August 2011 PMP® Exam Change: What you need to know

You may already know that PMI’s PMP® (Project Management Professional) exam is slated to change August 31, 2011. If you didn’t know that, then this may have hit you like a splash of cold water. It’s a substantial change, with about a third of the questions being revised or replaced.

First off, an interesting distinction: while the exam itself is going to change, the underlying material is not changing. They are simply refreshing 1/3 of the exam to reflect changes in practice. You see, every few years, PMI conducts a “role delineation study,” which looks at the work project managers do and how they do it. For instance, the most recent role delineation study found that most project managers are not involved in project selection. It would be reasonable to assume that some of the current exam topics such as ROI, Payback Period, and IRR, and BCR (to name jus ta few) won’t be present on the August 31st exam. There are many more examples, but that should at least give you an idea of why this is taking place.

On to the important stuff: what does all of this mean for you?

If you’re preparing for the exam, you want to take the current version by August 30, 2011. There are many reasons for this, but the most basic is that tens of thousands of people have taken this exam, and there are fewer uncertainties involved. Change always introduces some risk. I’ll be releasing an updated edition of The PMP® Exam: How To Pass On Your First Try on July 1, 2011, a full two months before the exam changes.

If you teach classes using Velociteach materials, then you have nothing to worry about. Just schedule your classes so students can take the exam by August 30. Velociteach will also release our licensed and OEM course materials, InAct (for PMI chapters) and ProQuip (for commercial training providers) on July 1. Velociteach’s flagship 4 Day PMP® class will cut over on August 15 to align to the new exam (we’ll actually be offering both versions of the class in parallel for a few weeks).

Now the good news: PMI has already provided Velociteach with quite a bit of information on the forthcoming exam, and there are about 40 sections that we will be revising in our materials. More good news is that there are no real changes to processes, inputs, tools, or outputs, so large sections of the material should remain the same.

The bottom line is that you should be very focused on August 30, but whether you’re a training provider or a project manager studying for the exam, rest assured that we will be there to ensure your success.