Is book geared towards seasoned pm's?

[George Rosati]

Hi. I'm a developer who is interested in getting my PMP certification. I have had some project management experience, but I don't know anything about "PMP" or what it takes to become one. Is the book for current project managers to help with the exam, or would it be something I could use to get into and understand what it means to be a PMP? I love the Head First structure so hopefully this book would be good for me.

[Paul Michael]

If you checked out the sample chapter here, you'll be surprised how they were able to make a "somewhat boring" subject (at least for us developers) fun and easy to read!

[Sal DiStefano]

Although I have been doing PM work for almost 6 years I am using the book. As you get into the materials for PMP you will find there are some areas that you do not have enough dept with from regular day to day experience.

I have had the book for months. I use it along with the PMBOK and The RM Study guide. It is a refreshing read compared to the PMBOK and RM study guide.

For me, it helped me see some of the relationships between processes more easily. It helped me with the inputs and outputs alot.

I have the entire collection of Head First books and think no matter what your level you can learn something from each of them.

Sal
[ December 04, 2007: Message edited by: Sal DiStefano ]

[Andrew Stellman]

We did our best to make the book as accessible and readable to people with a minimal project management background, and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from people who encountered many of these concepts for the first time in "Head First PMP".

That said, you do need 4,000 hours of project management experience before you can qualify to take the PMP exam. You don't necessarily need to have the words "Project Manager" in your title or on your business card. I've worked with many programmers who perform some amount of project management in their day-to-day jobs, and in many cases they have racked up sufficient time doing it to qualify to take the PMP exam.

Also, there are few project managers who have done every single thing that appears on the exam. Many people, for example, may have a lot of experience with scope management or cost management, but have never done procurement management. So we couldn't assume prior knowledge about any specific area of project management -- everything needed to make sense to someone who's never seen it before.