I Already Have PM Experience. Why Take a Foundational Course Before Exam Prep?
No matter what your profession is, or college major, many of us become “accidental” project managers in our line of work through seniority, or just a lack of trained PM’s in the organization.
We learn to do what’s requested of us to get a job done (e.g. figure out how to produce a “schedule” or “budget”). And we can usually repeat this task if asked again. Experience is a good teacher. But experience is disorganized education, because you get good at the things that you did a lot of – problems you faced and solved – and you are now an expert in, should you run into the need for solving them again. But it usually leads to a checkerboard of knowledge, since we all don’t run into and solve the same problems - there was no syllabus of problems you ran into, or skills you learned and used as you gained experience. Example: You may be an excellent planner and scheduler because you’ve done a lot of that, but may be weak on procurement and contracting, or maybe cost management, (because other departments handle that in your organization). The body of knowledge for project management covers all aspects of running a project. PMI®’s PMBOK® Guide assumes that you will be hired into an organization lacking all the processes necessary to successfully complete a project. This is what they base their certification exams on.
In a class setting, especially with group course case projects, some students know as much as the prof in topic A, but next to nothing on topic B. Others in your workgroup may be experts at topic B, however, so you help each other fill in weak areas – this is the power of teamwork and diversity.
Approaching your certification education with organized education as a foundation will help fill in your checkerboard of background project management knowledge. And, if you lack experience hours in certain required areas, it will also help you be better positioned to take on work that would get you the needed experience in each knowledge area necessary to qualify for taking a professional certification exam.