The Future of Project Management Certifications

Mike Griffiths is an experienced project manager, author and consultant who works for PMI as a subject matter expert. Before joining PMI, Mike consulted and managed innovation and technology projects throughout Europe, North and South America for 30+ years. He was co-lead for the PMBOK Guide—Seventh Edition, lead for the Agile Practice Guide, and contributor to the PMI-ACP and PMP exam content outlines. Outside of PMI, Mike maintains the websites www.LeadingAnswers.com about leading teams and www.PMillustrated.com, which teaches project management for visual learners.

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Things have changed. Today, if we want to learn how to wire a switch, we are more likely to search YouTube for “how-to” videos than look it up in a thick DIY encyclopedia and read about the process. Seeing something done is easier to understand than reading about it. We are primarily visual learners and prefer “show me, don’t tell me” microlearning just in time for use. Also, since we are rarely without an internet connection these days, how much do we need to memorize now that everything is searchable?

Not Your Father’s PMP^® Anymore
When considering the format of exams, it may be tempting to just keep things as they are. Viewpoints still exist along the lines of “I went through the pain of memorizing everything and sitting a four-hour exam, why should today’s candidates be let off?” However, these views are less defendable in a marketplace that is seeing lighter-weight credentials grow at much quicker rates than more rigorous ones.

As the PMI-ACP^® exam reaches the 25,000 members mark, the AgilePM credential has already passed 100,000. There are likely well over 1 million Certified Scrum Master credential holders, although the number is difficult to estimate because of the fragmented nature of the marketplace (and originally, there was no requirement for an exam.)

However, beyond ease and popularity, the …

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