PMI Agile Certified Practitioner vs. Project Management Professional Certification

The project management credentials PMP (Project Management Professional) and ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner) are 2 of the most well-known and generally recognized.

While PMI-ACP provides your credentials as a professional who can adopt and deploy agile technologies across diverse projects of an organization, PMP creates your credentials as a professional who is qualified to work in and manage different types of projects.

Both certifications are accepted across a variety of projects and sectors and are widely recognized. These certification programs share the fact that PMI (Project Management Institute), a highly regarded and well-liked organization when it concerns to project management, is the provider of both of them.

Comparing PMI-PMP with PMI-ACP eligibility

Although the same organization, PMI, offers both the PMP and the ACP, their eligibility requirements are different. For the PMP certification, you must have 7500 hours of team-leading experience or, if you hold a diploma, five years of project-specific job experience. If you have a degree, you must have three years of work experience or four thousand five hundred hours of team-leading training.

In addition, you must complete a 35-hour contact training program from one of the institutions approved by PMI.

You must have 2000 hours of experience working on various projects (a PMP certification will also suffice for this requirement), 1500 hours of working experience on agile projects and methodologies, and 21 hours of contact training in agile practices in order to become an Agile Certified Practitioner.

This means that even if you lack extensive project management expertise but have worked in agile teams, you can enroll in an ACP course. Similar to this, you should aim the PMP course first if you haven't worked in agile teams.

Comparing the PMI-PMP and PMI-ACP exams

There are 120 MCQs on the ACP exam. Twenty of these questions are pre-test questions, and the marks they receive are not factored into the final score. You have one hour to respond to all of these questions.

There are 200 MCQs in the PMP, 25 of which are pre-test questions. You have 4 hours to respond to all of these questions.

The ACP exam can be taken online or on paper, based on the institution you've enrolled in, but the PMP exam can only be taken online.

Job Roles for PMI-PMP vs. PMIACP

A candidate who has successfully passed the PMI-ACP certificate course is primarily responsible for implementing an agile methodology during the project development phase. In addition, he must remove any stages that do not advance the project in order for a firm to use lean management principles. Additionally, he must maximize the organization's usage of agile tools and processes. Additionally, he must strengthen an organization's capacity for adapting to agile technologies, which eventually boost productivity and increase customer satisfaction.

After successfully completing the PMI-PMP certification, a candidate must make sure that the methods are applied in a variety of projects while managing the various project constraints. In addition, he has to coordinate with other teams that are employed by the firm in order to monitor and work on system integration and resolve system dependencies. To improve productivity and outcomes across a range of procedures, he must comprehend and employ multiple management styles.

The classic waterfall process, which works best when a project's needs and limitations are fixed, is the main focus of PMP certification. As a result, it functions best for straightforward jobs. ACP certification, on the other hand, focuses on contemporary agile technology, which is ideal for dynamic, complicated projects that may experience shifts in requirements, scale, and constraints over the course of the project.

Which certification—PMI-PMP vs. PMI-ACP—should I pick?

Any person would naturally be perplexed when selecting these certifications. You can choose to get both of these certificates, though, to give your resume more worth and legitimacy.

Even if you are not involved in agile methods, obtaining a PMP certification will be beneficial because it verifies your abilities to manage many project types. You become a specialist in procurement, requirements communication, risk mitigation, and grasping the crucial equilibrium among scale, budget, time, and other restrictions.

The ACP certification, on the other hand, teaches you to a variety of agile methodologies, including Kanban, Lean, TDD, Scrum, etc. It verifies your qualifications as a qualified agile practitioner with the ability to use and apply various agile methodologies.

ACP is the most sought-after agile certification in the world, therefore you shouldn't disregard it given that agile is undoubtedly in high demand right now.

As long as you enroll for one certification at a time, you are not required to keep a gap between your PMI-PMP and PMI-ACP certifications. ACP certification is appropriate for those who aspire to lead projects and assume total responsibility for a project, whereas PMP certification will benefit you across your career even if you switch your industry or employment role.