All you need to know about PMP examination

There are three steps to apply for PMP exam.

1- Confirm your eligibility

• If you have four year degree then you require 36 months of experience leading projects AND 35 hours of project management training.

• If you have a high school diploma or an associate’s degree then you require 60 months of experience leading projects AND 35 hours of project management training.

2- Gather your info

• Projects you have worked on, where you have worked, your roles and responsibilities and duration
• Training you have attended, institute name and qualifying hours

3- Apply for exam by creating an account on PMI.org

Finally, you have to pay exam fee if you are qualified to move forward.

• Member Price: US$405
• Non-Member Price: US$555

Once approved to take the exam, you can schedule your exam time at a testing site near you

You can take exam either online (OPT) or at a Prometric center. 

OPT (Online Proctored Testing):

Administered on a secure platform using proven exam delivery technology, the online exam is exactly the same as the version administered at a test center: the same quality, the same questions, and there’s even a live proctor.

With 24/7 testing options to accommodate your schedule, you can take the exam day or night. All you need when you are ready to take the exam is: 

• to schedule your online or center-based exam soon as appointments are limited and filling fast
• a computer with a webcam 
• a reliable internet connection 
• a quiet space where you can spend a few uninterrupted hours

For more details. refer to PMI official link here. https://www.pmi.org/certifications/certification-resources/process/online-proctored-testing

Taking exam at a test center

Not all testing center take PMP exam on site. Check you regional centers if you intend to take exam on site.  For details, refer to this link here.

https://home.pearsonvue.com/pmi

About half of the examination will represent predictive project management approaches and the other half will represent agile or hybrid approaches. Predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches will be found throughout the three domain areas listed below and are not isolated to any particular domain or task.

PMP exam test your knowledge of project management through a three component structure covering Domain, Tasks and Enablers.  It is imperative that you should prepare for the exam by referring to these domains, tasks and enablers. 

• Domain: It is defined as the high-level knowledge area that is essential to the practice of project
  management such as People, Process, Business Environment.

• Tasks: The underlying responsibilities of the project manager within each domain area such as managing the conflict and supporting organizational change.

• Enablers: Examples of the work associated with the task.
  For example, Manage Conflict task has following enablers. The list is not exhaustive.

  1) Interpret the source and stage of the conflict

  2) Analyze the context for the conflict

  3) Evaluate/recommend/reconcile the appropriate conflict resolution solution

For details of tasks and enablers under each domain, read on the following sections

Following are the list of tasks along with enablers for People domain.

Manage conflict

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

Lead a team

• Set a clear vision and mission
• Support diversity and inclusion (e.g., behavior types, thought process)
• 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mentor relevant stakeholders

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

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

Following are the tasks with enablers for process domain.

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

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

Assess and manage risks

• Determine risk management options
• Iteratively assess and prioritize risks

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

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

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

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

Plan and manage scope

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

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

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

Plan and manage procurement

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

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

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)

Establish project governance structure

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

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

Ensure knowledge transfer for project continuity

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

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)

Following are the tasks and enablers for Business Environment domain.

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

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

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

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