Current Professional Opinions on PM Training & Qualifications

NOTE: This article is reprinted from the August 2009 edition of Project Management Tipoffs. In this section of Tipoffs. If you have a question for our Q&A experts or simply wish to contribute an article to a future edition, email us at this address, and be sure to subscribe to PM Tipoffs to read our responses by clicking here. The August edition can be found by clicking here.

Project Managers and budding PM professionals seem convinced that obtaining a project management qualification has led or will lead to an improved career path.

Those are the general findings of the recent Arras People’s Qualifications Survey, which closed Monday after a week of exposure to a variety of project management-friendly social media, including Twitter, LinkedIn and in Arras People’s own blog, How to Manage a Camel.

The survey, which combined direct yes/no questions with a variety of chances for respondents to comment freely, turned up some intriguing results, mainly with regards to the importance of project management qualifications as they relate to project managers today. When asked “Please pick a statement that closely matches your motivation for taking a qualification”, over 85% of respondents gave answers that reflected on the enhancing virtues a PM qualification provides (i.e. ‘Gives me an advantage when applying for new roles’, ‘Shows that I am a fully competent PM professional’).

Perhaps most intriguing were the responses to the question, “Has the qualification been beneficial to you in any tangible way?” Nearly 60% of respondents answered ‘Yes’, while 18% answered ‘No’ and 23% stated they were ‘Unsure’. Some ‘Yes’ responses would seem to speak to the importance of project management hiring personnel place on qualifications. For instance, one respondent commented that they answered ‘Yes’ because ‘I was told by my current employer that they would not have interviewed me for a PM role without some evidence of a PM exam’. This respondent was not alone: In all, 68% of ‘Yes’ respondents who added a comment stated that they answered that way because qualifications improved their ability to get hired or interviewed.

But more surprising is the amount of people who answered ‘No’ to this question – 41% of our survey takers either don’t think that their qualifications have been beneficial or are unsure about how much of a role they play in their career’s path. It correlates to the uncertainty of the quality within the job market at the end of the day – the experience and the on the job “know-how” may speak just as highly for candidates as the certificate in the office.

Couple that result with figures tabulated in response to another Yes/No question, and one can begin to understand the polarization that project management qualifications bring. The question in question is “Do you think you have ever missed out on an opportunity or promotion, etc., by not having the right or any qualifications in project management?” The majority of respondents (55%) responded ‘No’. Another monkey wrench in the polarisation element is that other factors have been blamed by the respondents for their missing out on promotions, like:

‘vocal communication’, ‘right place, right time, right contacts’, ‘lack of defined path for advancement’, ‘experience’ (some variation on ‘experience’ was given many times as an answer), ‘depth of business experience in a particular sector’,
‘None related to training’

As polarising as qualifications in project management may be, there can be little doubt that recent hiring practices would suggest that qualifications could be more emphasis in the future than less. When asked, “Do you intend to gain a qualification?”, 47% of respondents answered ‘Yes’, while a mere 12% said ‘No’ and 40 % said ‘Not Applicable’. Some, though, seemed almost apologetic about it, feeling certification has been driving down the perceived importance of practical real-world experience.

“Sorry to say, but I will need a cert(-ification) to demonstrate my knowledge if I need to move to another company,” said one respondent.

Another added, “(The) project management field has grown cert happy. Certs (are) preferred to actual experience and success.”

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