New PMP Exam and PMBOK? Guide – Seventh Edition

I have decided to come-out of LinkedIn COVID-19 hibernation. This is the first article after a while written based on several discussions and inquires about New PMP exam and New PMBOK. It seems like some of the potential PMP candidates are confused about New PMP Exam and PMBOK Seventh Edition. I have attended a recent webinar organised by Global Accreditation Center (GAC) for Project Management Education Programs. I am lucky enough to be part of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's (SAIT) Bachelor of Science Construction Project Management program, which is the only Bachelor's degree program in Canada with GAC accreditation.

One of the main takeaway's from the webinar was New PMP exam is not based on PMBOK Seventh Edition. PMI standards committee has not shared a draft version of the PMBOK with any other committees. PMBOK Sixth Edition will be one of the references for the PMP exam while there are many other references. One of the main changes will be PMP exam would be based on domains, tasks, and enablers as defined by the role delineation study.

• Domain: Defined as the high-level knowledge area that is essential to the practice of project management.
• Tasks: The underlying responsibilities of the project manager within each domain area.
• Enablers: Illustrative examples of the work associated with the task. Please note that enablers are not meant to be an exhaustive list but rather offer a few examples to help demonstrate what the task encompasses.

Please refer to the LINK for further explanation about the New PMP Exam.

Finally one thing I can conclude is that the new PMP exam will be different from current examn. If anyone is preparing for the PMP exam with a Registered Education Providers (R.E.P.s) please try to finish your exam before the end of the year. Else go through the training with a new Authorized Training Partner (ATP's) that will help with new Exam content. At the moment PMI Southern Alberta Chapter is going through the transformation from REP to ATP. PMI SAC's ATP application is under review by PMI Global Headquarters (GHQ).

PMBOK Seventh Edition consists of two parts Standard and Body of Knowledge. Standard is part of ANSI. and Body of Knowledge comprises of three main sections; Project Performance Domains and Models, Methods & Artifacts.

Project performance domains consists of eight areas;

As an example stakeholder domain;

New PMBOK seventh edition has a very important section on tailoring. This is something very interesting and one of the better additions, I've had many discussions with my colleagues about this;

Final section of PMBOK consist of Models, Methods and Artifacts;

The latter half of the webinar was focused on PMIstandards+. At the moment any PMI member can login to standard+ website (beta version) and access variety of topics and subject areas;

For those preparing for the PMP exam if your exam is scheduled before 31st of December 2020, you should be able pass the exam with current material in the market. If your exam is scheduled after 2nd January 2020 please prepare for the exam with an ATP. I have mixed feelings about the ATP program, I did my PMP exam in August 2013 and at that time the only resource I referred other than PMBOK was Rita Mulcahy's  PMP Exam Prep book. Standardising the PMP prep martial by PMI through ATP program is a very good move in the right direction. But this will force PMI chapters to increase the cost of PMP prep courses, as an example PMI SAC will have to increase the cost of PMP prep course by at least by 100% to cover the expenses.

Looking forward to all these changes and a new era of PMI!