I am starting out in project management and have been a team member on various types of IT projects. I want to look into getting my CAPM. Can someone recommend any good institutions that offer online classes for me to get my contact hours. I am in the process of looking for Project Coordinator jobs, I think that will give more experience. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. If you any advice on a career path, that would be helpful also. Saving Changes...
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Warwick KowalczykEngineering Manager| Scentre GroupNorth Ryde, Nsw, Australia
If you are just getting in to project management I would advise against rushing in to getting certifications immediately. By all means attend a project management course if you can find a good one, but focus more on getting real life experience as a PM.
I got my PRINCE2 Practitioner certification 6 months after I became a PM and it was difficult because a lot of the time, I didn't have any real world experience to relate the concepts back to the concepts that were being discussed.
If you've come from a hands on backgroud then presumably you will have worked under project managers before. A good exercise to complete is to document the PM's you have worked for, and list the things you liked about them and think you would like to emmulate. This will allow you to build up a mental picture of the type of project manager you want to be. It's good to have someone to look up to and learn from. If you're not working with them anymore, keep in touch anyway. Bounce ideas off them. Take it as an opportunity to network.
You can also list the things that you thought weren't so good about them and use this as a kind of Lessons Learned Log.
Good luck with it, and welcome to our world :) Saving Changes...
Certification is nice, but it sounds like you need experience more. To get that experience, certification may not necessarily help you if you can't back it up with on the job experience. So we have the chicken and the egg again: how do I get certified without experience and how do I get experience without being certified? A lot of PM opportunities exist in nooks and crannies of organizations. I fell into it and performed "fake" project management for a year before the organization let me touch a real project. That "fake" experience was invaluable, low risk, and let me try it out before putting more energy into it. You probably need some luck. A certification might help you, but again if you have no experience the piece of paper probably won't mean much (or at least it shouldn't; sometimes the job market makes little sense). Good luck! Saving Changes...
Selva Saravana PuvananthiranDelivery Lead Senior Manager| Accenture Solutions Private LimitedChennai, Tamil Nadu, India
I totally agree with the previous posts. Nothing can be compared against earning a real world experience. However, in order to get into a field, you need to build your vocabulary in that field. To that front, I would recommend you to get involved with Project Management forums like Gantthead, reading articles and listening to podcasts etc., If you combine your PM vocabulary with your real world experience, you could shine better. Saving Changes...
Brian M GielbedaProgram Director, Sales Product & Marketing| HealthfristNew York, Ny, United States
Kobie,
What opportunities are available to you in your current organization? Does your company support Project Management? Is your organization favorable to participating in formal PM education? If I were you I would first search the opportunities available to you within your current organization. If there are none, create some. If you have project managers in your company ask to shadow them. I agree with the previous posts, nothing will replace real world on the job training.
If possible, during a lunch break ask to sit in on meetings, show those in your organization that you are serious and want to expand your knowledge of project management. Be persistent, learn what you can and as described by Magesh, expand your PM vocabulary. Become a member of PMI, read the monthly news letters, etc.
I had a friend take my advice and this approach, today he is a project controller for SAIC and is continually participating in formal PM classes.
I would strongly endorse many of the views already given. In my paper "Accreditation; Facts and Fiction" which I gave to World PM Week in Singapore last year, note was given to the increasing
demand for PM accreditation/certification across a variety of certification frameworks.
I am a personal advocate of competency based systems such as used by the Australian Institute of Project Management : Registered Project Manager;. But one must acknowledge the global standing of PMI. Prince 2 for me is like a qualified pilot being endorsed for a special plane type, but nonetheless well acknowledged.
I would also endorse the view given that certification is a big step, but it must be matched in your practice, with experience and good projects.
My own observation of our colleagues from over 700 certification interviews which I have conducted is a "Back to the Future" trend. Sure, we want to be certified, sure we want to acknowledge business integration and business outcome accountability, and sure we want to develop our communication and people skills.
But right at the hear of a PM skill set must be a very solid set of practice skills.
Call me old fashioned; but writing a charter, developing a scope statement, developing assumptions and constraints, conducting a WBS, network analysis then a schedule, developing a quality acceptance plan, and developing a good risk treatment plan - and more - are basics in a good practicing project manager skill set.
David Hudson Saving Changes...
CJ CummingsEPMO| BCBSLABaton Rouge, La, United States
Contact hours = Phoenix, Villanova, George Washington, your local Community College and a host of PM cert companies offer on line courses...
CAPM vs PMP = it depends, some places don't recognize CAPM or understand it. On the other hand, having worked with lots of 'theoritical' PMPs, I'd prefer to work with experience.
Best of luck. Saving Changes...
David MorganProject Manager| Experian PLCGrantham, United Kingdom
I would gun towards PMP accreditation by scheduling yoru first training course towards it - probably something along the lines of 'Project Management Fundamentals' or whatever your local training provider offers. This will give you a good background, as well as PDUs towards PMP accreditation. Then, as you build experience, add the other training courses to your portfolio such as risk management, financial control etc, allowing you to apply real-world examples to your learning.
Aim to end up, after a few years PM experience in a position where you can take the PMP exam.
Just grabbing accreditation for the sake of it may be good from a CV perspective, but as others have said will be difficult without the real-world experience, and in the case of PMP will be impossible. Unless you are planning on job-hopping in the near future I would recommend getting your head down on projects with one eye on PMI certification in the future Saving Changes...
I would recommend Career Academy (http://bit.ly/2fnjzjJ) for PMP and CAPM training and exam prep courses. They have a good price for their annual membership and they are PMI Registered Education Provider (REP). Career Academy is an institution that offers online on-demand video-based learning solutions for IT Networking, Cyber Security, Project Management and Office Professionals. You can prepare for the certification exams by taking courses from Career Academy. Saving Changes...
