Hello, Certification Central! I have been a Program Manager since 2020 working as Operations Lead on a project. I do project management, but I don't normally deal with say, the budget aspect of things. . . . Do I have to tick off every aspect of project management in my 36 months of experience, or is managing scheduling, staff, risks, etc., enough to apply for the PMP Certification after I've done my education hours and taken the exam? Or should I go for the CAPM instead? Job postings I see that match most closely with the work I currently do seem to often ask about PMP Certification, so I'd like to work toward that, if I can. Any guidance is much appreciated! Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Katherine, with close to four years managing programs, I do believe you qualify for to apply for the PMP directly. CAPM is for those with no project management experience and just starting their career in that field. It is more or less the same study material and the only difference is that CAPM exam is knowledge based while the PMP is experience based. Moreover, PMP is defnitely more globably recognized especially amongst employers.
There is lots of overlap between program and project management activities and you don't need to tick every single box. When you fill in your application, there is limited space to talk about you experience so you need to be to the point. I am pretty sure that as a program manager, you reviewed budgets, estimates, schedules and managed people as well. This is not different than doing so on a project level, as a matter of fact, it is more complex. Hope this helps! Saving Changes...
I agree with Rami. Organizations differ in how they divvy up responsibilities between roles. In operations for example, many projects may use a generic budget for improvement initiatives rather than a discrete budget. You may need to estimate the amount of work for a project, but there is really no way to track the budget when every other improvement project charges to the same budget code. Saving Changes...
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