PMI’s PMBOK has long served as a guide for aspiring project managers, leading them to fulfill the demands of their roles successfully. Recently, PMI has unveiled plans to update The PMBOK® Guide, building upon the 7th Edition and introducing a revised 8th Edition of the PMBOK Guide.
Under “What’s New with PMI Standards & Publications” on PMI’s website, the institution states the following: “PMI’s Standards and Publications department announces that it is initiating development to revise The PMBOK® Guide. Building upon the Principles-based Seventh Edition, extensive market research has been conducted to understand best practices in the field and content required to serve the needs of the project management community. Including coverage on the impact of AI in the field of project management, balanced guidance on both Agile and Predictive ways of working, along with more in-practice supporting content.”
Since PMP candidates rely on the PMI’s PMBOK as a cornerstone of their exam preparation, many are wondering if this means that PMI will be making any changes to the PMP exam in 2024.
Well, considering the historical pattern of the PMBOK release dates and the Exam Content Outline (ECO) updates, here’s what you need to know:
- PMI reviews, updates, and releases a new Edition of the PMBOK guide every 4 years.
- It usually takes PMI 2 to 3 years to update the ECO following the release of a new PMBOK Edition.
- It takes approximately less than one year for PMI to update the PMP exam following the update of its ECO.
Please note that these are observations based on the historical data of the dates of updates and new releases, as shown in the table below.
Based on this trend, the release of PMBOK 8th Edition will probably take place in early 2025, which means most likely PMI will update the ECO and the PMP Exam later in 2024 or during 2025.
So, for now, the PMP exam is poised to maintain its current format and content for the foreseeable future, providing consistency and reliability for aspiring project management professionals. Consequently, if you’re preparing for the exam in 2024, you should use the PMBOK 7th edition for your prep and use the actual version of the ECO as your exam reference.
More importantly, if you already started preparing for the exam, you should schedule for it this year; since a lot might change next year, you should avoid going through the hassle of repeating the whole preparation all over again.