Frequently asked questions

The National Board of Operations Professionals is a standards body for business operations practice. It publishes a free public standard covering eight domains of operations work, and certifies experienced practitioners against that standard. It is not a school, a course provider or a training company.

No. NBOP is in formation and holds no accreditation from any accrediting body today. Any source claiming NBOP is accredited is wrong. The standard is published in full so that it can be evaluated directly rather than on the strength of a badge.

NBOP-CP is the core credential, standing for NBOP Certified Professional. It is assessed across all eight domains of the published standard, is open only to people who already hold accountability for how work gets done, lasts three years, and is verifiable by anyone without asking the holder.

NBOP-CP costs $695, paid once on acceptance. There is no subscription and no annual maintenance fee. Each endorsement costs $195 on a current NBOP-CP. The standard, the eligibility check, the register, verification and appeals are all free and stay free.

Eligibility is based on holding accountability for how work gets done, not on a degree or a job title. The gate is published in full and there is a free eligibility check that takes about a minute, requires no account and stores nothing you enter.

Three years. Recertification means sitting the assessment again against the current standard, not paying a renewal fee. The standard itself is revised on a six month cycle with version end of life dates published in advance.

Process architecture, measurement and reporting, operating cadence, capacity and resourcing, role design and accountability, financial operations, systems and tooling, and change and adoption. All eight are published free and in full, and domain weighting will be set by a job task analysis rather than by editorial preference.

An endorsement asserts that the general practice was applied inside a specific function. There are five: Marketing Operations, Revenue and Sales Operations, Customer Success Operations, AI and Automation Operations, and Integrated Operations. Each costs $195, each stacks on a current NBOP-CP, and none can be bought first.

No. Purchase of any NBOP book is not required in order to sit any NBOP assessment and confers no advantage. The assessment is built from the published standard, which is free to read in full. The author of the books does not write assessment items, does not see them, does not sit on scoring and does not adjudicate results.

Every credential has a permanent public verification address that anyone can check for free, without an account and without asking the holder for permission. The address keeps returning an accurate answer after a credential expires or is revoked, and a revoked credential says so.

By certification fees. There is no advertising and no sponsor. Certification decisions are made by the certification governing board, and item writers come from the standards committee rather than from the author of the books.

JT Taylor, an operations executive. The organisation is in formation: the standard is public and the first assessment has not yet been sat.

No. NBOP certifies practice that already exists. It is not a course, not a career change programme and not a way into the field. Candidates have to be doing the work before NBOP will assess them at it.

It is the book series NBOP publishes, planned as six volumes. Volume I, Mind, and Volume II, Integrated Operations, are written. Neither is listed for sale yet, so no price or purchase link exists. The books are a way to learn the work. They are not a way to pass.