Do you qualify for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) Certification?

In the field of Project Management, the most popular professional upskilling certification course is the Project Management Professional (PMP®) Certification. However, before anyone can join for the course and sit for the exam, they will need to qualify for the course.

Aspiring students will need to satisfy the following conditions:-

• Degree or Diploma in any field;
• If in possession of Degree, at least 3 non-overlapping years of project management based work experience. If in possession of a Diploma, at least 5 non-overlapping years of project management based work experience;
• 35 Contact Hours of Project Management education with an Authorized Training Partner (ATP)

The first question that usually arises when an aspiring student views the terms above is if their work can be considered as a ‘project’ in the eyes of PMI. In short, if you are working towards a unique deliverable (as opposed to an operation), with defined start and end dates, it is most likely a project that you are working on.

As for the non-overlapping requirement, let's look at an example to see how this plays out. Assume an aspiring PMP candidate worked on multiple projects that add up to 3 years, but all projects were concurrently managed and was actually completed in 18 months. This candidate would not qualify despite the fact that both the projects he has worked on adds up to 3 years, as the timeframe was overlapping. This candidate would still need to have another 18 months of experience before being able to qualify for the examination.

This is what PMI means when it says your experience must be non-overlapping. Keep this in mind when adding up project experience.

The applicant must also show that, over the course of their experience, they have worked in some fashion on each of the five process groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing. They need not have touched on all these areas for every project, nor is there an hourly requirement for each specific process group. But in the aggregate, must document some hours falling within each of these process groups over the course of the overall experience.

One final note on the experience requirement: PMI will not consider work experience that is obtained more than 7 years before the date of your application. This cutoff sometimes wreaks havoc for people who worked on projects in the distant past, but have not done much recently.

Audit

PMI will usually accept that the experience aspiring students have declared on paper without further scrutiny. However, aspiring students must not simply misstate their experience. This would be a serious ethical violation and would likely bar students from ever obtaining your PMP certification designation (or any other PMI® credential for that matter). In any case, PMI also randomly audits around 5 – 10% of all PMP exam candidates to verify that all information provided is accurate.

These audits are fairly simple with the first step being the submission of your education certificates. Next, applicants must verify the project experience submitted, by having your project supervisor sign off a pre-prepared letter confirming your experience in the projects listed. Finally, the applicant must prove that they have collected the required 35 Contact Hours of project management education by sharing proof of attendance.

If you are interested in obtaining a PMI certification but do not qualify, there is still a way to distinguish yourself before PMP certification. Aspiring project managers should consider earning their Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® Certification. Find out more here

If you do think you qualify, the PMP certification remains a must-have for any serious project manager, opening the door to increased salary and better job opportunities. Let us help you take the next step in your career. Contact us for further information on the course!

A project team consists of individuals who support the project manager in performing the work of the project to achieve its objectives. Members of the project team include the project manager, the project management team, the project staff, and all stakeholders indirectly associated with providing support. This includes operational as well as functional managers, customers, end-user, vendors as well as suppliers. These people are either actively involved in the project or whose interest may be either positively or negatively impacted by the project. They are called stakeholders.

To build a team, a project manager seeks people from different backgrounds and experiences. This ensures diversity exists. However, care should be taken to create an environment of mutual trust and respect among all team members to achieve project objectives. This is done by improving knowledge, skill and trust among team members as well as empowering them to participate collaboratively in resolving issues.

This requires, especially for agile teams, the development of generalist specialists who have core competencies as well as general skills that can be leveraged to support others. In agile teams, team members need to engage in the process of self-organization as opposed to traditional projects where command and control systems are used.

Team skills assessments enable the team to holistically identify its strengths and weaknesses. The assessments may include areas such as team preferences, aspirations as well as decision making processes. To continually assess and refresh team skills, mechanisms for analyzing skills gaps need to be developed.

To ensure that the right team members are selected, pre-assignment tools such as attitudinal surveys, structured interviews as well as ability tests may be performed. The assignment of resources is established using a resource assignment document that clarifies which team member is assigned to what task during a project. To clarify and communicate responsibilities as well as accountabilities within a team, a RACI chart is set up, which guides decision making as well as coordination between team members. Such a chart enables the depiction of people who are responsible, accountable, consulted as well as informed when undertaking different activities within a project.

In addition, an environment to facilitate knowledge transfer among team members has to be established and maintained. This enables the facilitation of collaboration as well as promotion of visibility among the team.

For agile-based teams, visibility is promoted through charts or boards containing information that radiates continuously. Such boards are called information radiators. Examples of information radiators include scrum boards, sprint planning boards, charts that depict sprint velocity.

For more insight on how to effectively build a team, join the next Project Management class and learn to be a “Project Management Professional” with PMP Malaysia!

Undertaking a project is similar to climbing a mountain. It requires enormous and detailed planning, a lot of stamina, as well as a clear focus on the end goal. An abundance of expertise and determination to reach the peak is required, despite the difficulties faced along the way. These difficulties may arise unexpectedly such as a strong gust of wind, or may be existing physical barriers along the planned path that have to be overcome as one continues the climb upward.

Similarly, project managers require clarity of focus and objective, the support of team members and stakeholders, and the skills required to manage projects. In addition, and perhaps less glaringly, they also require the know how to deal with issues that emerge which hinder the realization of project objectives.

Issues refer to current conditions or situations that may impact a project objective negatively. For example, a leaking pipeline carrying fuel to the generator in a project site, or excessive documentation required before sign off can take place. Either way, they mess up a smooth transition to the end.

Traditional Project Management

Issues are viewed with disdain and as a source of irritation in most projects. Most project managers handle issues with the attitude of “we will deal with them as we see them”. Being engrossed in reacting to issues is an occupational hazard for project managers. But this does have to be the case, according to the Project Management Institute. There is a better way, based on documentation, collaboration and successful resolution.

Issues have to be identified promptly, correctly and completely, collectively.

Prompt identification of issues as they emerge provide better opportunities for quick and effective issue resolution. Project team members should collaborate by taking ownership of issues, by prompting the project manager as soon it emerges. Hence issues are identified collectively and do not snowball into a major project impediment.

When identified, issues have to be documented into an Issue Log. They are then analyzed to assess their severity. Based on the evaluation results, actions are collectively identified. If resources are required, approval by the relevant parties are sought. It is then assigned to stakeholders, who are designated as owners of the issue and are tasked with reviewing the proposed responses or workarounds.

Actions to be taken to address these issues at regular status meetings.

Agile Project Management

For agile projects undertaken in changing business environments, issues are dealt with differently. Issues are discussed and addressed daily during a daily stand up meeting, so that the issues are addressed promptly to prevent them from affecting project team’s ability to deliver value.

As deliverables are developed iteratively, each iteration is expected to be better than the previous iteration. Hence, issues faced are promptly dealt with by seeking solutions or undertaking preemptive measures that address such issues on an ongoing basis.

As such, during each iteration, issues are viewed as treasure troves that ignite collaborative effort aimed at seeking resolutions and fine-tuning processes. Sprint retrospective meetings are crucial in ensuring issues and actionable responses to these issues are deliberated upon collectively. These responses are then regularly monitored by the project team.

These issues are logged in the issues board based on the concept of transparency. which is the cornerstone of agile practice. Being transparent in identifying and resolving issues as and when they emerge is based on the principle of inspect and adapt.

As for the big picture of the entire project, issues faced in the project level are discussed during project retrospective meeting typically at the end of each project. By doing so, issues that emerge which impacted the project as a whole is discussed collectively. Agreed upon actionable items are formulated for the next project, so that issues that emerged could be managed better in the event they recur.

In summary, the key differences between Agile and Traditional issue techniques are that in Agile practices:

• Issue management is built into the delivery process- e.g. Daily Scrum
• The team works together to raise and clear issues
• Documentation is kept to a minimum – all energy is put into clearing the issue
• The team regularly reviews their issue management approach in hopes to improve their handling techniques

In summary, issue management is a key consideration that needs to be addressed irrespective of approach. Managing issues clears the path required for the team to focus on delivering value both to the client, as well as to the performing organization.