APM Body of Knowledge: What is the APM BoK & Why does it Matter?

The APM Body of Knowledge (APMBoK) is the fundamental resource book for the UK’s Association for Project Management. Like its American cousin, the PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (the PMBOK Guide), the APMBoK goes through periodic revisions. So, in April 2025, the APM published the new 8th Edition.

This is not a review of APM Body of Knowledge 8th Edition

Disclaimer

I should make some things clear.

First, and most important, I wrote a good portion of the new 8th edition (around half of the sections). APM paid me for my work and sent me a copy of the final publication. I contributed my thoughts about the structure of some parts of the book.

I am therefore not an objective reader, so I shall not be reviewing it.

It is also the case that I:

• am not a member of the Association for Project Management, but I do have good working relationships with many of its officers (paid staff)
• have contributed to APM’s magazine (unpaid)
• made videos that APM has sponsored (paid) and videos about their events and publications they have not sponsored (unpaid)
• have been APM’s guest (free) at some of their events and have attended others at my own cost
• was commissioned by APM to write the short book, How to Close Projects Successfully (paid)
• have received review copies (free) of two books from APM, but have also bought over a dozen of their books with my own money.

What this Article Does Cover

In this article, I want to examine the kind of questions I expect you have:

• What the APM Body of Knowledge is (and is not)
• Who it’s for
• How it compares to the PMBOK Guide
• What’s in it
• What I like and don’t like about the APMBoK
• And my final thoughts and recommendations (for you and for APM)

Language and Spelling

Because APMBoK is published in the UK, by a UK-based organisation, I have chosen to use British English spellings throughout this article – as APM does throughout its publications.

What is the APMBoK?

So, we’re looking at the 8th edition of the Association for Project Management Body of Knowledge. In recent years, new editions appear on around a six-year cycle, so we can expect it to be current until around 2031. It is also notable that this edition is the first new version since APM did a major re-brand (although the 7th edition was re-issued with new livery in 2022).

The Authors of the APM Body of Knowledge 8th Edition

The APM Body of Knowledge 8th Edition contributors are listed as:

• Managing Editor: Professor Mike Bourne
• Contributing Editor: Professor Carl Gavin
• Writing Team:
  • Dr Mike Clayton
  • Jo Dobson
  • James Elliott
  • Jonathan Norman
  • Lynn Shaw

Missing from this list is James Simons, Senior Content Development Manager at APM. James managed the processes extremely well. The project was a delight to work on, and ran to schedule.

Pricing

The APM currently sells paperback and digital editions:

• Paperback: GB £60.00 (c.US$80)
• Digital: GB £60.00 (c.US$80)

APM members can claim 10% discount on paperback publications by using code APMMEM10 at checkout.

However, you can also buy from booksellers, and Amazon lists a Kindle edition. But, only the UK Amazon site currently lists a print edition, and that’s the paperback. I’ll update this if I spot changes.

• Amazon.co.uk
  • Paperback edition: £60.00
  • Kindle edition: £60.00
• Amazon.com
  • Kindle edition: c.$78

APM Body of Knowledge online

The APM offers a digital edition of the APMBoK to members, through APM Learning.

What is the APM?

Before we look at the APM Body of Knowledge in detail, you may be wondering, who or what the Association for Project Management?

What is the APM Body of Knowledge?

All of this is very well but exactly what is the APM Body of Knowledge? This is an important question, because it is not the same kind of document as the PMI’s equivalent. Despite its superficial resemblance, this serves a very different purpose, which I’ll discuss below.

APM describes the 8th edition of its APMBoK as ‘a foundational resource, providing the concepts, functions and activities that make up professional project management’. It sets out their view of the principles, frameworks, and methods of contemporary project, programme, and portfolio management.

Learning Resource for APM Certification

Critically, the APM Body of Knowledge 8th edition is aligned to the APM Competence Framework, Chartered Standard, and APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ). This was a deliberate choice by the editors and completes an alignment that has been somewhat lacking in previous editions. This is a real strength. The clear alignment serves learners well.

Sourcebook for Project Management Knowledge

To me, the APMBoK is a sourcebook. It is the skeleton of a body of knowledge that guides readers and practitioners to where they should look, to seek out the muscle, sinew, and organs of our discipline. But it does not provide all of that information: it does not contain the whole ‘body’ of knowledge. It merely delineates what APM believes that body contains.

The Eighth Edition of the APMBoK

The eighth edition is very much an evolution of the seventh edition, which was a bit more of an increment on the sixth. The primary points of comparison are:

1. The structure of chapters with sections and topics remains
2. The big picture structure of chapters has the same four chapters with a new first and last chapter (see table below)
3. The new opening chapter looks at the big picture of projects as means of change and transformation
4. The new last chapter is an unstructured look at data analytics and AI. It has the feel of a placeholder in anticipation of a full assessment in a later edition. It is not structured in the same way as the rest of the APM BoK, but it does give a helpful introduction to the topic.
5. The main chapters (2-5) have more sections, each with fewer topics. This makes the organization of the 8th edition clearer and easier to navigate.
6. Many topics retain 7th edition content and have been rewritten for improved clarity and readability.
7. There are new topics, and some have been rewritten from the ground up.
8. The whole book is closely (but not exactly) aligned to APM’s Comptetence Framework

The APMBoK is the Basis of APM’s Qualifications and Accreditation

The APM Body of Knowledge forms the basis of APM’s qualifications and accreditation. And it informs and structures its research projects and publications.

So, if you plan to study for one of the APM’s qualifications, you’ll need to understand the APMBoK’s content.

The three principle qualifications are:

1. PFQ: APM Project Fundamentals Qualification. PFQ is for people who want a broad understanding of the principles of the profession. It needs no prior knowledge or experience. It covers the key elements of the project management life cycle and the knowledge areas from the APM Body of Knowledge
2. PMQ: APM Project Management Qualification. PMQ is for people who want a broad level of project management knowledge: enough to play a role in projects from individual assignments through to large capital projects. The PMQ syllabus assesses breadth of knowledge in all areas of project management and covers the knowledge areas from the APM Body of Knowledge. Applicants should have some pre-existing project management knowledge. PMQ is a next step for someone with the PFQ qualification.
3. PPQ: APM Project Professional Qualification. PPQ is for any project professional that:
   1. works in project, programme, or portfolio management
   2. holds the APM PMQ (or an equivalent qualification)
   3. Wants to become a Full Member of APM (MAPM), or
   4. wants to achieve the Chartered Project Professional (ChPP) standard

And, if you are looking to provide these qualifications internally – or as a training business – it is the APMBoK against which your training offering will be accredited (or not).

Project-based Working

A major strength of the APMBoK is its continued use of the term ‘project-based working’ to refer collectively to project, programme, and portfolio management. It also uses the term ‘management of projects’ in this wider context too.

I think this is a wise move, for many reasons. It:

• obviates the need to argue senselessly about whether your work is a project or a programme; a programme or a portfolio, or anything else
• recognizes that our careers flow from one tier to the next
• takes advantage of the fact that many techniques, tools, and ideas apply equally well to these different levels

Who is the APMBoK for?

I’ll start my answer to this question with a quote from Milla Mazilu’s foreword (Milla is the APM Chair for 2025):

Whether you’re an experienced professional, a career changer, or just starting your journey, this comprehensive resource provides valuable insights and knowledge to help you navigate the rapidly-evolving landscape and continue meaningfully towards creatinga positive impact on the world around us.

APM Body of Knowledge, 8th Edition – Introduction

So, if we strip out the marketing guff from this overlong sentence, ‘APMBOK is for every project professional’. Why not be bold enough to say that clearly. Because I think it’s true.

My Assessment of who the APMBoK is for

Therefore, I see two primary audiences:

1. Project Management Students who are studying for PFQ or PMQ qualifications. This is your syllabus guide and you will need to be as familiar with APMBoK as the PMI’s CAPM and PMP candidates need to be with the PMBOK Guide. That said, for CAPM, PMBOK Guide is everything you need to know. Here, APMBoK sets out the framework from which you need to work.
2. Project Management Practitioners who want a wide-ranging and well-crafted guide to the areas of knowledge that any project professional needs to master, to rise to the top of our profession. It’s not all you could learn, but it’s a considered opinion about what the APM can reasonably expect of you, as a senior practitioner.

A Third Audience…

A third audience is ‘people like me’. That is, project managers who take our subject seriously and are curious about what other serious practitioners think. We like the short, almost reflective, articles, and we revel in new recommendations for high-quality reading. And we are delighted when one or two of the 80 topics introduce us to new ideas or new ways of thinking about our practice.

How Does the APMBoK Compare to the PMBOK Guide?

We can’t get away from the fact that, with similar names, people will want to compare the APMBoK with the PMI’s PMBOK Guide. I am a little reticent to do this, because I don’t believe they are designed to be comparable. But, they do have overlapping purposes.

It’s also tricky because the most recent (7th edition) of the PMI Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge was a massive departure from editions 1 to 6. And, at the time of writing, we are expecting an 8th edition that will likely aim to swing back a little bit and sit between the sixth and seventh editions in content and style. (‘A camel is a horse designed by a committee’, and I expect PMBOK8 to be a camel document).

So, I shall keep this assessment short. And, necessarily, it will be a personal take.

Ways the PMBOK Guide and the APMBoK are Similar

Philosophically…

• Both set out the expectations of their respective organizations for what a senior practitioner needs to know
• They are flagship publications that in some way ‘represent’ the organization
• Both are, I believe, significant revenue generators, because they are both…
• shockingly expensive (although APMBoK is less so!)

In Content Terms…

• Knowledge areas across project management:
  • APMBoK has sections
  • PMBOK has Domains
• Lifecyle and methodology agnostic, with no preference for any particular methodology

Ways the PMBOK Guide and the APMBoK Differ

Philosophically…

• The PMBOK Guide has swung from edition 6 as an attempt to document everything a ‘traditional’ project manager needs to know, including what tools and techniques to use. It was very much a ‘how-to’ guide. The 7th edition was a pared-down principles-based document. We expect the 8th edition to span this and be a bit of one and a bit of the other.
• APMBoK is explicitly not a ‘how-to’ guide. It lays out the areas of knowledge and discusses them in mature and summary terms.
• I’d also add that, in my view, APMBoK is a reading list for people who prefer to learn more deeply, while the PMBOK Guide lends itself too much to people who just want rote learning and an exam pass. I know that is not PMI’s intention. But it is the reality of how many of its candidates treat it.

In Content Terms…

• The APMBoK covers a far broader scope of knowledge than the PMBoK Guide.
  • Not only does it treat additional topics, like PMO, Governance, or Diversity and Inclusion. But it also looks further upwards into strategy and the formation of portfolios and programmes. And
• APMBoK is filled with over 200 references for recommended reading.
  • The PMBOK Guide 7 had none of this, and I am not expecting that the 8th edition will, either.
• The APMBoK has a new section on AI and Data analytics
  • This is important and, in my view, a serious omission from the PMBOK Guide. I’d like to see PMI add an 11th Knowledge Area: Benefits Management.
• As you’d expect, the APMBoK and PMBOK Guide use, respectively, British and US paradigms for key project management concepts.
  • The two biggest differences are the Iron Triangle and the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). I’ll outline those differences below.

The Iron Triangle

The APMBoK reflects the common UK practice of referring to the Time-Cost-Quality Triangle. The PMBOK Guide reflects the US practice of referring to the Iron Triangle of Time, Cost, and Scope.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The APMBoK reflects the common UK practice of using a WBS to break down the work, or activities (and therefore to document the breakdown of products with a PBS – a Product Breakdown Structure). The PMBOK Guide reflects the US practice of referring to the WBS as a decomposition of the products into their component parts (and then using those to identify the tasks).

Production Quality

I have said it before, and I say it again. The production quality of the PMI’s PMBOK Guide is a disgrace. Printed with a grey overlay of tamper-proofing that stops copying is an insult to the people who paid a lot of money for the hard copy. It makes it hard to read and unpleasant to use.

The APM has produced a high-quality paperback with bright white paper and clear type (in a pleasing font, by the way). It’s nicely laid out and a pleasure to read. The diagrams are not as uniform in style as the PMBOK Guides, but they are all clear and easy to read.

What’s in the APMBoK?

There are so many topic sections in the new APMBoK that I love, that I really wish I had the space (and copyright consents) to share them with you. But I will confine myself to sharing two things:

1. A description of how it is structured
2. A contents summary

How it is Structured 

The APM Body of Knowledge 8th edition is structured into 6 chapters, five of which have between three and eleven sections. one is more like an essay or blog article. Each section has between 3 and 5 Topics – there are 80 in total.

Each topic has an engaging two-page spread with:

• A thoughtful discussion of the topic.
• A (generally) helpful diagram that illustrates either a key point in the discussion or an important methodology that it refers to.
• Recommended reading – usually 3 carefully-chosen items with a short description of how it is relevant to the topic. Many of the recommendations are to APM publications – but that’s not surprising, as APM has an extensive catalogue of authoritative guides.

Each chapter has an introduction, as does each section.

By making more and shorter sections in this edition, they are now all highly coherent. In the contents list, the bracketed numbers represent how many topics each section contains.

Summary of the Contents

1. Implementing change
   • Projects and organisations [4]
   • Projects [5]
   • Culture and transformation [5]
2. Setting up for success
   • Portfolio shaping [3]
   • Sustainability [4]
   • Financial management [3]
   • Business cases [3]
   • Project lifecycles [4]
   • Governance arrangements [4]
3. Preparing for change
   • Benefits management [3]
   • Capability development [4]
   • Procurement [3]
   • Assurance [3]
   • Reviews [5]
   • Transition into use [4]
4. People and behaviours
   • Stakeholder engagement [4]
   • Conflict resolution [3]
   • Leadership [5]
   • Team management [3]
   • Diversity and inclusion [3]
   • Ethics, compliance and professionalism [3]
5. Planning and managing deployment
   • Requirements management [3]
   • Solutions development [4]
   • Quality management [4]
   • Integrated planning [4]
   • Schedule management [4]
   • Resource capacity planning [3]
   • Resource management [3]
   • Budgeting and cost control [4]
   • Contract management [3]
   • Risk and issue management [4]
   • Change control [3]
6. Data analytics and AI in project management

What I Like about the APM Body of Knowledge

I suspect that, if you’ve read this far, you’ll be pretty clear what I like about the APM Body of Knowledge. To summarise my favorite points, I like:

• The breadth of ideas it contains
• The strong focus on benefits
• and the focus on governance
• The nuanced way it discusses many of the topics
• The production quality
• An introduction to AI and data analytics – and one that leads with the less-sexy data analytics, rather than the more appealing AI topic.

Conclusions and Observations

The editors and contributors should be proud of what they have created. I certainly am.

The PMBOK Guide no longer has much appeal outside of the PMI community. I feel this APMBoK is now an excellent reference book for the shelf of any project professional.

My Rating 

My recommendation is that you should buy this book.
(and to be clear, I don’t get a royalty or any share of sales)

If you are serious about project management, even if you aren’t UK-based nor following an APM syllabus, there is a lot here for you. Only the most seasoned Project Managers will find little here to inform them. The rest of us can learn a lot by reflecting on the ideas and picking up some of the recommended reading.

I rate this 4.5 stars out of 5, simply because I am sure there are still improvements we could have made.

What do You Think?

Have you had a chance to read (or skim over) the 8th edition of the APM Body of Knowledge? If you have, what did you think?

And, if you haven’t, is on your list of books to buy and why?