How to Grow Your Career with Certifications

Bruce is the founder of ProjectManagementHacks.com, a resource for growing IT project managers.

  Career Development   Estimating  

Do certifications add value to your career? In some circles, the answer is clear. Each year, organizations such as PMI and Global Knowledge carry out surveys that indicate certain certifications are associated with higher incomes. Does that mean earning a certification will directly impact your income or career prospects?

A Perspective on Certification
Many project managers I know work on technology projects. To that end, I thought it would be helpful to include Wayne Burchett’s perspective. He is the PMO Director at Cloud Technology Partners, which provides cloud computing consulting services for migrating, developing and managing cloud applications and infrastructures. For those interested in the technology consulting field, Burchett’s observations will be especially helpful.

“Speed to market is a priority for our organization. That’s why we focus on agile. For our project managers, we are interested in the Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) certification,” he explained. However, no single certification covers everything. “Many of our project managers also have the PMP^® certification. That is helpful because it brings risk and change management capabilities.”

Leadership skills may also be developed through certifications. “I’m certified with the Myers-Briggs framework. Other systems such as DISC and Merrill & …

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