Your thoughts on project management courses

[Anonymous]

I am thinking about taking one or more courses in project management and looking for advice.

My situation: I'm a researcher who has stayed at this company rather longer than I wanted to because of family issues and the economy. Due to the nature of the project I work on (as well as my supervisor's control issues), I have not had the opportunity to advance to a position with more authority. In a couple of years, I will be looking to move somewhere else but I don't have a lot of management experience to show for my years here. Therefore I'm looking into taking project management courses and maybe going for a certificate. I'm thinking about Georgetown, Graduate School USA (formerly known as the USDA grad school), or University of Maryland. So here are my questions for you DCUMers who know more about this area:

Does it make sense to go for a certificate and not just a course?
Is it worth it to take the test for certification from the Project Management Institute?
Do you have any sense of whether an on-line or in-person course is clearly preferable? (GU is more expensive but is on weekends. Grad School USA is either online or weekdays. Intro course would mean four days out of the office. Haven't really explored UMd yet.)
Does anyone have experience with these programs or others that you can share?

Thanks for whatever light you can shed on this! I appreciate it!

[Anonymous]

Project management is an exercise in herding cats. Typically the project manager is the one tasked with making sure the project gets done, but actually has no authority of the people doing the work. Thus, the PM is in a situation where diplomacy, motivational techniques and interpersonal skills are at a premium. Those things aren't what is taught in any PM course.

The tools, reporting techniques, etc. that are taught are useful, but I'm generally as amused by people who flaunt their PMP as I am by people who flaunt their MCSE.

Both are certifications that you've spent time in a course, but they don't actually indicate that you can apply it in the real world and be good at the job.

That being said, some jobs, esp. in the gov't, require a PMP certification, so go for quickest/least expensive/least intrusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Project management is an exercise in herding cats. Typically the project manager is the one tasked with making sure the project gets done, but actually has no authority of the people doing the work. Thus, the PM is in a situation where diplomacy, motivational techniques and interpersonal skills are at a premium. Those things aren't what is taught in any PM course.

The tools, reporting techniques, etc. that are taught are useful, but I'm generally as amused by people who flaunt their PMP as I am by people who flaunt their MCSE.

Both are certifications that you've spent time in a course, but they don't actually indicate that you can apply it in the real world and be good at the job.

That being said, some jobs, esp. in the gov't, require a PMP certification, so go for quickest/least expensive/least intrusive.

OP here. Thanks, pp. I had a suspicion that this was the case. Appreciate your feedback!

[Anonymous]

Bump

[Anonymous]

Any recommendations on the quickest/least expensive/least intrusive PMP?

[Anonymous]

My husband took the week-long PMP course. It was a joke; he'd come home each night with the latest curricular disaster and we'd roll our eyes together. He's a software engineer and I'm a researcher, so we have little patience for specious credentials, which the PMP cert seems to be. For example, they taught some formula that they called a standard deviation, which isn't correct. When my husband asked the instructor, he was told it's a "simplified SD." Um, no. Crap like that.

So, yeah, you may need the cert for some jobs, but I wouldn't obtain it under the illusion that you're learning something rigorous or useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am thinking about taking one or more courses in project management and looking for advice.

My situation: I'm a researcher who has stayed at this company rather longer than I wanted to because of family issues and the economy. Due to the nature of the project I work on (as well as my supervisor's control issues), I have not had the opportunity to advance to a position with more authority. In a couple of years, I will be looking to move somewhere else but I don't have a lot of management experience to show for my years here. Therefore I'm looking into taking project management courses and maybe going for a certificate. I'm thinking about Georgetown, Graduate School USA (formerly known as the USDA grad school), or University of Maryland. So here are my questions for you DCUMers who know more about this area:

Does it make sense to go for a certificate and not just a course?
Is it worth it to take the test for certification from the Project Management Institute?
Do you have any sense of whether an on-line or in-person course is clearly preferable? (GU is more expensive but is on weekends. Grad School USA is either online or weekdays. Intro course would mean four days out of the office. Haven't really explored UMd yet.)
Does anyone have experience with these programs or others that you can share?

Thanks for whatever light you can shed on this! I appreciate it!

I got my PMP certification through GW university through ESI international. It is an expensive program but my work paid for it.
I would say that the training prepared me to be a good project manager.
I don't think it matters if you do it on-line or in-person, nobody has actually asked me if I was in the class or not.
I know people that have done the bootcamp and gotten the certifications.

I knwo many government contractor can not work as a project manger without the PMP certification My certification has allowed me to take on projects that would have not been assigned to me without the certifications.

It does not matter if I think certifications are a money makeing sceme like SAT prep, the fact is you need the certification for certain jobs.

Also, you can't get the certification just from taking classes and the test, you also need...

A secondary degree (high school diploma, associate’s degree, or the global equivalent) with at least five years of project management experience, with 7,500 hours leading and directing projects and 35 hours of project management education.

I make about $125K.

[Anonymous]

sorry for typos... typing fast.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thanks for the information, pps! Really helpful! I was thinking there would be an advantage to taking a class in person but it sounds like it doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anyone have thoughts on PMP versus scrum training?

[Anonymous]

bump

[Anonymous]

My opinion is it's a waste of time and money. DH has a project management certificate. He said it was the worst money he's ever spent.

My boss also has it and said the classes were a waste of time.

I would only do it if my job paid for it. Don't expect it to do any amazing things for your career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My opinion is it's a waste of time and money. DH has a project management certificate. He said it was the worst money he's ever spent.

My boss also has it and said the classes were a waste of time.

I would only do it if my job paid for it. Don't expect it to do any amazing things for your career.

OP here - thanks for that useful feedback, pp. The main reason I would take a course would be to give some kind of evidence to potential employers that I have or am developing management skills even though I haven't had opportunities to manage at my current job (where as I mentioned above I have stayed too long without advancing for various reasons). So I'm hoping that it might be one more positive in my favor (in addition to my considerable research skills) that would encourage an employer to look at me seriously. And I would get some or most of the tuition paid by my company.

Very grateful for all the insight, pps!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My opinion is it's a waste of time and money. DH has a project management certificate. He said it was the worst money he's ever spent.

My boss also has it and said the classes were a waste of time.

I would only do it if my job paid for it. Don't expect it to do any amazing things for your career.

+1. I have my PMP and 10 yrs govt PM experience. What I do daily has nothing to do with the exam. The exam is an exercise in test taking. I am a great test taker. I studied for 4 hours and took the exam at 8.5 months pregnant at the end of the work day. I was tired, fat, cranky, and I had to pee every 20 min it seemed. Of course I forgot to ask for accommodations so the time I spent going to the bathroom counted against the time I had for the test. After about 1.5 hrs, I had enough. I pushed the submit button and was done with the exam. I scored pretty high and that was that. I can't imagine paying money to learn how to take this test and I don't put much stock in the certificate.

[Anonymous]

A lot of people I work with have their PMP - you need it to get bid as key personnel on federal contracts - but you should find the cheapest, fastest way to get it because it won't make you a competent project manager - experience and common sense will.