Head First PMP, 3rd Edition

Chapter 14. Professional Responsibility: Making good choices

It’s not enough to just know your stuff. You need to make good choices to be good at your job. Everyone who has the PMP credential agrees to follow the Project Management Institute Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, too. The Code helps you with ethical decisions that aren’t really covered in the body of knowledge—and it’s a big part of the PMP exam. Most of what you need to know is really straightforward, and with a little review, you’ll do well.

Doing the right thing

You’ll get some questions on the exam that give you situations that you might run into while managing your projects and then ask you what to do. Usually, there’s a clear answer to these questions: it’s the one where you stick to your principles. Questions will make the decisions tougher by offering rewards for doing the wrong thing (like money for taking a project shortcut), or they will make the infraction seem really small (like photocopying a copyrighted article out of a magazine). If you stick to the principles in the PMP Code of Professional Conduct regardless of the consequences, you’ll always get the answers right.

The PMP exam categorizes ethics and professional conduct as part of a project manager’s crosscutting knowledge and skills. This means that there will be questions about ethics and professional conduct scattered throughout the exam alongside ...