PMP® Project Management Professional (PMP)®

Introduction to PMP® Certification

• Offered by Project Management Institute (PMI) for project managers.
• PMI’s examination development aligns with industry best practices (e.g., Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing).
• PMP® certification is accredited against ISO 9001 and ISO/ANSI 17024 standards.
• Based on a global practice analysis (GPA) and Job Task Analysis (JTA) to ensure validity and relevance.
• Exam questions are written and reviewed by PMP-certified subject matter experts.
• The PMP Examination Content Outline is distinct from the PMBOK® Guide, focusing on critical job tasks from real-world experience.

PMP Exam Content Outline

Proportion of questions from each domain:

Domains, Tasks, and Enablers

Updated structure for easier understanding:

• Domain: High-level knowledge area essential to project management practice.
• Tasks: Underlying responsibilities of the project manager within each domain.
• Enablers: Illustrative examples of the work associated with the task (not an exhaustive list).

Example Structure:

Domain I: People – Task 1

Manage conflict

• Interpret the source and stage of the conflict
• Analyze the context for the conflict
• Evaluate/recommend/reconcile the appropriate conflict resolution solution

Domain I: People – Task 2

Lead a team

• Set a clear vision and mission
• Support the team’s varied experiences and perceptions
• Value servant leadership (e.g., relate the tenets of servant leadership to the team)
• Determine an appropriate leadership style (e.g., directive, collaborative)
• Inspire, motivate, and influence team members/stakeholders (e.g., team contract, social contract, reward system)
• Analyze team members and stakeholders’ influence
• Distinguish various options to lead various team members and stakeholders

Domain I: People – Task 3

Support team performance

• Appraise team member performance against key performance indicators
• Support and recognize team member growth and development
• Determine appropriate feedback approach
• Verify performance improvements

Domain I: People – Task 4

Empower team members and stakeholders

• Organize around team strengths
• Support team task accountability
• Evaluate demonstration of task accountability
• Determine and bestow level(s) of decision-making authority

Domain I: People – Task 5

Ensure team members/stakeholders are adequately trained

• Determine required competencies and elements of training
• Determine training options based on training needs
• Allocate resources for training
• Measure training outcomes

Domain I: People – Task 6

Build a team

• Appraise stakeholder skills
• Deduce project resource requirements
• Continuously assess and refresh team skills to meet project needs
• Maintain team and knowledge transfer

Domain I: People – Task 7

Address and remove impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team

• Determine critical impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
• Prioritize critical impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
• Use network to implement solutions to remove impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
• Re-assess continually to ensure impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team are being addressed

Domain I: People – Task 8

Negotiate project agreements

• Analyze the bounds of the negotiations for agreement
• Assess priorities and determine ultimate objective(s)
• Verify objective(s) of the project agreement is met
• Participate in agreement negotiations
• Determine a negotiation strategy

Domain I: People – Task 9

Collaborate with stakeholders

• Evaluate engagement needs for stakeholders
• Optimize alignment between stakeholder needs, expectations, and project objectives
• Build trust and influence stakeholders to accomplish project objectives

Domain I: People – Task 10

Build shared understanding

• Break down situation to identify the root cause of a misunderstanding
• Survey all necessary parties to reach consensus
• Support outcome of parties’ agreement
• Investigate potential misunderstandings

Domain I: People – Task 11

Engage and support virtual teams

• Examine virtual team member needs (e.g., environment, geography, culture, global, etc.)
• Investigate alternatives (e.g., communication tools, colocation) for virtual team member engagement
• Implement options for virtual team member engagement
• Continually evaluate effectiveness of virtual team member engagement

Domain I: People – Task 12

Define team ground rules

• Communicate organizational principles with team and external stakeholders
• Establish an environment that fosters adherence to the ground rules
• Manage and rectify ground rule violations

Domain I: People – Task 13

Mentor relevant stakeholders

• Allocate the time to mentoring
• Recognize and act on mentoring opportunities

Domain I: People – Task 14

Promote team performance through the application of emotional intelligence

• Assess behavior through the use of personality indicators
• Analyze personality indicators and adjust to the emotional needs of key project stakeholders

Domain II: Process – Task 1

Execute project with the urgency required to deliver business value

• Assess opportunities to deliver value incrementally
• Examine the business value throughout the project
• Support the team to subdivide project tasks as necessary to find the minimum viable product

Domain II: Process – Task 2

Manage communications

• Analyze communication needs of all stakeholders
• Determine communication methods, channels, frequency, and level of detail for all stakeholders
• Communicate project information and updates effectively
• Confirm communication is understood and feedback is received

Domain II: Process – Task 3

Assess and manage risks

• Determine risk management options
• Iteratively assess and prioritize risks

Domain II: Process – Task 4

Engage stakeholders

• Analyze stakeholders (e.g., power interest grid, influence, impact)
• Categorize stakeholders
• Engage stakeholders by category
• Develop, execute, and validate a strategy for stakeholder engagement

Domain II: Process – Task 5

Plan and manage budget and resources

• Estimate budgetary needs based on the scope of the project and lessons learned from past projects
• Anticipate future budget challenges
• Monitor budget variations and work with governance process to adjust as necessary
• Plan and manage resources

Domain II: Process – Task 6

Plan and manage schedule

• Estimate project tasks (milestones, dependencies, story points)
• Utilize benchmarks and historical data
• Prepare schedule based on methodology
• Measure ongoing progress based on methodology
• Modify schedule, as needed, based on methodology
• Coordinate with other projects and other operations

Domain II: Process – Task 7

Plan and manage quality of products/deliverables

• Determine quality standard required for project deliverables
• Recommend options for improvement based on quality gaps
• Continually survey project deliverable quality

Domain II: Process – Task 8

Plan and manage scope

• Determine and prioritize requirements
• Break down scope (e.g., WBS, backlog)
• Monitor and validate scope

Domain II: Process – Task 9

Integrate project planning activities

• Consolidate the project/phase plans
• Assess consolidated project plans for dependencies, gaps, and continued business value
• Analyze the data collected
• Collect and analyze data to make informed project decisions
• Determine critical information requirements

Domain II: Process – Task 10

Manage project changes

• Anticipate and embrace the need for change (e.g., follow change management practices)
• Determine strategy to handle change
• Execute change management strategy according to the methodology
• Determine a change response to move the project forward

Domain II: Process – Task 11

Plan and manage procurement

• Define resource requirements and needs
• Communicate resource requirements
• Manage suppliers/contracts
• Plan and manage procurement strategy
• Develop a delivery solution

Domain II: Process – Task 12

Manage project artifacts

• Determine the requirements (what, when, where, who, etc.) for managing the project artifacts
• Validate that the project information is kept up to date (i.e., version control) and accessible to all stakeholders
• Continually assess the effectiveness of the management of the project artifacts

Domain II: Process – Task 13

Determine appropriate project methodology/methods and practices

• Assess project needs, complexity, and magnitude
• Recommend project execution strategy (e.g., contracting, finance)
• Recommend a project methodology/approach (i.e., predictive, agile, hybrid)
• Use iterative, incremental practices throughout the project life cycle (e.g., lessons learned, stakeholder engagement, risk)

Domain II: Process – Task 14

Establish project governance structure

• Determine appropriate governance for a project (e.g., replicate organizational governance)
• Define escalation paths and thresholds

Domain II: Process – Task 15

Manage project issues

• Recognize when a risk becomes an issue
• Attack the issue with the optimal action to achieve project success
• Collaborate with relevant stakeholders on the approach to resolve the issues

Domain II: Process – Task 16

Ensure knowledge transfer for project continuity

• Discuss project responsibilities within team
• Outline expectations for working environment
• Confirm approach for knowledge transfers

Domain II: Process – Task 17

Plan and manage project/phase closure or transitions

• Determine criteria to successfully close the project or phase
• Validate readiness for transition (e.g., to operations team or next phase)
• Conclude activities to close out project or phase (e.g., final lessons learned, retrospective, procurement, financials, resources)

Domain III: Business Environment – Task 1

Plan and manage project compliance

• Confirm project compliance requirements (e.g., security, health and safety, regulatory compliance)
• Classify compliance categories
• Determine potential threats to compliance
• Use methods to support compliance
• Analyze the consequences of noncompliance
• Determine necessary approach and action to address compliance needs (e.g., risk, legal)
• Measure the extent to which the project is in compliance

Domain III: Business Environment – Task 2

Evaluate and deliver project benefits and value

• Investigate that benefits are identified
• Document agreement on ownership for ongoing benefit realization
• Verify measurement system is in place to track benefits
• Evaluate delivery options to demonstrate value
• Appraise stakeholders of value gain progress

Domain III: Business Environment – Task 3

Evaluate and address external business environment changes for impact on scope

• Survey changes to external business environment (e.g., regulations, technology, geopolitical, market)
• Assess and prioritize impact on project scope/backlog based on changes in external business environment
• Recommend options for scope/backlog changes (e.g., schedule, cost changes)
• Continually review external business environment for impacts on project scope/backlog

Domain III: Business Environment – Task 4

Support organizational change

• Assess organizational culture
• Evaluate impact of organizational change to project and determine required actions
• Evaluate impact of the project to the organization and determine required actions

PMP Eligibility Requirements

Project management experience must be accrued within the last eight consecutive years.

Experience must include leading and directing projects.

How to Record Your Experience & Education

Number of Months of Project Management Experience:

• Record experience in months, not number of projects.
• Experience must be in a professional setting; school projects or personal events do not qualify.
• Non-overlapping experience counts (e.g., if you worked on Project A Jan-Apr and Project B May-Jun, it’s 6 months, not 4+2).

Contact Hours of Project Management Education:

• Verify at least 35 contact hours of specific instruction.
• One hour of classroom instruction equals one contact hour.
• Only hours directly spent on project management content count.
• Coursework must be completed by the time of application submission.
• Content may include project quality, scope, schedule, budget, communications, risk, procurement, cost, resources, stakeholder, and integration management.

Approved Education Providers & Exclusions

Education Requirements can be satisfied by:

• PMI Authorized Training Partners (ATPs)
• PMI chapters (if learning activity is conducted)
• Employer/company-sponsored programs
• Training companies or consultants
• Distance-learning companies (with end-of-course assessment)
• University/college academic and continuing education programs

The following do NOT satisfy requirements:

• PMI chapter meetings (unless learning activity is conducted for at least one hour)
• Self-directed learning (e.g., reading books, watching instructional videos without end-of-course assessment)

PMP Certification Fees

• Fees are subject to regional and membership pricing rules.
• Membership is NOT required to obtain the PMP.
• Initial examination fees are paid after application approval.
• Retake exam: Substantial discount if eligibility period is current.
• Cancellation/No-show fees may apply if exam date is confirmed and scheduled.
• Manual hand score fee: $45 USD (for paper-based administration).
• Renewing PMP Certification requires a payment based on regional and membership pricing rules.
• Supported currencies: USD, Euros, BRL, INR.
• Accepted payment methods: Credit card and wire transfer.
• Reexamination fees are waived for candidates whose scores were invalidated due to data forensics evidence.

PMP Examination Information

Retaking the Exam

• Encouraged to continue study and retake if first attempt fails.
• May take the examination up to three times within your one-year eligibility period.
• After three attempts, you must wait one year from the date of the last examination before reapplying.
• This policy upholds exam security and reduces overexposure of questions.
• During the one-year waiting period, you can apply for any other PMI certification.
• If your one-year eligibility period expires without passing, you must reapply for the certification.