We recommend not to worry and have a deep relaxing breath as a first step. As expected for a long time, PMI finally changed its traditional exam content after delaying it 2 times. It was mainly focused on the waterfall approach before. The PMP exam in 2021 will be a slightly new one with some different question formats we have never seen before. It will also contain questions about the agile framework much more than ever.
However; the good news is, there is nothing that you could cope with before January 2, 2021, and not after that date. To wrap up, we can only say that our focus may differ a little bit from the exam type we were used to have. There is not a specific change log at hand for now but we can summarize the changes. Another point to take into consideration is that the PMBOK, which forms the basis of the PMP certification exam, will remain the same for a period. More clearly, the information we need to master in a detailed way will remain the same to a certain point, the only change will be the way PMI tests this knowledge.
In the previous system, the PMP exam mainly focused on the stages involved in the project life cycle and detailed these stages with subtasks. These stages are, project management process groups as we know them very well. As a part of the exam, people's knowledge level was tested with one or more questions.
In the new exam system, candidates came across 3 new domains instead of the existing 5 domain content. After this period with the publication of PMBOK 7, I think the new concept of project performance domains will be a part of the exam along with value delivery system, tailoring, and project management principles. It is better to be aware of the fundamentals of
- Team performance domain
- Stakeholder performance domain
- Uncertainty performance domain
- Project work performance domain
- Measurement performance domain
- Lifecycle and development approach performance domain
- Planning performance domain
- Delivery performance domain.
These completely different topics and completely different percentages of domains don't mean that we will see a completely different exam content. All domains are divided into tasks within themselves, and we can say that some of these tasks intersect at some points in the same or lighter terms as the tasks present in the current system.
Domain 1-People: The Old PMP exam content also contained tasks that can be indirectly qualified under the people domain. However because these tasks were not collected under a specific heading, we did not know about their percentage on the exam before. With the new exam, 42 percent of the exam content will come from this area. We don't know what the rate was in the old exam system, but what we do know is that it was not 42 percent. We need to be prepared for many more questions that will come from this area.
Domain 2- Processes: The tasks contained in this domain and the types of questions that will appear in the new year are almost the same as the past PMP exam system. In other words, based on this point, we can conclude that there will be no change in 50 percent of the questions that will be included in the new exam system.
Domain 3- Business Environment: We are relatively not accustomed to this domain. However, its percentage in the exam is relatively low and the source to be referenced will be PMBOK 6 until PMBOK 7 comes out. As a result, we can conclude that there is nothing to worry about again.
In addition to the content change, we will also see some structural changes to the method of the exam in the new period. The first of these;
Now, instead of the 200 questions contained in the old exam, you will encounter 180 questions, and all 180 questions will be evaluated. In other words, in the old exam system, 200 questions were asked, but 175 questions were evaluated. For now, this practice seems to have gone down in history. According to this, 76 questions will come from the people domain, 90 from the processes domain, and 14 from the business environment domain.
In the previous exam system, we only encountered multiple-choice question types. With this change, we will now also encounter new question types such as selecting multiple answers, matching, and filling in gaps.
These are the all-important changes for now. I think we will see more changes when PMBOK7 is published.
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