Certification ROI

Patti Gilchrist, PMP, is a Senior Technical Manager with more than 20 years of IT experience. Visit her website at www.freepmstudy.com

  Career Development   New Practitioners  

The certification debate continues within the project management community. And as with many debates, there are numerous sides to this heated discussion.

While some project managers are bothered by the increasing importance of certifications, other project managers advocate certification. Advocates often claim that certification offers an avenue toward increased respect and recognition in the field, which ultimately translates to increased market demand and higher pay. Skeptics insist that employers who require certification are making uneducated assumptions about the credentials and its impact on successful project delivery.

Who is right? And for a more interesting discussion, let’s frame our question a bit differently. What is the return on investment of certification? To answer that question, let’s look at opinions and opposing sides from various experts.

First let’s look at what PMI says. According to PMI's 2008 Pulse of the Profession research, "Having project managers without PMP certification results in a lower percent of projects coming in on time and on budget—especially when less than 10 percent of the project managers in the company are PMPs. Organizations with less than 10 percent of project managers who are PMPs are also much less likely to indicate an increase in projects successfully meeting the goals and business intent.…

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