PMI-ACP study guide
PMI-ACP · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)® is an agile credential offered by the Project Management Institute, the organization also behind the PMP and CAPM. PMI describes the certification as one that "validates your ability to engage stakeholders, apply agile approaches, and lead teams." Rather than certifying expertise in a single framework, it is aimed at practitioners who work across agile environments and need to show breadth of method plus sound judgment. The PMI-ACP study guide has 7 sections and about 2,103 words.
01Agile Principles and Mindset
The four Agile Manifesto value pairs - individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; responding to change over following a plan - rank the left items higher, they do not declare the right items forbidden. Any answer that forbids documentation, contracts, or planning entirely is a trap.
308 words, about 2 min02Value-Driven Delivery
Every backlog decision is a value decision. Understand business value, cost of delay, and the financial tools exam questions like to compare.
338 words, about 2 min03Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder identification starts early and is revisited, not frozen at chartering. Use a power/interest grid to choose engagement style: high power and high interest get close partnership; low power and high interest get regular information; high power and low interest get concise summaries and no surprises.
296 words, about 1 min04Team Performance
Agile teams are self-organising (they decide how) and cross-functional (they hold the skills to finish). T-shaped people and generalizing specialists reduce bottlenecks.
276 words, about 1 min05Adaptive Planning
Adaptive planning uses rolling-wave planning and progressive elaboration: the near term is detailed, the far term is coarse, and the plan is refined every iteration. Release plans are forecasts, not commitments - express them as a range.
304 words, about 2 min06Problem Detection and Resolution
Agile risk management is continuous, not a document written once. Maintain a risk-adjusted backlog, and handle each risk with ROAM - Resolved, Owned, Accepted, or Mitigated - naming an owner.
286 words, about 1 min07Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is process-level inspect and adapt. The retrospective closes every iteration, but its format should vary - Start/Stop/Continue, the 4Ls, sailing ship, or a data-driven review of cycle time and defects - so the team keeps looking with fresh eyes.
295 words, about 1 min