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TOPIC: PMP vs. Agile/Certifications

PMP vs. Agile/Certifications 2 weeks 2 hours ago #33048

  • John Johnson
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I'm a DevOps team lead. My company uses Scrum/SAFe, and I have my CSM. My director is now pushing for the PMP to bid on larger federal contracts. It feels... retro?
For those in tech, did you find the PMP's predictive focus clashed with your Agile reality? Was it still valuable, or should I push back and suggest a more Agile-focused cert instead?

PMP vs. Agile/Certifications 1 week 3 days ago #33049

  • Anusha Jayaram
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Hi John,
The PMP has changed a lot in the last several years. When I gave my exam back in 2018, the focus was largely on Waterfall methodologies with an introduction to Agile (at most 20% Agile).
However, in the recent past, it has become more Agile-heavy, with over 50% of the material testing candidates on Agile - I have been engaging with my peers and colleagues who have taken the exam more recently and this is their feedback.
In fact, I would argue that the PMP and PMI-ACP no longer both make sense to achieve (back in the day, it did make sense, which is why people like me went ahead and invested in 2 separate certifications) - the PMP has more or less cannibalized the PMI-ACP certification for all practical purposes.

Having said that, given whatever context you have provided, it looks like your particular organization works on a SAFe model - which is not really the focus of PMP or even PMI-ACP as far as I am aware.
Depending on your context, I would advise you to strongly consider whether one of the SAFe certifications would be a better fit for you.

I recently got certified in SAFe (SAFe 6 Agilist) myself and I can attest that the focus of SAFe implementation is significantly different from the PMI certifications. While it leverages the same the body of knowledge (Lean, Kanban, Agile, Scrum) - there is a LOT of emphasis on how this scales up in large organizations and how Agile Release Trains (ARTs) need to be set up, how PI Planning is to be done and everything else related to scaling Agile work.

PMP vs. Agile/Certifications 1 week 2 days ago #33051

  • Harry Elston
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John,

The PMP is the "gold standard" professional certification in project management and it is the one that the (US) Federal Government wants for federal contracts as well as many large organization. The PMP certification was born out of the ANSI standard for project management. Ultimately the decision is yours. However, I don't view this as an "either-or" but maybe a "both-and."

Good luck in whatever you decide.
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Harry J. Elston, Ph.D., CIH, PMP
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