What’s Changing in the Way I Teach PMP® Exam Prep
Carl Pritchard, PMP®, PMI-RMP®, EVP
Once every four years, I have a flurry of business. Clients old and new suddenly decide two things—(1) they want to hurry up and get all of their people PMP’d before the exam changes (based on the updated version of the PMBOK Guide®, and (2) they want to know if they can wait to do anything until the changes are stable and life is back to normal. It all boils down to:
What changes are in the exam based on PMBOK Guide® Fifth Edition?
As one of the resident clairvoyants, I can tell you a few things about my game plan for dealing with this, and I would hope that it resonates and provides some insight on how you might go about coping with the changes.
Most of the exam will remain constant
Some of the old exam questions will clearly have to be pulled
Some of the new content will clearly have to be woven in in the near term
Remember that project management is still project management
CONSTANCY
As one of the authors of the PMBOK Guide® Fourth Edition, let me stress that we had, as a mission, guidance to keep changes to a minimum. The only time the ANSI standard was to change was when the change had real meaning about how project management was practiced overall. Otherwise, part of our role was to achieve stasis.
If you want to have a personal history lesson, dig out an old edition of the Rita Mulcahy, LeRoy Ward, Kim Heldman or Andy Crowe books on gearing up for the exam. Then compare them with the more current versions. The differences largely feel editorial. That’s because most of them are. The major content shifts are summed up in little white papers like this one. But that means from PMBOK Guide® to PMBOK Guide®, there’s a great degree of sameness. You can still calculate EAC multiple ways in earned value, and you still need to do a forward and backward pass to calculate total float.
Some terms and guidance invariably does change, but the lion’s share…greater than 80%…remains static from year to year. Don’t get the idea that PMI® is cooking up a whole new exam. They don’t have that kind of capability or energy.
GOING AWAY AND COMING IN
This is the part of this article that many of you wanted to see. It’s the summary of what’s gone and what’s new in the new edition of the PMBOK Guide®. The key is that I am NOT going to go through the standard line by line and try to identify specific minutiae in how the exam expresses our roles and responsibilities as project managers. As I teach in my classes, I believe the exam is a philosophy exam, so I’m trying to touch on how and where I’ll be changing my teaching approach to accommodate the new version of the exam.
The Front End
No real change with the application or the application process, except for the one thing that I’ve been warning students about for about a year now. PMI® is actively auditing more and more applications. They are investing in more auditors in the hopes of ensuring that sub-project managers don’t slip through the cracks. But the data they want and the forms in which they want it? Pretty much unchanged.
The First Three Chapters of The Guide
The biggest shift here is associated with PMI’s sudden embrace of the notion of the hierarchy of portfolios, programs and projects. These “nesting dolls” of organizational management find projects as the small component—subsets of programs within the organizational context and programs and projects as subsets of the entire organizational portfolio. Not a lot of emphasis on that in the past. It’ll show up going forward. In a similar vein, PMI is also talking about the distinctions between project management, operations management and organizational strategy. Project Management is a single game of billiards. Operations management is how we’re going to keep the table level and the felt on the table taut. Organizational strategy is the organizational vision of what good pool and a good pool environment looks like.
Tied to that is the notion that PMI is also driving home the notion of the various types of life-cycles and the language thereof. “Iterative” and “predictive” life cycle models are likely to appear on the exam, with the former being those that evolve over time, while predictive models assume a certain degree of omniscience for the PM in being able to predict behaviors front to back. Predictive models are tied to classic PM. Iterative are the stuff “rolling waves” are made for.
I’ve always told students to memorize page 43 of the PMBOK (It’s a table), but that table has now moved to page 61. The rules that I give students for easy memorization of that table are actually MORE right now than in the past!! Just memorize the executing column, and the other process columns should fall out naturally.
A couple of general nits on the exam seem rife for a host of new questions, and most of them relate to performance—
Data
Information
Reports
Those three show up extensively throughout the Guide, and the key is to understand the distinction. Data is undistilled and raw. Information is processed data. Reports are built on information.
Also, for those who have listened to The Portable PMP® Prep – Conversations on Passing the PMP® Exam, with me and LeRoy Ward, they’ve heard me talk about the various MANAGEMENT plans and know that I say that word with a little added emphasis. There are more MANAGEMENT plans in the new Guide than ever before, and it’s important to recognize that they are all about how we will manage our projects, rather than being about the actual management of activities. There’s a MANAGEMENT plan for every knowledge area of the PMBOK® Guide now.
Integration Management
No major league changes here, but a good introduction to something that seems to be infused through the Guide. That’s a sense that the soft skills and the political nature of being the project manager has rarely if ever been more prominent. Wow! We care about people. A lot. PMI® now sees us as being heavily involved in reviewing the business case, capturing a lot of the critical information. Not a big change, but the emphasis is notable.
A new piece of schtick I plan to add to my classes will be a head-up/head-down motion associated with Project Plans and Project Documents. Project Plans are the heads-up, forward-looking visionary kinds of paperwork. Project documents are heads-down, in the details, examination of project stuff. There are a lot of project plans and project documents sprinkled through the updated Guide.
One weird note on closing? (And I can already envision the question…) What are “accepted deliverables” when it comes to closing? (a) input (b) output (c) tool/technique (d) really important.
The correct answer is that they are an input to “close project.” Just one of those things that seems bizarre enough to be a question or two.
Scope Management
Like all of the process areas, this now has a home for a MANAGEMENT plan. It’s all about how we define, validate and control scope. That’s what all the MANAGEMENT plans are about. How.
One other new and bizarre note from the scope management component is the output list for “Create WBS”. The outputs do not include the WBS. They do include project documents that include the WBS, but it’s notable that it’s not a clear output of the step.
The chapter’s also noteworthy in that the term rebaselining only appears once. It has been supplanted by “baseline updates”. That’s a more apt term, given the different perspectives on what re-baselining implies.
Time Management
Like all of the process areas, this now has a home for a MANAGEMENT plan. It’s all about how we…(haven’t we been here before?)
We’re getting more out of the “define activities” process now, as we’re getting milestones and activity attributes, along with the activities themselves.
Cost Management
Like all of the process areas, this now has a home for a MANAGEMENT plan. It’s all about how we…(getting repetitive, aren’t we?)
Perhaps the biggest changes in cost are associated with the shift in the notion of what’s included in the performance baseline. Contingency reserves are now a component of the performance measurement baseline. They were not before. Management reserves are now a part of the budget baseline. They were not before. This is a huge shift, and it’s important to ensure that you understand it clearly. The distinctions between the budget baseline and the performance measurement baseline remain the same, but where and how contingencies are applied are completely different. If you’re working from older materials, it’s time to shift gears on this one.
While we’re touching on earned value, it’s also notable that PMI is pushing hard on the third approach to calculating EAC.
AC + [(BAC-EV)/(CPI*SPI)] (Implies that both cost and schedule will influence the outcome going forward)
Quality Management
There was already a management plan here, so that’s not a big difference.
Just a few new areas of emphasis here, which include the distinction between precision (miles or millimeters) and accuracy (ability to hit the target).
PMI® is now jumping in with a lot of the quality circles in terms of the quality planning tools, and it’s a good idea to look at the quality tools that are now grouped in the PMBOK Guide® graphic. Also, since it’s new, I’d expect a question or two on the use and application of the interrelationship diagraph.
Human Resource Management
The updated appendix at X3 (which used to be Appendix G) includes a few more of the soft skills elements that pepper the new Guide. The emphasis philosophically is on a genuinely transparent and open communication between the project manager and the critical stakeholders. The emphasis on trust-building and coaching aligns very nicely with most organizations’ attitudes on supportive cultures and how they evolve.
A notable shift is PMI’s interpretation of the RACI chart. The old axiom was that there could not be two “R”s or two “A”s anywhere in the chart. Now, PMI® assigns responsibility as the role of “doer.” Accountability is where there can be only one leader on a task. Hence, a RACI chart can have a single task with two Rs, and not be construed as overdoing it.
A new tool in the project team acquisition process is the multi-criteria decision analysis. It’s an analytical hierarchy tool where we look at a variety of criteria to try to find the ideal team members to work with us on our endeavors.
On the conflict management front, PMI® seems to have finally settled on a set of terms that are the “official” approach to resolving conflict. In descending order, we opt for:
Collaboration/Problem-Solving (Confrontation)
Compromise/Reconciliation
Forcing/Directing
Those are conflict resolution strategies. For conflict management, we can also opt for…
Withdrawal/Avoidance
Smoothing/Accommodation
Those won’t resolve the conflict, but they can soothe ruffled feathers.
Communications Management
This was pared down significantly with the addition of the Stakeholder Management knowledge area. With the exception of a few verbiage changes, this area has not changed significantly since the previous version.
In the communications model, they’ve added an acknowledgment to “Acknowledge!” It’s a step between a message and the feedback loop where the receiver acknowledges that a message has been received. It’s neither approval nor disapproval. It’s the nod, the head shake, or the knowing glance that affirms that a message has been communicated.
Also, in addition to the push and pull types of communication, a third has been added—interactive! That’s where it simply cuts both ways.
Risk Management
Before I dive too deeply here, a note to those of you thinking this will be helpful for the PMI-RMP® exam. These notes are high-level and PMBOK Guide® specific. The PMI-RMP® exam changes are tied not only to the changes in the Guide, but also to the changes in the exam blueprint, which are dramatic. For the PMP® exam, the changes are minor. For the PMI-RMP® exam, the changes will be far more significant, and aren’t addressed here.
Risk appetite and attitude are two new terms. The distinction between them is significant and begs for questions on the exam. Attitude relates to our perspective on risk and how we decide to feel about it. Appetite is primarily external. It relates to organizational tolerances and the willingness of the organization, the culture to take on risk. Those distinctions are likely to show up on the exam.
In risk quantification, one other statistical output is likely to become an exam question as well. It’s the Tornado Diagram. Tornado diagrams are amongst the easiest to interpret. The big bar across the top of a tornado diagram represents the task that has the greatest influence on time and cost. The little one on the bottom? The least influential.
Procurement Management
This section underwent the least significant changes of any in the Guide, which means that if you study materials from the earlier editions of the Guide, the questions will be just as valid as those created for the current version of the exam.
Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder management is the only section with a management plan that doesn’t start there! It starts with Identify Stakeholders, and then moves into the stakeholder management plan.
Like all of the process areas, this now has a home for a MANAGEMENT plan. It’s all about how we…(haven’t we been here before?)
PMI® will expect you to know the different classifications of stakeholder:
– Unaware
– Resistant
– Neutral
– Supportive
– Leading
And the stakeholder engagement matrix identifies the current state of our stakeholders and the desired state. That’s another tool unique to the newer edition.
As mentioned earlier…this is also an area (particularly in the CONTROL step) where it’s “Data in…Information out”.
Summary
If you’re wrestling with the differences between PMBOK4 and PMBOK5, this should give you a relative sense of the ground that you have to cover. If you’re trying to figure out how to manage data from one exam to the next? This should give you a sense of the differences. And if you’re already a PMP®, but got your certification under one of the earlier versions of the Guide, this may serve as insight on what’s the “latest and greatest” in the profession.
As always, and as I say in every class, I remain at your disposal. I am always just an e-mail away and strive to respond within 24 hours. My e-mail is carl@carlpritchard.com My office phone is 301-606-6519.
No matter your choices, GOOD LUCK!
Pritchard Management Associates, 521 Wilson Pl, Frederick, Maryland 21702
301-662-7877 carl@carlpritchard.com
©July 2013, Pritchard Management Associates Right to reproduce in full and with full attribution is granted freely. All other rights, including the right to reproduce in part are fully reserved to Pritchard Management Associates.
Thank you so much, this was very helpful. I am preparing to write the PMP exam next week. Please do you know any online test preps that are based on the 5th edition? thanks for your response.
Chenny.
Sorry I didn’t spot this sooner. My favorites?
http://www.oliverlehmann.com
http://www.pmstudy.com
http://www.headfirstlabs.com
If you have very little experience or you have just started your career, then CAPM certification will surely help you to take your career to the next level. This certification shows your employer that you are a capable person, and you have the ability to manage projects. It also shows that you are well aware of the terminology used in the PMBOK Guide.
Thank you so much for this axplenatons.
I have a quastion, I got prepaired my self on edtion 4 to take the exam before 31 of July, but unfortunatly I couldnot make.
Relayning on editon 4, do you think is there possibilty to pass the Exam.
thank you
You have a great START on preparing for the exam. The challenge will be rolling in the new content. Things like the distinctions between data, information and reports will be important, as will risk appetite and attitude. These shouldn’t be show-stoppers if you do well, but you’ll want to rehearse with questions based on PMBOK 5…and be shooting for practice scores in the 80-90% range.
Hi Carl,
Similar to the question above, I am preparing based on Rita’s book for 4th edition and I have the 5th edition PMBOK soft copy with me. My exam is just about a month away and I have completed almost Rita’s book once and Head first couple of times. How much more of preparation do you think would be needed to get in line with the latest version of the exam? Which are the practice tests you think are worth going for? I managed to score around 60% in oliver lehman’s practice test of 175 questions and around 80% in head first test at the end of their book. I plan to go through PMBOK 5th edition once.
Do you think this should be enough and how many practice tests do you suggest?
Regards,
Srikar
First, let me stress that using fourth edition materials is higher risk. Why? Enough things have changed that you’ll miss four or five questions based on the differences. If you were getting in the 90-95% range on the practice tests, I’d tell you you don’t have much to worry about. But since you’re down at the low end of the borderline scores, that’s a problem.
Oliver? You need to be getting about 80-85%
Headfirst? About the same.
Rita? You need to be over 90%
The PMBOK should primarily serve as a reference, not as sole guide for your studies.
Best bet? Keep hammering away on practice tests, but go for FIFTH edition materials.
Carl Pritchard
carl@carlpritchard.com
301-606-6519
Hello Carl.
Are your PMI-RMP course materials updated to adequately prepare for the RMP exam changes resulting from the PMBOK 5th edition and five “new” risk domains? If not, how do you recommend preparing for the exam? If there are other materials and/or courses you recommend, please let me know.
Respectfully,
Allen
Yes, they are! Updated and loaded for bear!
NICE!!!!!!!
Hi Carl;
I have many materials but they are for 4 th edition; and I didn’t prepare before July 31 st but now I have pmbok guide 5 th edition hard copy in Turkish but I dont have English version; you know I think it is better to have it for exam. If you have 5 th edition soft copy and another materials please send my email or share with dropbox etc.
Thank you.
Actually, if you are a PMI member, you’re covered. You have a FREE PDF of the latest version of the PMBOK Guide as one of the benefits of membership. Go to the PMI website. Log on. Go to the PMBOK Guide and Standards link. And then download it! I couldn’t send you mine if I wanted to, as that would violate my agreements with PMI as a member. But yours is there for the taking! Good luck in your quest.
Hi Carl
You have provided a superb summary of the major PMBOK Guide changes – – – many thanks!
Have you published audio CDs for passing the PMP exam aligned with the PMBOK Guide – Fifth Edition? If so, please provide information on how I can purchase the product.
No PMBOK 5 edition yet…but coming!
Hi , I have a question , do you know any place where I can Download the PMBOK 5 EDITION ?? I want to do the CAPM test , but I’m Kind of new to this certification thing , any advice o link where I can find the book ?
You can download from the PMI Website (www.pmi.org) if you are a PMI member for free! Or, you can buy it for download from the PMI bookstore.
Dear Sir, I heard that your book ” Project management Drill ” contains lot of details especially related to mathematical questions of PMP exam . Please let me know if this book can still be used as a reference for preparing for PMP exam -PMBOK 5th edition ?
Also , please let me know if there are any plans to release online course for PMBOK 5th edition so that we can benefit .
Thanks and regards,
Guruprasad SP
Still perfectly valid! The book is a package of tutorials, and is not specific to an edition of the PMBOK Guide. As for on-line training in the PMP? I’m working on it. I’ll be touting it as soon as it’s available.
Hi, I am going to take the CAPM exam. I am preparing the exam questions. I would like to know if there any difference between CAPM exam and PMP exam ? I mean apart from PMP exam has more questions. It seems they all from the PMBOK, but not sure if the PMP exam is more difficult or not.
The CAPM is not as focused on the leadership content. There’s a higher emphasis on the mechanics of project management in the CAPM, as CAPM folks are not expected to have to have the leadership qualities of an experienced PM. Otherwise, the content is very similar.
Thanks Carl. So basically apart from the leadership content, I can use PMP exam material (practice and questions) to prepare CAPM ? Because I have found a lot of material for PMP exam (previous and sample questions), but not so much for CAPM as it is no as popular as PMP.
If you have very little experience or you have just started your career, then CAPM certification will surely help you to take your career to the next level. This certification shows your employer that you are a capable person, and you have the ability to manage projects. It also shows that you are well aware of the terminology used in the PMBOK Guide.
Hey Carl,
I had listened to the 4th edition of your Audio CDs. Amazing, informative, useful, easy are the main amongst the list of adjectives i can label for those. Somehow I have still not been able to appear for the exam and now when I see, we have moved to 5th Edition of PMBOK. But somehow I could not see your CDs on the latest one. Could you please let know on this.
Warm Regards-
Sid
Actually, I did record a 5th Edition update! And better than that…it’s FREE. https://carlpritchard.com/PMP/PortablePMPPrep5th.mp3
Enjoy!