Defining a "Project Professional"
Posted by Mark Charles Wills on 18 May, 2012 - 11:04
Hi All,
My organisation is in the process of trying to classify our 1000+ change community as a project profession. As part of this they have adopted APM as our competency framework (hurrah!) and adopted the pyramid approach to increasing competence. This is all good but I am slightly surprised at the range of formal qualifications they are requiring at each level. For example a Practitioner requires PRINCE 2 Practioner; APMP; APMQ; and MSP Practitioner.
What I am wondering is whether the use of all three of these routeways (PRINCE, APM & MSP) is a sensible way to ensure individuals have the broad range of formal qualifications to prove their professionalism, or is it overkill given the investment of both time and money that building up such a portfolio of qualifications will require.
Views please!
Mark
Posted in
Your organisation should be seeking competence, not certifications – certifications prove underpinning knowledge nothing more. For more on this see: http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Mag_Articles/SA1003_Value_of_PM_Qualifications%20.pdf
Thanks Patrick, an interesting read. Internally we are assessed against a competency framework that evaluates both achievements and behaviours. I can see the value in both competency assessment and certifications, what I'm struggling with is the value of using three different certificating approaches.
Mark
Mark, as you know APM advocates raising the standards of professionalism in project management, set against a baseline of the 5 Dimensions of Professionalism, which encompasses (but is not limited to) competency assessment and certifications to align with the various PM grades across organisations. The route through to certification depends very much on where the individual is within their career path and the APM suite of qualifications and competency assessment certifications is interchangeable and not necessarily dependent upon taking all in sequence, especially for the more experienced PMs where RPP is the single highest certification. As for adopting all three certificating approaches you refer to (PRINCE, APM, MSP) - this is certainly not essential and an organisation can adopt what is of best value to them when considering raising the bar in PM competency.
I give you no assurance that this is appropriate but you could do worse than have a look at SFIA
http://www.sfia.org.uk/
Depends rather on the nature of your business.
I take you back to the competency debate, and have to argue that Prince 2 and MSP are not competency based qualifications (or certifications if you will). They require some training to gain sufficient knowledge to pass, and for Practitioner status you then have to show that you can apply them in practice. I note that APMG are also looking at 'professional' to advance these, but not sure what that will entail. APM's suite of qualifications are benchmarked against the IPMA hierarchy levels D to B, and so IC at Level D, APMP at Level C, and CPM/RPP at Level B all have a clear position. PQ in there as well. There is not yet an APM Level A qualification but there will be sooner or later. As for your question, I think the issue is the difference between holding professional knowledge and some competency for which APMP will add value, or professional competency and recognised experience for which the higher levels of the hierarchy will benefit. Registered Project Professional is therefore what it says on the tin. I think Prince 2 and MSP just about reach level C, but even that is debatable. Individual competency helps (and evidenced with certifications, if needed, you could also include Masters degrees or risk and change certifications), but organisational capability and maturity for better project management requires a different set of models. Are these in some way integrated into your competency pyramid?