Commitment to Growth or Commitment to Numbers?

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development   Using PMI Standards  

Certification is always a popular topic among project managers, and it is still one of the topics I get the most questions about. It’s therefore pleasing to see it featured as a theme this month on ProjectManagement.com.

However, for this article, I may make some of you a little uncomfortable because I’m going to be critical. My criticism is not directed at the process nor at the certification bodies, but at you—the practitioners. Specifically, I want to explore the process of continuing education and the process by which practitioners maintain the certification they have received.

While every certification body has a slightly different approach, and those approaches vary from one qualification to another, there is general agreement that taking and passing an exam isn’t the end of the professional development process. In order to stay current and to demonstrate ongoing capability in the profession, most designations require practitioners to maintain their certification. Usually, that’s through the earning of credits over a fixed time period: PDUs (professional development units), CEUs (continuing education units) or similar.

The requirements aren’t overly onerous—it’s 60 PDUs, the equivalent of 60 hours, over the course of three years, for most of PMIs core certifications. That amounts to little more than 20 minutes a …

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