USA-NCB, PM National Competence
Baseline, is Now Updated!

Get the NCB Release 2.0
With this release of the USA-NCB, you register by clicking this link and requesting the download link be sent to your email address. An automatic response will return the download address of the current release of USA-NCB, in Adobe Acrobat format (pdf, 500K).

More About the NCB (from its Introduction)
The USA’s National Competence Baseline is a framework for assessment and certification of the knowledge, experience, behavioral attributes, and competence of Project participants. It provides a career ladder suitable for use by a range of project participants, from team member and leader, to Project Manager of increasingly complex Projects, to Program Manager. In addition to its use in building a career ladder, it helps focus an organization’s learning and coaching, and assists practitioners at all levels in self-assessment. Finally, it is a primary basis for our certification at increasingly higher levels of demonstrated competence, and of project responsibility.

The USA-NCB for PM is a taxonomy (or classification structure) of key Program, Project Management and related Elements, not a body of knowledge. In the domain of effective Project Managers, the true body of knowledge spans thousands of books and publications, and lives on in the experience of hundreds of thousands of project participants. As a taxonomy, it represents a starting-point, not the ending-point, for your personal discovery and assessment of your knowledge, behavioral attributes, experiences and competences as a Program or Project Manager or project stakeholder.

PMCert uses this document as the foundation for our 4-Level Competence-based Certification program. PMCert has other, more specific documents, some for public use and others for internal use, to supplement this competence baseline. The documents for public use will assist individuals and organizations in understanding the overall certification program. Internal documents support the governance, procedures, practices, and functions of the program.

While the USA-NCB provides brief coverage of each key Element of Project Management, this document does not provide comprehensive treatment. Rather, it provides an overview of each Element that should be sufficient for an experienced project participant to perform a self-assessment. As a competence baseline, this document is the framework for assessment of the results that a Project Manager has produced.

How We Use NCB
We are now accepting individuals' applications for three Project Manager certifications that are now available, Certified Senior Project Manager (IPMA Level B®), Certified Project Manager (IPMA Level C®), and Certified Project Practitioner (IPMA Level D®). We are also accepting applications for intact groups of up to 20, to ease scheduling and arrangements needed for the implementation of the rigorous Certified Project Practitioner exam. To find out more, please Contact Bill Duncan, PMCert Chair.

To download the applications for either certification, or to see more about the USA's first Project Manager's Competence-based certification program, go to our PMCert site.