Hi

Can anyone tell me what are the popular / most recognised Project Management certifications in Canada?

I'm an IT Project Manager and I'll have all my Microsoft certifications up to date before I arrive in Canada. I'd like to have some formal Project Management certifications too but I don't want to study for something that's relevant here in the UK but not widely recognised in Canada.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks
Paul

Hi

I've been speaking to a lot of IT recruitment agencies here in Calgary, all Project/Programme Manager roles look for PMP (Project Management Professional) Certifications. Some are aware of Prince certification and all are familiar with ITIL.

HTH

Thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for

Many software companies now begin to realise that PMP and PRINCE2 are increasingly inadequate to help them with their needs. 0213 (which is your NOC code) has been put onto the OUP list and there is plenty of demand. I would suggest that you also look into Scrum, XP and Lean as I know of at least 3 very large companies which are investing a massive amount of money into those frameworks and methodologies. That is also what I am specialised on and what got me my job.

Thanks, that's really interesting. I've done some six sigma which is similar to lean but can these kinds of skills be certified in same way as PMP and PRINCE2?

Yes and no. There are certifications by the Scrum Alliance for Scrum, there are none for Lean or XP. It is really up to you to learn and show your proficiency in them.

I've not seen many that specify that you have PMP (or equivalents). It's often listed in the "nice to have" sections though.
I think your qualifications etc are pretty much irrelevant over here anyway, it's who you know not what you know.

I should stress that he isnt in IT, but my husband is Head of PManagement for a large electrical engineering firm here in Calgary and he says he wouldn't take on a PM who doesn't have PMP status.......Networking certainly is almost everything in Calgary but the qualifications do matter - to him anyway!!!!

Good luck with everything
Lisa

I am a Senior PM in IT consultancy in Atlantic Canada and during my reccie visit I had organized several information interviews and all stressed that PMP was their certificate of choice.

On return to the UK I studied, sat and earned the PMP Certificate.

We landed on Nov 5th 2006 I was offered a job on Nov 12th and started work on Nov 21st 2005.

No one knew about PRINCE2 then but it is creeping into North America more and more. If you are in Software Development I could consider some form of SCRUM certification - perhaps DSDM (UK Agile standard, not much known here but no one else seems to have Agile certifications).

So to finish it off, if you want to be taken seriously as PM get the PMP certificate. It doesnt guarantee you will be a good PM but it does say you will speak the same language

PS Canadian Treasury has just sanctioned the use of PRINCE2 in Federal projects.

I only see problems with PRINCE2 when project managers slavishly try to implement it all. My advice to anyone considering PRINCE2 is to be pragmatic (start with Product Descriptions if nothing else).

What is your target province?

My, scrum is a tedious methodology. Everyone stands in a circle each day like they're Girl Guides and mumbles about how the "last 24" was spent "interfacing" or "mapping" or "reaching out". All this in aid of the "burn down", which I suppose is a reference to the virtual campfire around which the participants stand. Most things are expressed in sporting metaphors except conspicuously "roadblocks" which should really be "linebackers" or similar. It's the collision of management speak and role playing, great if you're billing by the hour but horrible for getting anything done.

I am very glad that you have just brilliantly demonstrated yourself that you obviously have no clue what you are talking about

Lucky for you I really do not care and believe very strongly that everyone should make their own choices.

The initial statement still remains true for the OP. If he chooses to add those skills to his portfolio I know that there is work he can find. I am quite sure however he will also find work with his current skill-sets.

Maybe, just maybe, we could respect the skills of others on this forum when we talk about a topic.

Good night

Scrum also has the disadvantage that it requires an almost cultish seriousness from its practitioners. Do they not see that the whole ring-a-ring-a-rosy aspect of it is inherently silly? Six Sigma, otoh, is a respected approach to quality management in development which does not have any Dungeons and Dragons facet to it. The disadvantage I would think of Six Sigma is that the major user in North America is something of a sweat shop, developing skills that sell into a harsh working environment may be a mixed blessing.

I'm partially with you on this Dbd.

Alot of the faddie type methodologies are just rehashing older ideas or tools and making them a central theme by adding some new words.

On challenging projects I have always held a morning or end of day meeting about what we are doing today, who needs what of other team members and what is stopping them from delivering today(or in modern speak - roadblocks).

I have practiced Agile Software Project Management techniques since 1996 after using DSDM. As a developer back in the mists of time we wrote sub routines that would handle the key entites in the system before they were even called entities or object orientated. We even wrote error handling routines that were automatically called when a condition was triggered. We had back end processes to optimise disk access / usage (SAN's nowdays), we had front end processes to manage terminals (Windows terminal server etc...).

If you want to look at the next technology milestone, look back at the transaction processing systems of the 80's

Heck we are even getting back to building real business cases after years of initiating projects based on act of faith decisions.

I think we all have. Formalizing the meeting, requiring that everyone stand and recount is, to my mind, just fashion. Asking that every one express themselves in the phrases du jour makes it performance art. Great for consultants skilled in using power phrases, no good for understanding or productivity, especially when half the people on the project don't have even basic English. I chuckle at the fact that, on one job I'm working now, H1B people are flown in from all over the US to spend 15% of their time on the ground telling creative bollocks to the scrum. At least on this job there's no corporate song to sing. By contrast, a Six Sigma project I'm on requires one conference call a week to keep twenty people in four countries going in the same direction.

The "Agile" approach whereby no specification exists until it evolves from the code is, to my mind, just acknowledging the redundancy of "business analysts" - the users know what they want when they see it and the programmers are expected to produce different permutations of code and screen images until the user likes it. It's "muddling along" packaged as a plan, but then aren't methodologies generally?

All the PM's i've had the misfortune to deal with seem to have PMP - so that seems to be the weapon of choice here...