« Cost of Project Success
Active Listening: The Key to Solving Project Team Conflicts »

Are You Shovel Ready (PMP Certified)?

March 3, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Certification, PMP

Are You Shovel Ready (PMP Certified)?
By Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, Founder, Cheetah Learning

The U.S. government is getting ready to make unprecedented investments in energy, healthcare and education. Whether you see it as pork or progress is not the question. The question is what can you do as a project manager to be “shovel ready?”

Think about what many of these projects have in common: technology and infrastructure. For project managers, this means we have an opportunity to play a major role in rebuilding America. We just have to be “shovel ready.”

In Project Management, “shovel ready” can be abbreviated to three letters: PMP®. The federal government now requires the PMP certification to be part of most contracts, and many state governments are following suit.

You may be thinking, how can one project manager like me have an impact on programs this large? Think about it this way: All of these huge programs are made up of smaller projects, and in order for these programs to succeed, the projects have to be successful.

That’s where you come in armed with your PMP and Project Management expertise. The good news for PMPs is that the PMP is much more than a certification that gets you in the door; it’s even more powerful once you are through that door. Your PMP gives you the knowledge and skills to meet deadlines, manage resources well and be able to bring projects in on time and within budget. If you are in transition and looking for a job, the PMP can give you an edge in the market, and research shows that PMPs can earn as much as $10,000 more per year than those without certification.

Here are five ways you can get “shovel ready” and be a project manager who is part of one of the largest infrastructure government programs in U.S. history.

Five Ways to Get Shovel Ready:

  1. Become PMP certified, or if you are already a PMP, keep your certification current with ongoing PDU courses.
  2. Manage resources effectively so you can consistently show results that are on time, and within budget.
  3. Understand where you and your Project Management skills can fit into the big picture of any large program.
  4. Use your Project Management knowledge to assess and manage the risk in any project.
  5. Keep building on your Project Management skills so you can capitalize on emerging opportunities quickly.

I know there’s a lot of debate about the government stimulus package, but there’s one thing we can all agree on: We need to be as effective as possible with these programs. As project managers, we’re already ahead of the pack. We just need to arrive shovel in hand and ready to go!

About the Know How Network and Cheetah Learning

The Know How Network is a monthly column written by Michelle LaBrosse, the founder and Chief Cheetah of Cheetah Learning. Distributed to hundreds of newsletters and media outlets around the world, the Know How Network brings the promise, purpose and passion of Project Management to people everywhere. Visit www.cheetahlearning.com to learn more about Cheetah PM, the fastest way to learn about Project Management and get your PMP. You can also get your career in gear with CheetahWare, free Project Management tools from Cheetah Learning.

About the Author

Michelle LaBrosse is the founder and Chief Cheetah of Cheetah Learning. An international expert on accelerated learning and Project Management, she has grown Cheetah Learning into the market leader for Project Management training and professional development. In 2006, The Project Management Institute, www.pmi.org, selected Michelle as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the World, and only one of two women selected from the training and education industry. Michelle is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Owner & President Management program for entrepreneurs, and is the author of Cheetah Project Management and Cheetah Negotiations. Cheetah Learning is a virtual company and has 100 employees, contractors, and licensees worldwide.

Share this article:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • blogmarks
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • TwitThis
  • Yahoo! Buzz

Related Articles

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 and is filed under Certification, PMP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

Like Michelle, I am strongly biased … I just happen to be biased in the opposite direction! Savvy hiring managers know that having your PMP is no guarantee of performance, that there are many PMPs who have never actually managed a project.

If you truly want to be “shovel ready,” get a certification that attests to actual results: that verifies that you have actually served as a project manager, and that you knew what you were doing when you managed your projects.

Go to http://www.pmcert.org and get details on a globally recognized, PERFORMANCE based certification.

Duncan

William R. Duncan, Project Management Partners
Primary author of the original version of “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”
Board Chair, PMCert, the independent certification body of asapm

Bill Duncan wrote on April 30, 2009 - 7:09 am | Visit Link

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.

Project Management Categories