PMP | Project Management Professional

Project Management Professional (PMP) is the most globally recognized certification in project management. It is managed by the Project Management Institute and is based on the PMP Examination Specification published by PMI in 2005. Most exam questions reference to PMIs ANSI standard A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, abbreviated to PMBOK Guide.

The PMI (Project Management Institute) has three levels of certification, starting with the CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) which is the basic level and is intended as certification for project team members. The PMP (Project Management Professional) is the second, higher, level of project management. Individuals who have passed the PMP certification test successfully and have met the PMI requirements for documenting their professional experience are entitled to use the abbreviation PMP with their names. A new certification, PgMP (Program Management Professional) has also been introduced by the PMI, for Program Managers.

Getting a PMP Certification would help you in many ways

Certification by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as a project management professional (PMP) demonstrates that you have mastered essential project management skills and knowledge. To earn PMI’s PMP designation, you must demonstrate the required "long-term commitment" to project management professionalism as well as pass a rigorous, 200-question exam covering the five project management processes and ten knowledge areas in PMI’s project management body of knowledge (PMBOK). To receive the PMP certification, each candidate must satisfy PMI's qualifications for experience and education and pass the Project Management Professional Certification Examination. To qualify for the PMI exam applicants must have:

Candidates who do not meet the minimum requirements for the PMP certification can apply for the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) examination.

PMP examination is a computerized test of 4 hours duration, with 200 multiple-choice questions, each with four choices. Out of the 200 questions, 25 questions are pretest questions. These 25 pretest questions are randomly placed throughout the examination to gather statistical information on the performance of these pretest questions. This strategy is followed to determine whether the pretest questions can be used in future PMI examinations as actual questions. The pretest questions, included in the 200-question examination, are not considered for pass/fail determination. Hence, candidates are evaluated on basis of the remaining 175 questions.

To pass the PMP examination, out of the 175 questions, candidates must correctly answer a minimum of 106 questions. Which means the minimum percentage score to be obtained should be 60.6%.

All of PMI’s credential examinations are administered in English. Examination language aids are available to assist candidates for whom English is a second language. The aids provide a translation of exam questions and answers and are available in 10 languages – Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish.