PMP is the Project Management Professional® qualification from PMI. It is a recognized standard for project management practitioners globally and it is one of the major qualifications that project managers look at when they are considering what certificates to go for.
In this article we’ll cover the main things you need to know about the PMP credential.
The Prerequisites for PMP
The prerequisites for taking the PMP exam (and even applying to take the exam) are:
- A secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree or the global equivalent)
- plus 7,500 hours leading and directing projects
- plus 35 hours of project management education
or
- A four-year degree
- plus 4,500 hours leading and directing projects
- plus 35 hours of project management education.
There are two main things to note here. First, you must have some project management experience. This is not an entry level qualification. You don’t have to have gained all your experience as the main lead on a project with the title project manager but you do have to have enough experience in the job to meet the requirements. This could be as a project coordinator or in another project team role, as well as any hours you have clocked up as a project manager.
Second, you have to have 35 hours – that’s a full working week – of project management education. This doesn’t have to be taken all at the same time. For example, you could take a week long project management bootcamp but you don’t have to. You can add up those hours over several years, taking shorter training courses if you prefer.
Studying for PMP
There are lots of options for PMP training including self-study, pmp bootcamp and others. You have to decide what kind of studying would work best for you. If you are very self-motivated it is possible to do it all alone, but as you do have
The PMP Exam
The certification exam has 200 multiple-choice questions, and you have four hours to complete it. It’s a computer-based exam so you go to an exam center locally to you to do it. There are exam locations all over the world so you should have no difficulty finding one near enough to you to make it possible to sit the test.
PMI are quite cagey about exactly what percentage is required to pass and they don’t publish a pass mark. Commentators and training providers tend to agree that you need to be looking at routinely getting 75% in your practice exams in order to be sure of passing.
According to PMI Today, which is the member’s newsletter, there are over a million PMP credential holders worldwide. It’s a professionally recognized, rigorous qualification and definitely worth considering if you have experience as a project manager and are looking for your next career move.