The podcast by project managers for project managers. Do you want to learn about the PMP Exam changes? Louis Alderman and Bill Yates discuss the 2021 PMP Exam created by the Project Management Institute (PMI). We also hear from Samuel Mills, PMP, who recently passed the PMP Exam. He shares his exam experience with us.

Table of Contents

02:58 … Why Change the PMP Exam?04:23 … The ECO and the PMP Exam Changes06:18 … What’s in the ECO?08:27 … ECO Content: 35 Tasks11:41 … Predictive, Agile, Hybrid13:36 … Why is Agile Added to the PMP Exam?15:29 … PMP Exam Specifics19:54 … Are There Many Calculations?20:47 … Pass/Fail and Format of the PMP Exam23:59 … “Immediate” Exam Feedback26:24 … The 7th Edition of the PMBOK Guide27:05 … Velociteach Approach to the PMP Exam Changes32:26 … Not Our First Rodeo33:35 … PMP Examinee: Samuel Mills34:15 … Online or Test Center36:00 … Application Process36:14 … Managing Time38:04 … Best Prep Tools and Practice Tests40:32 … Advice for Test Takers42:39 … Advice from Louis and Bill44:13 … Closing

SAMUEL MILLS: ...and I found time to study. I would take my lunch break, and I would pop up my book, and then I would just go through the material and just practice that, and that was my lunch.  You know, I would eat and study, eat and study.  And just taking it a step forward got me to where I was ready for the exam.  And even when I was taking the exam, I was like, oh, you know, I’m not sure.  But I was able to pass.  If you’re struggling for time, you can find time.  You’ve just got to be creative with where you’re going to get that time.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers.  We want to say thank you to our listeners who reach out to us and leave comments on our website and on social media.  We love hearing from you, and we always appreciate your positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or whichever podcast listening app you use.  You can also leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com.  We know you’re looking for opportunities to acquire Professional Development Units towards recertifications, and you can still claim PDUs for all our podcast episodes.  Listen up at the end of the show for information on how to claim your PDUs.

We’re doing something a little different today.  We’re actually going to be talking about the PMP exam, and we’re going to be talking a little bit about Velociteach and our approach to this exam.

BILL YATES:  Yeah.  The exam changed January 2nd, 2021.  We’ve got several months under our belt now.  We made a lot of updates prior to that exam change.  And we’ve been able to see how well our updates are working.  Primarily, are our students passing?

WENDY GROUNDS:  Right.  We’re going to hear from a student, as well.  We have a student who has recently passed the exam.  He’s going to be giving us a little bit of insight into his exam process.

BILL YATES:  For our listeners who are thinking about pursuing the PMP, this is a great episode for them.  They’re going to learn a lot about the current exam, and really looking deeply into it so they’ll know what to study, what kind of content to expect.  And then for those who have already earned their PMP, but are curious about changes to the PMP exam or to the certification itself, this will be interesting, as well.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah.  And we want to give a big welcome to Louis.  Louis Alderman manages the instructional design process at Velociteach.  He’s responsible for curriculum development of our live class offerings, as well as the development of our courses delivered on InSite.  Louis is the expert on all things PMP exam, and we are very grateful for his time.

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Now, that’s a strong claim.  I tend to not classify myself as an “expert,” an ex being a has-been, and a spurt being a drip under pressure.  But I thank you for those accolades, and it’s more than my pleasure to be here today.

Why Change the PMP Exam?

WENDY GROUNDS:  It’s good to talk to you, Louis.  We’re going to enjoy this.  So, Bill, let’s start with a bit of context and background.  Why exactly was there a change to the exam?

BILL YATES:  The main reason for the change to the PMP exam, okay, there are two reasons that it changes:  either a new PMBOK Guide, or there’s a new role delineation study.  Because it’s an ANSI standard, the PMP exam has to be updated every four to six years to align with the ISO and ANSI standards for certification industry best practices.  Because of this, PMI has to do a global survey – they call it a Role Delineation Study, an RDS – every four to six years.  In this case they did a global practice analysis, which resulted in a job/task analysis.  But what’s the big question, Louis?  Why do they do this? 

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Well, they want to keep the profession of project management and their certification of that project management professional, they want to keep it current.  And so let’s survey a representative sample of project managers today to find out, what do you do every day?  What are the tasks you do?  What are your responsibilities?  How accountable are you in your organization for the role of project manager?  And what falls out of that survey are a list of tasks that PMI will categorize and understand where does that task belong in our overall view of project management.

BILL YATES:  Which brings us to our next question.

The ECO and The Exam Changes

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yes.  What exactly changed in this exam?  And there is something called an ECO.  If you could give us some clarification on that?

BILL YATES:  Yeah.  So the ECO is the Exam Content Outline.  And let me just introduce a character here.  Sierra Hampton-Simmons is someone I know, a friend of mine at PMI.  She is the Director and Portfolio Leader of Certification Products at the Project Management Institute.  Bottom line, Sierra is in charge of the PMP exam.  So when she describes the ECO, she calls it the “blueprint” for the exam.  It lines out what’s in the exam, what kind of questions are going to be asked, what’s the format, that type of thing.

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  You know, Bill, that should clear up a very common misconception because traditionally people have felt that the PMP exam was based on the Guide to the PMBOK or the Project Management Body of Knowledge that is also published by PMI and incorporates that ANSI standard of project management.  So a lot of thinking is, if I read the Project Management Body of Knowledge, this guidebook to this body of knowledge, that I will be prepared to take the exam.  Not so.

BILL YATES:  No, that’s not true.

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Because this Exam Content Outline, as Sierra said, is the blueprint for the exam.  And so it’s presented a lot differently than the Guide to the PMBOK.

BILL YATES:  Right.  And the PMBOK Guide, it’s interesting, the PMBOK Guide is one of maybe 20 books that are referenced?

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Mm-hmm.

BILL YATES:  And when the exam writers, and we’ll get into that in a little more detail, but it’s only one of 20-plus resources that they have to reference when they write a question, per the ECO that’s going to go into the exam bank for the PMP exam.

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  So there’s not just one place to go source information and knowledge about project management in preparation for the exam, in that way of thinking.

What’s in the ECO?

BILL YATES:  Right.  So the Exam Content Outline is not that big.  It’s maybe, what, 15, 20 pages?

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Yeah, something like that.

BILL YATES:  It’s such an important document.  It’s short, but it’s very important.  I’m going to quote from the Exam Content Outline.  This is from page 1.  It says the following:  “All the questions on the examination have been written and extensively reviewed by qualified PMP certification holders and tracked to at least two academic references.  These questions are mapped against the PMP Exam Content Outline to ensure that an appropriate number of questions are in place for a valid exam.”

To me, there’s two big takeaways there.  The questions that are written by PMP volunteers, they have to have two references, and they have to map to the ECO.

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Well, the previous Exam Content Outline detailed an entirely different structure of “domains” and “tasks.”  And from domains, let’s talk about areas of interest.  For example, the previous ECO had five domains, and it was based on the process view of project management from PMI’s Guide to the PMBOK.  And it talked about initiating and planning and executing and monitoring and controlling and closing, you know, a very process focus.  The biggest change in the new Exam Content Outline is that it’s moved from those five domains to three domains.  And they’re not aligned per se with processes, but more of practices and tasks.  So the three domains now are process is one, people, and the business environment which projects are performed.

BILL YATES:  And in the ECO, those three are given percentages in terms of the number of questions that are going to be dedicated to each one.  So people, that domain is 42%; process is 50%; and business environment is 8%.  So people, process, business environment.  That makes up the 100% of the entire test.  But those domains are broken down further to help us get clarity on what those are.

ECO Content: 35 Tasks

LOUIS ALDERMAN:  Yeah, each domain is broken down first into discrete tasks.  And with those three domains there are actually a total of 35 different tasks that are broken out, that are associated with each of those domains.  And I think it’s important for a person preparing for the PMP exam to be very familiar with those tasks.

You know, Bill, people always talk about the PMP exam is a scenario-based exam.  They’re not going to ask what is two plus two.  They may ask: you run into a situation where you have two of these and two of those,