Project management is a skill in great demand. A good project manager is an asset any employer would pay top dollar to attain and keep. In tech, it is even more crucial as you go up the hierarchy.
When you pursue a PMP (Project Management Professional certification), you can combine it with your tech skills for more opportunities.
Here are a few reasons why you should consider pursuing a PMP Certification in 2021 if you want to advance your career in tech:
1. Add to Your Skills If You Are Already in Project Management
You might already be working in project management. However, you do not have the papers to back it up. By doing a PMP, you get professional accreditation that legitimizes your expertise.
It boosts the credibility of your skills and makes it easier to look for other project management roles without having to only rely on the experience to sell yourself. With the certification, you can also ask for a promotion and even negotiate a salary raise.
2. Positive Job Outlook
According to this PDF report from the Project Management Institute, by 2027, employers will need 87.7 million individuals working in project management-oriented roles. One of the sectors that will take an enormous chunk of these professionals is technology. So, you can start right now as the prospects are great.
3. Advance Your Career
The three key roles to the success of any tech project are a program manager, a business leader, and a lead tech architect. The program manager role can overlap with the lead tech architect role with the right candidate. If you have this mix of both technical skills and project management skills, you will advance in your career quickly.
4. Keep Up With Industry Trends
The Project Management Institute (PMI) that offers the PMP course keeps up with the changes and trends in project management. They are consistently updating the PMP curriculum to reflect the current industry situation. By pursuing a PMP, you will learn about all the latest project management standards and practices and get yourself ahead.
5. Networking
Once you earn your PMP certificate, you will become a member of the Project Management Institute, which is the largest project management organization in the world. PMI hosts in-person and virtual events to keep members abreast with what is happening in the industry.
These events are perfect for networking with other project management professionals. There are also local PMI local chapters where project management professionals in a given locale meet and network.
6. Earn a Higher Salary
Here is the fun stuff. According to PayScale, the average salary of a technical project manager is $93,615/ year. If you are in San Francisco, California, you will earn an average of 25.5% more than the national average for this position. As you grow in this position with years of experience, the salary increases proportionately, making it worthwhile pursuing a PMP.
How to Earn Your Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
PMP is the gold standard of project management certification, and the Project Management Institute (PMI) offers it. To qualify for the exam will depend on your level of education.
If you have a bachelor’s degree, you will need to prove 36 months of professional project management and 35 hours of formal project management education. For project management education, you can enroll with a PMI-approved and authorized training partner who will help you cover the curriculum. Otherwise, you can self-study A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)–Sixth Edition and supplement your study using free online resources.
From there, you can register for the exam. If you pay to become a member of PMI that costs $139, they will charge you $405 for the exam. For non-members, the cost of the exam is $555.
The exam has 180 questions divided into three domains:
- Process (50%)
- People (42%)
- Business Environment (8%)
The allotted examination time is 230 minutes. Once you pass the exam, you will earn your certificate. To maintain your certification, you have to get 60 Professional Development Units (PDUs) every three years.
Other Project Management Training and Certification Programs
PMI isn't the only place where you can get a PMP certificate. Here are some other programs to take into consideration.
Google Project Management Professional Certificate
Google offers a variety of online courses, and one of them is on project management. The program is on Coursera and has over 140 hours of instructional content and hundreds of practice-based assessments that simulate real-world project management scenarios.
It is 100% remote, no relevant experience is required, costs $240, and you need 5-10 hours of study a week to complete the course in 3-6 months.
The course is good for classic project management theory. However, it has many knowledge gaps in Agile project management (the mainstay of project management in the software development arena).
It also tries to cover Scrum under the Agile framework, and the content is ill-designed to offer it for those looking to master it. Upon completion, you can work in an entry-level project management position.
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
According to The Scrum Guide, written by Scrum creators Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems. It is a subset of the Agile project management method, an iterative approach of project management used in software development projects.
Scrum requires a Scrum Master who leads the Scrum team into Scrum adoption. The Scrum Master is people-oriented and supportive of team members during projects. To become a Certified ScrumMaster, you can take the course with Scrum Alliance.
Why You Should Consider Pursuing a Project Management Certification in 2021
One of the top career moves in tech you can consider is pursuing a project management certification. It will equip you with the tools on how to run successful tech projects and make those dollars.
Other than project management being an in-demand tech skill, being a project manager is like being a CEO in training. You could be the highest-ranking person in a project; you will report to stakeholders to plan, execute, and close the project.
You will make major project decisions, manage resources of the project, act as the main point of communication in projects, among many other roles. These roles are remarkably similar to those of a CEO.
Advance Your Career in the Tech Industry
No matter where you are in your tech career, you need to be deliberate about your next career move. You can consider your skills, interests, personality, professional strengths, and experience to guide you.
If you're interested in becoming a project manager, you should seriously consider it. If you stay long enough in a project management role and gain the necessary experience, you can rise to the position of CEO when the time comes. So, think strategically when you get your project management certification and leverage it accordingly.