“I love lamp.  I love lamp.” Brick Tamland voices his deep affection for an office lamp.  In this scene from the movie Anchorman, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is lost in romantic thought, waxing-poetic about his newfound love. In an attempt to enter into the conversation, Brick (Steve Carell) makes this bizarre statement.  Brick wants to demonstrate to his buddies that he knows what love means, too.

We can learn a valuable lesson from the sage words of Brick.  Do not pretend to understand Earned Value Management on the PMP Exam.  If you fake it, you may fail the exam.  You’ve got to know EVM.  Lock it down before test day.

The PMP Exam will cover Earned Value Management with a variety of questions, testing your knowledge of the formulas and your comprehension of the concepts.  You need to have a full understanding of earned value – beyond just plugging numbers into a formula.  You’ve got to know what those values represent, and what they indicate.  You may be asked to interpret earned value data to understand how a project is performing.  So, be ready.   

In your preparation for the PMI PMP Exam, you are not required to view the movie Anchorman.  But, learn from Brick’s mistake.  (He doesn’t really love lamp.)  Learn EVM before the exam.  Don’t fake it!