PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP)® Certification Course

Introduction to all domains

• The PMI-RMP credential: eligibility routes, the application, the exam structure, domain weightings, and how scenario questions are written
• Key terms: risk, threat and opportunity, individual project risk and overall project risk, risk appetite, risk threshold, and risk tolerance; the difference between a risk, an issue, and an assumption
• PMI references for risk: The Standard for Risk Management in Portfolios, Programs, and Projects, the practice guide on risk management, and the risk content of the PMBOK Guide (confirm current editions)
• The risk management process and the principles behind it; risk at project, programme, portfolio, and enterprise level
• Tailoring risk management to predictive, agile, and hybrid delivery
• The role of the risk professional: facilitator, analyst, adviser, and coach
• Practical Exercise: Complete a diagnostic quiz to identify strengths and gaps against the five exam domains, then draft a personal study plan

Domain I: Risk Strategy and Planning (22%), Tasks 1 to 3

• Preliminary document analysis: industry benchmarks, historical data, lessons learned, and deciding which documents are relevant
• Assessing the project environment: organisational process assets, enterprise environmental factors, delivery methodology, and the project management information system
• Environmental analysis tools: PESTLE and SWOT; constraints from government, markets, regulation, and technology; the project's business drivers, key assumptions, and benefits
• Stakeholder analysis for risk, and building a risk-awareness culture
• Organisational and cultural risk appetite, and assessing the maturity of the risk culture
• Confirming risk thresholds: aligning project thresholds with organisational appetite, calculating how much risk the organisation can absorb (cost, schedule, scope, quality, safety, environment, legal), and leading conflict resolution when stakeholders disagree
• Practical Exercise: Given a sample project brief, assess the environment and agree risk thresholds with a group of role-played stakeholders who have different appetites

Domain I: Risk Strategy and Planning (22%), Tasks 4 to 6

• Establishing risk processes, tools, templates, and forms; risk metrics; and risk categories
• The Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) and how it supports the plan
• Documenting the risk management plan: roles and responsibilities (using a responsibility assignment matrix such as RACI), key activities and who does them, funding and time for risk work, and prioritisation criteria
• Probability and impact scales, definitions, and risk scoring rules
• The risk communication plan, and tailoring communication to each stakeholder group
• Leading risk planning with stakeholders: setting rules of engagement, involving them in prioritising, and training, coaching, and empowering them (servant leadership)
• Practical Exercise: Draft the key sections of a risk management plan, including an RBS and a RACI chart, for a sample project

Domain II: Risk Identification (23%), Tasks 1 to 4

• Identification exercises: risk workshops, interviews, focus groups, expert input, brainstorming, the Delphi technique, checklists, and analysis of documents and project data
• Cause-and-effect and root cause techniques, such as the Ishikawa (fishbone) diagram, and prompt lists such as PESTLE or TECOP
• Writing a clear risk statement: cause, event, and effect; labelling each risk as a threat or an opportunity
• Assumption and constraint analysis: categorising them, assessing their risk, and encouraging stakeholders to challenge them
• Documenting triggers, thresholds, causes, timing, and consequences
• Developing the risk register: validity of risks, probability, impact, urgency, origin (internal or external), ownership, and classification as threat or opportunity
• Identifying risks that are easy to miss: interdependencies, supplier and contractor risks, regulatory and permitting risks, currency and inflation, security, and climate risks in project locations across Africa
• Practical Exercise: Run a risk identification workshop for a sample infrastructure or mining project and produce a first risk register with well-written risk statements

Domain III: Risk Analysis (23%), Task 1, and Task 3

• Why qualitative analysis comes first, and the data it needs
• Probability and impact matrices, ordinal scales, and risk scores; assessing the effect of a risk on schedule, cost, resources, scope, quality, and stakeholders
• Other risk attributes: urgency, proximity, detectability, manageability, connectivity, dormancy, and propinquity; prioritising on impact and urgency
• Risk data quality assessment, and probability and impact assessment bias
• Analysing risk complexity with SWOT, tree diagrams, and Ishikawa diagrams; impact analysis on project objectives
• Assessing compliance with corporate, project, and regulatory governance requirements against the organisation's strategic objectives
• Coaching stakeholders to categorise and assess threats and opportunities for themselves
• Practical Exercise: Score and rank the risks in the sample register, test the ranking with the group, and agree which risks go forward to quantitative analysis

Domain III: Risk Analysis (23%), Task 2

• When quantitative analysis is worth doing, and the data it needs
• Three-point estimating (triangular and beta/PERT) and common probability distributions
• Expected monetary value (EMV), and decision tree analysis with worked examples for threats and opportunities
• Sensitivity analysis and tornado diagrams; correlation and its effect on results
• Monte Carlo simulation for cost and schedule: inputs, outputs, S-curves, confidence levels, and how to read the results; schedule risk analysis and the critical path
• Calculating contingency reserve from the results, and the difference between contingency reserve and management reserve
• Overall project risk: expressing exposure as a range and a confidence level, and forecast and trend analysis using new and historical data
• Risk weighting and calculating risk priority
• Practical Exercise: Calculate EMV for a set of risks, build a decision tree, and interpret a sample simulation output to recommend the contingency a project should hold

Domain IV: Risk Response (13%), Tasks 1 and 2

• Strategies for threats: avoid, transfer, mitigate, accept, and escalate
• Strategies for opportunities: exploit, share, enhance, accept, and escalate
• Strategies for overall project risk, and choosing the right strategy by cost, benefit, and fit with thresholds
• Contingency plans, fallback plans, triggers, and workarounds
• Contracts and insurance as risk responses, including risk sharing in contracts and cross-border and multi-party arrangements
• Setting time-bound actions with named owners; judging the effectiveness of a response by cost, schedule, and its effect on probability and impact; showing it with risk burndown charts and dot plots
• Implementing responses, seeking feedback from stakeholders, and dealing with secondary and residual risks
• Re-evaluating organisational risks after responses are in place
• Practical Exercise: Choose responses for the top risks in the sample register, assign owners and triggers, and estimate the residual risk left after each

Domain V: Monitor and Close Risks (19%), Tasks 1 to 4

• Gathering and analysing performance data from risk-relevant work packages; baselines and variance analysis
• Earned value measures (CPI, SPI, TCPI) and trend analysis as early warnings of risk, and technical performance measurement
• Risk reviews, risk audits, and reserve analysis; tracking triggers and risk levels
• Monitoring residual and secondary risks, and assessing their effect on objectives
• Reporting: risk reports, dashboards, and tailoring information for the sponsor, steering committee, team, and regulators
• Updating the risk register, lessons learned, the project plan, and change logs; managing risks that have expired or occurred, and closing risks
• Capturing lessons learned and feeding them back into organisational process assets
• Monitoring in agile projects: risk-adjusted backlogs, retrospectives, and burn-down and burn-up charts
• Practical Exercise: Review a sample project status report, find the early warning signs, update the risk register, and write a one-page risk report for a steering committee

Cross-cutting topics tested across all domains

• Risk management in agile and hybrid projects: iterations, backlogs, and risk-based prioritisation
• Programme and portfolio risk: aggregation of risks, interdependencies, benefits risk, and escalation to the right level
• Risk in complex, uncertain, and fast-changing environments; resilience; and the difference between risk and uncertainty
• Building a risk-aware culture and managing risk attitudes and biases
• Ethics and professional conduct for risk professionals, and handling sensitive risk information
• Digital tools for risk management, including risk software, dashboards, and the careful use of AI tools for risk identification and analysis (confirm current detail)
• African project contexts: cross-border infrastructure, mining, energy, public-sector, and donor-funded projects; currency, political, supply chain, and climate risks
• Practical Exercise: Analyse a case study of a delayed cross-border project, identify the risks that should have been managed, and recommend what to do differently

Exam readiness

• How PMI scenario questions work: reading the question, spotting key words, eliminating wrong answers, and choosing the best answer
• Multiple-answer questions, and the tricks and traps common in risk questions
• Calculations: a quick review of formulas that appear on the exam
• A full-length practice exam under exam conditions
• Detailed review of the practice exam by domain, and a plan to close remaining gaps
• Next steps: submitting the PMI application, the exam booking, preparing on the day, and maintaining the credential with PDUs
• Review of key learning outcomes, and certificate of completion
• Practical Exercise: Sit the full practice exam, mark it, and agree a personal plan for the weeks before the real exam