The Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) exists to advance the discipline of change management. The Certified Change Management Professional (CCMP) is a good fit for anyone who applies best practices in change management. The CCMP™ is a globally recognized credential established by ACMP for professionals to demonstrate their commitment to leading the way change works. The CCMP™ was developed based on ACMP’s industry-leading Standard for Change Management© ("the Standard”) that defines best practices in change management. The CCMP™ is a way for professionals to demonstrate their investment in ongoing development while successfully applying their experience to respond to a breadth of change management situations.
The certification process is described in 7 steps.
STEP 1: ACMP Membership
Membership in ACMP is not mandatory for certification application, but it will provide you free access to Resource Library, ACMP Connect community and discount for CCMP exam fee. Membership price for 1 year period is $89 USD.
ACMP’s Standard for Change Management© and ACMP Change Management Code of Ethics is free of charge and it can be downloaded for free even if you are not ACMP member.
STEP 2: CCMP Eligibility – Who can apply?
Obtaining your CCMP requires:
1. Education and Experience
A 4-year degree (or international equivalent) and 4,200 hours (3 years) of change management experience, or
Secondary education (high school or international equivalent) and 7,000 hours (5 years) of change management experience
Your hours of experience can be within any time frame. The 3- and 5-year indicators are just for guidance.
2. Training:
Completion of 21 hours of change management training in a program aligned with the Standard of Change Management© in the past 7 years. Self-paced/blended or live training is eligible.
Training can be completed with Qualified Education Providers (QEP) or non-QEP training providers, but then training needs to be evaluated to ensure it complies with ACMP Standard (see Training FAQ).
It is up to each applicant to determine whether they meet the above criteria. Use Excel template to check you eligibility and prepare application.
STEP 3: Application Submission
Next step is to complete online application and essay questions. In online application you need to enter:
Personal information (name, contact, company, job title, list degrees, certificates and credentials you hold, etc.)
Formal education
Change Management experience summaries – depending on your formal eduacation, it needs to cover 3 or 5 years of CM experience.
Change Management trainings – hours of change management training in a program aligned with the Standard of Change Management© in the past 7 years.
Change Management experience essay questions (answers for 3 of 5 essay questions)
Statement of Understanding - a declaration of the accuracy of your submission and your commitment to comply with ACMP's Code of Ethics.
Essay Questions cover five domains of ACMP standard and example questions for my application are listed bellow:
Domain 1: For a project completed in the last two years, discuss how your assessment of the history, culture, and value systems of an organization helped the employees through a change process and has impacted employee expectations about change management plans and activities during that change project, today, and into the future.
Domain 2: How did you address the readiness strategy in your last change project? What would you change if you could go back in time, to ensure a smoother transition during change?
Domain 3: Describe specific actions you have taken to measure and assess the effectiveness of a Learning & Development Plan. Include major challenges you encountered and how you dealt with them.
Domain 4: Describe a situation where you needed to modify the Change Management Plan during the execution phase and include the circumstances leading to the modifications and to the end results. Clearly identify if new items were added, if current items were eliminated, altered, or realigned in response to internal or external pressures.
Domain 5: Describe two major lessons learned from Change Management projects/processes that you have been involved in and explain how you included these lessons into current change projects going forward.
Each essay response can have a maximum of 500 words - use the word count function to ensure you do not go over.
Recommendation is to complete your application two months before you plan to sit for the exam. ACMP Administration reviews the application usually within 10 days.
After application is approved, eligibility period for taking the exam is 1 year and you can take exam up to 3 times in 1 year period. Each time, you have to pay exam fee.
STEP 4: Payment Process
Before your application can be reviewed, payment must be made. Payment is the final step after entering your experience, education, training, essay question responses and agreeing to the Statement of Understanding. The application fee includes the exam fee.
Price for ACMP members is $595 USD and non-members $745 USD. If you do not pass your exam, exam retake fee for members is $300 USD and for non-members $375 USD.
STEP 5: Schedule Exam
Upon approval of your application, you will receive a link to register for the exam at a Kryterion in-person exam location or online. Kryterion testing center in Croatia is Algebra University in Zagreb. Online testing requirement are available here. If you choose to take the exam online, you will need to ensure you have an external camera to be used during the exam. If you do not pass on the first attempt, you may retake the exam up to two additional times for a retake fee within one year of the application acceptance date.
When describing change management experiences and essay questions, advise is to hire mentor with strong background in understanding change management and ACMP mindset.
STEP 6: ACMP CCMP Test Specification
Test duration is 3 hours, consists of 150 questions and will test your knowledge of ACMP’s Standard for Change Management© and ACMP Change Management Code of Ethics.
There is no scheduled break during exam, but you can take it, if decided. Important note is that the clock continues to run while you are on a break. But, don't worry. You will have enough time to answer all questions and even check the ones you marked for review. For example, I finished exam (with revision) in 2,5 hours.
Exam questions cover 7 domains, listed below.
Domain | Percentage of Examination |
The Standard for Change Management: Process Group 1. Evaluate Change Impact and Orgnizational Readiness | 25% |
The Standard for Change Management: Process Group 2. Formulate the Change Management Strategy | 24% |
The Standard for Change Management: Process Group 3. Develop the Change Management Plan | 18% |
The Standard for Change Management: Process Group 4. Execute the Change Management Plan | 19% |
The Standard for Change Management: Process Group 5. Close the Change Management Effort | 10% |
The Standard for Change Management: Common Change Management Concepts | 2% |
Code of Ethics | 2% |
ACMP CCMP Test Specification
Expect multiple choice questions, mostly theoretical, covering process groups, processes, inputs, outputs and change management concepts from Standard, and also few questions from Code of Ethics. Exam results are available immediately.
You must complete 60 hours of Professional Development Units (PDUs) every three years to maintain your certification status. How to collect PDU points is described in “What happens after certification” section.
STEP 7: Study literature
For study, mandatory literature is:
ACMP’s Standard for Change Management©
ACMP Change Management Code of Ethics
However, there are no examples of exam questions in Standard and in order to also practice example questions, I suggest Change Management CCMP Exam Workbook from Anne Keery. It covers over 500 practice questions and exercises to help you understand Standard and Code of Ethics. I also used another literature sources, but it was not helpful for me as above mentioned.
It is important to fully understand the process groups and their tasks, including their purpose, what contributes to them (inputs) and what results they provide (outputs). Spend your time on the definitions and steps. You should know the tasks included in each process group and each Duty in Code of Ethics.
I recommend intensive study and practice with sample exam questions 2 weeks before the exam.
What happens after certification?
Once you pass the CCMP™ exam, your certification will be in effect for three years. Within that three-year period you must maintain your credential through renewal activities and accumulate 60 professional development units (PDUs) and record them in ACMP's online system. Each PDU corresponds to one hour spent on an activity (with the exception of experience). Keep all receipts and related documentation to validate your renewal application should the application be selected for an audit. In the third year, all PDUs are submitted for approval along with a fee.
PDUs can be earned in several ways: by attending conferences, QEP courses, webinars, reading, working, non-QEP courses, and giving back to the profession. If you do not accumulate 60 PDUs or do not submit the renewal application within the active certification cycle, your certification will be suspended and you may not refer to yourself as a CCMP credential holder. The suspension period lasts for one year after which your certification will expire and you must submit a new application, starting the process from the beginning, if you want to regain the credential. Refer to the Candidate Handbook on the Credentials & Training Resource page for more information about the certification maintenance process.
If you are looking for your next job or want to raise your profile as a qualified professional among so many claiming to be change managers, adding a rigorously developed credential will help you differentiate yourself.
If you want to learn more about certification process or need help to prepare your application contact me via e-mail: tatjana@pm4you.eu.
Good luck!
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