Bridge strategy and execution. Lead portfolios that deliver value.
APMG International Accredited
APMG International is a global accreditation and certification body that validates best-practice skills in project, programme, portfolio, and change management for individuals and organisations.
APMG International Accredited Topics
Topic 2 - Project Planning & Control
APM-aligned guidance for Planning and Project Control managers and engineers.
Topic 3 - Earned Value
Integrate scope, time, and cost. Establish a measurable performance baseline.
Managing Portfolios Topic Overview
This module focuses on the APMG Managing Portfolio Qualification, which equips learners with the knowledge and skills to design, implement, and manage portfolios that deliver sustained strategic value. While project management ensures the delivery of individual outputs and programme management aligns multiple projects into coherent capability, portfolio management operates at the highest strategic level, ensuring the right mix of projects and programmes are prioritised and resourced to achieve organisational strategy. The qualification is particularly relevant to the Strategic Management Pathway, aimed at senior professionals such as Directors of Portfolio, Heads of PMO, Heads of Project Controls, and senior executives responsible for investment decision-making and benefits realisation. The emphasis is on aligning organisational strategy with portfolio delivery, balancing risk and reward, and ensuring governance structures maximise return on investment.
Who It’s For?
Professionals who want to deepen portfolio management expertise and apply it in real scenarios. Suitable for those seeking influence in portfolio governance and better outcomes across initiatives.
Why This Certification?
Organisations face fast change and complex priorities. This qualification equips you to align portfolios to strategy, improve execution, and manage resources effectively. It addresses common failures in cost, time, and benefits by teaching analysis and application of proven practices.
What You Will Be Able To Do?
- Demonstrate knowledge of Managing Portfolios principles, practices, techniques, and success characteristics.
- Apply and tailor these to given scenarios.
- Analyse and distinguish appropriate from inappropriate application in different settings.
Certification Goal (Optional Exams)
Foundation Level
- Format: Multiple-choice, closed-book.
- Number of questions: 50.
- Duration: 40 minutes.
- Pass mark: 25/50 (50%).
- Focus: Key principles, definitions, portfolio cycles (definition and delivery), and governance structures.
Practitioner Level
- Format: Objective testing, open-book (official PfM manual permitted).
- Number of questions: 4 scenario-based questions, worth 20 marks each (total 80 marks).
- Duration: 3 hours.
- Pass mark: 40/80 (50%).
- Focus: Application of PfM principles in realistic portfolio scenarios, demonstrating decision making at senior level.
Project Planning & Control
Project Planning & Control supports the APM guide “Planning, Scheduling, Monitoring and Control: The Practical Project Management of Time, Cost and Risk.” It is the first comprehensive APM best practice for planning and control. It applies across industries and sectors.
Who It’s For?
Planning managers. Project control managers. Planning and project control engineers. Delivery leaders who need robust controls.
Why It Matters?
- Aligns portfolios and projects with clear controls
- Reduces time and cost variance
- Improves benefit realization and delivery confidence
What You Get?
- A step by step controls guide from initiation to execution
- A holistic view of interdependencies between planning and controls functions
- A practical, scalable companion for project controls professionals
- A pathway to capability growth for delivery organizations
Purpose
Raise understanding and set organization-wide standards from a common text. Assure consistency, target best practice, and secure value for money. Increase certainty of delivery.
APM Alignment
Built on APM principles and terminology. Fully aligned to planning, scheduling, monitoring, and control of time, cost, and risk.
Outcomes
Common standards. Repeatable processes. Better governance. Higher predictability of scope, time, and cost. Stronger assurance.
Applicability
Use on capital projects, technology change, and operations. Scales for small teams and major programs.
Training and Certification
Instructor-led and self-paced options. Exercises mapped to APM guidance. Assessment aligned to planning and controls competencies.
Earned Value Management (EVM) CertificationTopic Overview
EVM facilitates the integration of project scope, time, and cost objectives and establishes a baseline plan for performance measurement.
Certification Outcomes
- Facilitate integration of scope, time, and cost and set a performance baseline.
- Demonstrate to stakeholders whether they are getting value for money and suggest improvements.
- Provide objective measurement of achievement against cost, scope, and timescales.
- Enable accurate forecasting for projects and programmes and support comparisons across programmes.