PMP

Project Management Professional (PMP) ®

Examination Content Outline – January 2021

Project Management Institute

Project Management Professional (PMP)®

Examination Content Outline

January 2021 Exam Update

 EXAM CONTENT OUTLINE

The following table identifies the proportion of questions from each domain that will appear on the
examination.

Domain Percentage of Items on Test

I. People 42%

II. Process 50%

III. Business Environment 8%

Total 100%

Important note: The research conducted through the JTA validated that today’s project management
practitioners work in a variety of project environments and utilize different project approaches. Accordingly,
the PMP certification will be reflective of this and will incorporate approaches across the value delivery
spectrum. About half of the examination will represent predictive project management
approaches and the other half will represent agile or hybrid approaches. Predictive, agile, and hybrid
approaches will be found throughout the three domain areas listed above and are not isolated to any
particular domain or task. The exact number of items for each question type and approach may vary by
form. Our scoring model is periodically reviewed by scoring experts to ensure valid assessment of
knowledge and skills.

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PMI PMP Examination Content Outline – January 2021
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 DOMAINS, TASKS, AND ENABLERS

In this document you will find an updated structure for the PMP Examination Content Outline. Based on
feedback from customers and stakeholders, we have worked on simplifying the format so that the PMP
Examination Content Outline is easier to understand and interpret.
On the following pages you will find the domains, tasks, and enablers as defined by the JTA.
• Domain: Defined as the high-level knowledge area that is essential to the practice of project
management.
• Tasks: The underlying responsibilities of the project manager within each domain area.
• Enablers: Illustrative examples of the work associated with the task. Please note that enablers are
not meant to be an exhaustive list but rather offer a few examples to help demonstrate what the
task encompasses.

Each PMP examination will include all tasks for a domain, and PMI will adhere to the percentage of
coverage at the domain level as outlined on the previous page.

Following is an example of the new task structure:

Task statement Manage conflict

• Interpret the source and stage of the conflict

Enablers • Analyze the context for the conflict
• Evaluate/recommend/reconcile the appropriate conflict resolution solution

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PMI PMP Examination Content Outline – January 2021
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Domain I People—42%

Task 1 Manage conflict

• Interpret the source and stage of the conflict
• Analyze the context for the conflict
• Evaluate/recommend/reconcile the appropriate conflict resolution solution

Task 2 Lead a team

• Set a clear vision and mission
• Support diversity and inclusion (e.g., behavior types, thought process)
• Value servant leadership (e.g., relate the tenets of servant leadership to the team)
• Determine an appropriate leadership style (e.g., directive, collaborative)
• Inspire, motivate, and influence team members/stakeholders (e.g., team contract,
social contract, reward system)
• Analyze team members and stakeholders’ influence
• Distinguish various options to lead various team members and stakeholders

Task 3 Support team performance

• Appraise team member performance against key performance indicators
• Support and recognize team member growth and development
• Determine appropriate feedback approach
• Verify performance improvements

Task 4 Empower team members and stakeholders

• Organize around team strengths
• Support team task accountability
• Evaluate demonstration of task accountability
• Determine and bestow level(s) of decision-making authority

Task 5 Ensure team members/stakeholders are adequately trained

• Determine required competencies and elements of training
• Determine training options based on training needs
• Allocate resources for training
• Measure training outcomes

Task 6 Build a team

• Appraise stakeholder skills
• Deduce project resource requirements
• Continuously assess and refresh team skills to meet project needs
• Maintain team and knowledge transfer

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Task 7 Address and remove impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
• Determine critical impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
• Prioritize critical impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
• Use network to implement solutions to remove impediments, obstacles, and
blockers for the team
• Re-assess continually to ensure impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team
are being addressed

Task 8 Negotiate project agreements

• Analyze the bounds of the negotiations for agreement
• Assess priorities and determine ultimate objective(s)
• Verify objective(s) of the project agreement is met
• Participate in agreement negotiations
• Determine a negotiation strategy

Task 9 Collaborate with stakeholders

• Evaluate engagement needs for stakeholders
• Optimize alignment between stakeholder needs, expectations, and project
objectives
• Build trust and influence stakeholders to accomplish project objectives

Task 10 Build shared understanding

• Break down situation to identify the root cause of a misunderstanding
• Survey all necessary parties to reach consensus
• Support outcome of parties' agreement
• Investigate potential misunderstandings

Task 11 Engage and support virtual teams

• Examine virtual team member needs (e.g., environment, geography, culture,
global, etc.)
• Investigate alternatives (e.g., communication tools, colocation) for virtual team
member engagement
• Implement options for virtual team member engagement
• Continually evaluate effectiveness of virtual team member engagement

Task 12 Define team ground rules

• Communicate organizational principles with team and external stakeholders
• Establish an environment that fosters adherence to the ground rules
• Manage and rectify ground rule violations

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Task 13 Mentor relevant stakeholders
• Allocate the time to mentoring
• Recognize and act on mentoring opportunities

Task 14 Promote team performance through the application of emotional intelligence

• Assess behavior through the use of personality indicators
• Analyze personality indicators and adjust to the emotional needs of key project
stakeholders

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Domain II Process—50%
Execute project with the urgency required to deliver business value
Task 1
• Assess opportunities to deliver value incrementally
• Examine the business value throughout the project
• Support the team to subdivide project tasks as necessary to find the minimum
viable product

Manage communications
Task 2
• Analyze communication needs of all stakeholders
• Determine communication methods, channels, frequency, and level of detail for all
stakeholders
• Communicate project information and updates effectively
• Confirm communication is understood and feedback is received

Assess and manage risks

Task 3
• Determine risk management options
• Iteratively assess and prioritize risks

Engage stakeholders
Task 4
• Analyze stakeholders (e.g., power interest grid, influence, impact)
• Categorize stakeholders
• Engage stakeholders by category
• Develop, execute, and validate a strategy for stakeholder engagement

Plan and manage budget and resources

Task 5
• Estimate budgetary needs based on the scope of the project and lessons learned
from past projects
• Anticipate future budget challenges
• Monitor budget variations and work with governance process to adjust as
necessary
• Plan and manage resources

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 Plan and manage schedule
Task 6
• Estimate project tasks (milestones, dependencies, story points)
• Utilize benchmarks and historical data
• Prepare schedule based on methodology
• Measure ongoing progress based on methodology
• Modify schedule, as needed, based on methodology
• Coordinate with other projects and other operations

Plan and manage quality of products/deliverables

Task 7
• Determine quality standard required for project deliverables
• Recommend options for improvement based on quality gaps
• Continually survey project deliverable quality

Plan and manage scope

Task 8
• Determine and prioritize requirements
• Break down scope (e.g., WBS, backlog)
• Monitor and validate scope

Integrate project planning activities

Task 9
• Consolidate the project/phase plans
• Assess consolidated project plans for dependencies, gaps, and continued business
value
• Analyze the data collected
• Collect and analyze data to make informed project decisions
• Determine critical information requirements

Manage project changes

Task 10
• Anticipate and embrace the need for change (e.g., follow change management
practices)
• Determine strategy to handle change
• Execute change management strategy according to the methodology
• Determine a change response to move the project forward

Plan and manage procurement

Task 11
• Define resource requirements and needs
• Communicate resource requirements
• Manage suppliers/contracts
• Plan and manage procurement strategy
• Develop a delivery solution

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PMI PMP Examination Content Outline – January 2021
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 Manage project artifacts
Task 12
• Determine the requirements (what, when, where, who, etc.) for managing the
project artifacts
• Validate that the project information is kept up to date (i.e., version control) and
accessible to all stakeholders
• Continually assess the effectiveness of the management of the project artifacts

Determine appropriate project methodology/methods and practices

Task 13
• Assess project needs, complexity, and magnitude
• Recommend project execution strategy (e.g., contracting, finance)
• Recommend a project methodology/approach (i.e., predictive, agile, hybrid)
• Use iterative, incremental practices throughout the project life cycle (e.g., lessons
learned, stakeholder engagement, risk)

Establish project governance structure

Task 14
• Determine appropriate governance for a project (e.g., replicate organizational
governance)
• Define escalation paths and thresholds

Manage project issues

Task 15
• Recognize when a risk becomes an issue
• Attack the issue with the optimal action to achieve project success
• Collaborate with relevant stakeholders on the approach to resolve the issues

Ensure knowledge transfer for project continuity

Task 16
• Discuss project responsibilities within team
• Outline expectations for working environment
• Confirm approach for knowledge transfers

Plan and manage project/phase closure or transitions

Task 17
• Determine criteria to successfully close the project or phase
• Validate readiness for transition (e.g., to operations team or next phase)
• Conclude activities to close out project or phase (e.g., final lessons learned,
retrospective, procurement, financials, resources)

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Domain III Business Environment—8%
Plan and manage project compliance
Task 1
• Confirm project compliance requirements (e.g., security, health and safety,
regulatory compliance)
• Classify compliance categories
• Determine potential threats to compliance
• Use methods to support compliance
• Analyze the consequences of noncompliance
• Determine necessary approach and action to address compliance needs (e.g.,
risk, legal)
• Measure the extent to which the project is in compliance

Evaluate and deliver project benefits and value

Task 2
• Investigate that benefits are identified
• Document agreement on ownership for ongoing benefit realization
• Verify measurement system is in place to track benefits
• Evaluate delivery options to demonstrate value
• Appraise stakeholders of value gain progress

Evaluate and address external business environment changes for impact on

Task 3
scope
• Survey changes to external business environment (e.g., regulations, technology,
geopolitical, market)
• Assess and prioritize impact on project scope/backlog based on changes in
external business environment
• Recommend options for scope/backlog changes (e.g., schedule, cost changes)
• Continually review external business environment for impacts on project
scope/backlog

Support organizational change

Task 4
• Assess organizational culture
• Evaluate impact of organizational change to project and determine required
actions
• Evaluate impact of the project to the organization and determine required actions

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