Significance of Relevant Credentials in Project Management

 Better Way to Understand Business Case

 
Very few people know that project manager could play an important role in project-choosing stage. That means a project manager could do business case activities overwhelmingly. Unfortunately in sub-continent a project managers’ role starts from project planning or somewhere from project execution. Ideally, a project manager should be appointed before the planning stage. This is because in initial stage of project s/he could play a huge role. And in doing so, a project manager needs some theory, some knowledge and some expertise and her/his credentials could be used as a catalyst. Credentials shows a path – how to pick the project from many projects – here, they could pick the options based on the requirements such as whether it would be cost–benefit analysis or internal rate of return etc. The credentials could be used in various decisions making activities during that stage.

Better Understanding of People’ Requirement

It is also very imperative for a project manager to understand the role of other people’s role in getting work done for the project. The project manager is singlehandedly not sufficient for getting entire work done in good shape. S/he needs various people’s assistant in accomplishing the task in a timely manner. Many project managers fail to do so effectively. Here, comes the role of credentials in use – per PMI®, there is separate knowledge area viz., stakeholder management area; where a project manager learns how to manage various expectations of the people around the project. Remember there are so many stakeholders such as program managers, other higher management staff and project team members, members of PMO, suppliers and buyers who could play an important role in project success and as a project manager you need to manage their expectation towards getting the project goals. Through credential you will be getting a lot of processes and methodologies on how to involve the key stakeholders in the project.

Better Project Planning Strategies

 
I have seen so many project managers not putting sufficient time in the planning stage. Good-quality project managers always spend more time on planning and they accordingly act on the execution and monitoring part. How carry out effective planning? - This question always challenges project managers. Through credentials such as PMP® or PRINCE2, you can understand how to initiate the planning stage by rolling wave planning and later when scope becomes clear and defined you can change your planning baselines by maintaining the actual requirement of the customer. So, credential help much at this stage as through it you know how to plan the entire work, how to in-sync with iterations, how to involve people and many more.

Conclusion

You cannot conclude that only credential holders project managers could perform better in project management. There are so many examples of better project management without any credential. But, yes, if you are a credential holder, there is a possibility that you could manage the project in better way as you have the knowledge of the best practices and methodologies through credential. But, in any way, credential never certifies that you know the better project management. As an individual you need to perform on the project by utilizing the credential's concept to show that you know the better project management - then only your credential will carry some weight and value.

PMP is a registered trademark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.