What is a PMP (Project Management Professional)?

The PMP® is a certification or credential sponsored by the Project Management Institute (PMI®). The PMI put out a document called A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: (Pmbok Guide) (Paperback) This is an ambitious work that tries to document best practices for project management. The PMI also tried to improve the dissemination of this knowledge by creating the PMP credential. The program is designed to support the world wide community of Project Managers and to objectively ascertain the skill and knowledge of potential PMPs.

The PMP credential expects the applicant to have some education and some experience. Download your free PMP handbook, to get the PMIs details about these requirements.

Here are the requirements:

Educational Requirements
35 hours of Project Management education, also called contact hours. These hours can come from college courses, training courses from work, and PMI approved classes, or PMI Aproved, Online Training.
Candidates need to list the course names, institutions where the classes were taken, dates that classes were taken, and hours for each project management class submitted.

Experience Requirements
If the candidate has a bachelors degree, they will have to have a minimum of 4,500 hours of project management experience within all five process groups (Initiation, Planning, Controlling, Execution and Closing).
The project dates must indicate that the candidate has at least three years of project management experience within the six-yea period prior to the application.
The candidates must show at least thirty-six non-overlapping months of project management experience on their personal experience verification form.
Candidates will be asked to list the course names, institutions, dates, and hours for each project management class submitted.

PMP Certification Exam
Candidates will need to pass a difficult four hour, 200 question exam that spans all of the process groups, and all of the nine knowledge areas, plus professional ethics.

Continuing Dedication to Project Management
After getting the certification, candidates need to show continuing dedication to project management They can do that by accumulating Professional Development Units (PDUs).

Passing that difficult exam will take some work and preparation. You can be ready for that exam with PM ExamReady. We will coach you, give you tips and tricks, point you to the right resources and just plain help you out. Take advantage of the free resources, such as the free PMP handbook cited earlier. Let us help you get certified and get your projects back on track.

Elroy King

If you have any Project Management questions or questions about the PMP exam, leave them as a comment, and I will try to answer the questions.

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Know those difficult PMI-isms when you sit for the PMP exam, by learning these Project Management Terms

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