skycfa

If you are taking the 1st level of the CIPM right after L3, I would say you need 0 hrs of study time. Back when I took L3 in 2009, someone I work with was taking the 1st CIPM exam.

We spoke about the curriculum quite a bit and it was very clear that I knew the material much better than they did and the entire L1 CIPM was covered in the 2 SS presented in L3.

What is the incentive to take the CIPM??

I think it would be useful if you plan to spend a significant portion of your career in performance measurement (i.e. more than 5 years), but I don't really see any other application.

I am currently a Performance Analyst (taking new job in 1 month), but I decided not to take the CIPM because I didn't what to risk getting labeled as "a performance guy". I certainly have the knowledge about performance that the CIPM would have given me (w/o the letters) but feel like the CIPM might have actually cheapened the value of the CFA after my name.

Iginla2011

CIPM can be of a great value if your firm is in the business of placing clients' money to outside money managers as opposed to having a research team of their own. It can also be differentiating selling tool if you ever want to open up a small investment advisory firm of your own. Other than that, don't bother pursuing it. You can use the same time doing something more productive like drinking, watching TV etc.

zwjy

I passed the principals exam in October 2010. The principals exam is pretty basic, and is really just a subset of the CFA exams. I'd realistically say that you'd need ~50 hrs to pass it if you're familiar with the L3 curriculum (although I probably over-studied for it). The expert exam does look pretty hard, though...