The role of Project Management Certification

The role of Project Management Certification Frequently asked questions and experience of the Project Management-Community At the beginning of this chapter I would like to describe the idea of Project Management Certification. Project Management is a science. You can learn it at school, at universities of applied sciences, at universities and you can attend thousands and thousands of seminars and courses offered from different training or consulting companies. In the meantime the market offers a lot of MBAs and other post-graduate studies. But it’s still not a profession, there is no trade association, project managers are “just” a community. Everybody is allowed to put “Project Manager” on his/her business card. Nobody knows whether he/she is really a professional project manager. Of course you can just blindly trust and try to work with any project manager. But the practical experience shows that these kinds of selections are often very expensive with a lot of trouble and less successful projects. So, the idea of Project Management certification is, that people have to proof their project management competences in different types of assessments, they get “certified” and companies and customers can be surer that these certified project managers know what to do in specific project situations. Furthermore because of the periodic re-certification you have also a guarantee that the certified project managers still have and developed these competences. And on the other hand: Certified project managers have the opportunity to show their Project Management -know how and competence by an international recognized and appreciated certificate. Of course an important competitive advantage! Worldwide there exist different certification systems: AIPM, IPMA, PMAJ, PMI, PRINCE 2, etc. I do not want to discuss the different systems in this chapter – the 1 differences are often influenced by the culture of the country/continent and the time in which the certification system was developed and established – but I will offer answers to the general questions: Why get people certified? What is the benefit? And is there any impact on our daily project business? Basis for this chapter are the results of an online-survey we did in October 2006 in Austria among the pma-members – 50 companies and 400 individuals (project managers, project owners, project team members, PM-Office managers, chairmen, HR-managers) - with a rate of return of remarkable 25 % and some face-to-face interviews I made with executives of project oriented companies in Austria and Germany. - And of course also my experiences as chairman of Project Management Austria (pma) – the largest network-organisation for Project Management in Austria - and what I learned during my international work as vice president of the International Project Management Association (IPMA) – the world’s oldest and one of the leading international project management organisation. At IPMA I am especially responsible for Certification & Standards. The developing of these issues are more than a job for me because I am really sure that certification and standards are very important for the quality of project management and an important part for establishing and developing a good reputation for the profession “project manager”. But now to the results and details of our surveys and to the frequently asked questions. How important is the Project Management Certification in and for the international economy and, of course, for the Project Management industry at the moment? And how will this importance change in the future? 2 We can observe that there is more and more understanding and status for the importance of highly professional project management and for the importance of well- skilled project managers. The reasons differ; there are more internal ones like quality assurance of the company project management competence, development towards a project oriented company or more external ones like requirements from the customers or requirements in bidding processes. An international recognized and well-known certification gets therefore more and more important as a kind of standard and decision support. So it is not astonishing that there is a further rise in the certification-market and a growing demand for certified project managers in all industrial areas of the world – and the world is really the whole world, all five continents included. Worldwide there are more than 300.000 certified project managers with a high annual rate of increase. For example in Austria the rate of increase was more then 20 % in the last five years and the prognoses are also similar for the next 3 – 5 years. Even five years ago certified project managers worked mainly in the telecommunication sector, in IT companies and in the plant construction. Nowadays certified project managers are established in all industries. So we can notice an increasing demand. And Project Management-know how and experience are more and more required for a lot of different jobs – especially in the middle management it is an important asset for the career path. But Project Management-know how is also an asset for new-comers. Because of this increasing demand of basic Project Management-know how pma launched 2006 a new certification product: pm basic. It is mainly created for people with no Project 3 Management experience – like pupils or people who want to reintegrate themselves into employment. Nowadays the demand for certified Project Management-competence comes from the international and major companies. But their influence has an impact on the middle and small companies. More and more of them realise the asset of certified project managers. In the near future basic Project Management-know how will be as common as basic computer skills and basic knowledge in economy for employees and business leaders of all types and sizes of industries. Unfortunately the quota of women in the project management industry is unchanged very low. The proportion woman to men in the Project Management certification field is approximately. 30:70. But research shows: Gender-mixed teams are more successful. Some efforts are already started to encourage more women to work in project management but much more activities would be necessary. What we already observe: Especially for women Project Management-certifications provides a huge support in their Project Management -career. Project Management - certified women are more self-confident and more encouraged to take an active role in project teams. The certification seems to reduce self-doubt. In general - gender irrespective - our searches show: Project Management - certification is a very useful motivation-tool for employees. If you look at the certification figures, both pma and IPMA, you can realize that they are quite similar. Especially the growth in the last 2 years is remarkable. 4 pma Certifications per year 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 '06 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 '00 reference: pma 2006 Total IPMA Certifications 90.000 80.000 70.000 60.000 50.000 40.000 30.000 20.000 10.000 - '07 '06 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 reference: IPMA 2006 5 How much does globalisation influence the project management business - and how does it affect the project management certification market? The Project Management industry benefits from globalisation.