There are quite lot of assumptions and mistakes in the content of the book and these can be pointed out by experts of the specific nine knowlege areas.

Not considering the exam point of view, this book rather dilutes the intent of the PMBOK. PMBOK is a wonderfully compiled material that binds project management into a more exact science.


Hard to get passed the arrogance   December 1, 2003
 8 out of 11 found this review helpful

I bought this book because it looked like the most read and used book for PMP Certification. To be sure, the book covers plenty of topics and did get me ready for the exam. But, it was harder to get the content out of the book than was necessary. Rita is clearly an expert PMP - and she never let's you forget it. She "teaches" by constantly making you feel stupid, and saying things like "... and you should have no problem with this because I told you to memorize xxx back in chapter yyy". It would have been nice if she had backed off of the sarcasm a bit and realized that her audience IS stupid as far as PM goes - that's why we bought the book! If I were to do it again, I would have purchased a different book.


overhyped   May 21, 2004
 8 out of 15 found this review helpful

This is a good list but far overpriced considering the alternatives. Try Phillips!


Good, but lacking detail and overhyped...   November 24, 2004
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Disclaimer: Before buying the mulcahy book, I also enrolled in and completed a PMP Prep course offered by a University. My rationale for purchasing the Mulcahy book was (a) to get a different prespective on the exam, (b) to gain a bit more confidence prior to taking the exam (personal test anxieties, and (c) to make sure that I'd gotten the major material and brush up on anything else I might have missed. I have since passed the exam decently, but having said all of that, I felt that the Mulcahy book fell rather short in some key areas.

Mulcahy tends to use a "preachy" style of teaching in the book, such that when you reach an answer and have incorrectly responded to a question posed, you often see responses written like "You MUST KNOW THESE CONCEPTS". If you enjoy being preached at, definitely get this book. Otherwise, compared to the full instructional course (and perhaps this isn't a completely fair comparison, thus the disclaimer), the book tends to lack much of the detail you would find in other sources.

Also, after reading it and going through the review questions, I actually found that my confidence level decreased. If I missed one of the concepts, and I didn't find too many of them that were terribly well-explained, I was greeted by those preachy answers again, but more often than not I would see little or no explanation or background that would have been helpful to the student.

So on the points above -- (a) I got a different persepctive. Sort of. I did not get the detail I sought. (b) I lost confidence, and ended up going back to the othher material prior to the exam and quickly regained a lot of what I felt I'd lost by the mulcahy book. (c) I honestly didn't find much new ground that the book covered that wasn't in other, better written texts. Mulcahy's book is, at best, an average study guide, but doesn't draw on much new material or lend any great insight into the exam experience. Mulcahy's CD Courseware (PM FastTrack) is a better investment if you're seeking a good simulator that will provide an accurate barometer of your real-world test experience.