Major Changes to New PMP Exam in Jan 2021 Explained

PMI has published the new PMP Exam Content Outline 2021 for the new PMP Exam and the PMP Exam will be changed from 2 January 2021 onwards. This article will briefly describe what the major changes to the PMP Exam 2021 are.

What Actually are the Changes?

The new PMP Exam 2021 will be categorized according to 3 major domains of content:

• People (interpersonal) – 42% of all PMP exam questions
• Process (technical) – 50% of all PMP exam questions
• Business Environment (interacting with the organization) – 8% of all PMP exam questions

The new PMP Exam attempts to organize project management knowledge into much simpler and easy-to-understand skillsets categorized by People, Process and Business Environment. Another change is Agile Project Management will gain much weight:

• predictive project management (traditional, waterfall) – 50% of all PMP exam questions
• agile or hybrid approaches – 50% of all PMP exam questions

For the “CORE” preparation for your PMP Exam, the PMBOK® Guide 6th edition will still be the one. But the accompanying Agile Practice Guide will also be a must for the new PMP Exam!

The other major changes will be about the PMP Exam format:

• 180 questions (was 200 questions in previous PMP Exams) but the same number of questions will be scored
• 230 minutes exam time (was 240 minutes)
• two 10-minute breaks during the exam (was one break only)
• in addition to the multiple-choice questions, there will also be multiple responses, matching, hotspot and fill-in-the-blank questions:
  • multiple responses — more than 1 correct answers from a number of choices
  • matching — drag the text boxes to the correct places
  • hotspot — click on the correct spots of the charts/graphics
  • fill-in-the-blank questions — to type the answers in the blank

The exam change to PMP Certification is beneficial to Aspirants, though changes always bring about uncertainties and stresses.

Wish you PMP success in the new PMP Exam!