By the Certification Board

A successful Project Risk Management Professional (PRMP) beta examination was conducted in June 2021. Since that time, the PRMP Committee has been busy moving toward a final PRMP certification that will be offered to the general public on Monday, May 2, 2022. If you are interested in becoming a PRMP certified by AACE this article will be of interest to you.

The purpose of any professional certification program is to provide a mechanism to formally and objectively evaluate and publicly recognize the capabilities of an individual in a defined skill area. Certification as a Project Risk Management Professional (PRMP) through AACE’s Certification Program recognizes certificants who have demonstrated their professional competence in Project Risk Management (PRM).

The eligibility requirements for a PRMP candidate, eight years of experience or a four-year degree and four years’ experience do not require a certain amount of risk-specific management experience. Such specific and focused risk management experience (minimum of four years) applies only to the expert level DRMP certification. However, the amount of examination study and preparation time to achieve the professional level PRMP is proportionally correlated with a candidate’s actual risk management experience.

Specific risk management topics including terminology, basic concepts, and statistics, as well as planning and implementing the entire risk management process, are fundamental to being successful in achieving the PRMP certification.

PRMP candidates are also expected to have reasonably broad skills, knowledge, and experiences in all aspects of cost engineering in addition to risk management skills and knowledge. While it is not required, candidates will benefit from first passing the CCP examination because of the shared skills and knowledge of Total Cost Management (TCM) and cost engineering in general. A major portion of the examination covers the following supporting skills and knowledge elements such as: cost, cost estimating, planning, and scheduling, procurement and contracts, and ethics.

Finally, communication skills are vital to ensuring that the identification of risks and the impacts if risks remain unmitigated are understood, particularly among stakeholders, decision makers, and managers who have strong expectations and biases. This will be demonstrated in the exam by writing a memo that addresses a specific scenario.

Before investing in the effort and expense required for taking the PRMP exam, candidates should objectively review their understanding, skill, and experience within this diverse body of knowledge.

There are already twenty practicing PRMPs who have successfully qualified for and passed the examination. Please consider joining this elite team and becoming recognized as being among the first PRMPs within AACE.

If you have any questions you can always reach out to Certification Staff at certification@aacei.org or you can view the Ask Me Anything about PRMP/DRMP certification recorded webinar. Click here to learn more.