jeremy duttonSr. Project Manager| St. Lawrence Health SystemNy, United States
I have worked in several different industries from engineering, manufacturing and finally healthcare. With that I have been involved in one form of project management or another for most of my career. The question I have is when looking at getting certified for my PMP I can't get straight answers as far as what is considered project experience and what isn't.
A few examples
In one position I was responsible for the design of electrical systems in a manufacturing plant. While I did the engineer work I also did pre-job safety reviews, wrote work instructions, developed scope of work and budgetary numbers, worked with the customer to ensure we were meeting their needs, completed as built, and ensured the project was completed to the design specification. I ask because in this position I was an engineer who was working under a project manager and I wasn't the one who was signing off on PO's and I wasn't the one who was hiring the contractor though I was the one collecting bids for the work.
This could make a difference between if I sit for my PMP now or my CAPM now. Saving Changes...
It can be a fine line when working technical projects as an engineer, how much of the work is PM and how much is engineering.
In the example you provided, I would suspect around 30% or less being direct PM experience, although that varies by job so there is no straight answer. For example, the time you spend coordinating technical requirements with suppliers/customers is engineering vs. the time defining project scope and performance to plan which is more PM related. PMs may sign off that the PO's meet the project needs, but not be the actual gatekeeper that authorizes contractual agreements with suppliers. Defining your hiring needs may be a PM role, but HR may be responsible for the hiring itself. Planning safety reviews and the burn-down plan for and findings would be PM, but conducting the reviews would be engineering, quality, etc. unless you are running the review and herding the cats vs. acting primarily as a non-advocate.
You need to estimate how much time you spend managing the high level project requirements, vs. detail product level definition. Saving Changes...
To be safe with your application you need to be able to answer "yes" to two questions:
1. Was the initiative meaningful enough to be considered a project? How unique is it, did it involve more than just you as a doer and so on.
2. Did you role cover a moderate number of the normal tasks which a PM would be expected to perform? For this, you can review the PMP Exam Content Outline.
"I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near."
