Course Objectives: Upon completion of the course, participants will have an understanding of:

• Pass the PfMP Exam on the first try (by applying our methodology)
• PfMP Application process, requirements, and PfMP exam outline
• What are Portfolios and what is Portfolio Management
• The interaction between Portfolio Management, Program / Project Management and Organization Strategy
• The Role of the Portfolio Manager and other key roles in Portfolio Management
• How to design, Prioritize, build the portfolio and manage the portfolio component relationships
• The Three Portfolio Management Process Groups and the interactions among them
• The five Portfolio Management knowledge areas

Key Course Topics: This portfolio management test prep course is designed to prepare you for the PfMP credentialing examination, which is offered by the Project Management Institute. With lessons on data analysis as well as business communication and collaboration, the course contains engaging lessons and self-assessment quizzes to help you review the concepts and practice the types of questions you can expect on the exam. The course helps you study several portfolio management topics, such as:

• Lesson (1):   Introduction to Portfolio/Program and Project Management  
• Lesson (2):   Portfolio Management Overview & Organization  
• Lesson (3):   Portfolio Management  Process Groups
• Lesson (4):   Portfolio Strategic Management
• Lesson (5):   Portfolio Governance Management
• Lesson (6):   Portfolio Performance Management
• Lesson (8):   Portfolio Communication Management
• Lesson (9):   Portfolio Risk Management

Target Audience: The target groups of PfMP Certification holders are senior leaders who are helping their organization with project investment decisions. These includes:

• PMO leaders who are managing large quantities and pools of resources and wish to move into the driver seat
• Project managers and program managers who are managing portfolios of initiatives
• Financial, marketing and operational executives who work closely with project managers in their organization and who are in a position to influence and contribute to the strategy implementation process
• Up and coming project professionals who are ready to take the next leap into mid- to upper-level management in their organization
• We also have seen a high number of senior project professionals who are “accidental project managers” and who have grown beyond the PMP credential

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Who will benefit from the course?: As the PfMP certification is the most elite PMI qualification, credential holders will gain a distinct advantage in employment and promotional opportunities over their peers and this course is ideally suited for current program, project, and portfolio managers, along with VPs/AVPs, PMO Directors / PMO consultants.

About the Exam The PfMP exam is part of a four-week credentialing process that leads to a professional portfolio management credential from PMI. The exam contains 170 multiple-choice questions that are divided into five domains, including strategic alignment, governance, portfolio performance, portfolio risk management and communications management. Test takers have four hours to complete the certification exam, which can be taken after an initial application review and evaluation from a panel of portfolio managers.

PfMP Certification Overview

The credentialing process prior to sitting for the exam consists of a review panel with strict steps and deadlines. The process takes about 4 weeks to complete once you’ve submitted your application until you’ve cleared PMI’s review panel to be able to sit for the exam and is as follows:

Application: Your application will include all of your portfolio management experience.  PMI prefers all applicants apply via their online certification system, but they will allow printed applications on a case-by-case basis. Once you begin the application you have 90 days to complete it.   Here are some details you have to include in your PfMP® certification application:

• Portfolio Management Experience: Number of Months:  Experiences are tabulated from the beginning and end dates of your portfolio management experience. You need to document 48-84 months of portfolio management in order to meet the 8-year experience requirement
• Portfolio Management Experience: Number of Hours:  The application will ask you to record the number of hours of your tasks in five portfolio management divisions. Keep in mind that the required hours must be parallel to your educational attainment.
• A Brief Outline of Your Portfolio Management Experiences:  As stated, in-depth details are required when documenting your portfolio management experiences. You have a maximum of 500 words—make sure you are clear and concise.

Application review: PMI will review your application for completeness, evaluate your skills, professional experience, as well as how you respond to a series of questions.  

Fees:  Exam fees are based upon PMI member status. The exam for PMI members is $800, non-members pay $1,000.  

Audit:  Though not common, it is possible that your submitted application can be audited as all applications are subject to be audited.   If you are randomly selected for audit you will have 90 days to submit supporting documentation that includes diplomas, and signatures of supervisors for all of the projects and programs listed on your application. PMI will review your audit as soon as they receive it.  If you are audited and complete the audit successfully you will move on to the panel review.

Panel review: The panel review will assess professional experience based on your responses to the Portfolio Management Experience Summaries on the application. The review panel is made up of portfolio managers selected by PMI. Each of the panel members is subject matter experts in portfolio management and trained by PMI to evaluate your experience. In order to avoid bias, your identity and location are kept confidential throughout the process. The review will verify that you have directly independently managed one or more portfolios.   Failure to clear the panel review means that you will be contacted to discuss your status and what you will need to do or improve upon before applying again. Passing the panel review means you are cleared to sit for the exam.

PfMP exam: Once you clear the review panel you will have up to one year to sit for the exam.  You will have 4 hours to complete the exam which is computer-based and consists of 170 multiple-choice questions. 150 questions are scored, while 20 are non-scored pre-test questions placed randomly throughout the exam.  You are permitted to take a break if you need one, unfortunately, there are no scheduled breaks and any time used taking a break eats into your exam limit time. If you fail the exam you can retake it two more times during the 12-month period following clearing the panel review.

The PfMP® certification exam targets five domains, all have corresponding tasks to complete.

• Domain 1: Portfolio Strategic Management : 8 items / 25%
• Domain 2: Portfolio Governance Management : 5 items / 20%
• Domain 3: Portfolio Performance Management : 10 items / 25%
• Domain 4: Portfolio Risk Management : 6 items / 15%
• Domain 5: Portfolio Communications Management : 6 items / 15%

The questions are situational and the responses have to be based on the processes defined in PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management.     The next PfMP® certification timeline is for those who have passed both the examination and panel review.  

• Maintenance – Up to 3 years. You are required to earn 60 professional development units (PDUs) within that 3-year cycle.
• Renewal – This is only available when you have earned your 60 PDUs, as well as renewal payment.
• Suspension- This happens in the third year from passing your PfMP® exam. The suspension happens when you failed to submit the continuing certification requirements for renewal and maintenance.

Expiration – Same situation as stated above. You need to reapply in order to renew your expired credentials.

About Portfolio Management: Portfolio Management is the application of management activities to a collection of programs, projects and/or operations to achieve strategic business objectives.  Thus Portfolio Management is not just about ensuring profits but cohesively binding projects within the portfolio, so that they work in tandem to achieve global goals of the organization. The PfMP certification is an elite certification offering from the Project Management Institute.  PfMP credential holders are recognized for their advanced experience and the skills necessary to manage and align a portfolio of projects and programs to realize organizational strategy and objectives. PfMP professionals oversee the success of one or more portfolios, balance conflicting demands between programs and projects, and allocate resources based on organizational priorities and capacities. Portfolio Management is generally viewed as the apex of the project management career ladder. Unlike program and project management that mainly concentrates on “how”, portfolio management addresses the question of “why” and “what”.  As a Portfolio Manager, you would be required to manage various aspects such as time, cost, and resources by applying portfolio management best practices.

What makes PMO Advisory the Best Choice for your Project Management Training and/or Consulting needs?

The company is founded by a project management insider. Prof, Dr. Te Wu holds the following PMI certifications: PfMP, PgMP, PMP, and PMI-RMP (Portfolio, Program, Project and Risk Management, Professional) credentials. Prior to starting PMO Advisory, he was the head of the global project services at one of the Big 4 tax, audit, and advisory firms.  Complementing his practical experiences, he is also a quasi-academic who taught as an Assistant Professor at Montclair State University and a Visiting Professor at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS, ranked #1 in Asia).

Te founded PMO Advisory LLC, a management training and consulting firm that specializes in strategic business execution including portfolio, program, and project management.   Hence the foundation of PMO Advisory is rooted in project management expertise coupled with educational attainment.   We are uniquely capable as we serve the full spectrum of project management (portfolio, program, and project management) and leverage that in our consulting and advisory services.

We’re experienced professionals.  We speak human. We don’t clutter our communication with consultant-speak designed to make frameworks more difficult to understand than they or your issues are. We prefer to keep our language and our solutions friendly, simple and effective.  You’re not just hiring another training or consulting firm, you’re partnering with experienced professionals who will not only meet, but exceed, your expectations. We provide effective education that is grounded in years of successful application, not opinion or personal preference.  We focus on what makes our clients successful.

We care about your success.  YES, we really do!  We don’t just get to know you or your business, we take a sincere interest and genuinely want to help you and or your business realize lofty goals.  We want to know all about your vision for your career and/or company.   We personally invest ourselves in each trainee and every project we work on. Our programs will provide you and your business with a clear road map to success.

We’ve done our homework.  We’re extremely knowledgeable about serving busy people with busy lives and training trends. We embrace contemporary learning initiatives because we’ve seen first-hand the fantastic results that they produce. Whether you’re looking for a hybrid training of online and in-person / in classroom; whether organizational training or executive coaching or leadership training, you can be sure PMO Advisory is educated on a variety of solutions to meet your needs.

We are committed to quality.  We don’t settle for anything but the best, and neither should you when it comes to training. We’ve worked hard to find the best ways to provide our clients with affordable project management training programs and reasonable scheduling options without sacrificing the quality of our services.

We’re flexible, agile and cost-effective.  Because we are a small firm, we’re also responsive, flexible and agile. We adapt as your needs change, with speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness that larger firms just can’t match.  PMO Advisory does more than just deliver our project management training and management programs to you. We also make sure that the resources in your organization who will be implementing the programs know exactly how they work, why they work and how to help them evolve. We will make sure you’re set up for success before our work is done!

Our client satisfaction commitment.  A positive client service experience which meets (and ideally exceeds) your expectations is the goal behind all of our business interactions. Continually improving our service experience is the cornerstone of our operations.  Measurement and feedback are critical to achieving these goals. We continually collect client feedback — formal and informal; both good and not-so-good — and share it across the company. When the feedback is good, our employees are motivated to repeat and improve on their performance.

We offer a wide range of business execution and project management training. Click here for more information.

Our Philosophy and Values

PMO Advisory is a PMI® Authorized Training Provider (ATP #4172)  and proud to be one the very few PMI® registered firms able to offer PfMP, PgMP, PMP,  and PMI-RMP Certification Training. We make tremendous effort to understand our clients, their needs and interest and align our products and services  accordingly.   Because we are a small firm, we’re agile and responsive. And we will adapt our training programs as your needs change with a speed larger firms just can’t match.  We’re committed to getting individuals, small teams, and organizations professionally trained and transformed in line with set goals.  You are guaranteed a positive client service experience which meets (and ideally exceeds) your expectations, this is our goal behind all of our business interactions.  Specifically we promise to:

1. Focus on the benefit of the training as it relates to each customer’s individual needs.
2. Be responsible and accountable for each customer’s success.
3. Always act with integrity and dignity when dealing with customers, vendors and employees.
4. Always EXCEED the client’s expectations.

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