PMI-ACP® Certification – Requirements and Application

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The Project Management Institute (PMI) offers a certification, Agile Certified Practitioner.

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PMI-ACP® Certification – Requirements and Application

The Project Management Institute (PMI) offers a certification, Agile Certified Practitioner.

When to Use PMI-ACP® Certification – Requirements and Application

The PMI-ACP® credential is awarded to experienced project managers who are have met the education and experience requirements. In addition, they have passed a rigorous exam on Agile practices.

Instructions

If you are planning on sitting for the PMI-ACP® exam, your first step (after this course) should be to download the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)® Handbook. This handbook is available for free on the PMI website (http://www.pmi.org/). This handbook will provide detailed instructions and guidance on how to complete the application and the testing process including the current fees.

The requirements that must be met before you sit for the exam are:

  • Education background: Secondary degree (high school) or Associate’s degree or its global equivalent.
  • General project experience requirement: 2,000 hours (and 12 months) of project experience during the past five years. This requirement is automatically met by individuals who hold the PMI® or PgMP® credential.
  • Agile project experience: 1,500 hours (and 8 months) of Agile project experience during the past three years. This is in addition to the 2,000 hours of general project experience.
  • Agile training: 21 contact hours of training in Agile practices.

The application is normally completed online at the PMI website. The application does not need to be completed at one sitting, you can save your work and come back. You may need to do that as you gather the information for your project experience. You need to be able to document everything you claim on the application. The formal education requirement is verified with a transcript, The Agile training is verified with a description of the course of study, the qualification of the instructor, and proof of course completion. The experience requirement is verified by completing experience verification forms for the project time claimed. These forms must include contact information in order for PMI to verify the claims.

Once the application is completed, the processing is very simple. PMI will review it for completeness within 10 days of submittal and then the application fee is due. Once the fee is paid, an exam eligibility letter is sent that is valid for one year. A portion of the applications are selected for audit. If selected, you must provide copies of all documentation within 90 days of notification. PMI will review the documentation within 5 to 7 days and then issue the eligibility letter.   

The trickiest part of the application process is the experience verification forms.  Several ground rules for those forms include:

  • You must document your project experience on the PMI forms; you can’t substitute other project records.
  • Business projects and projects for civic groups can be included.
  • A project can be counted for general project experience or Agile project experience, but not both.
  • The hours claimed are those leading or directing project tasks. You do not have to have the title “Project Manager” but you must be leading the tasks.
  • If you are working on multiple projects at the same time, all of the hours on all the projects will count, but you cannot count the same calendar month multiple times when projects overlap. 

Hints and Tips

  • The application process will take some time to complete – especially the experience verification forms. 
  • Make sure you have the documentation to back up your claims.

PMI-ACP is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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  • 00:03 Hi this is Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 I would now like to cover the requirements and application process for
  • 00:09 PMIs Agile Certified Practitioner credentials.
  • 00:13 >> Some of you may be planning to apply for this credential.
  • 00:16 This session will cover the processes and the requirements.
  • 00:19 Start by downloading the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner Handbook from PMI.
  • 00:24 It will have the most current requirements and fees.
  • 00:27 It will also provide important information about the exam.
  • 00:31 Before you are eligible to take the exam, you must meet the other requirements.
  • 00:35 These are an educational background of at least a secondary degree or
  • 00:38 associate's degree, 2,000 hours and 12 calendar months of general project
  • 00:42 management experience during the past five years.
  • 00:45 Individuals who hold a valid PMP or
  • 00:47 PGMP credential are automatically granted in this requirement.
  • 00:52 1500 hours and 8 calendar months of Agile project experience during
  • 00:57 the past three years, and 21 contact hours of training on agile practices.
  • 01:02 This course counts towards that 21 hours.
  • 01:05 And of course, you must pay your fees before you can take the exam.
  • 01:08 The PMI Agile Certified Practitioner application process
  • 01:13 Is similar to the PMP or PJMP process.
  • 01:16 The application's submitted online at the PMI website.
  • 01:20 The application does not need to be completed in one sitting.
  • 01:23 Your application will be saved for many months until you formally submit it.
  • 01:27 This is helpful because it may take a few days to track down some of the information
  • 01:31 that is required for some aspect of the application.
  • 01:34 If you are required to provide verification of the information,
  • 01:38 you need to be sure you have access to the following types
  • 01:41 of verification documentation.
  • 01:43 For formal education, you need to have a transcript of the program of study and
  • 01:47 the degree granted.
  • 01:48 The 21 contact hours of training will require a document or
  • 01:51 documents that show the course of study, the qualifications of the instructor, and
  • 01:56 a certificate of completion.
  • 01:59 The experience verification forms will need an individual and
  • 02:02 their contact information for
  • 02:03 each project who can verify your claims about your project experience.
  • 02:08 Let's take a minute and review what happens after the application is complete.
  • 02:12 First, you complete the online application and submit it.
  • 02:16 PMI then reviews the application for completeness.
  • 02:19 The application is lengthy and a lot of work, so it's not surprising that many
  • 02:23 times an application must be sent back to be corrected.
  • 02:27 Once the application is approved, you then pay your application fee.
  • 02:31 Most of the time, there's no audit, and
  • 02:33 PMI will send an eligibility letter that is good for one year.
  • 02:37 A portion of the applications are selected for audit by PMI.
  • 02:41 If that happens to you,
  • 02:42 you must provide documentation to verify everything that is in your application.
  • 02:46 You have 90 days to submit this documentation.
  • 02:50 PMI will review your documentation within 5-7 days of submittal.
  • 02:54 If everything is okay,
  • 02:55 you will then get your eligibility letter that is good for one year.
  • 03:01 The last thing I want to discuss is how to document your project experience.
  • 03:05 This applies to both general project experience and
  • 03:07 the Agile project experience.
  • 03:10 This is documented on experience verification portion
  • 03:12 of the online application.
  • 03:15 You can record experience from both work projects and projects with civic groups.
  • 03:19 So if you're helping your community build a new town library
  • 03:22 like a friend of mine is doing, you could count a portion of those hours.
  • 03:26 However, you can't use the same project in both general project experience and
  • 03:30 the Agile project experience.
  • 03:32 Put it in one category or the other.
  • 03:35 The hours claimed are those you spent leading or directing project tasks and
  • 03:39 activities, even if you did not have the title of Project Manager.
  • 03:43 If you're working on multiple projects in the same time,
  • 03:47 you can claim all the hours but you can claim a calendar month only once.
  • 03:52 So, in this example, all the hours from both project one and
  • 03:55 project two can be claimed.
  • 03:57 However, April and May can only be counted once.
  • 04:00 If one of those projects was claimed for general project experience and one for
  • 04:04 Agile project experience, you can still only claim the months one time, so
  • 04:09 pick which category in which you want to place the month.
  • 04:15 The PMI application process can be time consuming and
  • 04:18 you need to be able to document your claims.
  • 04:20 There are other Agile certification credentials, but
  • 04:23 this course is focused on the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner.

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PMI, PMP, CAPM and PMBOK are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

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