I do not believe so. I believe it strengthens Era 2 of construction and takes us further away from doing work. I have never seen anything good come from it. I would rather people become certified in Lean from the AGC, LCI, or The Lean Builder. Or take their CCM or get a DBIA cert.
So this is now my 27th year in the industry, 17 since I moved up to management. I've had my own company, worked as a PM and as a Super, with most of that career being in ICI. With the trend being now to hire engineers to be Supers instead of selecting people from the trades, I decided to finally add some type of formal certification to continue on my career and the PMP being the gold standard seemed to be the right fit. So it's important to specify that unlike some of the Lean certifications which you do their curriculum and at the end with successful completion of a test are givin that certification, the PMP assumes you are already an experienced professional in your role, and the designation is sort of a gold star on your report card to show that you know what you're doing. Now the PMP is a universal certification. It covers almost any industry from software development to manufacturing to managing an office of accountants. So, although much of the knowledge area's are applicable to construction, there is also stuff you'll need to learn that is a little less relevant to us. Now, as of 2023 when I wrote the exam PMI has not abandoned the classical Knowledge bases and Process groups, they have really shifted towards Agile project management. It was a huge part of the exam. Agile and Lean really do go hand in hand with both focusing on the Human aspect and Lean being reducing waste and being efficient, and Agile being pooling the collective strength of the team with less of a top down approach, and breaking the project down into "sprints" to be able to quickly adapt to change. With the industry in Québec being 20 years behind the rest of North America, I left there seeing that although by simply trying to invent ways to get my trade partners to collaborate better I had been actually using Agile/Lean tools but without ever knowing it. But there's a lot that I couldn't see how to adapt it to our industry. Fast forward to a year later, and I'm full throttle into learning Lean Construction and have learned that people way smarter than me have figured out how to adapt Lean/Agile into construction site operations and with great success. So, do I regret doing my PMP? No. It still shows employers and trade partners that you have a good understanding of how to properly manage a job. It gives you many resources to learn different styles, and if you focus on Agile management, it's a perfect mindset and tool to use with a Lean project. The downside is that it's not construction specific, so you do have to sometimes be creative as to how you could integrate those tools to our industry. I hope this helps, and if you have any questions fee free to reach out. I'll answer what I can.
Great video as always. What are your thoughts on the PMP for construction project management? Does it really add value to this field?
I do not believe so. I believe it strengthens Era 2 of construction and takes us further away from doing work. I have never seen anything good come from it. I would rather people become certified in Lean from the AGC, LCI, or The Lean Builder. Or take their CCM or get a DBIA cert.
@@jasonwilliamschroeder Thank you for the advice
@@jasonwilliamschroeder I was looking into the DBIA cert, even starting a student chapter for my senior year. I am pretty interested in design build.
So this is now my 27th year in the industry, 17 since I moved up to management. I've had my own company, worked as a PM and as a Super, with most of that career being in ICI.
With the trend being now to hire engineers to be Supers instead of selecting people from the trades, I decided to finally add some type of formal certification to continue on my career and the PMP being the gold standard seemed to be the right fit.
So it's important to specify that unlike some of the Lean certifications which you do their curriculum and at the end with successful completion of a test are givin that certification, the PMP assumes you are already an experienced professional in your role, and the designation is sort of a gold star on your report card to show that you know what you're doing.
Now the PMP is a universal certification. It covers almost any industry from software development to manufacturing to managing an office of accountants. So, although much of the knowledge area's are applicable to construction, there is also stuff you'll need to learn that is a little less relevant to us.
Now, as of 2023 when I wrote the exam PMI has not abandoned the classical Knowledge bases and Process groups, they have really shifted towards Agile project management. It was a huge part of the exam. Agile and Lean really do go hand in hand with both focusing on the Human aspect and Lean being reducing waste and being efficient, and Agile being pooling the collective strength of the team with less of a top down approach, and breaking the project down into "sprints" to be able to quickly adapt to change.
With the industry in Québec being 20 years behind the rest of North America, I left there seeing that although by simply trying to invent ways to get my trade partners to collaborate better I had been actually using Agile/Lean tools but without ever knowing it. But there's a lot that I couldn't see how to adapt it to our industry.
Fast forward to a year later, and I'm full throttle into learning Lean Construction and have learned that people way smarter than me have figured out how to adapt Lean/Agile into construction site operations and with great success.
So, do I regret doing my PMP? No. It still shows employers and trade partners that you have a good understanding of how to properly manage a job. It gives you many resources to learn different styles, and if you focus on Agile management, it's a perfect mindset and tool to use with a Lean project.
The downside is that it's not construction specific, so you do have to sometimes be creative as to how you could integrate those tools to our industry.
I hope this helps, and if you have any questions fee free to reach out. I'll answer what I can.