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What’s Next After PMI-ACP Certification and What’s the Future Like?

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What’s next after PMI-ACP certification? Over the past few years, I’ve been progressively developing a new approach for PMI-ACP training:

  • It goes well beyond other training programs and
  • Lays the groundwork for what I see as the future of project management.
What's Next After PMI-ACP Certification?

Agile Project Management Training Objectives

When I set out to develop this training, I wanted to

  • Try to anticipate the future of the project management profession and
  • Take a different approach to Agile Project Management and PMI-ACP Certification training

There were several objectives that were important goals:

Not a Typical Exam-prep Course

There are a lot of courses out there that are based on what I call an “exam cram” approach:

  • The course design is focused on passing the PMI-ACP exam and not much more than that
  • It involves a lot of memorization of information. That doesn’t generally lead to a deeper and lasting understanding of the material

Go Beyond the PMI-ACP Exam

Although the PMI-ACP exam is a challenging exam, it doesn’t go far enough in my opinion:

  • It is primarily just a test of general Lean and Agile knowledge
  • It doesn’t address one of the biggest challenges that a project manager faces of learning how to blend Agile and traditional plan-driven project management in the right proportions to fit a given situation
  • The individual project manager needs to figure out how to put the two together

Design the Training Around a Real-world Role

The PMI-ACP certification is a good certification. However, it is not designed around preparing someone for a particular job role:

  • It’s important for a project manager to have a clear idea of what role that he/she might play in order to prepare him/herself for that role.
  • The role of an Agile Project Manager is not well-defined. It is even somewhat controversial among some people that there is a legitimate role for a project manager to play in an Agile environment.

Avoid the Limitations of Some Typical Agile Training

A lot of Agile training that is out there (like the typical CSM training) is very superficial in my opinion. The typical Agile training focuses on the “mechanics” of how to do Agile and really doesn’t go into the principles behind it very much at all

  • Agile is intended to be adaptive
  • In order to take an adaptive approach, you have to understand the principles behind it 
  • Doing it very mechanically is not very adaptive.

Future of PMI-ACP Certification – What’s the Future Like?

Agile is having a significant and profound effect on the project management profession. We need to make some assumptions and develop a vision of where the future of the project management profession is heading.

  • The new vision of “project management” is not limited to taking a project with well-defined requirements and planning and managing it to meet cost and schedule goals. 
  • This new vision of Agile Project Management includes:
    • Taking on an effort with some very broadly-defined business objectives in a very dynamic and uncertain environment and
    • Leading a project management approach that is designed to maximize the business value of the overall solution

Overall Summary

PMI-ACP is a step in the right direction but it doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. To some extent, it still treats Agile and traditional plan-driven project management as separate and independent domains of knowledge with little or no integration between the two.

The big challenge for project managers that goes beyond the PMI-ACP certification is learning how to blend Agile and traditional plan-driven principles and practices in the right proportions to fit a given situation

  • The online Agile Project Management training is designed around that objective
  • This training will be of benefit to all project managers even if they are not involved in an Agile project. The training will broaden the range of project management capabilities that he/she has to offer.

Related Articles

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Additional Resources

Resources for Agile Project Management Online Training.

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