PMcrunch

I am not yet familiar with the PMI Program Manager certification and will be looking to learn more.   My concern with certifications lies more in what they are not than in what they are.    What they are is good and helpful – to practitioners and organizations to having a guiding framework to do something like manage projects.  However, by having very closely related certifications – like the project management vs the program management – I am left questioning if there is too little difference.  I am wondering if by simply educating PMs better, or to the next level, they can become familiar with the challenges of program management from the project management basis – but do not necessarily need a certification to do it.   What certifications are not is a cure-all for every situation.  As prescribed frameworks, they are helpful to understanding situations and referencing possible approaches.  But they are very highly structured, and people can potentially become ‘technocrats’ – looking for situations in which to apply the solutions and approaches they have learned.   This does not always work, and we must develop mental flexibility – not mental rigidity!   However, many PMs are not in a situation where there could even exist a large portfolio of major projects.  Smaller portfolios exist, or projects are smaller and more dispersed, less interrelated as a whole.  Also, many organizations do projects for clients, so their portfolio has different issues – which perhaps are covered within the program management certification (I do not know as of this writing.).   Based on what I read in a gantthead article about the Program Management Certification, it sounds like the certification is more a an assembly of references, that are then more closely verified and scrutinized in an objective way, than anything else.  But based on the rating scale, and admittedly not knowing anything about the standards at the moment, this sounds like a certification applicable to a very focused group of professionals within a much more narrowly defined job segment than project management.  In addition, if someone has been functioning for years within a certain type of environment, will this certification add value to practices within that environment?  I don’t know the answer, but this was a good intro article, and I appreciate the opportunity to consider this at this time. 

Project Management Training Online Lean Six Sigma Training Online