated detail within the chapter itself. This is a study technique that works well for me.

Lastly, I like that the book has an entire chapter devoted to helping you build a study plan for the exam. The book breaks out the exam not only at the top level (initiating, planning, etc.) but also at the task level, allowing you to understand the types of knowledge and skill that you're expected to have. This information comes directly from the PMI PgMP exam specification (according to the book) and there's even an Excel download you can get off the web to help you assess how much time you should spend focusing on each area, depending on your current level of skill.

Overall, great book. Lots of good practical guidance and a book that I think can be used as a reference book for program management in general, not just as a book to study for the PgMP and then throw away. I'm sure other good books will come out for the PgMP, but of the two that I have, this one is definitely the better one.

In my view, the major problem with this book is the lack of focus on the PgMP exam topics, or on any topic for that matter. If you are looking for a PgMP exam Study guide with a comprehensive coverage of and focus on the PgMP exam domains; this is NOT that book. It tries to do many things and does not do anything well (I guess mainly due to the lack of focus). It leaves out many topics that are in the PgMP exam specifications, and it covers many other topics which are not included in the exam.

Also, like any other book, this book too has its share of typos and errors, but let's hope the publisher will provide an Errata
Bottom line: This book materializes the phrase: beating around the bush (the bush is the PgMP exam); even expands it: Above and beyond and below and around the bush.
This publisher (and the authors) have previously produced some good books, but this one just does not do the job that it was supposed to do.

This is a great book but in my opinion there is no single book that is going to provide everything you need to know about program management. Since there is no published list of recommended reading for new program managers or PgMP candidates, here is mine:

First, buy the PMI Standard for Program Management so that you have the official way of performing program management according to the Project Management Institute.

Next, buy the Handbook of Program Management by James Brown. This book really helped me to transition from the theory of the PMI standard (which contains no detail on how to do anything) to the next level of detail. It is a great resource but doesn't cover everything that is contained in the PMI standard.

Then, buy this book as your advanced reference and PgMP guide to round everything out. It has good coverage of the PMI material and provides advanced topics not covered in depth in James Brown's book but still very important for success in program management. It also has practical guidance on how to prepare for the PgMP exam if you are studying for that.

I almost bought the PgMP exam specification as well, but this book has a lot of it reproduced already so I decided to save some money.

These three books together are my PgMP study plan and are also what we're using in my company's Program Management Professional study group.

One criticism of this book is that the "case studies" that are presented are pretty simple (almost an afterthought). But from a content and learning perspective, this is not a distraction.

This book does not have much material in it relevant to passing the PgMP exam. Also, there are lots of incompatibilities with the Standard and it has a dry and confusing presentation style, and is TOO brief...each topic ends before it really begins. Not very readable book... I took the exam and this book's role in helping me pass the exam was almost ZERO. The exam is a totally different beast, different from this book.
My recommendation is that just read the Program Management Standard and perhaps Rita's book on PMP because they are more readable and more helpful for the exam than this book. Mostly, it's your experience that will help you in the exam.

As a disclaimer, I use and advocate Steve Rollins' portfolio management text [co-authored with Gerry Kendall]. As a result I might have tended to expect more out of this book than others on the market, rather than really accounting for the fact that the PGMP test has not been around very long. That's why Rita Mulcahey, who guarantees results, hasn't got a PGMP course out yet, which should tell you something right there.

As a program managers' guide this is an excellent book and provides some nice templates and ideas. It provides a bit more emphasis on the "soft side" skills and more coherent examples than most texts are able to work in. Of the program managers' guides on the market as of July 2008, this is the one you want near your desk.

As a PGMP study guide, which is after all its primary title, you will find this text problematic, because you will have the idea that the exam will follow some predictable course. This text is quite difficult to map to the PMI program management standard or to PMI's exam structure specification guide. However -- so is the exam! After taking the exam, I can report that if your study model is the PMP exam, with its rigid focus on what processes are sub-sets of other process, then you are going to be wasting a whole lot of time.

This book's examples and sample questions are by far the closest of the several texts I used, in both content and spirit, to what I found on the PGMP exam. The rest of the book is not particularly tied to the exam content; it tries to thread the needle between exam-focused material and useful operational material. Its bias in that effort is toward practical material, which makes it quite useful for a practicing PGMO, particularly where there isn't much institutional experience, and I would recommend it for that purpose much more than simply as an exam crammer (which I would argue was the authors' intent in any case).

So, if you're going to invest in a pre-exam reader, you might as well get this one so you can get an idea of what the questions might look like. Content-wise, it won't increase your fact-knowledge much, but going into such a horrifically expensive exam completely cold seems foolhardy. But the exam is not about the PMI standard - it is a whole lot of mini-scenarios, some of which are somewhat realistic and some are very contrived. If you are even thinking about spending this kind of time and money to take this exam, you can probably pick out enough of the obvious school-solution answers to get to 50% and your experience will take you the rest of the way. If you don't have that experience, or even if you do then if you aren't a good test-taker, you're not going to enjoy this exam no matter what books you read.

I bought several PgMP exam and program management books and this is the only one that I keep on my desk and consistently refer back to. It's a great reference book.

Well written, well organized, great content, focused on the PgMP and practical program management. It's a bit pricey but well worth it.