PMP Course Syllabus 2026: What You Learn in a 35-Hour PMP Course

A PMP course syllabus answers one practical question: what will you actually be taught before you sit the exam? The answer changed in July 2026. The exam now weighs People at 33%, Process at 41% and Business Environment at 26%, and a good course should be built around those numbers.

This guide lays out what a 35-hour PMP course covers, topic by topic. It also explains how a syllabus differs from PMI’s exam outline and the PMBOK Guide, and how ShriLearning’s live program delivers it.

The syllabus at a glance

Syllabus, exam outline and PMBOK Guide: what’s the difference?

These three terms get mixed up all the time, and the confusion leads to bad study plans.

PMI says the outline and the PMBOK Guide differ noticeably. The Guide holds the knowledge. The exam checks whether you can apply it to real situations using your experience. PMI also says the exam isn’t written from any single text.

That’s why a good syllabus doesn’t just walk through a book. It follows the outline’s tasks and teaches them through scenarios. For the full task list, question types and exam format, read PMP Exam Outline 2026 Explained. You can also read PMI’s own Examination Content Outline.

The PMP syllabus by domain

The topics below are grouped the way the 2026 outline groups its tasks. Each domain ends with a few self-check questions. If you can’t answer one in a couple of minutes, that’s a topic to revisit.

People domain (33%)

This domain is about leading humans, not managing tasks. Topics include:

• Building and keeping a shared project vision with stakeholders
• Spotting conflict sources and applying an agreed resolution strategy
• Choosing a leadership style and empowering the team
• Setting roles, expectations and ground rules
• Identifying, analysing and engaging stakeholders
• Aligning and managing stakeholder and customer expectations
• Transferring knowledge across the team
• Planning communication, feedback loops and reporting

Self-check: Can you explain why a project manager talks to the people in a conflict before escalating it? Can you describe the difference between engaging stakeholders and managing their expectations?

Process domain (41%)

The largest domain covers the mechanics of delivery. Topics include:

• Choosing the development approach: predictive, agile or hybrid
• Building an integrated project management plan
• Defining and breaking down scope (see the guide to the Work Breakdown Structure)
• Delivering and tracking value, not just outputs
• Planning and optimizing resources
• Procurement, including selecting contract types (see Project Procurement Contract Types)
• Finance: estimating, budgets, contingency and tracking variances
• Quality: requirements, plans and cost of quality
• Scheduling: estimating, baselining and analysing variation
• Status: metrics, artifacts and reporting
• Closure: criteria, handover and lessons learned

Self-check: Can you explain when a hybrid approach beats a purely predictive one? Can you interpret a schedule or cost variance and say what you’d do about it?

Business Environment domain (26%)

This domain ties projects to the organization and the world around it. It’s also where the biggest syllabus change sits, because it grew from 8% to 26%. Topics include:

• Governance: structures, rules, escalation paths and success metrics
• Compliance: security, health and safety, sustainability and regulatory needs
• Change control, from request to updated documentation
• Impediments and issues
• Risk: identifying, analysing, responding to and monitoring it
• Continuous improvement and lessons learned
• Organizational change (see Leading Teams Through Change)
• External environment changes such as regulation, technology, geopolitics and markets

Self-check: Can you tell when a risk has become an issue and how your response changes? Can you walk a change request through control from submission to updated plan?

Predictive, agile and hybrid thinking runs through every topic above. PMI says about 40% of questions are predictive and about 60% are agile or hybrid, spread across all three domains. A syllabus that treats agile as one separate chapter doesn’t match the exam.

Where AI and sustainability fit

PMI’s outline says it considered trends such as AI and sustainability when it updated the exam. Sustainability appears inside several tasks, including planning information needs, quality, compliance and risk responses.

AI is named in the outline’s introduction but isn’t listed as a task or enabler, so there’s no separate AI topic to memorize for the exam. ShriLearning’s final session still covers AI in project management alongside agile and hybrid delivery and exam-day strategy, because project managers now meet AI tools at work. For practical examples, see How to Use AI in Project Management.

How ShriLearning’s course delivers the syllabus

ShriLearning is a PMI Authorized Training Partner. You can confirm it in the PMI ATP directory by searching for ShriLearning. Here’s how the program is built:

• Format: 12 live sessions over 6 weekends, Saturday and Sunday, 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM IST. That’s 48 program hours.
• Contact hours: You need to attend at least 35 of the 48 hours live. After a short knowledge check in the PMI portal, you download a PMI pre-approved 35 contact hours certificate.
• Content: PMI’s official PMP Exam Prep content, which comes with your own PMI Student License Kit. The kit fee depends on your country’s PMI zone and is added at checkout.
• Teaching style: Each session pairs the official content with case studies, exam-style scenarios and exam strategy. You practise every question type, including case-study, graphic-based, matching, point-and-click and drop-down questions.
• Final session: AI in project management, agile and hybrid delivery, and exam-day strategy.
• Support: Weekly doubt-clearing and revision sessions, application assistance and a personalized study plan.
• Missed a class: Live sessions aren’t recorded, in line with PMI’s policy for Authorized Training Partners. You can re-attend a session in a future batch once within a year of enrolling, at no extra cost.

The day-by-day plan is in the course agenda PDF. For current fees and batch details, see the PMP Online Training page.

A syllabus is half the job: practise it

Knowing the topics isn’t the same as passing. The exam presents situations, and often several linked questions about one case. Here’s an illustrative example of the style. It isn’t an actual exam question.

A hybrid project is midway through delivery. The sponsor asks for an extra feature, and the team lead says the current sprint is full. What should the project manager do first?

The syllabus gives you the tools: change control, stakeholder expectations and tailoring the approach. The question tests whether you assess the impact and follow the agreed change process before committing to anything.

To build that habit, try these free resources:

• The free PMP mock test gives a domain-wise breakdown after 20 questions.
• The daily practice questions give you a few new questions every day.
• The PMP flashcards and the course glossary help with key terms.
• The study plan generator builds a schedule around your exam date.

Who this syllabus suits

The course assumes no prior PMP knowledge. It fits project managers, team leads, delivery, program and product managers, engineering managers, consultants, business analysts, construction and operations professionals, and IT professionals moving into project leadership.

To apply for the exam you still need to meet PMI’s experience and education rules. They’re covered in 35 Hours of Project Management Training and PMP Certification in India 2026.

Common mistakes

Using a syllabus built on the old weights. If Business Environment is still treated as an 8% topic, a quarter of the exam is under-covered.

Treating the syllabus as the PMBOK Guide’s table of contents. The exam tests tasks and judgment, not chapter recall.

Skipping predictive topics because agile feels newer. About 40% of the questions are still predictive.

Reading without practising scenarios. Case-based and graphic-based questions need practice under time.

Looking for risk under Process. In the 2026 outline, risk, change control and issue management sit in Business Environment.

Key terms

Ready to start?

Not sure where you stand against the new weights? Take the free PMP mock test first.

If you’d like live, structured preparation, the next PMP batch runs from 14 November to 20 December 2026. Reserve a seat in the November 2026 batch.

Related reading on ShriLearning:

• PMP Exam Outline 2026 Explained: Domains, Tasks and What Changed
• PMP Exam Updates in 2026: What Is Altering with the PMBOK Guide
• PMP Exam 2026 Update: What Every Indian Aspirant Needs to Know
• 35 Hours of Project Management Training
• PMP Certification in India 2026
• PMP Exam Time Management 2026