Project Management Professional

Project Management Professional (abbreviation of PMP) is a credential offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). The credential is obtained by documenting your work experience in project management, completing 35 hours of project management related training, and scoring at least 61% on a written, multiple choice examination. PMP exams administered on or before June 30, 2009 will be based on “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge” – or PMBOK, the Third Edition. After June 30, PMP certification exams will be based on “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge” the Fourth Edition of which was published in December 2008.

The Project Management Framework (based on PMBOK Third Edition) embodies a project life cycle and five major project management process areas (encompassing a total of 44 processes). Mapped to these five process areas (Initiate, Plan, Execute, Monitor and Control, and Close) are nine areas of project management knowledge: Integrated Project Management, Scope Project Management, Time Project Management, Cost Project Management, Quality Project Management, Human Resource Project Management, Communications Project Management, Risk Project Management and Procurement Project Management. The nine knowledge areas share common inputs, tools and techniques and outputs, and make facilitates PMP professionals in developing and practicing specialization in one or more of the areas. For example, a PMP may specialize in Quality Planning, Quality Assurance, and Quality Control – the three processes that make up the Quality Project Management process area.

Government, commercial and other organizations employ PMP certified project managers in an attempt to improve the success rate of software development projects by applying a rigorous, standardized and evolving set of project management principles as contained in PMI’s PMBOK.

The PMP Exam will have 200 questions. 25 of them are “pre-release questions,”. These pre-release questions are not included in your final PMP Exam Mark. Your score will be calculated based on 175 PMP questions. The PMI will evaluate your proficiency level on each project management process from high proficiency to low proficiency.