The following information pertains specifically to the NEW PMP® exam—the one that will be rolled out by PMI on June 30th of 2009. This announcement covers three (3) specific areas:

  • The New Exam Release Date
  • Differences Between the 3rd and 4th Edition PMBOK® Guides
  • Changes in Eligibility Criteria and Passing Score

The New Exam Release Date

As announced at PMI Global Congress North America in mid-October, a new version of the PMP® exam will be placed into worldwide use for any and all PMI® credential examinations taken on or after June 30th of 2009. This exam will be based on information contained in the new PMBOK® Guide—Fourth Edition, scheduled to be released in December of 2008.

Differences Between 3rd and 4th Edition PMBOK® Guides

Per The Project Management Institute, the upcoming Fourth Edition of the PMBOK® Guide will reflect a focus on improved consistency and clarity. Great consideration was given to remove redundant information and add clarifying statements where needed. Significant improvements were made to improve readability, and terminology was updated only to present them consistently in a verb-noun format.

PMI® outlined the major differences between the Third Edition and the Fourth Edition are summarized as follows:

  1. All process names are now in a verb-noun format
  2. Efforts were made to distinguish between Enterprise Environmental Factors and Organizational Process Assets.
  3. A standard approach for discussing requested changes, preventive actions, corrective actions and defect repairs was employed.
  4. The processes decreased from 44 to 42. Two processes were deleted, two processes were added and 6 processes were reconfigured into 4 processes in the Procurement knowledge area.
  5. To provide clarity, a distinction was made between the Project Management Plan and project documents used to manage the project.
  6. The distinction between the information in the Project Charter and the Project Scope Statement was clarified.
  7. The process flow diagrams at the beginning of chapters 4-12 have been deleted and replaced with data flow diagrams.
  8. A data flow diagram for each process has been created to show where information comes from as an input and where it goes to as an output.
  9. A new appendix was added that addresses key interpersonal skills that a project manager utilizes when managing a project.

PMI® also noted that a complete list of changes will be found in Appendix A of the new PMBOK® Guide—Fourth Edition.

Changes to the Eligibility Criteria and Passing Score

Unlike the previous exam change cycle, it appears there will be no changes to the eligibility criteria, the application process or the passing score for the PMP® examination