Choosing a Project Management course: Is the PCP for you?
Choosing Project Management training
When you’re planning to study Project Management, the choice of courses, approaches and directions is bewildering.
Things are further complicated by each institution claiming that its approach is best, and that your qualification translates to an ability to manage projects. We also fully understand that many HR offices expect to have some sort of paper before they will give you an interview in the first place.
Facing reality
A crazy (but popular) approach to all this is, “Let me first get the certificate, thereafter the job, and then I can concentrate on gaining experience”.
In the real world of Project Management, however, things don’t quite work this way. One cannot say to a child, “Don’t get into the water before you can swim,” or to a would-be chef, “Just peel this clay potato with the plastic instrument in your hand, and pass the PowerPoint-and-textbook course! That will render you fully qualified to work in a professional kitchen, preparing meals under pressure”. Similarly, one does not become a competent Project Management team member by merely mastering the theoretical stuff.
Proof of your knowledge? No, that’s too easy!
The Practical Certification Programme in Project Management provides you with the best opportunity to get a foot in the door, because you present more than mere theoretical knowledge. Your certificates (one from Microsoft, the other individualised), and your portfolio of evidence showing how you applied the standards and best practices in real project work, are accompanied by a detailed testimonial.
All in all, this provides a strong indication that you can actually do the work you claim you can do, in a way that aligns to industry-respected norms.
The PCP equips you with real-life practical knowledge and skills. We’re looking for inspired learners, who draw their energy from the wonder and achievement of learning, rather than the mere chasing of a certificate.
This isn’t a sausage machine
The Practical Certification Programme helps you find your role in Project Management.
Not everyone is cut out to be a project manager. You may excel by honing your project scheduling skills, or to fulfil role as a configuration manager. Whatever your personality profile and learning preferences, the PCP equips you with real-life practical knowledge and skills whilst confirming your theoretical understanding through gaining an internationally recognised certification.
More than anything else, it is the ability to contextually plan and maintain a real-life project plan that exposes you the principles exposed in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) from the PMI®, and the 10 Knowledge Areas as they relate to you and your work. It is our conviction that you haven’t really come to grips with Project Management if you have not also gained the understanding, knowledge and skill to manage a project plan. It is here where you learn to report on, “How are we doing with time on this project, are we OK with the money and our other resources, and are we still delivering that which the project promised? And here are the new risks that came up.”
Everyone is different
The PCP works with who you are, and with your current situation. It builds a solid foundation for your further formal studies in any of the SAQA-certified courses, or other standards-based certifications (e.g. CAPM®, PMP®, or PRINCE2® Practitioner).
Although it is possible to do any of these courses before doing the PCP, this has very limited value. Learning the theory and then applying it in practice does not actually happen in the real world, unless you have learned the formal theory from the practice—and that is what you do in the PCP.
Successful completion of the programme means that you are certified in project scheduling, that you are able to present a portfolio of evidence of your actual project work, and that you present a certificate from a SAQA-certified Assessor attesting to your specific skills, knowledge and abilities. (We’re not talking about a one-size-fits-all syllabus based approach.)
We measure our success by yours
Most Project Management courses have a high drop-out rate. We measure our success not by the number of student enrolments, nor by the amount of money we harvest from student fees, but by the number of students who successfully complete the PCP.
This measure means that we go to extraordinary lengths to set you up for success, to support you, to be there for you every step of the journey.
It also means that you can stop paying if you’re not progressing, as your payments are based on modules, or stages within modules. It is part of the deal that your payment commitment never stretches ahead more than 30 days.
It also means that this programme is not everyone. We’re looking for inspired learners, who draw their energy from the wonder and achievement of learning, rather than the mere chasing of a certificate.
