PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP)® Exam Changes Updated March 2020

PMP Exam Change Background

On March 18th, Project Management Institute announced the release of a new Exam Content Outline (ECO) for the PMP^® certification. These changes will have major impacts on exam candidates who plan to sit for the new PMP exam, which is set to launch January 2, 2021. To understand the impact, it is important to understand what an Exam Content Outline is and how it is used in psychometrics.

An ECO is used to determine what tasks should be tested to determine proficiency in a specific career field, in this case project management. The tasks are based on a higher-level Role Delineation Study, also called a Job Analysis, which you can find in the PMP Handbook on PMI’s website. The role delineation study tells us what a project manager does, while the ECO tells us specific things which should be tested to demonstrate an ability to do exactly that.

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This PMP Exam Content Outline some of the most significant changes seen in many years.

PMP Exam Changes to the Content Outline

The structural changes involve shifting from five domains which were aligned with the five process groups of project management down to three domains: People, Process, and Business Environment. This means that questions will be categorized and represented on the test in a very different manner. This restructuring was meant to align the exam with The PMI Talent Triangle^® segments of Leadership (People), Technical Project Management (Process), and Strategic and Business Management (Business Environment).

The content change most notable is the inclusion of agile. The Exam Content Outline specifies the exam will be 50% agile and 50% predictive. Traditionally, the PMP exam and credential were focused almost solely on predictive lifecycles while the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)^® credential was focused on agile and hybrid approaches. The inclusion of agile was not wholly unanticipated, as the Agile Practice Guide came bundled with A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide) – Sixth edition, but the amount of focus agile receives was more than expected.

Impact of PMP Exam Change starting January 2, 2021

While these changes may not seem significant from a student’s perspective, they have a significant impact on a training provider’s ability to assist you in passing the exam on your first attempt. Project Management Academy^® prides itself on the content delivered to our customers. Our content team prepared a detailed analysis and began development of revised courseware within one week of the Exam Content Outline release. We are taking proactive steps to ensure that you will receive best-in-the-industry training when you attend one of our courses:

Ensuring agile is covered with significant depth to ensure you will be able to answer the agile related changes
Rebuilding our practice exams to make them representative of the new exam structure
Recategorizing practice questions to the three domains in the amounts prescribed by the exam content outline
Realigning our exams to ensure fifty percent of the questions agile and fifty percent predictive questions
Preparing questions that are an appropriate level of difficulty to accurately represent what the actual exam will be like
Updating training materials and supplementals to capture the spirit of the new exam
Preparing and updating Videos-on-Demand (VOD) to reflect the new tasks and enablers listed in the ECO

At Project Management Academy we are certain you will notice the pride we take in our content and courseware. We are confident you will have a second-to-none training experience which will more than adequately prepare you for your exam, regardless of when you end up taking it.

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Erin Aldridge, PMP, PMI-ACP, & CSPO

Director of Product Development at Project Management Academy