Your Accreditation Body Sucks: How Professional Certifications Crush Your Soul

“PMI emboldens you to manage projects by giving you the answers to all the questions.  That’s why the certification process is so rigorous, they want to make sure that you understand that knowledge and are able to implement it in real life examples” – Some asshole PMP.

A little bit ago, I was asked to be the academic on a webinar panel.  The panel was made up of four PM “practitioners,” the moderator, and myself an academic.  The purpose of the webinar was to discuss how to move to a hybrid model, the benefits, and the pitfalls that other organizations tend to fall into.  What it ended up being was an hour of Cult of Agile bullshit.  In total, less than 5 minutes was talking about being hybrid.

My personal belief is that every project team is actually hybrid to some extent, and the more they argue that they are pure agile or pure waterfall the more they are actually hybrid.

I want to let you in on some of the highlights of the webinar.

• Scope creep only affects waterfall, since requirements and scope are established early on, whereas agile’s scope and requirements are meant to be plastic, and develop over the life of the project, therefore there can never be any scope creep (supposedly because you never define it to begin with, or something?)

• People say that agile can’t leverage timelines, durations, and deliveries, but actually, agile only works if each task has a defined duration with predecessors, whereas traditional doesn’t use timelines at all (ask any developer to provide a timeline for a task, and see how quickly they jump your ass about how that’s not how agile development works).

• Agile is better because you have more delivered functionality.  With agile, I can deliver 100 new bits of functionality, but with waterfall, I’d only have one big delivery (so you’re still delivering the same shit, only you’re doing it in smaller bits [relevant SMBC]).

Let me say before you fuckers say that the panel didn’t know what they were talking about, let me clarify one thing: the moderator and the two most vocal of the panel were representatives from the Project Management Institute.

I May Be Wrong for All I Know, But I May Be Right

The first fifteen minutes of the webinar was me trying to politely disagree and share knowledge of various studies that disprove what they were saying.  The remaining 45 minutes was me having to argue even the simplest of things.

I shouldn’t have to argue that working towards building a methodology that works for your organization is a good thing.  Especially when the contrary points they are making is “nuh-uh, you need to be more agile” (especially, especially when it’s a meeting talking about the benefits of a hybrid methodology).

I wasn’t angry about how everything went; I was just super frustrated.

The one thing that spent the afternoon rattling around in my head was the one takeaway I had from graduate school; what we understand about things can change virtually overnight, and what we know to be true today can be unquestionably false tomorrow.

You see, the purpose of academia is to learn, uncover truths, and share knowledge with others… it’s designed to be a constant source of growth, although, if I’m being honest, just because that’s what it’s supposed to be doesn’t mean that it’s actually the case.

Part of being able to grow and share knowledge, is to first acknowledge that you probably don’t know everything, and there might be someone else that knows something you don’t that might actually change your view on everything.

Talking through it with a few people I came to the realization that the problem isn’t just an issue with PMPs and PMI, the problem is inherent in accreditation bodies, that goes well beyond the gate keeping bullshit that is a defining trait of a certification. 

The problem starts with…

What’s True for Me, Is True for Thee

This is my experience; therefore, it is a hard universal truth that everyone else must follow, was a sentiment that was shared several times throughout the hour.

Typically, when I see this, I assume that they are 1: Inexperienced, or 2: A Sith.

When I was first working with project teams, I thought that all projects ran the way that the company I worked for did.  I mean, how else would they be run, right?  It wasn’t until I started talking about how shitty things were, how things could be done better, and how wasteful project work was, that I learned that what I was seeing in my company was not how other companies did things.  The company I worked for was terrible.

But when I spoke of what project work was, I spoke in absolutes, because that’s all I knew.  Likewise, when these assholes in the panel were speaking, they really showed their inexperience, but because they were there as experts, their inexperience was considered profound knowledge.

The solution: these fuckers needed more imposter syndrome.

Our Book of Knowledge Has Every Answer to Every Situation You’ll Ever Encounter

I was told this by a representative with PMI when I first was looking into getting a PMP.  Later that night, over a few kamikaze shots with fellow professionals, I learned that this wasn’t only something touted by PMI.  In fact, my friends had been told similar things when going for their AWS Developer certification, their CSDP certification, Salesforce certification, CIW cert, and on and on.

It seems that if you are a governing body, you whole heartedly believe that you have all the fucking answers.

What is frustrating for me, as a project manager, is that the first thing that gets drilled into your head is that a project is a unique venture… a unique venture.  A FUCKING UNIQUE venture.

How then, might I ask, can you possibly have the answer for every situation that would ever happen?

What happens if when breaking ground on a new high-rise you discover that there is an endangered species of mole living on the plot that you’re planning on building?  Well, the PEMBOK suggests that you should perform an environmental analysis prior to starting the project.  Great, what if you did do a thorough analysis, and still missed it?  What is the answer to this very specific issue?  It’s not in the PEMBOK.  What if the mole gave off an odor as a defense mechanism that gave every man who smells it priapism?  What then all-knowing book of knowledge? 

Evangelists of the PEMBOK would tell you that you need to read between the lines to get the answers they provide.  Or that they provide the answers, not the questions, it’s therefore your job to create the question and then seek out the answer.

To me, that’s the biggest bullshit answer I can think of.  To suggest that you have this grand book that contains all the answers, but you must pore over it in order to truly understand it, is bat-shit-fucking-insane!  It’s less of a certification program, and more of a goddamn religion. 

One of our readers teaches courses for (I believe) ILO, who recommended looking for a certification that doesn’t claim to know everything.  Instead, find one that provides you with a strong foundation and a framework that you can use to develop your skills.

The point of the certification shouldn’t be so that you can have all of the answers.  It should be used as a demonstration of your knowledge.

Solution: Teach these assholes that having knowledge and having answers are not the same fucking thing.

I Know What I Know, We Come and We Go

The difference between knowledge and having the answer is simple.  Knowledge is applicable in any relevant situation, having answers is only applicable in the exact right situation.

Now, having the answers can lead to knowledge, but it only comes with experience, and it’s not guaranteed.

In sharing this thought, I was accused of being anti-education then, since the educational system is designed to teach you the right answers to stuff.  And to that, I say… sort of, I guess.

I was fortunate to go to a college that was very much of the philosophy “here is what I know, apply it to your own experience, and let’s discuss it.”   Well, with the exception of my macro-econ professor, who was a nutjob and had no place to be teaching in higher education, but that’s a different story.

Here is how 90% of my classes went:

• Introduce a concept and learn about it

• Take that concept and apply it to your own experiences in a meaningful way

• Share your insight with your classmates

• Listen to the insight of your classmates

• Reply to what they shared

• Continue to discuss the concept until you’ve said all that you need to say on it.

What was taught wasn’t just “here’s a concept, memorize it.”  It was here’s a concept, apply it to your current understanding.  Building knowledge was inbuilt to the classroom experience.  Further, because the point was building knowledge, the focus wasn’t on just passing your exam.

Which is where the certification programs fall apart.  The point isn’t to build knowledge, the point is to pass the exam.  Knowledge is secondary (or in some cases tertiary) to gaining the certification in the first place.

Which is why I say that having the answers isn’t necessarily a gateway to building knowledge.  If the goal is just to get the certification, then why would you retain that shit moving forward?  You don’t need to recertify as long as you maintain it.  So fuck it, get the cert and immediately forget it all.

Solution: Stop engaging these shitty organizations.  Find a certification body that will enrich your knowledge.

I am the Key Master, Are You the Gatekeeper?

My biggest gripe is how gatekeepy these damn certification programs are.  When a professor told me that the PMP is designed such that half of all applicants fail, I felt ill. 

I thought of all the PMs I had worked with that were fantastic in their positions, who would never have gotten a chance in today’s climate because they didn’t have a PMP.

Because that’s a reality that many face.  You can’t get an entry level PM job without a PMP, can’t get a PMP without 3 years of experience, can’t get the experience without a PM job, can’t get the PM job witho--- FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!

It sucks, is what I’m getting at.

I’m a firm believer that anyone can be successful in a role.  It just takes some work, a good mentor, and determination.  What these damn certifications say is that no one can be successful in a role, unless they have a piece of paper, and enough determination to sit for a four-hour exam.

I asked my drunk friends if they learned anything from their certification course work that they use regularly, or are glad that they went through the certification because it’s such an invaluable nugget of truth.

Absolute-fucking-silence.

One person said that they learned quite a bit from their ITIL certification, but no, it wasn’t really applicable, and they only got it so that they could get a raise at work.

So why are we gatekeeping?  Seriously?!  If there isn’t anything worthwhile in the course work, and most don’t see any value in what they learned outside of a potential raise or promotion, why the fuck is there all this gatekeeping?

Gatekeeping can only exist if there are those who want to go through the gate.  As soon as people realize that the grass on the other side of the gate is covered in dogshit, and they stop pushing their way through, then the gatekeepers lose their power.

But that’s not really a solution, is it.

It’s because part of the gatekeeping is the fact that the exclusivity of the certification makes it more desirable.  How the fuck do you counter that?

Solution: pursue certifications where the body boasts of their success rates, that is proud of the number of test takers who have knocked it out of the park and gone on to be successful.  Avoid any organization that believes that creating a test that the majority of test takers fail somehow makes them the “best in the world.”