PM Certification Redux: An Immodest Response

PM Certification Redux: An Immodest Response Mark Mullaly, PMP September 3, 2002

Project Management Project Management in Practice

Last month's column on certification generated a great deal of fascinating discussion both online and in my mailbox. Many of the comments were thoughtful, informed and passionate. Clearly, the subject of certification and what an "appropriate" certification process should be is one that concerns us all.

Some agreed with my observations, and others thought I was way off base--or simply going out of my way to criticize PMI and find fault with the PMP. That a debate was sparked is indisputable, which is really the purpose of this column and gantthead.com as a whole. In this column, I was planning to address the challenges of training for PM certification, but I found many of the points that people have raised to be interesting perspectives that deserve additional discussion.

Several people questioned whether the PMP certification is really a test of knowledge as I asserted, given both the education and experience requirements that must be demonstrated.