The Project Management Institute’s (PMI®) Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification is very popular (more than 360‘000 certified Project managers) and widely accepted. The number of Project Managers getting certified is growing fast every year, because more and more companies are requesting or requiring their Project Managers to become certified. Often certifications are directly linked to the different steps in career development.
Not only with the current economic environment, certification helps Project Managers differentiate themselves from their co-workers or other job applicants. Certification also helps to ensure the client that project managers are experienced and the fundamentals of successful project management are understood.

 

While the requirements necessary to be eligible to take the PMP exam are listed on PMI’s website, they are also covered here to provide all the pertinent information condensed and in one place. This site provides a PDF of the PMP® Handbook, which contains the requirements to qualify to take the PMP exam. The application has to be submitted online.

Applicants with a bachelor’s degree (or higher), or a global equivalent must meet the following requirements:

• Minimum 4,500 hours PM experience

• Minimum 36 months PM experience within the prior 96 months

• Minimum 35 contact hours of PM instruction

Applicants who do not have a bachelor’s degree, but instead have a high school diploma, associate’s degree, or global equivalent, must meet the following requirements:

• Minimum 7,500 hours PM experience

• Minimum 60 months PM experience within the prior 96 months

• Minimum 35 contact hours of PM instruction

Project management experience in that case means: Leading and directing project tasks (as identified in the Project Management Professional Examination Specification), in all five process groups (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, Closing). However, those can be spread over different projects (you do not need to have experience in all five process groups on a single project).

Contact hours can be obtained by a course offered by a PMI-recognized

Registered Education Provider (REP), through a university or college, in-house training, or any other training company or consultant.

Documenting your personal PM experience will be the most difficult part of the application process. PMI requires the following information for each project:

• Project name
• Date range
• Your role on the project
• Your job title
• Organization name and address
• Contact information of a reference who can verify work experience
• Total hours spent on the project

Hours Spent in the following:

• Initiating
  
  • Conduct project selection methods
  • Identify key stakeholders
  • Define scope
  • Develop, review, and approve project charter
  • Identify and document risks, assumptions, constraints
• Planning
  
  • Define roles and responsibilities
  • Create work breakdown structure
  • Define risk strategies
  • Obtain project plan approval
  • Define detailed project requirements
  • Develop change management plan
• Executing
  
  • Manage resource allocation
  • Execute tasks
  • Set expectations
  • Improve team performance
  • Implement quality management plan
  • Implement approved changes
  • Obtain project resources
  • Implement approved actions and workarounds
• Monitoring and Controlling
  
  • Measure project performance
  • Verify and manage changes
  • Monitor status of risks
  • Ensure deliverables conform to quality standards
• Closing
  
  • Obtain formal project acceptance
  • Perform lessons learned
  • Archive project records
  • Obtain project closure
  • Release resources and provide performance feedback
  • Distribute final project report
  • Measure customer satisfaction of the project

• Summarization of project tasks led and deliverables managed by process group

TIP: To develop the calculation of the detailed breakout of hours by process group, use an Excel spreadsheet. Best way is to start with a list of all projects you led with their date ranges (e.g. derived from your CV). Then recall the date ranges for the different process groups you led for each project. Estimate the number of hours per week you spent on each process group of each project to get your total hours. Let Excel then calculate the percentage per Process Group, ensuring that the total percent for each Process Group adds up to 100%.

Make sure the stated hours truly indicate the real number of hours spent on the project. It is not realistic to calculate with 100%, due to holidays, sickness, administrative tasks, other meetings, your ‘real job,’ personal issues, etc.

If you wish to do the exam in another language than English, you also have to state that within the application. Ten different languages are available.

Typically exams are computer based and held in so called “prometric test centers”. If you are living in area where the next test center is more than 300km away, contact your local PMI chapter. They might offer the opportunity to get the exam paper based. You have to decide which way to go before the application. Due to different prices you have to indicate your choice within the application.

Approximately 10% to 15% of applications are randomly selected for audit. You will have 60 days to provide PMI with evidences for what you have stated.

Once your application has been approved, PMI will send an authorization email, allowing you to schedule your exam. In case you have chosen to do the exam computer based, you have to schedule your exam online (http://www.prometric.com/PMI/default.htm). Otherwise you will find the necessary information on the website of your local PMI Chapter.

Your fee is dependent on the status at the time you begin the online application process. The fees are as follows:

 

Exam Administration Type	PMI Member Status	US Dollars	Euros
Computer-based testing (CBT)	member	$405	€ 340
Computer-based testing (CBT)	nonmember	$555	€ 465
Paper-based testing (PBT)	member	$250	€ 205
Paper-based testing (PBT)	nonmember	$400	€ 335

 

Therefore it might be a good idea to join PMI (USD 120 p.a.). Not only that you save money, but you also get the benefits that PMI membership provides for one year. And there’s a lot!

The format of the test is multiple-choice, with four (4) answer choices per question. You have to answer 200 questions in four hours. 25 of them are pretest (unscored) questions, but they are not marked as those.

The questions come from the following Process Groups plus Professional Responsibility (http://www.pmi.org/en/About-Us/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics.aspx):

 

Domain	Percentage of Questions
Initiation	13%
Planning	24%
Executing	30%
Monitoring and Controlling	25%
Closing	8%
Professional and Social Responsibility	tested in every domain

 

PMP examination questions:

• Are developed and independently validated by global work groups of PMPs
• Are monitored through psychometric analysis, what means that you do not know how many questions you have to answer right to pass, prior to the exam.

PMI uses subject matter experts from all over the world to help establish standards related to fairness in testing, including fairness in testing and test use, to ensure that the point of difficulty on each examination is healthy.

Before PMI switched to this method, a score of 61% was needed to pass and about 75% of the participants passed.

One of the more often-cited reasons for candidates not to pass the exam on the first try is due to their reliance on experience alone. Often, experience is not enough to get you through the exam unless you also understand PMI’s terminology, processes, and way of thinking. This is where formal education or study guides might be helpful.

You have to face different types of questions and the best way to be prepared is to practice them as much as possible.

Wordy Questions – Most questions will take some test time to read and interpret, or may include extraneous information to take up time and throw you off track. It is helpful to read the question first to know exactly what is being asked.

Those questions often are situational, which means that you have to analyze the situation described in the question and choose the most correct answer.

Half-truth / incomplete answers – Let’s assume the correct answer consists out of four terms (e.g. process inputs). Often one of the provided answers only reflects a part of the correct answer (e.g. three terms instead of four). One of the others might show four terms, but not all are correct.

Mathematical – A couple of formula-related questions will be on the exam.

Recall – Fairly short questions that test memory or knowledge. Often about, inputs, outputs, tools & techniques of processes.

Diagram – Either draw or interpret drawn-out graphs or diagrams to determine the correct answer. Questions on decision trees and network diagram may also fall into this category.

More Than One Correct Answer – In cases where multiple answers could be correct, choose the most correct or most appropriate one according to PMI. There always is a BEST answer.

More Than One Correct Answer, but for another question – More than one answer is provided that seems to be a correct statement, but is not in the context of the question asked. There always is a BEST answer.

Double Negatives – Mostly it is easier to read the question by turning it into a positive. For example, if the question states, “All of the following answers are false except…” look for the one and only true statement.

Formulas – You have to know the important formula. Immediately after starting the exam, write down all the formulas you have memorized. It eases your mind, allowing you to fully concentrate on the test question at hand rather than worry about remembering formulas or getting confused later.

Time pressure – Don’t panic if after one hour you don’t have finished 25% of the questions. Not every question takes the same time to answer. On the other hand, don’t feel save if you have finished already 30%. Typically you should have approx. 50% of the questions after 2 hours.

Since a while, questions are getting longer and longer. If you are not a native speaker English it might be helpful to focus on the translated questions in case of trouble.

Arrive Early – Avoid additional stress by arriving early.

Formulate a Strategy – The exam is very exhausting. Do not underestimate the physical, mental, and emotional exertion. Be prepared by having a strategy for short breaks for relaxation or leaving the testing room to eat or to drink something.

Flash Cards – Adults learn once they see or hear information on average three times. To get this repetition, create a flash card for each item, putting the question on the front and answer on the back. Flash cards can be useful because they can be shuffled to avoid memorizing items in a certain order and also because once an item is learned. Flash cards already prepared with related topics can be bought (e.g. over the internet) or created by your own.

Read every question carefully – Often a single word is the key to the right answer.

Don’t interpret too much – Only think about the right answer in the context of the other answers provided for that question. The right answer is the fewest stupid one.

Answer All Questions – You always have at least a 25% chance.

Read All Answer Choices – Don’t select an answer before you have read all other answers, without looking at the other answers. Sometimes there will be more than one correct answer, or sometimes the answer is correct but does not answer the question that was asked.

Risk indicators – Terms like “…never done before…”, “new generation product” and/or very high project volumes often are indicators for risk in the exam questions

There are some central themes in the PMBOK. Knowing them might help you in case of not knowing the right answer.

• The PM always is proactive
• The team has to be involved at first
• Historical data / lessons learned have to be considered first
• The PM has the responsibility for the project
• The PM has to show impact of …
• Involvement of stakeholders is paramount
• A project manager has to work within the existing systems and culture of a company. This is called Enterprise environmental factors and Organizational process assets (often input and output)
• Project team knowledge (based on individual memories) is less reliable than other sources of information
• The use of checklists is helpful
• Project cost and schedule cannot be finalized without completing risk management
• Prevent problems instead of dealing with them
• The project is managed to the project management plan. It’s approved, realistic and everyone believes it can be achieved.
• Always follow the plan-do-check-act cycle
• The triple constraint includes also quality, risk, and customer satisfaction
• Stakeholders are involved in risk management and team building
• All roles and responsibilities must be assigned to specific persons on the project
• The WBS is the “mother” of all planning
• First step always is planning

Rüdiger Geist, PMP, has been managing projects and mentoring and training project managers for more than 20 years in many different industries and companies.

As a CMMI and SPICE assessor he helped companies to enhance their process capabilities and as an associate professor he is teaching students in project management.

He is also holding the IPMA B Level certification and a Master’s Certificate Project Management from the George Washington University.

He is the Managing Director of spirit@PM company, situated near Zürich, Switzerland.

 

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PMI, PMP and PMBOK are registered trademarks of the Project Management Institute