Should You Keep Your PMP If You No Longer Manage Projects?

Following 20 years at a large Canadian telecommunications firm, Bruce established the project management consulting firm Solutions Management Inc (SMI). Since 1999, he has provided contract project/program management services, been a source for project management support personnel and created/delivered courses to over 7,000 participants in Canada, the United States and England.

  Career Development  

There is a moment in many long careers when a professional title quietly changes, even though the work itself does not disappear. I have noted in other reflective writing that my own role as an elected official now places me primarily in a sponsorship position, and in that context my PMP remains directly relevant.

What I am referring to here are professionals who move into roles that no longer have a clear project management focus, even though they continue to work alongside or influence project outcomes.

For some PMP holders, that moment comes after a decade or more of active project management. The projects are still there, but the role evolves. Perhaps the work becomes more strategic. Perhaps the title shifts toward leadership, sponsorship, operations, governance, or advisory responsibility. Perhaps the individual is still deeply engaged in project outcomes, but no longer carries formal accountability for schedules, budgets or deliverables.

At that point, a reasonable question emerges: If you no longer manage projects in the traditional sense, should you still maintain your PMP designation? It is a personal decision, of course. But it is also a question that matters to the profession as a whole.

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