For comment
The Talent Triangle,
proposed 2026 update
The three legs are not changing. The competencies within them are. The thirty-five illustrative skill examples published in 2022 become a defined list, each one with a description and a documented evidence base.
Recertification requirements are not changing, and neither is how PDUs are earned, counted or claimed.
Read through the proposed competencies below, then tell us what we have missed.
Overview
What each leg covers
Project Delivery
The methods and disciplines used to define, plan, control, adapt, assess, and complete project work.
Renames Ways of Working. Adds Resources, Procurement, and Applied AI. Financial Management moves in from Business Acumen and is absorbed into Cost and Finance. Transformation moves out to Business Acumen, renamed Change Management.
Power Skills
The interpersonal, personal, and cognitive capabilities project professionals use to lead, persuade, develop others, and stay effective under pressure.
Adds Cultural Intelligence and Judgment and Decision Making. Customer Relationships and Satisfaction moves in from Business Acumen and is absorbed into Stakeholder Engagement.
Business Acumen
Understanding and navigating the organizational, commercial, and environmental context in which project work takes place.
Adds Owner's Mindset, Systems Thinking, and Sustainability. Financial Management moves out to Project Delivery. Transformation moves in, renamed Change Management.
The proposed list
Select a competency to read its definition
How we got here
The evidence we used
The recommendation draws on three kinds of evidence.
Descriptive
What project professionals do, and what they learn.
Exam content outlines for every PMI certification. PMI survey research, including the three most recent Pulse of the Profession reports. Learning data: webinars and on-demand video, course completions, continuous learning orders, and the live training roster.
Normative
What the professions have agreed is good practice.
PMI standards and practice guides, including the PMBOK Guide, the Agile Practice Guide, the Standard for Artificial Intelligence and the sustainability standards developed with GPM. Peer competence frameworks: IPMA, APM and SkillsFuture. PMI’s own earlier competency models.
Analytical
What is changing in the professions.
PMI thought leadership on artificial intelligence, sustainability, complexity and enterprise agility. External analyses and benchmarks, including the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs, SFIA, BCG on AI and workforce strategy, and Article 4 of the EU AI Act.
Every element from every source was tagged twice, once against the 2022 list and once against the proposed one. A hundred and fifty-nine of them had no home in the 2022 list at all, concentrated in sustainability, artificial intelligence and systems thinking. Those gaps are what the new competencies cover.
What people are asking about
The skills needed to maximize project success
These keep coming up in PMI’s research and in conversations with practitioners. Select one to see the competencies it draws on.
Tell us
Our questions
Short answers are welcome!