CMPP common mistakes
CMPP · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating a publication plan as a list of target journals and deadlines, and answering planning questions by naming journals rather than describing the strategic logic (gap analysis, audience segmentation, evidence readiness, message testing, decision points).
Candidates often come from a medical writing or agency delivery background where the plan is experienced as a schedule, so they conflate the operational timeline with the strategic plan that justifies it. Exam items probe the reasoning layer, not the calendar.
What to do instead
Before answering any planning item, restate the plan as a chain: evidence gap → audience and channel → message platform → format and journal tier → resourcing and risk. Practise writing one-paragraph plan rationales that never mention a specific journal name until the final sentence.
Confusing a publication plan with an individual publication's development timeline, so the candidate assigns plan-level activities (gap analysis, landscape review, congress/journal mapping) to the wrong phase or to a single manuscript's milestones.
The two artefacts share vocabulary (milestones, drafts, reviews, submission), and candidates who have only built manuscript timelines lack practice in phasing a multi-asset, multi-year plan.
What to do instead
Draw a two-row Gantt by hand: one row for the plan, one for a single manuscript, and label which activities belong to each. Repeat for a second therapeutic area until the phase boundaries (pre-launch evidence shaping, launch data dissemination, lifecycle consolidation) are automatic.
Ignoring the difference between a congress abstract/poster and a full manuscript when describing disclosure sequencing, so the candidate treats posting an abstract as satisfying the obligation to publish the full results.
Abstracts are the most visible output and the easiest to produce, so they dominate candidates' mental model of 'getting the data out'. Prior abstract presentation is also a common but incomplete prior-disclosure scenario in items.
What to do instead
For each data set, write the disclosure ladder explicitly: registry results posting, congress abstract, full manuscript, plain-language summary. Then state which rung carries the primary obligation and which are optional amplifiers, and check that ordering against the applicable disclosure rules.
Drafting a response to a journal or reviewer question without first checking the target journal's author instructions, article type limits, and prior-disclosure policy, and instead relying on generic good practice.
Candidates learn general publication ethics and assume it overrides journal-specific mechanics. Items that hinge on a specific journal requirement then get answered with the generic principle.
What to do instead
Build a one-page checklist per article type (word count, abstract structure, reference style, data-sharing statement, prior presentation rules) and run it against every practice scenario. Treat journal instructions as a hard constraint layered on top of ethical standards, not a substitute for them.
Describing authorship criteria from memory as 'significant contribution' without applying the specific four-criterion framework and without testing each listed author against all criteria, including accountability for the whole work.
The criteria look simple and candidates skim them, dropping the final accountability clause and the requirement that all four be met, not just some. Ghost and gift authorship items then get answered on intuition.
What to do instead
Memorise the criteria as a four-item test and apply it mechanically to every named person in a scenario, writing 'meets/does not meet' for each criterion. Include the accountability criterion explicitly in every answer, and practise distinguishing contributorship (acknowledged) from authorship.
Treating GPP2022-style good publication practice as a set of prohibitions only, so the candidate cannot describe the positive obligations (written publication agreement, documented roles, transparency of professional medical writing support, sponsor-author accountability, data integrity review).
Candidates revise ethics by memorising 'do nots' (no ghostwriting, no undisclosed payments) and never build the affirmative checklist, so obligation-type items expose gaps.
What to do instead
Rewrite the guidance as an affirmative checklist: what must exist in writing, who must approve, what must be disclosed, and where it must appear. For each scenario, ask 'what document or disclosure is required here?' rather than only 'what is forbidden?'.
Answering transparency items by naming the disclosure location generically ('in the manuscript') without specifying the required elements, such as acknowledgement of professional writing support, funding source, role of the sponsor, and data-sharing statement.
Candidates know disclosure matters but not the granular content, and exam items often hinge on whether a specific element is present and correctly placed.
What to do instead
Create a disclosure template with fixed slots (funding, sponsor role, writing support with named company and funding, author contributions, conflicts, data availability) and fill it for three different study types. Check placement rules per journal and per congress separately.
Confusing the roles of the sponsor, the publication steering committee, the medical writing agency, and the authors when answering governance items, and assigning decision rights (final approval, submission sign-off, escalation) to the wrong party.
In practice these roles blur, and candidates who have worked inside one organisation absorb its informal habits rather than the formal accountability model the exam tests.
What to do instead
Build a responsibility matrix with columns for decision, recommendation, execution, and escalation, and map each party to it. Then test yourself with 'who signs off if the author and sponsor disagree?' style questions until the accountability chain is unambiguous.
Handling a scenario involving an inconvenient or null result by proposing to delay, reframe, or selectively report it, rather than recognising the obligation to report results completely and on time regardless of outcome direction.
Commercial pressure and the desire to protect a publication narrative make selective reporting feel pragmatic, and candidates underestimate how firmly exam items penalise it.
What to do instead
Adopt a rule: outcome direction never changes the reporting obligation. For every scenario, state the obligation first, then the acceptable options for framing (e.g., neutral title, balanced discussion), and explicitly reject delay or suppression as a strategy.
Answering collaboration items by describing communication in general terms ('keep stakeholders informed', 'hold regular meetings') instead of naming the concrete governance mechanisms: publication agreement before work starts, documented comment resolution, audit trail of approvals, version control, and escalation pathways.
Candidates default to soft skills language because collaboration feels interpersonal, while the exam rewards describable, auditable processes.
What to do instead
Convert every collaboration answer into named artefacts and events: agreement signed at what point, who reviews which draft, how comments are logged and adjudicated, what constitutes final approval, and how disagreements are escalated. Practise replacing each vague phrase with a specific document or step.