End of training

Came to KL for training this week.

Training is complete, it was for my preparation to take the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination offered by Project Management Institute.

PMP is a recognised project management exam and I needed to attend training to prepare for it. The exam I will take in 2 to 3 months time.

Having been managing projects for the last 10 years or so, I am not unfamiliar with this topics and having been certified by a different body (Prince2) as a Project Management Practitioner, this course was good.

But it got me to think about a few things.

You see, I have a few PMP's in my team. And I have come across many PMP's in my organization as well as other organizations. There is slightly more than one thousand PMP certified project managers in Malaysia.

Not a high number by far compared to a number of project managers we have.

However, one thing is for sure, having 1000+ PMP certified project managers does not measn they are great or professional; and those who are not certified does not mean they are bad in managing projects.

I have come across many PMP certified project managers who actually do not even use it to really run their projects, even in my team, even in my organization, even in the global organization and even in other organizations.

So, for me, what would be important to become PMP certified is to run projects as a project management professional.

Not just a piece of paper that says I am PMP certifies, nye, nye, nye, nye, nye like many of them do. So proudly, "I am PMP certified." But when you audit the project, you see many gaps, many unresolved issues and risks, even no project closure etc.

They say 90% of project management is communication, I do not see that happening.

It will not be easy, but I would like to be a project management professional ... not just have a certificate that says I am.

Like said in the movie With Honors, "It is more important to graduate life with honors then have a degree or a piece of papers that says with honors."

Take care and be well.