The Project Management Institute (PMI)

INTRODUCTION

The Project Management Institute (PMI) offers a professional certification for project managers, known as the Project Management Professional (PMP)®. PMI’s examination development processes stand apart from other certification programs. PMI aligns its process with certification industry best practices, such as those found in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. The PMP® certification is also accredited against the internationally recognized ISO 9001 and ISO/ANSI 17024 standards. 1 A key component of the ISO/ANSI 17024 standard is that organizations wishing to offer valid, reliable and fair credentialing examinations must use a criterion referenced approach as the basis for exam creation such as a role delineation study (RDS) or job task analysis (JTA). PMI conducted a global practice analysis (GPA), which included both extensive market research and a JTA. The GPA produced a number of trends in the profession previously unaddressed in the PMP exam. These trends were used as inputs into the JTA and ensure the validity and relevance of the PMP examination. Validation assures that each examination measures the most critical and frequently performed elements of the project management profession in terms of real settings. The PMP examination is a vital part of the earning this professional certification thus it is imperative that the exam accurately reflect the practices of project managers. All the questions on the examination have been written and extensively reviewed by subject matter experts who hold a valid PMP and tracked to at least two references. These questions are mapped to the PMP Examination Content Outline to ensure that an appropriate number of questions are in place for a valid examination. PMI retained Alpine Testing Solutions to develop the global PMP Examination Content Outline. Alpine Testing Solutions provides psychometric, test development, and credential management solutions to credentialing and educational programs. Finally, there are noticeable differences between this updated PMP Examination Content Outline and A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). While there are some commonalities, it is important to note that the volunteer taskforce involved in the GPA study described previously were not bound by the PMBOK® Guide. The taskforce members were charged with outlining critical job tasks of individuals who lead and direct projects based on their experience and pertinent resources

EXAM CONTENT OUTLINE

 The following table identifies the proportion of questions from each domain that will appear on the examination.

Important note: The research conducted through the JTA validated that today’s project management practitioners work in a variety of project environments and utilize different project approaches. Accordingly, the PMP certification will be reflective of this and will incorporate approaches across the value delivery spectrum. About half of the examination will represent predictive project management approaches and the other half willrepresent agile or hybrid approaches. Predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches will be found throughout the three domain areas listed above and are not isolated to any particular domain or task. The exact number of items for each question type and approach may vary by form. Our scoring model is periodically reviewed by scoring experts to ensure valid assessment of knowledge and skills.