Before we talk about the changes in the new PMP certification exam, we would like to define the project. The first part focus on the demonstration of the concept and example of “projectization thinking”. And the second part focus on giving a brief introduction to the alteration of the PMP certification exam and the all-new PMP exam.
What is the project?
Project is an independent and one-off work task that utilizes human, material, and financial resources and uses a certain method in order to achieve certain objectives such as quantitative and qualitative indexes, within certain restrictions of time and cost. The official definition of the project written in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) published by Project.
Project Management Institute (PMI) is:
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporality of a project defines its rapidity and efficiency of its solution. As project managers, we should form the concept of “Everything is a project” in the process of continuous learning. The word “Everything” in the sentence can be as a simple presentation or as big as a complex project. We should cultivate the “projectization thinking” in our minds. Which could help us independently finish the various “projects” in our daily life.
When we attempt to solve problems in our daily life, we can adapt the models of software development life cycle or waterfall life cycle. In these models, we usually divide the job into several phases: analysis, design, implementation, test, and finalization. Then we have to develop the corresponding “project plan”. By using this kind of thinking methodology, we could significantly improve our efficiency of doing our jobs. On the other hand, this thinking would enable us to see things in a more comprehensive way and from a higher viewpoint.
Many project managers need to make a PowerPoint presentation for the annual summary of the project work. By adapting the projectization thinking, we could think of the development of the PPT as a simple project, and we could rapidly develop the project plan as follows:
1. Analysis: (It takes about 20 minutes.) Analysis of the three projects in which I was a project manager. Analyze mainly about the progress and acceptance status.
2. Design: (It takes about 30 minutes.) The PPT would be designed to be an industrial-style PPT. The successful projects would be designed to be separated from the bad ones in the PPT.
3. Implementation: (It takes about 60 minutes.) Spending time to write the PPT, and make sure that words and graphics co-exist in the presentation.
4. Test: (It takes about 10 minutes). Spending time to text the presentation on our own computer and rehearse giving the presentation and speech to ourselves.
5. Finalization: (It takes about 15 minutes). Give the presentation and speech to our leaders in the official annual summary meeting.
As presented above, by using the projectization thinking we can consider the presentation as a project, and I spent only 2 hours on developing the PPT, and finally finished the “project”. At the annual summary meeting, the leaders learned about my project’s status and progress in the past year. As a result, they asked me to manage several other projects, which means my leaders trust me to be a professional project manager.
In summary, in order to build the projectization thinking, I believed that except for managing the real projects in our work, we should also build this type of thinking in our daily life for solving daily problems. As a result, we are able to follow the professional project management processes to analyze the important things in our daily life, and easily develop our own projectization thinking, and finally, solve the problems more efficiently.
Introduction to new PMP certification exam
As shown in the previous text, projectization thinking can help us solve our daily problems more efficiently. Then, how to gain more professional and standard knowledge of project management? The Project Management Institute (PMI) in the USA has developed an entire professional knowledge body of project management, called PMBOK (Project Management Body Of Knowledge), and also has developed an international exam regarding this knowledge body in order to give international certification of project management professional (PMP).
In the old-time (before 01/02/2021), the PMP exam is relatively simple and easy to pass. The traditional PMP exam contains 200 one-choice questions and lasts 240 minutes. But in the new PMP certification exam, contains not only one-choice questions and the difficulty has increased significantly. From this alteration, we can see the solid determination of the innovation of PMI.
Now, let’s see the all-new PMP exam which begins on 2 January 2021.
Project management professionals need more diverse skills and approaches than ever before. The Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification exam will meet those needs and will focus on three new domains:
1. PEOPLE – emphasizing the skills and activities associated with effectively leading a project team.
2. PROCESS – reinforcing the technical aspects of managing a project.
3.BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT – highlighting the connection between projects and organization strategy.
Content that spans the value delivery spectrum, including predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches, will be included across the three exam domains.
The new PMP Certification exam is comprised of:
- 180 questions (the previous exam was 200).
- 230 minutes to complete the exam.
- One additional break for a total of two 10-minute breaks for computer-based tests. No scheduled breaks for paper-based exams.
- Questions will be a combination of multiple-choice, multiple responses, matching, hotspot, and limited fill-in-the-blank.
