So, not sure how many of you have seen that PMI now has a Program Management Certification but I'm curious as to what others think about this new certification. I haven't seen many job descriptions on the job boards that have this as a requirements. What do y'all think? Saving Changes...
Sameer IyerVice President - Salesforce Centre of Excellence| Barclays Bank, Plc.Pune, Maharashtra, India
Bipin, to answer your question on what PMI should do, I am sure one can fill pages, but here are two things I feel they must do:
1. PMI should open up to the world. Over a period of time, it has amassed a wealth of information that it should make available to everyone. And everyone includes not only project managers, but also senior managers of any organization and also those who work as functional managers. This would ensure that the PMI standards and guideleines get more acceptable and would make the life for project managers easy. The leaset PMI could do is to distribute PMBOK guide freely. In a sense, PMI needs to ensure that 'The World is Flat', as far as the knowledge of PM standards and methodologies are concerned.
2. It should revamp the PMP examination. Open up any PM Network and you will find at least a dozen training institutes guaranteeing you success in the exam, if you do their course. This is disgraceful. The exam should be 100% percent practice-oriented, with no theory questions. This would distinguish a PMP from the rest and there will be a sense of security for the PMPs, compared to the rest. Today, it extremely easy to pass the exam by either (i) attending such training courses or (ii) reading through some exam prep books few times over. This has to stop.
By opening itself up to only the paid members, PMI has ensured that very little knowledge reaches the mass, making it difficult for project managers to get a continuous executive involvement and buy-in. I am sure this is not what PMI intends the situation to be.
Although I am digressing from the original post here, the same should be applicable to the PgMP certification as well.
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Bipin Lekshmanan PMPProject Manager| Wipro TechnologiesEdison, Nj, United States
Sameer: Appreciate you point of view. Saving Changes...
Lawrence TaxsonSenior Program Executive| USGVienna, Va, United States
This has been a very entertaining discussion around something that has irked me for awhile. I am in agreement with a few folks here that the PMP serves just as a marketing tool for the individual. I have been in many organizations that have full time PMPs who do not know the first thing about Project Management. Most were tech leads who just said they had PM experience and studied one month for the exam and passed. Now since they have the PMP, they feel that they can manage complex projects. Of courss, when things go bad on the project (which always happens), they do not know how to handle the situation.
I agree with Sameer, that the way the PMP (or even the PgMP) is awarded should change. It should be based on more practical PM work rather than some questions that anyone could study for.
I am proud to be a project manager and I am happy that therre is an organization like PMI that supports us. I just feel embarassed sometimes on how easy it is to get the certification that is supposed to separate us from less experienced peers.
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Bipin Lekshmanan PMPProject Manager| Wipro TechnologiesEdison, Nj, United States
Let me start off by saying- I am not PMI. But the mission of PMI is to further project management discipline in the world which is facilitated even through our conversations here. PMI created a framework for project management practitioners and recommending its usage. So far, people and organizations have volunteered to get the certification. While I do understand that some people might have got certification without having much experience (this is debateable), having PMP will not guarantee that you will resolve all management issues with ease. In my view, PMP is hust a framework. It paves the way for effective decision making or thinking and is no solution for all issues in a complex world. While the credibility of PMP can go down with cases in which people get PMP without much experience to use it as a marketing tool, it still commands respect for providing knowledge (you should learn the methodolgy for a month before you can get certified---as mentioned in the post), that goes inside your head and stays. I suppose that a would be manager will be on a better place with PMP than where he would have been without PMP.
I can have a PhD from MIT but my colleague with the degree from a lesser known university degree can be a better scientist. Same thing applies for PMP. You can be a better manager than another with PMP. But, all that means is that PMP ensures that the individual has some level of exposure to management and understands a PM framework to an adequate level. Saving Changes...
Lawrence TaxsonSenior Program Executive| USGVienna, Va, United States
Bipin, I agree with what you are saying. Getting a PMP does not necessarily make the individual the re-known expert in project management. It does provide people with a baseline set of skills which are needed to develop more intrinsic skills. Each project you manage is different and the skills you bring to manage that project may be different each time. A good PM knows what works and what doesn't work. My gripe is that some companies today are assuming that people who have a PMP can make these decisions. What they do not realize is that the PMP certification does not guarantee this, only experience does. This was very true in the last company I worked for. A tech lead got her PMP and was immediately reassigned to manage a complex project. After 3 months, the project was over budget and behind schedule and she was overworking the team. The company just assumed that since she had her PMP she could manage effectively. What they didn't weigh was the amount of experience she had in doing this type of work. Now I do not know if this happens frequently in other organizations, but from the ones I have seen here in DC, this is prevalent. Because of the dilution of the PMP certification, some companies are judging talent more on the certification rather than experience. A few years back, getting the PMP meant you were in the elite class of your industry. Now I feel it doesn’t hold that same weight since mostly anyone can get one. We need a better certification that lets our clients know that we are elite based on both our knowledge and experience in handling difficult situations. Saving Changes...
Bipin Lekshmanan PMPProject Manager| Wipro TechnologiesEdison, Nj, United States
I agree. May be, that's why PMI is coming with PgMP - just a thought! Saving Changes...
Andy JordanPresident| Roffensian Consulting S.A.Cherry Grove, AB, Canada
I think we are really getting into some interesting points here. I agree that the main 'problem' with PMP is the fact that it is seen too often by employers as a black and white measure of quality when hiring. It should be seen more as a standard that an individual has reached. You can reach that standards with a combination of skills and experience, but no PMP, and that standard may not be right for the specific position that is being hired. Where I do look a little more critically at the PMI is when I think about the way that the PMP is administered. Think back to when the latest version of the exam was introduced back in the fall of 2005. The exam was suspended for a while because not enough people were passing. Now I realize that a PMP is seen as a PMP regardless of when the exam was passed, and the PMI had to be careful if it made the exam harder without making a distinction between versions, but I'm not comfortable with tailoring questions to get a pass rate within a target range. That doesn't sound like the best way to define a quality standard. The PMI has diversified recently - OPM3 and its associated certification programs and now PgMP. In theory I'm in favour of this diversification, but I would like to understand a little more the overall strategy around how the PMI is using these evolutions to improve the industry and its practitioners. Andy Jordan, President, Roffensian Consulting Inc., www.roffensian.com Saving Changes...
Bipin Lekshmanan PMPProject Manager| Wipro TechnologiesEdison, Nj, United States
Andy - I agree with your comment regarding the new PMP exam - it should not have been revised so that more people could pass. There was a thread on this exact same topic here on gantthead when this was first going on so I won't elaborate. However, again, I feel the need to stress that it is the company's fault (in the example given by Lawrence) for hiring someone solely based on one credential. Again, I will go back to my MD story - just because you have that MD after your name doesn't mean you are a good doctor or that I'll let you cut me open. The same is true with PMP - Other than the fact that I disagreed with PMI's rational on revising the exam to achieve a higher passing rate, I don't see the supposed glut of PMPs on the market as a bad thing. For me personally, when looking to hire project managers, I require that they have their PMP (to me it states that they are willing to do the little extra to learn more about their craft - that or they took the cheetah class but either way, they've done something extra than someone without PMP credentials) but I don't hire someone JUST because they have PMP - I agree with other comments posted here - I've met PMPs who can't spell Project Management. I will ask detailed questions - you'd be surprised how many PMPs I've interviewed that had no idea what EVM stood for much less what the concept was... I guess what I'm really trying to get at is that it's not PMI that screws up projects - it's the companies that are looking for silver bullets and think they have it by hiring only PMPs without actually doing any homework about what makes a good project manager good. Thanks for letting me rant there ;)
Going back to topic at hand - PgMP - I'm not sure that will be any better - you have to provide 12 references and let's be honest, how many of us have worked in an environment where the company really had a clue about what makes good project managers? Of course I can provide excellent references that will say I'm an amazing project manager but on what basis are they judging me? I mean, what other project managers do they have to base it on? I guess why I'm a bit sensative to this is that I once had a boss whose title was VP - Project Management. He didn't know how to spell project management, I was the only project manager he'd ever managed. Obviously, I wouldn't use him as a reference because I don't think he would be a valid person to judge my project management skills (i mean yes, all my projects came in on time, within scope on budget but still - he didn't know that much about project management when say compared to someone who has managed a stable of 50 project managers working on complex ERP implementation and has managed projects for the past 20 years) - You see what I'm saying? It's still subjective not objective. It just depends on who you use as a reference.... How does that make things better or let people know you actually do know more than your developer friend who just sat for the PMP???? (no offense to developers) Saving Changes...
It was very illuminating for me when I volunteered on a Standards committee. I learned a lot from being around well seasoned project managers (think Big Dig size) as well as how PMI operates behind the scenes. I highly recommend it for anyone that truly wants to learn more and gain exposure. It was a great experience for me. Saving Changes...
