Rating: 
Summary: I passed with an 89% thanks to this book!
Review: PMP Certification For Dummies provided me a much more logical view of project management flow then PMI process view. It made the relationship of process I-Tools-O much more understandable and easy to memorize.I must say that the PMP Cert For Dummies pattern recognition technique is very helpful. And you can master it simply. With regards to other titles, all of them provide a different perspective and the holistic view can be obtained only by reading more than one title. You cannot pass by reading any one book alone.
Rating:
Summary: Bottom Line: only PMP book I bought and PASSED PMP EXAM
Review: Read all the Customer Reviews when you look at PMP Prep Books and if the strengths and weaknesses sound like you then its the right book. Me? I had $50 bucks or less after the exam fee so I bought this book because I like the Dummies books for hints, insights, organization and I hit the jackpot. I used this book and a printout of the PMBOK Guide to memorize the core processes, learn question strategies and hit my weak areas. I got about half way through this book and about the same way into the PMBOK Guide then took the PMP Exam and Passed JUNE 2004. Save yourself a bundle and do the same thing.
Rating: 
Summary: Most suitable of all PMP Prep books for self-study
Review: Studying PMP Cert For Dummies will help you pass the exam. My study group purchased all the books in the category that we can find. None of the books alone will guarantee that you pass the PMP exam. You need to purchase several books. All have gaps and omissions - especially Rita's. All have errors, both in grammar, spelling, and in the technical subject matter. Our ranking from worse to best: ESI's has the most amount of errors (worst), Newell's has next to worst, Kim's is next (her errata list is very long), For Dummies comes in the middle, Rita is better, and Crowe's has the least errors (best, but there are plenty of errors & omissions). Get over the errors and omissions; all have them. In all books, you should easily spot an error. If you cannot spot an error, or are bothered about them, you are not ready to take the exam. Remember these books are review guides, not intro books! You should already know project management. PM is a young discipline and even the best authorities have conflicting notions about some definitions. Last fall in the official PMI magazine, the cover article was on a billion dollar construction project where the PM flubbed the formulas for EV. He switched numerator and denominator and got all the EV formulas wrong. He would have missed all test questions on EV. No one at PMI Publications caught the error either! Get over error issues. Be able to spot them without being an indignant whiner or you are not ready to take the exam. Enough said here. None of my study group felt that Rita's book was suitable to self-study. Rita's is a re-cycled workbook taken from her $1,100 training class. If you want to use her book, take her class instead and you get her $ 90 workbook and the $300 Question CD included. Most of the reviews comments are from people who have taken her course, where the omissions can be corrected. Rita's quality section is pretty skimpy and doesn't use charts well. She omits time value of money (PV, IRR) which are still on the exam (I check with PMI). (Kim includes these too; but Dummies explains it better.) For example, Rita and Kim mistakenly refer to process groups as phases of a project. Controlling is a phase? Nope, as Dummies points out, it's a 'process'. That why PMBOK Guide calls them "Process Groups". Kim's CD has 200 questions; For Dummies CD has 300 questions. Rita has no CD in her book, her question CD is $300 extra. Newell and Crowe don't even include a CD. For Dummies is the best value just for the questions alone! All other PM books are very dry and hard to read. For Dummies is the friendliest and the easiest to spot what is important and where you need to pay attention. They spoon feed you the formulas - ones other books omit. I have several other Dummies Cert books and they are different from the general interest Dummies books. They are only interested in how to pass the exam.
Rating: 
Summary: Review
Review: The 'wallchart' is extremely helpful. It list all the inputs/tools and techniques/outputs for each of the component processes. Great study tool. However, have found omissions and incorrect data in the book. I haven't taken the exam yet, but comparing the questions in this book to the PMP Study Guide by Kim Heldman, these questions seem extremely tricky. I hope the PMP test questions are a little more straight forward. Besides the 'wallchart', I prefer the book by Kim Heldman.
Rating:
Summary: There are better books available for your time and money
Review: The author tried to write this book with a "lighter side" style and with more "test taking" strategies than some of the more well established study guides. A good attempt, especially concidering how dry the material can be. But if you are stuggling with how to spend your time and money preparing, I suggest strongly the following: 1) PMP: Project Management Professional Study Guide
by Kim Heldman 2) PMP Exam Prep (4th Edition)
by Rita Mulcahy After you've completed these two "must reads", you may want to add PMP Certificatoin for Dummies by Gerald Everett Jones as a third pass at the information. But I'm afraid that this publicaiton only fills that limited role. Get to work on the "must reads" and good luck with the exam. R.T.
Rating:
Summary: There are better books available for your time and money
Review: The author tried to write this book with a "lighter side" style and with more "test taking" strategies than some of the more well established study guides. A good attempt, especially concidering how dry the material can be. But if you are stuggling with how to spend your time and money preparing, I suggest strongly the following: 1) PMP: Project Management Professional Study Guide
by Kim Heldman 2) PMP Exam Prep (4th Edition)
by Rita Mulcahy After you've completed these two "must reads", you may want to add PMP Certificatoin for Dummies by Gerald Everett Jones as a third pass at the information. But I'm afraid that this publicaiton only fills that limited role. Get to work on the "must reads" and good luck with the exam. R.T.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many mistakes makes this book worthless
Review: The book, and accompanying CD, is riddled with mistakes and typos to numerous to mention in detail. The quick assessments, prep test, and CD tests were particular atrocious. Some examples: decimal used were a comma should be placed, incorrect percentage calculations, images not matching to questions on CD (even after installing a patch), misspellings, words running together, words truncated on CD test. I wish I had read Amazon reviews prior to purchasing. I literally threw the book and CD in the garbage.
Rating:
Summary: Nightmare!!
Review: This book has been put together in a BIG hurry. It is full of misspellings, charts that are wrong (e.g. Fig 3-6 shows "Contract Administration" twice, once in the wrong box), and worst of all: Questions that have wrong answers (p.100, Q7. "Events that must NOT occur for project to be successful are _____" Anyone who has remotely done PM would know it is _RISKS_!! The answer in the book shows it as "Constraints"!) Following up on another reviewer's comment, the authors have figured out a weird way of sequencing the topics. They might have their reasons for following such sequence, but they do not share with the reader. You are left scratching your head and the frustration just keep growing!! Stay away from this book and save your sanity. I will be returning it and demanding my money back!!
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best. . .
Review: This book helped some, however, no one should rely totally on this. It is redundant in places, repeating the PMBOK w/o adding value except in a few areas. The practice test is rather OK, no doubt written by a professional "ProMetric" savy test writer. Other than marginal benefit from this Dummies book, I would recommend, even rely totally on the RMC series, "Rita's" book and "PM FastTrack" practice test along with thoroughly reading/understanding the PMBOK.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest time saver. Easy to spot what¿s important
Review: This is the easiest of all the cert books to read. Although the PMBOK Guide is organized along the lines of skills sets called the nine Knowledge Areas, the exam is organized along the lines of the five Process Groups. That provides a linear flow through the project lifecycle, which is how I work. This book (and the less complete ISBN 0782141064) are both based on how the exam is structured, rather than on the PMBOK Guide's structure. While this organization can be confusing to beginning project managers, PMI repeats over and over that these processes all connect, overlap and interact with each other. The PMBOK Guide was originally written by a bunch of engineers who really liked the idea of feedback loops and they understood that these processes happen simultaneously. So, in order to pass the exam, you have to think along the timeline of the project lifecycle as well as the Knowledge Areas. Otherwise, you'd miss every question "what do you do first?" 1. The familiar For Dummies icons make it easy to spot important information.
2. The answers are the most complete of any of the cert books. The questions are well thought out and representative of what is on the exam.
3. The CD has a study schedule (Microsoft Project template file) that provides a detailed roadmap to keep you on track. They suggest that you use this schedule and monitor your progress using Earned Value Analysis. That way you can practice the EV metrics that are on the exam. Thanks, it's a great help! And it's the best value of any of the books in the category.
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