1. First Principles of Project Management
Before any domain-specific content, you need a stable mental model of three things: what makes a project a project (and not something else), how work gets organized above the project level, and why an organization would ever choose one delivery approach over another. Without this foundation, every later domain's vocabulary has nowhere to attach — you'll memorize terms without a framework for when each one applies, and the exam tests application, not recitation. Think of this phase like learning the rules of a sport before learning any team's specific playbook: Domains 1 through 4 are all variations on these three ideas, so getting them solid now pays off in every later phase, and it's exactly the kind of foundational confusion the ⚠️ Exam Traps below are designed to catch early.
