There is a lot of emphasis on prepping for your certification or credential exam, however, another important component of the process is the actual testing experience. Test anxiety is the number one cause of failure on these exams. By knowing what to expect on test day, you will hopefully greatly reduce your anxiety!

You will schedule your exam for a date and time convenient for you through the Prometric.com website. After entering your information, you will be able to search for local Prometric testing centers.

Before signing up for a PMP or other certification exam prep course, we have provided you with a list of questions to ask them.

Here's the thing - exam prep courses cost a lot of money and trust me, this is one investment you only want to make once. If you are going to be spending 4 days in a classroom listening to a not-always entertaining topic, choose wisely!

PMI estimates that communication is 90% of a project manager's job. Perhaps that's why you can count on a large number of questions from the Project Communications Management knowledge area on the PMP and CAPM exams. Including a formula. (Woohoo - we at PPM like formulas on the exams - we like to think of them as "easy rights" because if you know the formula you will hopefully get the question right!).

The PMBOK Guide discusses the "communication channels" formula and based on feedback, there's a pretty good chance it may show up on your exam. So learn it, know it, love it:

n(n-1)/2
where n represents the number of stakeholders on your project (including you)

When people consider project management certifications, they generally think of the PMP. This is easy to understand, given that it is, by far, the most popular (and oldest) PMI credential, with over 380,000 active PMPs as of May 2010.

However, the PMP isn't necessarily the only option and sometimes may not be the best option. The CAPM (Certified Associate of Project Management), introduced in 2003, may be more appropriate for some candidates.

The CAPM has been slowly gaining recognition over the past seven years and can now be seen referenced in many job postings, etc, and there are now over 11,000 CAPMs worldwide.

Here is a comparison of the two credentials: