Taking a Chance on the PMI-RMP
- Paying for the Pleasure of the Exam
- Uh-Oh! You Got Audited
- Preparing to Pass the PMI-RMP Exam
- Taking the PMI-RMP Exam
- After the Exam
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
The PMI-Risk Management Professional is a relatively new certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI is the governing body of the popular-Project Management Professional (PMP), the Program Management Professional, and the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM). You don’t have to possess any of these credentials to apply for the PMI-RMP. You can however, have multiple certifications from PMI—if you really want to.
Risk management professionals are project managers who spend the bulk of their work identifying, analyzing, and planning for managing risks. Risks are uncertain events or conditions that can have a positive or negative affect on the project’s outcome. That’s right—positive or negative. Consider that some risks may save the project time, create a nice by-product, or help the project save on expenses. Not all risk is bad.
Not everyone can swipe their credit card and take this exam; only qualified candidates are allowed to take the test. There are two paths to exam qualification:
- With a minimum of a high school diploma, candidates must have at least 4,500 hours of project risk management experience within the last five years. In addition, these professional will need 40 hours of risk management education.
- With a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, candidates must have at least 3,000 hours of project risk management experience within the last five years. In addition, this crowd needs 30 contact hours of risk management education.
If you qualify for this exam, you’ll have to complete an exam application through PMI's website. On the application, you’ll document all of your contact hours of project experience. The good news is that if you worked on multiple projects at once, you can count the total number of project hours spent on risk management.
The risk management education hours are training hours, not books and self-paced studying. One hour of training equals one contact hour. Online courses do qualify as long as there’s some time of end-of-course assessment exam on what you’ve learned in the course. There’s no time limit as to when you complete the required education hours. So even those old college courses and seminars count—as long as you can prove you took the course.
Paying for the Pleasure of the Exam
When you complete your application, you’ll also need to cough up some cash for the certification exam. This isn’t a cheap exam. If you’re a PMI member the exam will cost you $520, and if you’re a rebel and aren’t a PMI member the exam will cost you $670. Here’s a tip: It costs $129 to join PMI. So, for the math-challenged, if you join PMI first and then pay for the exam, you’ll save $21. If some poor schmuck pays for the exam and fails and wants to retake the exam, it’ll cost $335 as a PMI member or $435 as a non-PMI member.
Once you submit your application and you’re approved for the exam, you have one year to take and pass the exam. If you miss the one-year deadline, then it’s “thanks for the gumball” and PMI keeps your cash. You can ask for a refund if you realize that you’re not going to make the deadline as long as your request is at least one month prior to your one-year eligibility end date. And it’s not a huge refund either: You’ll receive $250. I wonder what they do with the difference. Probably have a party in your honor, I’m sure.