Project Management (PMP, etc) & Agile/Scrum Certifications

[1973Marshall]

Anyone done these?

Any recommendations? Esp. on places to get it done.

How much did it cost you?

Did it help your career?

[tone4days]

i have both PMP and CSM in addition to a masters in technical mgmt (dual major org mgmt and program mgmt)

got my masters at hopkins (my company paid - took me 4 semesters at night)
studied for PMP on my own with mulcahy's study guide (studied about 60 hours over 4 months on my own at night)
took CSM class from ASPE (my company paid for the class)

yeah - helped my career a bunch ... i am able to work on jobs where the certs are required

i have uniformly bad experiences with people who 'just go get the certs' ... within a half hour of interaction i can tell if they are truly skilled PMs with actual tech dev experience or if they 'just got the paper' ...

as sily as the certs are, i am glad i have the tickets punched so i can continue to qualify for work .... but they dont beat the 27 years experience for prepping one to be successful in real programs

hope this helps
good luck
t4d

[Jd3]

Anyone done these?

Any recommendations? Esp. on places to get it done.

How much did it cost you?

Did it help your career?


Good questions - I've been doing PM work for about 25 years, so my answers may not gel with somebody newer to the game --

1) I have taken the PMP classes at a local well respected University - they charged about $1500 for a 40 hour course. The course was decent, but there were things in there that were 'theoretical' that you'd never use in a real project ... I asked the instructor about this and he agreed: his comment ? "I never said you'd use all of this in the real world ... just that it might be on the test!"

2) check your local universities and even some of the larger training companies... these are popular classes.

3) prices will vary based on your location and how 'prestigious' the school is...

4) did it help my career ?? After taking the education (which my employer paid for), I did not take the actual PMP exam (because my employer would not pay for it, and it was not cheap)....I have since realized that PMI changes the curriculum every few years and everyone has to 're-certify' ... and the costs keep going up ... not that PMI would turn this into a 'money making' scheme ... ;)

So, NOT having a PMP has not hurt my career at all - because most of my projects come to me via references from over 20 years of referenceable work. If I was younger and looking to build my career, however, I probably WOULD get the certification, since it's just another tick mark on your resume that most people are looking for ...

Good luck ...

[tiktok]

It helped me for the 2-3 years we did Agile/Scrum, then the Next New Thing came in, and it went on the scrapheap.

[tone4days]

....I have since realized that PMI changes the curriculum every few years and everyone has to 're-certify' ... .
two true pieces linked together to create a deceptive implication

yes, they change the pmbok curriculum (and thus the test) every few years ... but once you pass the test you do not have to take it again ...

yes, you have to recertify every 3 years, but there is no retest to do so ... you earn 'professional development units', many of which can be 'self certified' that you did self-study over the intervening 3 years ... for myself, my employer sends me to enough PMI-certified training classes that earning PDUs is no big deal

and yeah, it is important to note that the pmi way is often not practical - there is a fair amount of 'learning their way' just to pass the test ... their way is very rigid and canonical ... they are only now adopting agile methodologies and adding a PMI agile cert ...

[lhallam]

Every few years they come up with another methodology.

I can't even remember them all. Agile is just the hot one at the moment.

It's probably a good idea to learn it since they are all pretty much the same in certain regards.

[Gas-man]

Every few years they come up with another methodology.

I can't even remember them all. Agile is just the hot one at the moment.

It's probably a good idea to learn it since they are all pretty much the same in certain regards.

Agile has been fairly hot for about a decade.

Get your PMP, don't listen to the "haters".

It's opened a lot of doors for me and it proves you are serious about the profession and not a dabbler looking for a good salary.

[stinkbug]

PMP is generally well recognized. Much of what they teach is useful, some of it is detrimental. However, it will give you a good foundation in PM.
I considered taking the exam after I took a PM class for my masters. The text book was basically the same. After I reviewed the requirements and the cost I decided against it (even though my employer would have paid for it). The method I use Critical Chain, is different than CPM and since PMI teaches CPM it wasn't really something I felt I needed.
So it all depends on you and if you need the cert to get a job or a promo or just have an interest in the topic.