R-PMP: The Future Certificate from PMI?

2015-01-21

I had a conversation with a PMP a while back, when he said something strange about PMBOK. I kept asking some question and finally spotted the single, simple, bitter problem: the guy doesn’t have a clue about the PMBOK Guide!

But wait, the guy was a PMP, so, shouldn’t he know the stuff? Well, seemingly no. I collected more information through my investigation: the guy took a full-week PMP “boot camp” seven months before. A luxurious one of course, with food and drink and… you get it. Then he takes the exam, and passes it, without touching the PMBOK Guide once in his life. Seemingly, the whole point of the boot camp is to teach them “how to pass the exam”, guaranteeing they will not get into trouble of learning anything extra, such as the PMBOK Guide. Well, people are busy nowadays, aren’t they? It’s their right to avoid any extra “nonsense”, as long as they can afford to pay for it.

Then, of course, I started investigating as many PMPs as I could. This is the result of my crazy investigation:

You can easily convince about 10% of them that the PMBOK Guide is a Spanish novel published in 1605.
Another 15% of them understand the PMBOK Guide as much as I understand two people speaking in Chinese (and most other languages for that matter)
And 25% of them know it as much as I expect an educated person to learn about the PMBOK Guide by spending half a day, reading through the book.
About 30% are acceptable.
And finally, a 20% of them are really professional. Oh, I just remembered: one of the Ps in PMP also stands for the word "professional"; what a coincidence!

Given that we expect the certificate to be a clue that the person knows the stuff, it seems like a problem. So, how can it be fixed? Harder exams are never the answer, because no matter how hard it is, some trainers somewhere can make it easy enough for people, and the only result will be longer and more expensive boot camps.

The real problem, I guess, is that everything is finished after the exam. They just have to keep the exam-passing-information in their mind for a few days, until they take the exam; and then they are free to mentally throw up all of that and free up space for TV shows, news, and so on. Please do not mention PDUs in response to my nagging. One can simply go to the “market” and practically, yet legally, “buy” PDUs.

My suggestion is the introduction of a new certification from PMI, called R-PMP, standing for “Real PMP”. It’s the same examination, which is followed by shorter exams people have to take online every four months, indefinitely. In this case, the cost and effort of renewing their short-lasting-exam-passing-information would be higher than really learning the stuff, and it might illuminate the problem. There would be a two-year transition time, where all PMPs have to switch to R-PMP, and the PMP certificate will be discontinued afterwards. Then of course we can focus on fixing other things in the world.

How does it sound? ;)

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