Project Management Professional (PMP) is an internationally recognized professional designation offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). As of 31 July 2020, there are 1,036,367 active PMP certified individuals and 314 chartered chapters across 214 countries and territories worldwide. The exam is predicated on the PMI Project Management Body of information.
Exam syllabus
The PMP exam relies on the PMP Examination Specification, which describes tasks out of 5 performance domains:
Initiating the project (13%)
Planning the project (24%)
Executing the project (31%)
Monitoring and controlling the project (25%)
Closing the project (7%)
The exam consists of 200 multiple choice questions written against the PMBOK specification and the PMP Code of Ethics. The exam is closed book; no reference materials are allowed. Twenty-five of the 200 questions on the exam are “sample” questions want to fine-tune the degree of difficulty and precision of the exam and per se are not counted for or against a test taker. These questions are placed randomly throughout the exam. The test taker is barely graded on their proficiency on 175 questions. The numbers in parentheses describe the share of questions for every domain.
Announced in June 2019, the PMP Examination Content Outline will undergo significant re-categorization, effective January 2021, which prescribe 3 all new performance domains:
People (42%)
Process (50%)
Business Environment (8%)
Each exam item (a question with its possible answers) has a minimum of two references to plain books or other sources of project management. Most of the questions reference the PMI A Guide to the Project Management Body of data (aka the PMBOK Guide). The PMBOK Guide is currently (2018) in its sixth edition, and also the PMP exam changed in March 2018 to align with the updated guide.
The Project Management Framework embodies a project life cycle and five major project management Process Groups:
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling
Closing encompassing a complete of 49 processes.
Mapped to those five process groups are ten project management Knowledge Areas:
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Schedule Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Project Resource Management
Project Communications Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Project Stakeholder Management
The processes of those knowledge areas are described by their inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs. The PMBOK also emphasizes the interaction and interdependence between different process groups. as an example, the outputs from one process is also utilized by one or more other processes as inputs.