The Association for Project Management (APM) range of project management qualifications are designed to support you throughout every stage of your project management career. APM qualifications reflect the knowledge that you have, the work that you do, and the skills that you’ve developed. APM and QA provide a progressive structure for your career development to advance your project management knowledge and grow your skills. The Project Management Qualification (PMQ) is a knowledge-based qualification and is APM’s most popular certification, enabling you to demonstrate knowledge of all elements of project management. You'll be able to demonstrate an understanding of how these elements interact and how your project fits into your strategic and commercial environment.
APM has identified significant benefits for successful PMQ candidates.
Improved confidence, engagement, and credibility in your role.
The target candidate for PMQ certification is:
Project Management professionals with two-to-three years’ experience in the role – or
Learners who have embarked on a project management apprenticeship or degree programme
The PMQ syllabus is based on APM’s Competence Framework and not APM’s Body of Knowledge. There are 24 individual learning objectives spread across four key areas:
Setting up for success – We analyse the optimum delivery model for a project and how it should be governed throughout its life cycle.
Preparing for change – key techniques in this section consider how organisations judge whether a project represents value-for-money and how to ensure that the business (or customer) is ready for any resultant change.
People and behaviours – project managers must engage with internal and external stakeholders (including the project team) in a professional and ethical manner.
Planning and managing deployment - irrespective of the chosen delivery model, projects must be planned and delivered in a way that respects the key constraints of schedule, budget, and quality. Risk and scope change must also be managed in a proactive and structured manner.
Ideally, to attend this course you should have:
some pre-existing project management knowledge, or
passed the APM Project Fundamentals qualification (PFQ)
If you don’t have either of the above requirements, we suggest you book onto the APM Project Fundamentals Qualification (PFQ).
The full list of 24 PMQ learning objectives can be found below. Each of these topics will be covered during your course. Full details of the content for each learning objective can be found in the syllabus section of the PMQ Handbook. This can be downloaded from APM’s website.'
Setting up for Success
Life cycles
Governance arrangements
Sustainability
Business case
Preparing for Change
Procurement
Reviews
Assurance
Transition management
Benefits management
People and Behaviours
Stakeholder engagement and communication management
Conflict resolution
Leadership
Team management
Diversity and inclusion
Ethics, compliance, and professionalism
Planning and Managing Deployment
Requirements management
Solutions development
Quality management
Integrated planning
Schedule management
Resource management
Budgeting and cost control
You will sit the online PMQ exam on the final afternoon of your course. Use of any study materials is not permitted during the exam.
Duration: 2.5 hours and completed in two parts. You can take an optional break of up to 30 minutes between part-1 and part-2. The break is in addition to the 2.5 hours exam time. You cannot go back to Part-1 of your exam after it is submitted.
40 questions worth a total of 90 marks. You will attempt all questions.
20 ‘multiple response’ questions (worth 1 mark each)
5 ‘select the missing words’ questions (worth 2 marks each)
5 ‘short-response’ questions (worth 2 marks each)
10 ‘long-response’ questions (worth 5 marks each)
APM has implemented a variable pass-mark for each exam paper that will be determined by the difficulty of the specific paper that you are assigned.
Photographic identification is required to sit your PMQ exam. Examples include:
Driving licence
Passport
Work Badge
You are required to show the invigilator your photographic identification – failure to do so will mean you will not be allowed to sit your exam.
This training course provided by Skilltec is accredited through Global Knowledge Training Ltd. Global Knowledge Training Ltd are the authorised learning partner; all trademarks and partner statuses are provided through them.