Organizations across the world are in need of professionals who are not only talented, hard-working and experienced, but also hold professional project management certification. PMI’s Project Management Professional qualification is one of the most highly regarded and widely recognized project management certifications available today.

PMP is the gold-standard of project management qualifications and is sure to improve the marketability of certification holders. Employers recognize PMP certification holders as experienced project managers who are trained to direct teams towards project goals and can consistently deliver successful projects.

What is the PMBoK Guide?

PMP is based on PMI’s own PMBOK® Guide which is a comprehensive guide on global ‘best-practices’ used to deliver projects successfully. According to the PMBOK® Guide, successful project management is comprised of 10 aspects:

1. Project integration management
2. Project scope management
3. Time management
4. Project cost management
5. Quality management
6. Human resource management
7. Communication management
8. Project risk management
9. Project procurement management
10. Stakeholder management

These 10 aspects all fall under the 5 phases of project management:

1. Initiation
2. Planning
3. Execution
4. Controlling
5. Closing

PMP courses are comprehensive and address every facet of managing successful projects, ensuring that PMP certification holders are confident in their ability to oversee the smooth development of projects.

PMP requirements

Passing the PMP final exam is no easy task. Preparing for a PMP exam requires 35 hours of instructor-led training and roughly 40 days of self-preparation. A university graduate with 3,500 hours of project management experience would be qualified to sit the PMP exam. Those that do not have a tertiary education however, would require at least 7,500 hours of project management experience to qualify.

The PMP exam

The PMP exam is a 4 hour, closed-book test. The exam has 200 questions of which only 175 are marked. 25 questions are selected as ‘dummy questions’ for which no points are awarded. Though PMI doesn’t disclose hard cut-off percentages for passing, it is widely believed that you need 61% or above to pass the PMP exam.