Short answer:

The current PfMP exam is based on the 3rd edition of The Standard for Portfolio Management, even though the latest standard is the 4th edition.

Longer answer:

This short blog is written by Dr. Te Wu.  He was one of the core members contributing to the creation of the 4th edition of the standard (published in Nov 17). As a part of our committee’s work, the committee took a comprehensive view of portfolio management. Combined with PMI’s guidance of moving toward a “principle-based standard”, the result was substantial changes from the 3rd edition. For PMI, this became a headache as it is rather difficult to update the exam. Ideally, PMI would need to involve a large pool of people to develop new questions, validate the questions to ensure statistical confirmation, and then plan for the transition. As you probably know, there is NOT a very large pool of PfMPers. Thus, this was a daunting task. Based on his continual discussions with PMI (and also involved in other standard committees and task groups), he believe PMI may very well sit this out. PMI is probably starting to form the project plan for the 5th edition update, and they will probably update the exam then. Hope everyone finds this answer helpful.

 

About Dr. Te Wu

Dr. Te Wu (PMP, PgMP, PfMP, PMI-RMP) is the CEO of PMO Advisory and a professor with Montclair State University, Stevens Institute of Technology, and China Europe International Business School. He is also an avid volunteer on various national and global project management standard committees including the Project Management Institute, the American National Standards Institute’s Technical Advisory Group 258, and the International Standard Organization Technical Committee 258 for Project, Program, and Portfolio Management.