LET'S PUT IT RIGHT ON THE LINE!! IS THE PMP MORE VALUABLE THAN OUR CERTIFICATION

Michele Guttenberger MPM • I see PMP becoming a screening tool for Human Resource in weeding through the stack of job applications. It helps them shorten the pile at no expense on their part. PMP has become getting that application box checked off. The PMP exam certification is a big cash industry for PMP courses, PMP training camps and PMP exam prep books - not too mention keeping up with PDU's afterwards. The PMP exam gets revised and taught by educators rather than seasoned professionals of the trade. PMP prep was once well funded by corporations when they had big educational budget dollars to spend. But those days are gone. Now everyone is getting that piece of paper in hopes that it will keep them employed over the next guy that doesn't have one. It is the individual who is forking over the money for the exam costs - not the employer. Like all products that saturate the market they start to loose their prestige and business looks for some other new rating or measurement to set their standards. That's because it never was a true practice built on the reputation of its members. It was all about passing an exam using the "right" multiple chose answers regardless if experience told you it was not a logical answer. PMI tells you to forget your experienced knowledge of Project Management and follow the PMBok body of knowledge. It asks you to forget your intuitive business sense even if has proven to be tried and true. Regardless of how many years of successful PM years you have you must take the 100's of questions on the Exam - experience holds no special privileges. Your experience and your successes in project management mean nothing to PMI because it has no market value for them. However, they must feel uneasy when PMP's are showing high project fail rates. I believe that the pendulum will swing and good PM's will be based on their resume and reputation and not on the exams they passed.

Lloyd Bumanglag • I agree with Michelle. It's unfortunate that the majority of HR recruiters will use PMI/PMP as a gage to whether you are qualified to manage a project (small or large). Before PMP and any other project management certification, people were managing project. Until someone realized that there was $$$ to be made. The reality of having a PMP does get you in the door over the other person who doesn't have it. The reality is no matter if you have a PMP or MPM, etc. can you run a successful project. PMI is a framework of processes and not a methodology as some HR recruiters think it is. HR recruiters need to be educated, as well as educate their clients that PMP is a framework and not methodology. Success in running projects comes with hard working experience.

PMI/PMP is a framework of a singular way of doing things. However, some of their processes are adaptable to other methods such as RUP, Agile, Waterfall etc. Unless you are in the construction business or building a spaceship, aircraft or missile, the PMI framework may not work for you.

Being a MPM holder puts you on a different level because of your domain experience, and knowledge of different methodologies. The most valuable asset a company can have, as it relates to project managers, is for someone that carriers diversity in processes, standards, best practices, from usage and exposure to different methodologies (RUP, Tenstep, Lean Agile, Agile/Scrum, Prince/2, CASE, Method/1, etc..).

Our quest is to educate HR when they have a candidate with a MPM or CIPM designation.

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Brad Wootten • I agree with Michelle and L. Phillip. PMI Certification (PMP), has value to the holder and should not be completey discounted; however, as a proprietary, and relatively closed methodology, it can easily become nothing more than a "cookbook" process. Project Management cannot be carried out using a single "rote" approach, it spans many specific domains such as construction, information technology management, manufacturing, as well as a variety of services within both the public and private sector. A good project manager must be able to think on his/her feet, coming up with creative approaches suitable to the task at hand, remembering that the intent of any project is not to conduct a process but to accomplish specific goal.

Olakunle Babalola • I believe AAPM is really doing justice to this professional body and sooner than you expect it MPM would have been prefered to PMP from PMI. In Nigeria, everybody is talking about PMP without a ground knowledge of its history and methodology, at shebs tech, we know the value of MPM, we are currently using AAPM methodology and also teach our clients.