Summary of PMBOK® 4th Edition Changes

TROY, MICHIGAN — January 26, 2009

If you are sitting for the PMP® exam before June 30, 2009, expect questions to align with the Third Edition of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). After June 30, 2009, the exam questions will be based on the Fourth Edition. A digital version is available free to PMI members by going to www.pmi.org and following the link on the home page.
Here are the highlights!

Greater emphasis is on:

Collect requirements – replaces ‘scope planning’
Identify stakeholders – added
Manage stakeholders – changed from controlling to executing process (added outputs: stakeholder register and stakeholder management strategy)

Clarification on the following topics:

Enterprise environmental factors
Teaming agreements
Triple constraint was replaced by balance of constraints (scope, quality, schedule, budget, resources and risks)
Difference between the project management plan and documents used to manage the project. Project management plan is input to executing and monitoring/controlling processes, no longer an input to planning
Charter versus project scope statement

Procurement Knowledge Area was restructured to be 4 processes (instead of 6):

Plan procurements
Conduct procurements
Administer procurements
Close procurements

New Appendix on interpersonal skills detailing

Leadership
Team building
Motivation
Communication
Influencing
Decision making
Political and cultural awareness
Negotiation

The authors worked hard to be sure the outputs of one process flow into another process as an input. All process names are in a verb-noun format and graphics were updated using a new and consistent format.