Posted: 1/14/2016 12:18:40 AM EDT
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Looking to get into the field of "Project Management" to make myself more marketable in the private healthcare industry that I work in,
Like everything, there is a ton of different certifications for essentially the same thing. Appears that the Project Management Professional (PMP) is the most popular and desirable. Looks like the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) (from same certification company) is the entry-level version into Project Management. Questions: I am a humble guy but consider myself pretty book smart. Is the CAPM a certification that I can understand/test/pass by studying books or is it at the point to where I would need to enroll in a course? Same question for the PMP. Have people been able to understand/test/pass the certification with self study, or is it one that needs professional courses? I know there are a lot of factors, i.e., experience, etc., but would a book contain all the info needed to understand/test/pass the certification, granted one is able to properly understand, retain, and consistently apply the concepts from the textbook? Thanks in advance! |
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I have a PMP.
Quoted:
Same question for the PMP. Have people been able to understand/test/pass the certification with self study, or is it one that needs professional courses? I know there are a lot of factors, i.e., experience, etc., but would a book contain all the info needed to understand/test/pass the certification, granted one is able to properly understand, retain, and consistently apply the concepts from the textbook? You can certainly self study and pass the PMP. Hell, all you need is Rita's book really, and the PMBOK if you hate yourself (I literally have never opened my PMBOK). But you still won't have the required 35 hours of PM education. So, yes, you need the professional course. |
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Quoted:
PMP is more for software and construction projects. If you work in health care project management/improvement look at getting a CPHQ certificate. Thank you for this info. Yes, I am leaning towards the healthcare executive project management field. I have a senior healthcare leader as a mentor who briefly mentioned I should look at obtaining a project management certification. I already have a B.S. in Emergency Management, M.S. in Healthcare Administration, Certified Healthcare Emergency Professional Certificate (CHEP), and a Certified Healthcare Safety Professional certificate (CHSP). I am very low 30's. Goal is to be a Healthcare VP of Operations one day. |
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Quoted:
I have a PMP. You can certainly self study and pass the PMP. Hell, all you need is Rita's book really, and the PMBOK if you hate yourself (I literally have never opened my PMBOK). But you still won't have the required 35 hours of PM education. So, yes, you need the professional course. Quoted:
I have a PMP. Quoted:
Same question for the PMP. Have people been able to understand/test/pass the certification with self study, or is it one that needs professional courses? I know there are a lot of factors, i.e., experience, etc., but would a book contain all the info needed to understand/test/pass the certification, granted one is able to properly understand, retain, and consistently apply the concepts from the textbook? You can certainly self study and pass the PMP. Hell, all you need is Rita's book really, and the PMBOK if you hate yourself (I literally have never opened my PMBOK). But you still won't have the required 35 hours of PM education. So, yes, you need the professional course. If I went this route, it sounds like I should start with the CAPM which requires 23 hours of PM education. |
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Quoted:
I have a PMP. You can certainly self study and pass the PMP. Hell, all you need is Rita's book really, and the PMBOK if you hate yourself (I literally have never opened my PMBOK). But you still won't have the required 35 hours of PM education. So, yes, you need the professional course. Quoted:
I have a PMP. Quoted:
Same question for the PMP. Have people been able to understand/test/pass the certification with self study, or is it one that needs professional courses? I know there are a lot of factors, i.e., experience, etc., but would a book contain all the info needed to understand/test/pass the certification, granted one is able to properly understand, retain, and consistently apply the concepts from the textbook? You can certainly self study and pass the PMP. Hell, all you need is Rita's book really, and the PMBOK if you hate yourself (I literally have never opened my PMBOK). But you still won't have the required 35 hours of PM education. So, yes, you need the professional course. You can take an online course for the 35 hrs. You also need something like 3600 hrs project experience with a 4-yr degree or 4500 he's without. The PMP was cake. Passed in half the allotted time. For a frame of reference, I am an excellent test taker and have passed the PE...plus I've been doing some version of project management my whole career. |
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Quoted: Thank you for this info. Yes, I am leaning towards the healthcare executive project management field. I have a senior healthcare leader as a mentor who briefly mentioned I should look at obtaining a project management certification. I already have a B.S. in Emergency Management, M.S. in Healthcare Administration, Certified Healthcare Emergency Professional Certificate (CHEP), and a Certified Healthcare Safety Professional certificate (CHSP). I am very low 30's. Goal is to be a Healthcare VP of Operations one day. Quoted: Quoted: PMP is more for software and construction projects. If you work in health care project management/improvement look at getting a CPHQ certificate. Thank you for this info. Yes, I am leaning towards the healthcare executive project management field. I have a senior healthcare leader as a mentor who briefly mentioned I should look at obtaining a project management certification. I already have a B.S. in Emergency Management, M.S. in Healthcare Administration, Certified Healthcare Emergency Professional Certificate (CHEP), and a Certified Healthcare Safety Professional certificate (CHSP). I am very low 30's. Goal is to be a Healthcare VP of Operations one day. OH! You have a MS in exactly your field! Yeah, a CPHQ won't hurt, but I don't think you need it for your goal. You're a go-getter, good luck All the VP types for operations I know and work with have masters degrees, they don't have those certificates. They are the people the project managers report to. But you should listen to your mentor more than a guy on the internet. |
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Quoted:
Then you need a masters in something. OH! You have a MS in exactly your field! Yeah, a CPHQ won't hurt, but I don't think you need it for your goal. You're a go-getter, good luck All the VP types for operations I know and work with have masters degrees, they don't have those certificates. They are the people the project managers report to. But you should listen to your mentor more than a guy on the internet. Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
PMP is more for software and construction projects. If you work in health care project management/improvement look at getting a CPHQ certificate. Thank you for this info. Yes, I am leaning towards the healthcare executive project management field. I have a senior healthcare leader as a mentor who briefly mentioned I should look at obtaining a project management certification. I already have a B.S. in Emergency Management, M.S. in Healthcare Administration, Certified Healthcare Emergency Professional Certificate (CHEP), and a Certified Healthcare Safety Professional certificate (CHSP). I am very low 30's. Goal is to be a Healthcare VP of Operations one day. OH! You have a MS in exactly your field! Yeah, a CPHQ won't hurt, but I don't think you need it for your goal. You're a go-getter, good luck All the VP types for operations I know and work with have masters degrees, they don't have those certificates. They are the people the project managers report to. But you should listen to your mentor more than a guy on the internet. Thanks. I am analyzing my weaknesses and I believe there is a lot that I can learn from project management. I think the online CAPM course from the official PMI website would suit my interests best. It's only a $400 course, which I am confident I would be able to pass. It will at least give me a basic understanding of PM. I have been spending time on Linked In analyzing healthcare vp individuals while carefully recording their listed skills, tallying up the most frequent ones from similarly ranked colleagues. Many of the top skills include generics like "healthcare", "hospitals", "healthcare management" etc. I am looking for the ones like "project management", "physician relationships", "budgets", "health information technology", "revenue cycle", "strategic planning". The two that catch my eye are "project management" and "health information technology". I can get certifications and education for those, as well as budgets and revenue cycles. Some of them, like "physician relationships" most likely only come from experience. I have a physician buddy who I'll pick his brain about that one and see if I can find anymore resources. I like learning. I don't find it difficult. I have always been a person that looks at the future (which may be a curse since I tend not to live in the moment). Due to my past experiences and just the way my own logic guides me, I am 100% certain that the complex can become easily understood with time. When you can see all aspects from differing perspectives, confidence arises naturally, and then it's on to the next challenge. |
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Quoted:
If I went this route, it sounds like I should start with the CAPM which requires 23 hours of PM education. Quoted:
Quoted:
I have a PMP. Quoted:
Same question for the PMP. Have people been able to understand/test/pass the certification with self study, or is it one that needs professional courses? I know there are a lot of factors, i.e., experience, etc., but would a book contain all the info needed to understand/test/pass the certification, granted one is able to properly understand, retain, and consistently apply the concepts from the textbook? You can certainly self study and pass the PMP. Hell, all you need is Rita's book really, and the PMBOK if you hate yourself (I literally have never opened my PMBOK). But you still won't have the required 35 hours of PM education. So, yes, you need the professional course. If I went this route, it sounds like I should start with the CAPM which requires 23 hours of PM education. Honestly, nobody seems to care about the CAPM. If you qualify for the PMP just get the PMP. |
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PMP isn't worth the paper its written on. I have seen too many PMP-certified people that were absolutely clueless about how to plan, organize, lead, monitor and adjust even at the Task level - let alone an actual project or Program. I'll take a non-certified person with a few years of increasing responsibility starting at the task level - and then growing into projects and programs of increasing complexity that come to intuitively understand all facets of a program - and can be trusted to ensure it's success. |
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Quoted:
PMP isn't worth the paper its written on. I have seen too many PMP-certified people that were absolutely clueless about how to plan, organize, lead, monitor and adjust even at the Task level - let alone an actual project or Program. I'll take a non-certified person with a few years of increasing responsibility starting at the task level - and then growing into projects and programs of increasing complexity that come to intuitively understand all facets of a program - and can be trusted to ensure it's success. I, too, know PMPs that are useless as tits on a boar hog. But I also know that obtaining my PMP filled in some gaps I had as PM. In short, it can be useful so I still recommend it. Plus it can add value ($alary) to your bottom line. But I don't implicitly trust the PMP alone. I can say the same about engineers. As with most things, you get out of it what you put in it. |