What is it?
PMP is the best Project Management qualification, by far. It’s basically a chartered project manager, and helps hugely if you are applying for a job as a project manager. More information here.
Is it any good?
It’s the best. It is recognised all over the world and it’s the only qualification that really counts.
Do I NEED it?
No, you can work as a PM without it, and certainly at the start of your career you won’t have it – you won’t even be able to get it until you have the experience. I would recommend working for at least 5 years as a PM before you think about PMP, so you can be sure you want to stay working at a PM for the rest of your life, and also so you have the experience you are required to show, to qualify for it. More info on getting started in a PM career here.
I have also made a video course on project manager careers, which you can find here.
You could get CAPM as an intermediate step, because that doesn’t need the 3 years of experience, but it still requires a horrible exam and it’s not as well known as PMP, so personally I think I’d wait and then just do PMP.
Do companies value it? Do they look for it when they recruit? Answers here.
How do I get it?
It’s not easy – which is why it’s so valuable. You have to have about 3 years of experience managing projects, you have to have done a small amount of training (my courses can help with that) and you have to pass the dreaded exam. More info on all of this here.
Then you have to keep it current, by taking a certain amount of CPD training every year. More info here.
Do you have a course that will help me get it?
Sort of….. My courses will teach you the underpinning knowledge: basically, how to run projects and how to be a great project manager. But you then need to pass the dreaded PM exam, and for that you need a specialised exam-prep course. I don’t do those. But luckily they can be bought easily and cheaply from udemy. Here is a link to the one that I think is the best one. You can’t avoid exam prep, however good you are as a project manager, because you have to learn the specific PMI wording, and know the tricks they use in the PMP questions. If you are thinking of avoiding exam prep, read this!!: https://www.chriscroft.co.uk/pmp-exam-why-you-need-exam-prep-you-will-never-pass-the-exam-without-it/
Is PMP for Agile or PRINCE2?
Not really no, it’s for what Agile people call Waterfall, what I would call proper project management. Agile and PRINCE2 have their own qualifications. I am not interested in those. More info here.
