From intimidation to intention: Beginning my Chartered Project Professional journey

Becoming a Chartered Project Professional (ChPP) was always something I intended to do, but it was also something I kept actively not doing. I would look at the competences, see the very first assessment criteria for budgeting and cost control and think, nope, I’m completely intimidated. As much as going through the Chartered assessment is challenging, as it should be, the biggest hurdle for me was first overcoming that anxiety and worry that I wasn’t good enough or that I didn’t have capacity or it was simply too hard.

At the start of 2025, I decided that it was time to be serious about becoming Chartered and, perhaps not surprisingly for a project manager, I at last realised that I could approach the whole experience like a project. Immediately, I was less intimidated, because it became something familiar to me. I also stopped looking at that one assessment criteria that scared me – and realised the majority of the others were pretty much a description of what I did every day.

I had my overall aim – to sit the ChPP assessment and to give myself the best chance of success. I then broke this down into its components, that I would first need to apply for my APM Project Management Qualification to be validated, so I could apply against Pathway 3; then decide what projects to draw my professional practice evidence from; what competences I would select; the written application; and then at last the interview. All of these steps had smaller steps within them, and by focusing on the step in front of me, and not becoming overwhelmed by all of them, I built up my confidence and feeling of achievement as I worked through them.

I also at last realised that I didn’t need to do it all by myself. I had great support from my colleagues, especially my manager, who kindly shared her experience of becoming a ChPP, guided me in the technical knowledge revision, and reminded me of things I’d done that could be used as evidence for professional practice.

As much as I was thrilled to be awarded ChPP, I did genuinely find the whole experience helpful, first in allowing me to reflect on what I had done and achieved in my career when I was preparing evidence of my professional practice, and then when studying for the technical knowledge assessment, it was a great refresher of tools, techniques and principles of project management. I noticed that in my day-to-day work, I was more confident in my approach, because I was reminded that I was backed up by project management best practice, or I made use of a tool that I hadn’t used in a long time and immediately got positive results.

I’m still a relatively new ChPP, and I honestly get a warm glow whenever I think of it. The experience of going through the ChPP process, as well as the eventual success, has helped build my confidence immensely and feels like a huge validation of my work as a project professional.