Software Best Practices

I lead the Project Management seiminar at Construx.  One of the questions that I frequently get is if the PMI PMP Certification is worth getting and how to prepare for the PMP exam.

I have my opinions, but would like to hear what you think so I can better answer the question.

For what it's worth -- I encourage project managers to join PMI.  As far as getting the PMP, I advise people to get it if they fall into one of three situations: 

1. It's needed to further their career (e.g. will help them get a job or required for promotion at their current job)
2. They're a consultant and it would help the corporate resume. For the record, this is why I got my PMP.  We needed someone with a PMP when we decided to register our seminars with PMI.
3. They would gain personal satisfaction with having the certification.  Some people like to collect badges.

I think that exam prep has it's place.  It's very useful to get ready to take the test. But it is a poor way to learn how to be a project manager.  I used and recommend Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep book to prepare for the test. The biggest benefit for me was translating my project management experiences into the PMI language used on the test. Rita's web site includes PMP Exam courses.  I don't know anything about it first hand, but I have seen her material highly recommended in different PM forums.

So what is your opinion.  Is the certificate worth getting?  How did you prepare for the exam?

I got my PMP for reasons #2 (75%) and #3 (25%). So I like badges, what's to to ya :)

My opinion on the Rita Mulcahy material is to stay away from it. I found the presentation to be overblown, self-congratulatory and filled with material that wasn't relevant to the test. Never trust anyone who calls their own work "ground-breaking" or "revolutionary". I could go on for a quite a few paragraphs about my many and varied beefs with Rita's company, but who has that kind of time?

Personally, I highly recommend the Head First PMP book. I had a bias from my university days of only taking seriously books with dense type and long titles. This book put my off of that completely. I started this book two weeks before the exam, did a couple of chapters every day, one from the PMBOK and one from Head First, then took the test.

As for the worth of the certification itself, that remains to be seen. PMI is a decent organization, but if anyone actually did all of the things that they specify for a job, I'm not sure that the job would be completed. I think PMI is in NP, but I don't have the proof handy. To date, the main value has been to expand my mutual points of reference with other business units.

Thanks for the input Kevin.  I'll look into Head First PMP.

 I agree with your assessment of PMI -- still it provides the baseline toolbox for PM.  You're right though, no one should use every tool in the toolbox on each project. I have one question for you:

Kevin:

PMI is in NP

What does NP stand for?