The Big Time

As a Career Coach and Professional Developement Mentor, I believe growth comes from within so I continiously keep working on myself by exploring new ideas, taking courses and certifications for areas that I feel are valuable. 
 

Agile and Waterfall Kick-Off is a very valuable and interesting initiative by the Project Management Institute that will provide you with the basic concepts, tools and techniques you’ll need to get started managing projects in both Waterfall and Agile environments:
 

• It’s a FREE short 45-minute course.
• Upon completion of the course, you will earn two PMI Badges. No exam, no expiry.
• It's suitable for Project Managers (Formal and Informal), PMO's, L&D Leaders.

I highly recommend everyone to take advantage of this opportunity. Feel free to reach out to me for the Registration Link. 

How can Kick-Off help you and your team ? 
 

The majority of projects in the working world are managed by informal project managers who struggle to meet organizational goals on time and on budget. Being a free digital learning tool, Kickoff is the fastest and easiest way to for you and your team to get started: 
 

• Get smarter with foundational knowledge that’s critical for project success.
• Put learnings into practice immediately—so you can move your project forward.
• Learn how to rally and inspire a team you can trust to get the job done.
• Gain new skills that can make you a more confident professional leader
   

Stay tuned for more blogs on some of the latest PMI Course Offerings ! 

Joy and happiness filled my heart upon receiving a paperback copy of PMI 50^th Anniversary Commemorative Book as a Thank You Gift from PMI. What an amazing gift to kick-off the year. It means a lot to me because I was part of those first 50 years of growth. 

From cover to cover, the book looks amazing and is very obvious that there was lots of thought put into it. It includes all the story from the day PMI started and with the limited no. of princted copies, this will be a great souvenir to keep forever. 

Being part of PMI and this great community for many years, I estabished a strong sense of ownership and commitment towards the profession, PMI, the Community and it's members. I enjoy volunteering and giving back to the profession and as the famous Elizabeth Andrew say: 

"Volunteers don't necessarily habe the time, they just have the heart."

Giving back to the Profession and Comunity is a noble thing to do and what motivates me most is seeing the people around me succeed.

Looking forward to be part of PMI during the next 50 years and contribute to their growth and success.

I wish you all a fantastic 2020 full of happiness, health, wealth and success ! 

Over the years, I've heard so many opinions and read so many articles about what people think of certifications so I thought it is about time to share how the different certifications / designations added value to my Professional Development & Career:

Project Management Professional (PMP)

No matter how many years of exeprience we have, there is always more to learn so getting my PMP helped me get in-depth knowledge of all project management processes, tool and techniques in addition to opening my eyes on how to better manage some critical Knowledge Areas / Processes, specially Effective & Efficient Communication & Stakeholder Engagement. 

Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP)

After several years working in the Project Management field and performing different levels of Risk Analysis on almost every project, you will be surprised to hear that getting this certification opened my eyes to so many aspects of the Risk Management and made me realize that there are certain things I can do in a different and better way. 

Green Project Manager (GPM-b)

Many countries are adopting green and sustainability initiatives to protect the environment and the world as a whole. Being in the Real Estate Development Industry, I worked for many years on some sustainability initiatives on many projects. Getting the GPM-b reinforced my knowledge about sustainability and how to apply it in Project Management which enhanced my approach on how to incorporate those initiatives on our projects. 

Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt (LSSYB)

Being in the Construction Industry, going Lean in many cases when possible could be the right and only right thing to do. The LSSYB Journey enhanced my knowledge about Lean and how to apply it to different parts of any project or even in the office.

Professional Scrum Master (PSM I & II), Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS)

Although I do have experience in those areas and they might not be highly applicable to construction projects but going through this journey enhanced my knowledge and experience in how Inspection, Adaption and Delivering Incrementally helps reduce waste or errors and keep your product up to date and competitive within the market. Besides other areas when I use Scrum, I actually started applying the Scrum on some parts of our Real Estate Development projects to tell how well it would work and/or add value - You will be surprised, but the results were amazing. I might share this experience in details on another post or article. 

The added value of knowledge combined with my background in Structural Engineering and experience helped shape my career path in a great way. Moreover,  being certified boosted my career advancement because as you can see, all of the certifications that I pursued are very much related to my field of expertise and career path. 

Whenever I seek to evaluate any certification, I ask myself three questions:

• Is this certification or designation related to my career ?
• How will this certification add value to knowledge ? 
• How will this certification add value to my career path ? 

Cetifications are not about adding letters after your name but it is about knowledge and personal / professional development so if you have the experience and knowledge then what is stopping you from getting certified. If anything, it will for sure add to your knowledge and make you stand out in this competitive market. Project Management is one of the most competitive jobs in the market. 

What is next for me & Why ? 

Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP): Having more than 10 Years of experience in Estimating, Scheduling & Planning, it would be great to reinforce this knowledge & experience with a certification from a highly reputable organization like PMI. 

Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP):  Being involved in Agile on so many levels n projects recently and having more than 4 Years of experience, I trust that pursuing this certification will enhance and boost my knowledge in terms of how to appy agile concepts in projects. 

Good Luck to All New Aspirants & New Practitioners ! 

Do you believe that closed book exams where you have to go to a center to sit for the exam is the best way to offer and run certification exams ? 

I personally think that it is not practical at all especially that we are now in a era of advanced  technology.

Why Closed Book ? 

In real life, if you encounter an issue or you forgot something, you can google it and/or refer to your library for seeking information. How is this any different for an exam that is based on your experience in a certain domain ? Why does it need to be a closed book ? 

If the exam is experience based, then I suspect that no matter how many references the candidate has open in front of him / her, they won't be able to complete the exam within the given time frame if they do not deeply understand the material and have solid experience in that domain. 

Why the Stress ? 

The stress of taking a day off, reaching to a testing center, get checked as if you are crossing boarders has a negative impact in so many ways. 

Does the Closed Book / In-Person Strategy add credibility to the certification ? 

It might but in my humble opinion it will be very minimal. The credibility of a certificate stems from:

•     Strict Application Pre-requisites & Audits. 
•     Education required for Renewal.
•     Exam Difficulty & Passing Mark.
•     Exam Fees (In a sense that if fees are high, you wil need to study hard enough to make sure you do not fail)

What made initiate this blog is that yesterday, I sat for my PSM II Exam. It was an online exam (30 Questions - 1.5 Hours) and I passed but I assure you that I barely had enough time to finish the exam and did not have any chance to open any reference book as even if I did, it won't be of any added value if I did not understand the material in depth and had experience in that domain. 

People might say, 30 Questions in 1.5 Hours is very reasonable. Well, let me tell you something: You can't take the number of questions as a measure for time when you get a question with 4 or 5 choices and you need to analyze each choice in details in order to conclude the best answer - The questions were much more difficult and tough than most of the exams I've ever written as it tested my knowledge & experience beyond any text book. On the other hand, I had the luxury to do the exam on a weekend out of my own place and in my own comfort zone which makes a big difference. 

When the exam is mostly experience based, what would you prefer: 

Closed Book - In Person 200 Questions Exam 

OR 

Online Test with X Number of Question that truly tests your knowledge depth and experience ? 

Many highly reputable organization like scrum.org offer online exams & I think PMI too are heading towards that direction in terms of giving candidates the option of sitting for the proctored exams online from home (With certain rules and regulations). They implemented this on for the CAPM Exam which was a great initiative. 

What is your opinion on this ? 

I am proud to be one of the Global 108 Project Management Experts who participated in the recently published book: “Say Yes to Project Success” which is now one of the best sellers on Amazon !

A Great Book by Karthik Ramamurthy   &  Priya Narayanasamy.

Thank you for this opportunity and for your efforts. A Great Project Management Effort !