Meeting the legal, regulatory, and organizational requirements that apply to the project.
Compliance means conforming to legal statutes, regulatory mandates, industry standards, contractual obligations, and internal policies that govern how a project is executed or what its deliverables must satisfy. On the PMP exam, compliance requirements are constraints identified during planning—captured in the project charter or requirements documentation—so quality standards, acceptance criteria, and risk responses can be designed around them. The key distinction is mandatory compliance (external laws or regulations where noncompliance triggers penalties or shutdown) versus elective compliance (internal standards the organization chooses to meet); both are tracked, but mandatory items carry higher priority in risk planning. Ignoring compliance until execution invites costly rework or legal exposure.
Mandatory external rules imposed by governmental bodies that the project must follow.
Regulatory requirements are mandatory rules imposed by government bodies—safety codes, environmental laws, licensing mandates, and data-privacy statutes—that a project must satisfy regardless of sponsor or customer preference. Noncompliance can trigger shutdown, legal penalties, or rejected deliverables, so the project manager identifies applicable regulations during planning and integrates them into scope, the risk register, and quality plans. A common exam trap is conflating regulations with voluntary standards like ISO guidelines; standards gain the force of law only when a contract or agency formally adopts them. Treat compliance as a non-negotiable constraint, not a risk to mitigate away.
The framework of authority, decision-making, and oversight that guides the project.
Project governance is the framework of rules, functions, and processes that direct and control a project, ensuring decisions are made by the right people at the right levels of authority. It includes oversight structures such as a steering committee, escalation paths, stage-gate reviews, and change-approval policies, operating at both organizational and project levels to keep work aligned with strategy and stakeholder expectations. The exam tests the distinction between governance and project management: governance sets the boundaries and authority within which the project manager operates, while project management applies knowledge and skills inside those boundaries.