APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ)

The APM Project Management Qualification is aimed at those with some project management experience, seeking to deepen their career in the field. Ideal for project professionals or those with related qualifications, it offers an opportunity to enhance project management understanding. It's a suitable progression for APM Project Fundamentals Qualification holders.

This includes:

• Project managers
• Project office personnel
• Project team members
• Recently appointed project officers

After you complete this course you will be able to: 

• Life cycles: Understand the distinct life cycle stages used to structure and organise a project.
• Governance arrangements: Understand governance structures as a framework of authority and accountability for the delivery of a project, which align with organisational practice.
• Sustainability: Understand sustainability as balancing the environmental, social, economic and administrative considerations that will impact a project.
• Business case: Understand a business case as the justification for the initiation, investment and/or continuation of a project in terms of benefits, costs and risks.
• Procurement: Understand procurement as securing the provision of resources, choosing strategies for obtaining best value from supply chains.
• Reviews: Understand reviews as a way of gathering information to provide an assessment on the status of a project and the ongoing viability of the work.
• Assurance: Understand assurance as the ability to provide confidence to the governance board that a project is on track to deliver objectives.
• Transition management: Understand transition management as integration of the outputs of a project into business-as-usual.
• Benefits management: Understand benefits management as monitoring of benefits realization throughout a project.
• Stakeholder engagement and communication management: Understand stakeholder engagement and communication management as the ability to work with people internally and externally to achieve intended outcomes.
• Conflict resolution: Understand conflict resolution as the ability to identify and address differences between individuals and/or interest groups.
• Leadership: Understand leadership as ways to empower and inspire others to deliver successful projects.
• Team management: Understand team management as the ability to work with team members to create and sustain teams.
• Diversity & inclusion: Understand diversity and inclusion as the ability to build and maintain an inclusive environment that embraces a diverse culture.
• Ethics, compliance & professionalism: Understand ethics, compliance and professionalism as the ability to work consistently in a moral, legal and socially responsible manner.
• Requirements management: Understand requirements management as the ability to capture and monitor the requirements of a project.
• Solutions development: Understand solutions development as the ability to determine the optimal solution to satisfy agreed requirements.
• Quality management: Understand quality management as the ability to ensure that outputs are delivered in accordance with requirements.
• Integrated planning: Understand integrated planning as the ability to incorporate multiple plans and processes into an integrated project management plan.
• Schedule management: Understand schedule management as the ability to undertake time-based planning with an emphasis on activities and resource.
• Resource management: Understand resource management as the ability to identify and schedule the required internal and external resources.
• Budgeting and cost control: Understand budgeting and cost control as the ability to estimate costs, develop and agree budgets and monitor actual costs against forecast costs.
• Risk and issue management: Understand risk and issue management as the ability to identify and monitor risks (threats and opportunities); plan responses to those risks and respond to issues.
• Change control: Understand change control as the ability to manage variations and change requests in a controlled way.

By the time you attend this course you must have completed all the mandatory online pre-course. The online pre-course is designed to take approximately ten hours to complete. In addition, whilst attending your course there will also be examination preparation evening work. You will be sent full instructions with a link to the online pre course prior to attending your classroom course. Review the technical requirements for the online learning here.

Please be aware there will also be evening homework that must be completed prior to attending the following days learning.

Attendees should meet the following prerequisites:

All potential delegates need to undertake a free online project management assessment. This will confirm suitability and readiness for your chosen course and exam. Please watch the APM Learner Suitability video and then complete the assessment.

This is not an entry level qualification, candidates typically:

• Work in a project environment.
• Possess 2-3 years of project management experience or are pursuing a related apprenticeship or degree.
• Aim to advance their career and employability.
• Seek comprehensive project management knowledge beyond specific methodologies

If you don’t already have any of the experiences referred to above, you might want to take the APM Project Fundamentals Qualification before studying for the APM Project Management Qualification.

Please be advised that the APM recommends approximately 75 hours preparation time for the PMQ examination. You must:

• Complete all provided online pre-course expected to take ten hours (Directed Development)
• Attend a five-day classroom course (Guided Learning)
• Complete 40 hours of additional learning resources to help support exam preparation (Directed Development)

Exams are taken online via remote proctor. Two working days prior to course commencement we will arrange for an exam voucher to be issued. You will then be able to book a suitable time after your classroom event has finished to undertake your exam.

Note:You are responsible for booking your own exam(s).

The exam will focus on a candidate’s project management knowledge through four new question types:

• Multiple response (20 questions × 1 mark each)
• Select from list (5 questions × 2 marks each)
• Short response (5 questions × 2 marks each)
• Long response (10 questions × 5 marks each)

The exam will be 2.5 hours long with an optional 30-minute break. There are 40 questions worth a total of 90 marks.