Project manager certification?

A Potted Plant

A Potted Plant

Honorary Sod
So this conversation has come up a few times in OOS and I thought I'd bring the conversation out into a place where people will actually join.

Anyway, I'm looking to get one I have about a 5k budget per year from work and my higher-ups are pushing me that way. I was looking to go the way of agile but wanted to see if this was a joke to get or if others were higher valued. I was originally considering six smegma but meh, enlighten me.
 
Is there such a thing? Serious question...

At least in construction you either came from the field, rare or business degree, not rare and worked your way up. The ones who progressed the fastest were related ?
 
Getting certified in agile methodology certainly isn't going to hurt you but as someone who has done Product Management, Development, Implementation, Support, de facto Project Management and/or Engagement Management, Client Success, Sales Engineering, and whatever other glue you want to throw in there, it's not an easy thing to do for someone trained in classic Project Management. IME the reality is that everything is agile in nature. Nobody can define all the requirements today and then in 6-12 months say that what they originally thought was accurate.

The real disconnect I see is that the PMO wants to deliver a detailed project plan to give to the customer (who is often expecting as much) but in reality, the PM has no real idea how that is going to break down and the customer wants to have the right to be able to change it anyway. So the ask is impossible: I want to be able to change requirements almost daily but can you give me a project plan for the next 6 months?

I think trying to figure out how to balance that would put you ahead of the game which is without question in the agile direction. Classic Project Management is a thing of the past where you can define your requirements, write them up, and never expect to change them again.

What industry are you in? I should have asked that first.
 
Max as you know I’m doing the PMbOk training now.
The PMI wants you to learn their method and language. Parts of the method are effective buy I feel like I’m being brainwashed at times. It’s very repetitive.
For me I’m in a small field at a small company where i have been for 15 years with an aging owner who can’t seem to get out of his own way. I have a lot of experience but want to get the certification to have in my pocket.
 
Get all of the certifications they will pay for and let you study for on company time. Just recognize that they are all likely BS and won't do much for you. I used to have a ton of certs, but I don't know anything about the PM ones. They show that you are willing to put in the effort and are good for getting your foot in the door next time you want an interview.
 
Mathers said:
Max as you know I’m doing the PMbOk training now.
The PMI wants you to learn their method and language. Parts of the method are effective buy I feel like I’m being brainwashed at times. It’s very repetitive.
For me I’m in a small field at a small company where i have been for 15 years with an aging owner who can’t seem to get out of his own way. I have a lot of experience but want to get the certification to have in my pocket.
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exactly~ make the company that youve been with reimburse for the certs, ride out the contract, then move on.... in a recent event, i was told i need my certs thus the salary offer was so low (so they can put the $ into my training & i cant blame them from their standpoint). you will always be more valuable with a certification, as a new employer may want that experience brought to the table at some point.
 
Has the boss mentioned any specific ones? They're taking an interest in you and you seem to be doing it for the benefit of your career at this specific company. Use this opportunity to play the corporate game. Check the bosses signatures and LinkedIn's to see if they have any certs. If they have them, maybe ask them what they think is the most used part of their training. Make it known youre taking it seriously, using it to try and provide more value to them and that you value their opinion. But research some programs first so that you can speak to them if it comes up. You can give them a sense of mentorship and investment in you which will greatly help your career there. Play the game.
 
JimN said:
Get all of the certifications they will pay for and let you study for on company time. Just recognize that they are all likely BS and won't do much for you. I used to have a ton of certs, but I don't know anything about the PM ones. They show that you are willing to put in the effort and are good for getting your foot in the door next time you want an interview.
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Haha, this is funny. If I am reviewing resumes for a developer and they have any Microsoft certification nonsense on there, I pretty much throw it away. I don't know how this works in the PM world, but for me, certifications and toilet paper have some very striking similarities.
 
Norm said:
Haha, this is funny. If I am reviewing resumes for a developer and they have any Microsoft certification nonsense on there, I pretty much throw it away. I don't know how this works in the PM world, but for me, certifications and toilet paper have some very striking similarities.
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Lol yeah, the Microsoft ones are notoriously bad. I have my MCSE/MCSA/MCP but they are for Windows 2000 and 2003, so I'm probably not allowed to have them on my resume anymore. The networking ones are also BS and everyone knows it, but companies like them anyway. They like telling customers they have X number of Cisco certified techs or whatever.

We switched vendors for our optical backbone when I was still just working in the NOC back in 2008, and around noon the one day they announced that the first three people to get that vendor's first level cert would get $500, $250, and $100. I scheduled the test for the next morning, crammed all afternoon/evening, took the test and claimed the $500. Our three network engineers thought it was going to be easy money for them, but they all had to fight for second and third place.
 
I worked in civil engineering consulting and maybe 1-12 years ago, there was a big focus to the PMP certification from PMI
https://www.pmi.org/certifications/types

The industry was heading in the direction that PMP cert would become a requirement in qualification based selection, similar to a PE license. At this time, it never really caught on and rarely do we see an RFP that requires / requests a PMP cert. So because of that, it kind of died in our NJ operations, where basically all of our work is state or federal agencies. I believe our California offices it is still a focus as they have a number of private construction developers that require the cert.

I do not have the cert but have taken PM classes that use the PMI framework. It is basically run-of-the-mill PM.
 
Norm said:
Haha, this is funny. If I am reviewing resumes for a developer and they have any Microsoft certification nonsense on there, I pretty much throw it away. I don't know how this works in the PM world, but for me, certifications and toilet paper have some very striking similarities.
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Do you view most certs that way or just the microsoft stuff. Ive been thinking of going for sql and similar certs to go in the Product Management direction.
 
All the resumes I've looked at lately have the following:
SAFe Agilist / SAFe Product owner /Product manager and Scrum Master
 
TimBay said:
Do you view most certs that way or just the microsoft stuff. Ive been thinking of going for sql and similar certs to go in the Product Management direction.
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Pretty much all of them. My current industry platform (ServiceNow) wants you to get all sorts of certs, but they are just money grabs. They want the implementation shops to have as many certs as they can, to say they are a gold partner, etc. But with every new release they wipe the slate clean and make everyone renew them. Guess what? They're not free.

To me it's like riding a bike. Sure you can have a certificate that says you sat on your couch and read how to ride a bike and passed some test (which, let's be real, you can likely pass with zero training) but until you ride a bike, you won't know how to ride a bike.

To me anything you can earn in 1-4 hours while sitting on your couch is worthless in this arena. Having said that, if you actually absorb the information and have a way to apply it, it's not going to hurt. And as others have mentioned, some orgs want them.

I am both a Product Manager and Product Owner right now (for now). These are not to be confused with Project Management. Totally different things. And the 2 roles (owner/manager) are different in theory, but few orgs pay for both roles so you end up having to do both. They are really also pretty different.
 
My opinion is that having certs can't hurt you, provided you don't act like they mean something. If nothing else, they show commitment. I find that people that bash certs the most are the people that don't have any. The majority of the tests I took were not easy, and they required a lot of work on my part. Agree with Norm that the cert industry is a money grab and is BS, but if I'm not paying for it, I don't really care. Don't ever bring up your certs in an interview, and if asked about them, downplay their significance. Say you got them because your previous company encouraged it or something. Depending on your industry, I think they are definitely worth pursuing. That said, every cert I have that can expire, has expired, and I don't see a need for me to ever need to get another one.
 
Did you ever describe your current job title/responsibilities? In the work environment I was in (corporate R&D) project managers oversaw most of the important new product development projects. It was a full-time job - however they trained engineers/scientists from the company with experience in the technical side to do this. If it is something you are interested in as a career path, then go for it. But just to get the certification if you aren't really interested in making a career out of PM doesn't make sense to me.
 
new time, new words! i didn't even know this was still a thing......

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huddle is also too close to cuddle. makes me uncomfortable.
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having a consistent language across the project is useful.
it can not hurt, because i still see stuff like this on job requirements.
 
I’m a project manager and have my PMP certification. The reason that I got it is a little different than yours though. I had been working as a PM for 12 years (in pharma), with advanced degrees in science (I used to work in the lab). Only a couple of colleagues at the time had their PMP’s, the attitude among the rest of my peers was “we’re already professional PM’s what do we need this for, it’s useless” (attitude that JimN describes above). Well, my organization suddenly was being acquired by another, and I knew that layoffs would be imminent (most of my colleagues were in that dream-world known as denial on the subject of layoffs). As I began my job search in earnest, I saw that having a PMP was preferred or required in the job description with most of them, so I decided to get one to give me an edge when 15 PMs all hit the market at once looking for work.

If the nature of your work is more on the engineering/production side where process and efficiency are more important, SixSigma/Agile may be more relevant. If you’re managing projects, then a PMP is a wise move. If you’re doing both, then both are relevant. A PMP won’t teach you to be a PM, but will show you what best-practices are and maybe provide you with some tools to use. If you run a project the way they describe, it will take 10 years and you’ll have the bandwidth to run only one. Its one of those things where you give them the answer they want vs. what you think is right.

Getting a PMP is not easy, you’ll need to study every day for a couple of months to get the certification. You’ll take the test in the same testing centers that strung-out and stressed out kids are taking their GMATs, LSATs, and MCATs. If your company is paying, I’d suggest taking a course/bootcamp and the exam right after. If you decide to go the PMP route, hit me up and I can give you some suggestions on how best to study and what tools to use.
 
Norm said:
What industry are you in? I should have asked that first.
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I work for the insurance side of a payroll company and my new role is basically a PM since we are migrating to new systems in my BU. By far I have the least experience on my team but so far my first week has been training the rest of the team and reviewing their processes and validating data that they have.

My manager refers to me as a "data wrangler" and has been testing my ability leading up to taking this role. When I started 3 years ago I got access to a bunch of data bases and learned enough SQL to become valuable to leadershit and since them they have limited access due to breeches in other industries. Its often overlooked but I'm the subject matter expert for a few things and since my directer has learned that on Tuesday they are pushing me to go get a PM and lead a few of the transitions. I've been registered for agile courses but I was trying to see if I should get another if it is more valuable outside of my company. Currently the PMs here have 6sigma but looking it over it sounded stupid so I wanted to get an Agile one since thats what my manager harps about.

tbh I have no fucking clue what I'm doing but being pushed from up top has directed me to take this more seriously so I'm looking for value outside of my company since they don't which one I get.
 
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