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.

Not yet, and no date is being represented anywhere on this site. NBOP is in formation. The sequence is a job task analysis of practicing operators, then a test blueprint weighted by its findings, then a formal standard setting study to fix the cut score, then a period of operating history. Each artifact is published as it is produced rather than all at the end, so anyone can see how far along it actually is instead of taking a launch date on trust.

It is the instrument certification bodies use to establish what a role genuinely requires. Practitioners rate each task twice, on how critical it is to their own work and on how often they actually do it, and those paired ratings decide how much of the standard and of the eventual assessment each domain gets. NBOP has committed to publishing the findings, including the ones that contradict its own draft. Until the analysis closes, the eight domains carry provisionally equal weight, stated in the open rather than implied.

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 keeps nothing you enter.

Three years. Renewal is never a fee alone. You either sit the current assessment again against the current standard, or meet the published continuing education standard. Education from any provider counts if it meets that standard, and no NBOP product is ever required. 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 organization 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 program 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: six volumes, all published in paperback at $19.99 and as Kindle editions at $9.99, each paperback with its own ISBN and every volume with its own Amazon listings. Buying one is not required in order to sit any assessment and confers no advantage, because the assessment is built from the published standard rather than from the books.

Remotely and proctored. There is no test center and no travel. Items come from the standards committee. The author of the book series does not write them, does not see them, does not sit on scoring and does not adjudicate individual results.

You get a domain level breakdown of your result, you can sit it again after a waiting period, and you can appeal at no cost. Failed attempts are not published. The public register carries credentials that were issued, not attempts that were not.

By a formal standard setting study, not by picking a round number that sounds rigorous. The method and the panel are published, which means the cut score can be argued with rather than simply asserted.

Scope. A PMP certifies project management. A CPA certifies accounting practice and carries a legal privilege that NBOP-CP does not. A Six Sigma belt certifies a specific improvement method. NBOP-CP certifies general, cross functional operations practice across eight domains, which is the space none of those cover. It is not a substitute for any of them.

A certificate records that you attended or completed something. A certification asserts that you were assessed against a published standard, that the assertion carries a term, and that anyone can verify it without asking you. NBOP issues a certification. It does not run courses and does not issue certificates of completion.

Yes. The fee is the same whoever pays it and nothing about the assessment changes. NBOP does not sell places, does not trade volume for outcomes, and does not accept payment from any party in exchange for a certification result. How the payment is treated for tax is a question for your own advisor rather than for us.

Certification is for individuals. An organization that wants to use the standard internally, for role definitions, levelling or capability assessment, takes a license instead. A license is not a certification, and it does not certify anyone who works there.

Yes, while the credential is current. An endorsement adds a letter, so a holder endorsed in Marketing Operations writes NBOP-CPM. The right to use the designation ends when the credential expires or is revoked, and the public register says which of those happened.

You should not trust it. You should check it. The standard is published in full before anyone is assessed against it. The eligibility rule is published and mechanical, so every applicant with the same facts gets the same answer. Every credential will have a permanent public address that works without the holder's cooperation. NBOP holds no accreditation and says so on every page rather than waiting to be asked. Those are the things that can be checked today, and they are the only basis on which a body this new deserves anything at all.