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!