PMP cheat sheet

Exam at a glance

Domain weightings

How much of the exam each domain covers. Spend your study time in proportion — the heavier the domain, the more questions you'll see.

Key terms

Project Charter

A project charter is the document that formally authorizes a project, names the project manager, and grants them authority to apply resources. It captures high-level objectives, success criteria, and key stakeholders, and is a primary output of initiating a project.

Stakeholder

A stakeholder is any individual, group, or organization that can affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a project. Identifying, analyzing, and engaging stakeholders by category is central to the People and Process domains.

Servant Leadership

Servant leadership is a leadership approach in which the project manager focuses on serving the team — removing impediments, coaching, and enabling self-organization — rather than directing it. It is emphasized in agile and hybrid delivery on the PMP.

Agile

Agile is an iterative, incremental delivery approach that produces value in short cycles and adapts to change through frequent feedback. The PMP tests predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches, so you must recognize when an agile response best fits a scenario.

Product Backlog

A product backlog is an ordered list of everything that might be needed in a product, maintained and prioritized by the product owner in agile delivery. Items near the top are refined and pulled into iterations to deliver value incrementally.

Critical Path

The critical path is the longest sequence of dependent activities through a project schedule, and it determines the shortest possible project duration. Activities on it have zero float, so a delay to any of them delays the whole project.

Risk Register

A risk register is the document that records identified risks along with their analysis, owners, and planned responses. It is continuously updated as risks are iteratively assessed, prioritized, and managed throughout the project.

Risk Response

A risk response is the planned action chosen to address a risk. For threats the strategies are avoid, transfer, mitigate, escalate, or accept; for opportunities they are exploit, share, enhance, escalate, or accept.

Change Control

Change control is the process of formally reviewing, approving or rejecting, and documenting changes to project scope, schedule, cost, or deliverables. A change control board often authorizes changes to protect the project baselines.

Earned Value Management

Earned value management (EVM) is a technique that integrates scope, schedule, and cost to measure project performance using metrics such as planned value, earned value, and actual cost. Indices like SPI and CPI reveal whether a project is ahead or behind and over or under budget.

Scope

Scope is the sum of the products, services, and results to be delivered by a project. The PMP distinguishes product scope (features) from project scope (the work to deliver them), and controlling scope prevents uncontrolled growth known as scope creep.

Kanban Board

A kanban board is a visual workflow tool that shows work items moving through columns (for example, To Do, In Progress, Done) to limit work in progress and expose bottlenecks. It supports the flow-based delivery covered under agile approaches.

Business Value

Business value is the quantifiable benefit a project delivers to the organization, which may be financial or strategic. The PMP emphasizes delivering value incrementally and confirming that benefits are identified, measured, and realized.