The Cynosural Blog

Generally, I have mixed feelings about professional certifications. With some, especially certain vocational certifications, I've developed a cynicism over the years that certification has replaced ability and experience.

Others, such as professional certifications requiring a combination of education and experience, with ongoing CEEU gathering, can be worthwhile, whether they are professional engineering using state or government criteria or something similar from the IEEE or ASQC.

The PMP from PMI elicits feelings between the two for me. I've never seen much value in it. Some potential customers and employers like it, prefer it, or even require it. We don't require certification of our PMs, but prefer good experience and a solid foundation in a variety of project and resource management techniques, as well as a willingness to learn our 6D™ Methodology. Jack, at his Project Blog, is obviously against it, from his post on Saturday. I would agree that the PMI comes off more as a marketing machine than a professional society. My partner, Clarise, disagrees.

Way back in 1979, I was hired at Thiokol Corp as a QA Chemist and Reliability Engineer. They had funding for the former, but needed the latter, as they were getting pressured by NASA to do more advanced reliability & risk assessment studies of their STAR solid propellant rocket engines, before they would be allowed in the STS Shuttle bay to be used as apogee and perigee kick motors for various satellites. My educational background in Chemistry and Mathematics [also Philosophy, but it didn't count as much] made me a good choice to John Callahan, the Director of QA. [John was a great boss.] The last time Thiokol had a reliability or system safety program was during Apollo. Over the next few months, Thiokol grew quickly, I become a certified reliability engineer, acted as a Program Program Manager on various NASA, commercial and military projects, and was promoted to Manager of System Engineering [Reliability, Availability, Maintainability & System Safety] before 1980 dawned. I doubt that the certification had much to do with my promotion, but I did maintain it over my 13 years in that field.