Need PMPs on Staff? Now’s the Time

Change can be revolutionary … or evolutionary. One change you can count on occurring every few years is an update in the exam for the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification. PMI does this as a matter of course to make sure certification holders are well-versed in the evolution of the project management profession. The PMP® exam was last updated in 2015. Some project managers study for months … or even years … before taking the demanding test, and right now they have just a few months to cash in on all that hard work before the exam changes.

Should your employees ready themselves for the existing exam or skip ahead to the new one? That will depend on how important it is to your organization to have certified project managers on staff as quickly as possible. And there’s quite a bit a research to show that PMPs do make a difference to organizational outcomes.

For instance, one case study of a global consumer products company showed a tenfold increase in milestone achievements over 30 months following a customized project management training program. In another example, the PMO of the Year finalist American Power Conversion ran an internal research project to determine whether PMPs had an impact on project outcomes. Their findings, reported in An Inside Look at High-Performing PMOs, showed that a 450-person engineering group responsible for new product development (NPD) improved their schedule performance from 21% of new products shipped within 10 percent of contracted schedule to 51%. To be certain what the defining factor was, the PMO compared the performance of projects led by PMPs to that of projects led by non-PMPs. A glance at the figure below tells the tale: non-PMP projects are in red; PMP-led projects are in green.

If project managers in your organization are already studying for their PMP, you will want to make a quick decision on helping them complete their training in time to take the existing exam: PMP applicants have until December 15, 2019 to take the current exam. Starting on December 16, a new exam will be in place. (Or not! See editor's note below.)

What’s New

Previous exam changes involved tweaks to the domain names and content. This go-round is somewhat revolutionary. The new exam switches from domains categorized by Process Groups as described in the PMBOK® Guide to these three domains:

• People (42 percent of exam questions)
• Process (50 percent of exam questions)
• Business Environment (8 percent of exam questions)

These roughly parallel PMI Talent Triangle® categories (leadership, technical project management, strategic and business management) that those seeking to recertify have to follow in their professional development journey. The new domains signal that project managers are no longer primarily concerned with getting it done on time, on budget and within scope. Rather, they are leaders involved in setting organizational strategy.

If you are unsure whether your employees should study for the new or current exam, I suggest you refer to the Exam Content Outline (current or new). Traditionally, there is a big spike in numbers of those wanting to take the exam before the changeover—practitioners and training directors “voting with their feet” on their preference.

Naturally, good project management training, such as the tailored offerings of PM College, does not just prepare team members for a certification exam. The effect of trained personnel is far-reaching with an impact on not only organizational outcomes, but culture as well. That said, to help your aspiring PMPs over the hurdles in Q4, get in touch with us today.

Postscript from the editor: The day after we published this blog, we received news that PMI had pushed back the date for the new exam rollout to July 1, 2020. Dan says: "Over the last several months, chapter leaders and other stakeholders have communicated to PMI that more time is needed to prepare for this change."  This gives corporate training managers a little more time to prepare; and those who have been planning to get their PMP before the changeover have a reprieve. —Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin