Getting a PMP Certificate: what exams you need to pass?

Certification: PMI PMP - Project Management Professional

To be able to bring any project into success completion, an expert is always recommended in any given situation and hence there was the introduction of the PMP accreditation. PMP is accredited by the American National Standards Institute and the International Organization for Standardization ISO 17024. It is also registered under the ISO 9001:2008 as a quality management system. With the above credentials, PMP is considered to give any project manager top-notch knowledge, skills and experience in project management and to top it off in ensuring that each and every projects that they are assigned to tackle is completed successfully and as per required.

It is also an affirmation to any third party who acquires it of quality of management in this field of project management and proper governance in their day to day assignments. All in all one can say in any business results, project management will always give very indispensable results. To be able to get this accreditation there are basic requirements that one has to accomplish first and this includes prior requirements and also not forgetting the examinations that have to be well passed.

Prior requirements:

In order to be considered fit to hold a PMP accreditation one must meet if not all, certain educational and also professional experience requirements. In this case there are two options that are considered and one has to qualify for either of them or else won’t be given a chance to gain this PMP certificate. The first option is; under educational background, an individual has attained a secondary degree which includes; high school diploma, associate’s degree or a global equivalent. When it comes to project management experience one has to have a minimum of five years experience which is always unique in other words non-overlapping of which 7500 hours of this period purely spent on leading and directing projects. One should also have at least thirty five hours of formal project management education.

The second and last option is an individual must have a four-year degree which is a bachelor’s degree or any global equivalent for that matter when it comes to educational background. When it comes to project management experience and education, one has to have a minimum of three years of experience during which at least 4500 hours of this period spent on leading and directing projects. Just like the first option an individual should have thirty five hours of formal project management education. Once one meets either of the above requirements then they become eligible to sit for the exam and once they pass the exam, then they attain the PMP certificate.

PMP Examination Information:

The PMP exam specification has five performance domains that are allocated with different percentages hence used to determine the score of the individual since they all add up to a perfect score of 100%. These domains are as follows;

Initiating the project (13%)
Planning the project (24%)
Executing the project (30%)
Monitoring and controlling the project (25%)
Closing the project (8%)

The examination itself consists of 200 multiple choice questions that are written against specification domains of which twenty five questions are always considered fine tuning or pretest questions. Their main purpose is to test the validity of exam questions to be tested in future and therefore, they are not counted for against when determining the score of the examinee. These questions also appear randomly throughout the paper. Having known this concept it is obvious that the remaining 175 questions are used to determine the score of the examinee. The allotted time to complete this examination is always four hours. It is also known that some of the candidates do not pass the examination on their first attempt hence there is an allowance of three times for doing the exam in a year.

Once an individual passes the exams, they are granted a PMP credential and as long as the certification status is active then the holder can proudly refer themselves as a PMP credential holder. In addition to this fact, the holder gets an added advantage of using the PMP designation in block letters after their name on any resumes, personal letterhead, websites, business cards, and when signing one’s signature. Despite of all the above privileges one is not allowed to use the PMP designation in an unauthorized manner like in company names or product names. The fact that one has authority only when the PMP credential is active means that there are requirements when it comes to continued maintenance of this status.

Continuous credentials:

One has to participate in the CCR program which is a continuing certification requirement in order to continue having an active PMP certification which only lasts for a period of three years. To maintain this qualification one has to attain not less than sixty professional development units (PDUs), which has to be earned within the three year cycle. The PDUs are earned from authorizing articles, researching, speaking on project related topics, or full time in the project management field. One may wonder; what is the purpose of activating one’s status of being PMP accredited after every three years? The reasons are quite juicy;

Encourage more individuals to attain this credential and recognize those who have it.
Offer a perfect mechanism to be used to record professional development.
Bring about continued recognition of this credential worldwide.
Promote continued professional development of all the credential holders.

In addition to being accredited the PMP certificate, an individual is listed in the online certification registry which is an automatic process where it makes it easy for one to be recognized as an expert and with such status ensures one’s competence to perform without any given doubt. Lastly, just for the record there are 618,933 active certified individuals and this is an indication that having a PMP certificate in this corporate world is worth it in many different aspects.

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