The Project Management Institute (PMI)® offers a professional credential for project risk managers, known as the PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) ®. PMI’s professional credentialing examination development processes stand apart from other project management certification examination development practices. PMI aligns its process with certification industry best practices, such as those found in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. A key component of this process is that organizations wishing to offer valid and reliable professional credentialing examinations are directed to use a role delineation study (RDS) as the basis for the creation of the examination. This process uses knowledge and task-driven guidelines to assess practitioner competence, and determine the level of salience, criticality, and frequency of each of the knowledge, tasks, and skills required to perform to the industry-wide standard in the role of a project risk manager.

The role delineation study ensures the validity of an examination. Validation assures the outcome of the exam is in fact measuring and evaluating appropriately the specific knowledge and skills required to function as a project risk management professional. Thus, the role delineation study guarantees that each examination validly measures all elements of the project risk management profession in terms of real settings.

PMI-RMP® credential holders can be confident that their professional credential has been developed according to best practices of test development and based upon input from the practitioners who establish those standards. The PMI-RMP examination is a vital part of the activities leading to earning a professional credential; thus, it is imperative that the PMI-RMP examination reflect accurately the practices of the project risk management professional. All the questions on the examination have been written and extensively reviewed by qualified PMI-RMP credential holders and are supported by current project risk management published references. These questions are mapped against the PMI-RMP Examination Content Outline to ensure that an appropriate number of questions are in place for a valid examination.

PMI retained Alpine Testing Solutions to develop the global PMI-RMP Examination Content Outline. Alpine Testing Solutions provides psychometric, test development, and credential management solutions to credentialing and educational programs. Finally, while the PMI-RMP Examination Content Outline and The Standard for Risk Management in Portfolios, Programs, and Projects (2019) have commonalities, it is important to note that those involved in the study described previously were not bound by The Standard for Risk Management in Portfolios, Programs, and Projects. They were charged with defining the roles of individuals assessing and identifying project risks, mitigating threats, and capitalizing on opportunities, and using their experience and pertinent resources to help in this task.