The New PMP Exam and Its Relationship with the PMBOK Guide

With the new PMP® Exam just released by PMI, Ricardo has received several messages asking about the new exam and the relationship with the PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition and the new PMBOK® Guide 7th Edition that is close to being released.

He approaches the main differences in the exam and that until the new PMBOK® Guide is released, the part of the exam that MAY cover the guide will be based on the 6th edition as mentioned by PMI at https://www.pmi.org/pmbok-guide-standards/about/current-projects

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Episode transcript

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Ricardo (4s):
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minutes podcast. Today I like to talk about the new PMP exam. I received so many questions and comments on my YouTube channel and people saying, should I study on the PMBOK six? What is happening? PMI did not release the PMBOK seventh edition, but it changes the PMP. So let me try to address this question. The first thing I want to make sure you are aware, I'm not speaking on behalf of PMI. Okay. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. So most of the information I collected on bmi.org and also in order websites like project management.com. So don't take this as an official position of PMI.

Ricardo (46s):
And second is some people do not believe that, but I do not work on the PMP exam preparation market. So I do not work on that. And I never work at preparing people for the PMP. What I have it's I have courses and I did a quite popular video on the PMBOK guide since very early additions. And I did that, not to prepare for the PMP, but to make sure people understand what we are talking about when we are talking about having a process to manage projects. And this is a far more ideological question. So I have no intention on working on the PMP because I truly believe that the PMP is a consequence of your competence on managing projects.

Ricardo (1m 31s):
And not because you did the 35-hour course, that gives you all the tips for the exam that you pass. And you don't know anything about the project. So this is my opinion on that. Okay. So let's start by saying the BMP exam is not an exam about the PMBOK guide it's above and beyond. So let me explain to you, maybe on the PMP exam, you will face some questions around the PMBOK guide as a process. And that process approach that is more productive than an agile adapt, helps you to manage projects, but the PMP will cover many audit topics that are not on the PMBOK guide.

Ricardo (2m 15s):
So don't believe okay if I memorize every single word of the PMBOK guide, I will be successful on the PMP exam. I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. Maybe you will answer some questions, but there are many questions on the people's side and these that are not detailed and related to the PMBOK guide. Okay. So pay attention to that. The second thing today, today we have a new PMP exam, but we still use the PMBOK guide sixth edition. So today, if you want to understand the PMBOK guide, you should use the PMBOK sixth edition because there is no PMBOK seventh edition yet when the new edition comes out, probably BMI will update the questions that are related to the PMBOK sixth edition to the new edition.

Ricardo (3m 7s):
This is an obvious thing they will do, but right now, so if you're doing the exam next week, and there is no PMBOK 17 edition, what should you do? You should take a look at the PMBOK sixth edition, but you should not believe that by only memorable rising everything on the PMBOK, you will pass in the PMP. This will not happen. Okay? Okay. The new exam, the new exam is divided, basically intrigue pieces. Okay. Half of the exam it's called process. These are exactly where a potential question around the PMBOK guide will appear. It's the process of managing projects. How do you manage risks? How do you manage a budget?

Ricardo (3m 49s):
How do you manage the stakeholders? This is on the process. So the questions that we'll cover, the PMBOK guide will be here, but what is important? It's a PMI is telling us that on the process side, half of the hope of the exam will be a predictive approach, mostly focused on the PMBOK guide and 50% with an agile approach like lean alike, agile methods like comeback. So you need to study. These are a new approach. Also, if you want to succeed in this process area, that is half of your exam. The second part is very heavy now, and I love it.

Ricardo (4m 32s):
It's on the people side, 42% of the exam on the people side, we're talking about managing conflict negotiations, all this set of soft skills that deal not clearly written on the PMBOK guide. Some of them, you may see that's something like in a food note or in a small paragraph, but they will ask you far more questions about this. Then that is what it's inside the PMBOK. So make sure that you get the knowledge on the people side, conflict negotiation, managing stakeholders, managing power. These will be required for you to be successful.

Ricardo (5m 13s):
And this is 42% of the exam and last, but definitely, not least 8% of the exam is on the business environment. We are talking here about delivering Valley outcomes far more than outward. So you are building a, for example, a new house, but what is the intent? What is the value proposition of building this house? So these will go above and beyond. So it will touch on program management will touch on the value stream. So it's very important. And all this concept of predictive and agile will Culver people, process and business. Okay. So pay attention to that on a very practical term, Dixon, that used to be 200 questions.

Ricardo (5m 57s):
It's now 180. This does not change too much because out of that old 200 questions, 20 of them were just to build a future database. They are unscored questions. So right now there is no one core questions that is 180 and all of them will be scored for you. The exam, it's almost four hours, three hours, 50 minutes or 230 minutes. And if you do this in a Proctor environment, you will have two breaks off 10 minutes. I don't know how they work. Just to be clear here. I did my exam in 1999. So I don't know how this will work, but there is a process for you to have these breaks during the exam.

Ricardo (6m 40s):
The exam in this is very important in the past exam was always a multiple choice. A B, C and D, and one of them is the right one. Right now, these questions will still exist, but now you have questions with multiple responses. It means A and C, A and B, B and D. There will be also questions where you need to feel the blanks. So there is a space and you need to put the right word there, and there will be questions connecting. For example, on the item in column A with one item of column B. For me, this is amazing.

Ricardo (7m 21s):
If you want to make sure that people use their knowledge and not their creativity to answer the question, it means that if you have no clue about the question in the past, and you just put B your chances of being right is 25, but on filling blanks, it's far harder for you to use our creativity to feel that. So this is a good point for me in terms of the exam. Look, if you want to take a look more deeply on what I just said, access pmi.org/pmbok-guide-standards/about/current. And this is the website where you will see this connection on the PMBOK guide and the PMP exam.

Ricardo (8m 7s):
So, folks, I hope this could clarify some of the questions so far. Now, if you need to study any PMBOK for the PMP exam, you should study the PMBOK sixth edition until the new one is released. And remember the PMBOK is not the PMP exam. Okay? So they care for those taking exam. Good luck all the best for you and see you next week with another five minutes podcast.

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