Exam Content Outline · EMA Standard v3.0 · Draft

EMP-II Professional

Draft — this examination is not yet open. The outline is published now so the standard is visible before the first sitting; it will be marked complete when the examination opens.

1. Purpose and how to read this document

This document states what the EMP-II examination will assess and how. It is a complete draft: the examination is not yet open, and the outline will be marked complete when it is. It is published now so that the standard is visible before the first sitting, and so that the Body of Knowledge and the question bank are developed against it rather than the other way round.

EMP-II certifies organisational-scope judgment: leading several teams, usually through the managers who report to you. Every indicator that EMA-I states also applies here — a Professional is expected to meet every Associate indicator — and this outline adds the indicators that only exist at organisational scope, tagged org. Read the EMA-I outline first; this one is written as a difference from it.

The examination's questions place the candidate as a manager of managers, a senior manager or a group lead. The recurring material is the layer: what you delegate to a manager and what you hold them to, how you read status that has already been filtered once, what consistency across autonomous teams is worth, and when a problem between teams is yours. Two competencies that carry no questions on EMA-I — leading through leaders and organisational design — carry a third of their domains here.

Preparation: the EMA-I reading, then the Body of Knowledge units in this outline's weight order, with attention to every judgment item tagged [org] and to the How Judgment Scales table's organisation column.

2. Exam specification

Questions

Time

105 min

Pass standard

75%

Per domain

15 of 75

Question formats

Single best answer. A situation and four options; exactly one is the most defensible action.
Extended scenario. A longer situation stem, often spanning several teams, then one or more questions with one best answer each. The EMP-II examination uses more extended scenarios than EMA-I.
Select all that apply. Two or more options are correct. Scored as one question, right only when the selection matches exactly.
True or false. A statement about practice to be judged true or false. Used sparingly.

Scoring

Every question is worth one point; no partial credit, no negative marking; unanswered scores zero. The pass standard is 75% of all questions in the sitting — 57 of 75. The clock is enforced by the examination server. A sitting draws fifteen questions from each of the five domains from the EMP-II bank, in an order fixed for that sitting.

About the weights below

From 2026-10-27, every EMP-II sitting started on or after that date draws its questions by the per-competency weights in this outline: each competency contributes the number of questions shown, and each domain keeps its 15 of 75. Sittings started before that date drew 15 questions per domain without a per-competency distribution.

3. The cumulative model

EMP-II includes every indicator of EMA-I plus its own. Below, each indicator shows the level that added it; a certified Professional is held to all of them.

People Leadership — 15 questions

PL-1Delegation, ownership, and decision rights

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can delegate an outcome rather than a set of steps, stating the constraints and the level of authority that goes with it. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can match the scope of what they hand off to a person's demonstrated capability on that kind of work, with a deliberate stretch and a safety net. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise the moment they are about to take delegated work back, and choose support over rescue. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can delegate a whole team to a manager — its charter, its decisions, its outcomes — and stay accountable for the result without re-deciding it. org
I5A certified Professional can make decision rights explicit across several teams so that a disputed decision has a known owner before the dispute. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A manager who reports to you keeps escalating decisions that are theirs to make.
Two teams both believe they own a shared component and neither is maintaining it.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: PL-1.S2, PL-1.S5, PL-1.S6

PL-2Feedback and difficult conversations

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can give corrective feedback anchored in a specific situation and observable behaviour, and name its impact, without diagnosing intent. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can hold a difficult conversation early rather than waiting for a review cycle or hoping the problem resolves. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can invite and act on feedback about their own management from the people they lead. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can give a manager feedback about their leadership — a pattern across several moments — with the same specificity as feedback about a task. org
I5A certified Professional can act on damning skip-level feedback about a manager by establishing the facts before confronting anyone. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Three engineers tell you in skip-levels that their manager is undermining them.
A manager who reports to you is well liked and their team's delivery has slipped for two quarters.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: PL-2.S2, PL-2.S5, PL-2.S6

PL-3Hiring and onboarding

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can run a structured interview against criteria defined before the process starts, and recognise the biases that unstructured evaluation invites. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can assess what a candidate can do rather than which tools they were permitted, and distinguish capability from fluency. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can design a first ninety days that gives a new hire explicit outcomes, a named guide, and early feedback. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can appoint a manager for sound reasons — demonstrated judgment about people, not seniority or retention — and support them through the first six months. org
I5A certified Professional can calibrate the hiring bar across several teams so that the same capability earns the same decision regardless of interviewer. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A senior engineer wants to become a manager because it is the only visible path to more pay.
Two teams' hiring bars have drifted apart and transfers between them are failing.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: PL-3.S2, PL-3.S5, PL-3.S6

PL-4Performance management

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can diagnose whether an engineer's underperformance is a matter of skill, will, or the conditions they were given, before choosing a response. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can set expectations explicitly enough that a later performance conversation refers to something the engineer already knew. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can follow a fair process to an honest consequence, including a formal one, without avoiding it or rushing it. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can manage a manager's performance, including the performance of their team, and distinguish a manager problem from a team problem. org
I5A certified Professional can run calibration across teams so that ratings are consistent, and challenge a manager's case that lacks evidence or fair process. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A manager brings a performance plan for an engineer who was never given clear expectations.
Two of your managers cannot agree on a rating for an engineer who worked across both teams.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: PL-4.S2, PL-4.S5, PL-4.S6

PL-5Career development and growth paths

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can run a one-on-one that belongs to the report — their growth, their concerns — rather than to the manager's status needs. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can respond to a promotion request with evidence, a named gap, and a path, rather than a yes to retain or a no without reasons. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can help an engineer weigh the senior individual-contributor track against management without steering them toward the manager's own path. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can create growth paths across teams — moves, stretch roles, the senior individual-contributor track — and see who is and is not getting them. org
I5A certified Professional can develop a manager's career deliberately, including toward roles that compete with their own. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A talented manager openly wants your role and has begun politicking for it.
Promotions across your teams have all gone to engineers in one location.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: PL-5.S2, PL-5.S5, PL-5.S6

PL-6Leading through leaders

5 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Professional can select managers on evidence of judgment about people and delivery, and decline to appoint the strongest engineer by default. org
I2A certified Professional can develop the managers who report to them through their own one-on-ones, coaching and honest feedback, rather than by sending them on a course. org
I3A certified Professional can hold a manager accountable for their team's outcomes and health without taking the team back from them. org
I4A certified Professional can set a span of control and a management structure that lets managers actually manage. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A manager who reports to you is overloaded, still doing significant individual work, and visibly struggling.
A manager avoids giving a struggling engineer the hard news and asks you to do it.
You must choose which of your managers should lead a new high-visibility team.
A newly promoted manager is being subtly undermined by a respected senior engineer.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: PL-6.S2, PL-6.S6, PL-6.S7

Domain hub: People Leadership

Delivery & Execution — 15 questions

DE-1Prioritisation under constraint

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can sequence a team's work by value and cost of delay rather than by who asked loudest or most recently. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can say no by surfacing the cost of yes — "we can do X, and Y slips" — and let the stakeholder choose. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can protect a team's focus against constant reprioritisation, and recognise when too much started work means nothing finishes. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can prioritise across several teams against a shared bottleneck, and make the resulting trade-offs visible to every team that loses. org
I5A certified Professional can protect several teams' focus from department-level churn without becoming the only person who can say no. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Three teams depend on one platform team that is the bottleneck for all of them.
A vice-president reprioritises the department every month and nothing finishes.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: DE-1.S2, DE-1.S5, DE-1.S6

DE-2Estimation, planning, and honest commitments

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can distinguish an estimate from a commitment, and buffer the commitment deliberately rather than promising the estimate. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can re-plan openly when a commitment is at risk, giving stakeholders the choice between scope, date and quality rather than absorbing the gap with overtime. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can decline to give a date on the spot without an estimate, and say what it would take to give one. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can make a commitment that depends on several teams by aggregating uncertainty honestly rather than adding up best cases. org
I5A certified Professional can detect status that has been shaded on its way up, and build reporting that surfaces trouble early. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A vice-president asks you on the spot to commit the whole group to a date with no estimate.
Every team reports green and the integrated delivery is a month late.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: DE-2.S2, DE-2.S5, DE-2.S6

DE-3Reliability, incident response, and operational ownership

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can run an incident in progress in the right order — restore service, communicate, then find the cause — and resist debugging while users are down. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can lead a blameless postmortem that changes the system rather than naming the person. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can treat on-call load and service-level objectives as the team's operational ownership, not an interruption to real work. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can establish ownership for a service or a class of failure that falls between teams, before the next incident. org
I5A certified Professional can design an on-call system across several teams that is sustainable, and read reliability trends across services rather than incident by incident. org

Scenario contexts at this level

The same fragile area causes recurring incidents and after a reorg no team owns it.
One team's on-call load is triple the others' and its engineers are leaving.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: DE-3.S2, DE-3.S5, DE-3.S6

DE-4Managing scope, risk, and dependencies across workstreams

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can name a risk early, with its likelihood and impact, rather than hoping it does not materialise. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can manage a dependency on another team by negotiating a timeline and a fallback, before escalating and before building around it. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can trade scope before quality when a deadline is fixed, and say so. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can see and manage the dependencies between their teams, and the risks that fall between them because each team's view stops at its boundary. org
I5A certified Professional can run a programme that spans several teams with a single view of scope and risk, without making every team wait on a central plan. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A cross-team programme is slipping and each team blames a dependency on another.
A risk everyone assumed another team was handling has materialised.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: DE-4.S2, DE-4.S5, DE-4.S6

DE-5Designing how work flows

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can choose the lightest process that solves the team's actual problem, and change it when the problem changes. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can recognise when a drop in throughput is caused by interruptions and fragmentation rather than effort, and change the flow of work rather than push the people. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can introduce AI-assisted tooling to a team's workflow with an explicit view of what it changes about review, testing and ownership. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can decide which practices are standard across teams and which are each team's own — aligned autonomy — and explain the boundary. org
I5A certified Professional can invest in developer experience and AI-assisted workflows at department scale, measured by what teams can now do rather than by adoption. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Every team runs a different process and cross-team work is failing at the seams.
A department-wide rollout of AI tooling is measured by licences used.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: DE-5.S2, DE-5.S5, DE-5.S6

Domain hub: Delivery & Execution

Strategy & Vision — 15 questions

SV-1Engineering strategy

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can translate a business goal into the team's work as outcomes — the change wanted in the world — rather than a feature list. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can ensure every engineer can say why their current work matters to the business. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can re-derive the team's plan when circumstances change, instead of defending the original list. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can write a department strategy with a connecting thesis — why these teams do these things — rather than assemble team wish lists. org
I5A certified Professional can defend a strategy against churn and encroachment, and change it when the evidence says so rather than when the pressure does. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Your department's "strategy" is five team roadmaps stapled together.
An executive asks why your teams are doing work that does not connect to the company's goals.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: SV-1.S2, SV-1.S5, SV-1.S6

SV-2Communicating and partnering across functions

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can explain a technical trade-off to a non-engineering stakeholder in the language of their outcome, without jargon and without condescension. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can partner with product and design as peers whose constraints are real, rather than as a queue of requests. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can deliver bad news about a delivery to a stakeholder early, with options, rather than late with excuses. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can partner with a product director and a design lead as peers, resolving disagreements about investment with evidence rather than escalation. org
I5A certified Professional can represent engineering's trade-offs to executives so that they make an informed choice, and accept the choice when it goes the other way. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A product director wants to redirect two of your teams and has not asked you.
An executive believes engineering is slow and you have the data to show why.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: SV-2.S2, SV-2.S5, SV-2.S6

SV-3Roadmapping

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can hold a defined share of a team's capacity for platform and quality work and defend it with evidence of what its absence costs. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can present a team roadmap as bets with expected outcomes and confidence, not as a list of promised dates. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise when a roadmap is a wish list assembled bottom-up with no connecting thesis. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can balance product delivery against platform and quality investment across several teams, including work no single team would fund. org
I5A certified Professional can present a department roadmap as bets and confidence levels to people who want dates. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A platform investment would help every team and none of them will give up capacity for it.
Leadership wants a twelve-month roadmap with dates.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: SV-3.S2, SV-3.S5, SV-3.S6

SV-4Engineering economics

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can frame a build-versus-buy decision around total cost, differentiation and reversibility rather than engineering preference. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can account for the cost of the team's delivery — people, vendors, infrastructure — well enough to argue for a change in it. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can evaluate an AI service or vendor as a third option beside build and buy, with its own cost and risk profile. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can plan and defend a department budget and headcount in terms of outcomes and cost of delivery. org
I5A certified Professional can make a vendor, build or AI-service decision at department scale, including the exit cost and who owns the relationship. org

Scenario contexts at this level

You must cut ten percent of budget and every team says it cannot.
A vendor the department depends on has doubled its price.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: SV-4.S2, SV-4.S5, SV-4.S6

SV-5Engineering metrics and measurement

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can choose delivery metrics that measure flow and stability rather than activity, and say what each one cannot show. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can recognise when a metric has become a target and is being gamed. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can decline to use a single productivity number for individuals, and explain why. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can choose metrics that compare or aggregate teams without inviting the gaming that comparison creates. org
I5A certified Professional can measure the effect of AI assistance on delivery honestly, including where the numbers say it is not helping. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Leadership wants a league table of teams by velocity.
The AI-tooling rollout must show a return and the only number that moved is pull-request count.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: SV-5.S2, SV-5.S5, SV-5.S6

SV-6Organisational design and leading change

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Professional can design team boundaries around ownership and cognitive load, and see a team boundary and a system boundary as one decision. org
I2A certified Professional can lead several teams through a reorganisation — communicating the why, naming what changes and what does not, and staying present through the transition. org
I3A certified Professional can recognise when a structural problem is being treated as a people problem, and the reverse. org
I4A certified Professional can settle a charter dispute between teams at the level that sets charters. org

Scenario contexts at this level

After a reorg your newly merged team behaves like two tribes.
Chronic friction at the boundary between two teams has survived three process fixes.
A rivalry between two of your teams is hurting collaboration.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: SV-6.S2, SV-6.S6, SV-6.S7

Domain hub: Strategy & Vision

Technical Judgment — 15 questions

TJ-1Evaluating architectural decisions and their organisational consequences

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can improve a design decision through questions — what does this assume, what happens when it fails, who has to coordinate — without taking it over. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can spend deliberation on the irreversible decisions and let reversible ones move fast. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can see a system boundary and a team boundary as one decision. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can keep architecture coherent across autonomous teams by setting standards at the boundaries rather than reviewing every design. org
I5A certified Professional can make a deliberate platform bet on behalf of several teams and own its organisational consequences. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A senior engineer proposes a department-wide migration to a new framework.
Two teams have built incompatible versions of the same capability.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: TJ-1.S2, TJ-1.S5, TJ-1.S6

TJ-2Technical debt

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can make technical debt visible in terms stakeholders understand — what it costs per month, what it risks — rather than as an engineering complaint. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can distinguish debt worth repaying from debt worth carrying, and schedule repayment as ordinary work. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise a proposed rewrite as a bet and evaluate it as one. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can make systemic technical debt that no single team owns visible, and fund its repayment at department level. org
I5A certified Professional can weigh a large repayment programme against feature delivery with an explicit model of what each delays. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Every team carries a piece of the same debt and none can repay it alone.
A proposed platform rewrite would consume a year of the department.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: TJ-2.S2, TJ-2.S5, TJ-2.S6

TJ-3Code review and quality standards

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can set a quality bar the team owns — tests, review, definition of done — and hold it under deadline pressure. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can shape a code-review culture that teaches rather than gatekeeps, and notice when review has become rubber-stamping. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can state what review must establish for AI-generated code, and who is accountable for it. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can set an organisation-level quality bar that autonomous teams meet in their own way, and see when it is being met on paper only. org
I5A certified Professional can set standards for AI-generated code across teams — verification, ownership, disclosure — without prescribing each team's tools. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A security audit finds the same class of gap across several teams and nobody owns the fix.
Documentation and review standards exist on paper and nobody follows them.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: TJ-3.S2, TJ-3.S5, TJ-3.S6

TJ-4Technical credibility and intervention

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can stay close enough to the team's technical work to judge it — reading designs, reviewing selectively, asking sharp questions — without becoming its bottleneck. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can decide when to intervene in a technical decision and when to let the team own it, and know which decisions are theirs. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can resist doing the engineering themselves when the team is struggling, and choose the intervention that leaves the team stronger. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can stay close enough to several teams' technical work to judge it — through design reviews, architecture forums and the artifacts themselves — without doing it or blocking it. org
I5A certified Professional can decide when a technical decision in one of their teams is theirs to override, and intervene through the manager rather than around them. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A team is about to make a technical decision you believe is wrong and its manager supports it.
You have lost touch with what your teams' systems actually look like.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: TJ-4.S2, TJ-4.S5, TJ-4.S6

TJ-5AI-assisted engineering

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can introduce AI assistance to a team with explicit expectations for verification, ownership and disclosure. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can recognise the risks AI assistance introduces — unverified code, leaked data, eroded understanding — and put proportionate controls in place. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can distinguish where AI assistance genuinely helps the team from where it is being used to look fast. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can govern AI-assisted engineering across teams — what is permitted, what must be verified, what data may be used — proportionately to the risk. org
I5A certified Professional can build the capability to use AI assistance well across a department, and recognise where it is eroding understanding rather than adding leverage. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Teams have adopted AI tooling unevenly and the results range from excellent to dangerous.
A team's engineers can no longer explain the code in their own service.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: TJ-5.S2, TJ-5.S5, TJ-5.S6

TJ-6Security, privacy, and compliance as engineering responsibilities

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can treat a security vulnerability, a privacy obligation or a compliance requirement as the team's own work, prioritised by risk rather than deferred to a function. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can respond to a security finding proportionately — triage by exploitability and exposure — rather than freezing or ignoring it. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise a privacy or access-control problem in an everyday decision before it becomes an incident. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can assign ownership for a class of security, privacy or compliance gap that spans teams and see the fix through. org
I5A certified Professional can weigh a compliance requirement against delivery honestly, distinguishing what is mandatory from what is merely requested. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A "two-week" compliance request lands and your analysis says it is a quarter.
A privacy obligation touches four teams' systems and each assumes another owns it.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: TJ-6.S2, TJ-6.S5, TJ-6.S6

Domain hub: Technical Judgment

Culture & Coaching — 15 questions

CC-1Psychological safety and productive conflict

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can respond to an admitted mistake, a naive question or a challenge to their idea with curiosity rather than punishment. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can pair psychological safety with high standards, and recognise that "going easy" is not safety. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can invite open disagreement about ideas and then expect commitment once the decision is made. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can build psychological safety in the managers they lead and see when a manager's team has gone quiet. org
I5A certified Professional can resolve conflict between teams by making the underlying disagreement explicit rather than by separating the people. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Engagement dropped sharply in one team after a manager change.
A manager's team never speaks up and the manager says everything is fine.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: CC-1.S2, CC-1.S5, CC-1.S6

CC-2Coaching versus directing

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can develop an engineer's judgment through questions rather than supplying the answer, and know when directing is the right exception. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can recognise when they are rescuing rather than coaching, and what the team learns from each. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can coach a senior engineer who is strong technically but does not mentor, document or lift others. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can coach the coaches — develop a manager's judgment through questions — and resist solving their team's problems for them. org
I5A certified Professional can recognise a manager who is too hands-off or too hands-on and coach them toward the right distance. org

Scenario contexts at this level

A manager who reports to you is drowning and it would be faster to do their job.
A manager is disengaged from their team and calls it empowerment.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: CC-2.S2, CC-2.S5, CC-2.S6

CC-3Inclusive practices and equitable opportunity distribution

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can notice who on the team gets the stretch work, the visibility and the benefit of the doubt, and correct the pattern. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can run team rituals — meetings, reviews, on-call, recognition — so that they do not systematically favour the loudest, the most present or the most similar to the manager. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise glue work and ensure it is valued and distributed rather than left to whoever will not refuse it. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can read promotion, opportunity and attrition patterns across teams and act on an inequity the numbers reveal. org
I5A certified Professional can hold managers accountable for equitable practice on their teams without making it a compliance exercise. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Promotions across the department have followed proximity to the office for two years.
A manager insists their team's opportunity distribution is fair and the data disagrees.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: CC-3.S2, CC-3.S5, CC-3.S6

CC-4Motivation, recognition, and sustainable pace

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can recognise burnout and disengagement early from changes in behaviour, and respond to the person before the output. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can protect a sustainable pace, and treat a run of heroics as a system failure rather than a badge. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise people specifically and in the way that person values, including on a distributed team where effort is not visible. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can sustain motivation and pace across several teams, including distributed ones, through what they reward and what they refuse to normalise. org
I5A certified Professional can recognise department-wide burnout as a system property and change the system. org

Scenario contexts at this level

Two of your teams have been in crunch for a quarter and their managers call it commitment.
A distributed team's effort is invisible to the rest of the department and its recognition shows it.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: CC-4.S2, CC-4.S5, CC-4.S6

CC-5Values, integrity, and ethical judgment under pressure

3 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can make the costly right call — on quality, on honesty, on a person — when pressure points the other way, and know that the team is watching. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can act on a values breach by a high performer rather than let results buy an exemption. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can recognise when they are being asked to shade the truth about status and decline. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can hold managers to the organisation's values, including when the manager who breaches them delivers. org
I5A certified Professional can decline to shade status, ratings or commitments upward, and absorb the cost of declining rather than passing it down. org

Scenario contexts at this level

One of your managers keeps a toxic high performer because the team's numbers are good.
You are asked to present a slipping programme as on track to the executive team.

Cognitive mix: apply 40% · analyse/evaluate 60%Traces to: CC-5.S2, CC-5.S5, CC-5.S6

CC-6Self-management

2 questions

Proficiency indicators

I1A certified Associate can manage their own time and calendar so that the team's needs, not the inbox, determine where the hours go. team(from EMA-I)
I2A certified Associate can recognise their own overload and burnout, set boundaries, and ask for help before it reaches the team. team(from EMA-I)
I3A certified Associate can separate their own anxiety about a situation from the decision it needs. team(from EMA-I)
I4A certified Professional can manage their own effectiveness as the layer between teams and executives — time, attention, the temptation to be in every room — deliberately. org
I5A certified Professional can recognise when their own overload is degrading their judgment about people, and change their load before it changes their decisions. org

Scenario contexts at this level

You are in forty hours of meetings a week and have not had a real one-on-one with a manager in a month.
You realise you have been short with two managers this week and neither deserved it.

Cognitive mix: apply 45% · analyse/evaluate 55%Traces to: CC-6.S2, CC-6.S5, CC-6.S6

Domain hub: Culture & Coaching

5. What this exam does not assess

Executive-scope judgment. EMP-II does not ask what a director, vice-president or head of engineering should do about strategy under ambiguity, board communication or the design of the whole organisation; every scenario places the candidate as the leader of several teams within a larger organisation.
Recall of models, frameworks, definitions or bibliography.
Tools, languages, vendors or specific technologies.
Employment law, human-resources policy or the practices of any specific company or jurisdiction.

6. Change log

v3.0 · 2026-09-23. First published Exam Content Outline for EMP-II, as a complete draft ahead of the examination opening. Aligns to the EMA Competency Framework v3.0. Inherits every EMA-I indicator and adds organisational-scope indicators; PL-6 and SV-6 are assessed for the first time at this level.