PMI-ACP Tests

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) exam is designed by the Project Management Institute (PMI). It is designed to test your skills in applying the Agile techniques in project planning and management. Agile principles focus on providing quality service to a customer by delivering valuable software, getting rid of the steps in a project that are considered wasteful or undesirable, and adding a value to the end result. PMI-ACP uses a number of approaches such as Lean, Scrum, Kanban, XP (Extreme Programming), and TDD (Test Driven Development). To obtain PMI-ACP certification, you must pass PMI-ACP exam that has following prerequisites:

- You must have a total of 2000 hours of experience working on general projects.
- 1500 hours of experience working with teams on agile projects or using agile methodologies.
- You need to have a total of 21 hours of training on agile procedures.

PMI-ACP exam consists of 120 multiple-choice questions. You are given 3 hours to finish your test. The cost of the exam is $435 for PMI members and $495 for non-members. Once you complete your test and submit the answers, you will see your results on the screen almost immediately. You get either a pass or fail report. PMI does not publish the passing score for their ACP exam. This is because it uses psychometric analysis in their tests, and scores are determined by the difficulty of the individual questions. The other reason is that each candidate is given a different set of questions, and it would not be possible to have a standardized pass mark for all the exams. PMI, however, prepares score reports showing your proficiency level. These levels are:

- Above Target – awarded to those who perform better than the average candidates
- Target – given to the candidates with the average performance
- Below Target – given to those who perform worse than the average candidates

It is recommended that candidates thoroughly prepare for this exam by attending the available training and using other preparation materials. Training is done by PMI Accredited Training Providers. Knowledge of PMI-ACP exam objectives is also important. You can find these objectives in the PBOK Guide (sixth edition).

Once you pass your exam and attain your certification, you are required to maintain it. To keep it current, you are required to earn 30 PDUs (Professional Development Units) every three years. There are various methods of earning the PDUs that include attending classroom training or learning courses and events conducted by PMI and its REPs (Registered Education Providers), attending informal learning, and other organizational events. The training and activities must be related to your credential.