EPM, Microsoft Project and You

By: Collin Quiring

 Ever since I started looking at obtaining a certification as a Project Management Professional I was interested in knowing how many people had the certification already.  I have blogged about certifications in previous posts so I won’t get into all my reasons for getting a certification but one of those reasons is to make sure that that it is recognized by potential employers.  Another reason is to make sure that not “everybody” has it because that might indicate it is one of those “take 3 hours and $50 and become certified” kind of certifications.  Large numbers of people holding a certification don’t scare me when it makes sense but if “anybody” can get a certification then I get nervous. 

 I am also interested in knowing how many people don’t maintain their certification because that tells me something about the value that people put on the certification once they have it.  The number of PMP certifications was in the 180,000 range (PMI calls them Active PMP’s) when I took my test and became a PMP and my number starts with a 249xxx so that means that about 70,000 people had let their certifications expire.  Since PMP certifications started in 1984 that makes me feel ok about this number of people– with job movement, priority shifting, economy issues and some passing away I think that a 70,000 difference is quite acceptable.

 Since I obtained my certification, I have watched the monthly numbers closely.  This is just one indicator to me of the health of the organization and the certification overall.  (FYI – I do carry another certification where the numbers got so bad that the certifying organization discontinued the certification entirely.)  I thought that I was pretty much alone in my fascination of the numbers (other than PMI tracking it for their reasons) and then I across this article from Derek Huether at “The Critical Path”.  (http://thecriticalpath.info/2010/09/30/august-pmp-certification-numbers/)  He has been tracking the monthly numbers since September, 2006, and he was willing to share his numbers with me for this post.  He deserves full credit for the monthly chart below.  Once I had his data, I started searching around and found some other information of PMP certification and PMI membership.  A good chunk of that comes from PMI Today, August 2004 edition.  The other parts I found here and there mentioned in old articles.

 I charted the number of PMI members and the number of PMP certifications by year.  The first year for PMP certification was 1984 and 43 of the people that took the test became certified that year.  Also, I never found any certification numbers for 1985 or 1987-1992.  What intrigues me is that the number of PMP certified individuals is greater than the number of PMI members.

For those that like numbers:

This chart uses Derek’s Monthly Numbers since September, 2006.

Same chart, but with numbers:

And, because Derek was kind of enough to share it, here is some bonus information.  This is the number of NEW PMP’s by month and the total number of CAPM certifications as well (by month).

With numbers:

BY:  Collin Quiring

First things first – I want to give credit to Microsoft for having some great documentation!  I have been working with Microsoft Project for many years and started becoming very involved with the tool starting with the 2000 release. While there has always been some “documentation”, I have to say that it has gotten better, easier to find and more detailed with each release.  With 2010, the documentation is pretty extensive and there is even a whole section called “Ignite” that has documents and videos which concentrate on the new features.  One of the catches with so much documentation (which I am VERY happy to deal with) is trying to assimilate all the documentation and moving parts as it pertains to a specific subject.  This entry is my version of putting that documentation as it relates to “Departments” into a high level summary.  Some of this is my own research but the majority of this is summarizing an overview of the documentation and of the wonderful video that Christophe Fiessinger made for the Ignite training.  (See that video here: http://cdn-smooth.ms-studiosmedia.com/msstudios/1005/1003463/Mod_9_Administration/Default.html  )

 I think that this is one of those cases where it might be easier to define what this is NOT.  The word “Department” is a word that Microsoft chose for this functionality and should not necessarily be defined as we normally define it in the business environment.  A “Department” should not be considered a “division of a business” like Human Resources or Information Technology or Marketing Department. 

 We need to think of “Department” as a grouping mechanism.  As an example, think of a company that has an IT group that has two separate functions – a Help Desk and New Development.  Even though these are the same “department” in a company, they may have totally separate work processes, requirements and reporting needs.  Therefore, we would set each up as a unique “Department” in Project Server 2010.

 As with numerous items within Project Server, the “Department” appears to be “only a custom field” at first glance but actually can be very powerful since it is possible to be used in many areas of the Server from users to Enterprise Project Types.  It should be thought of as a very powerful tool within Project Server rather than just a mere “custom field.”

 Now for some of that high level summary information about “Department”:

• The Primary purpose is to be a filter for:
  • Projects
  • Resources
  • Resources’ Custom Fields
  • Enterprise Project Types
  • Drivers
• Users can be assigned to none, one or multiple departments
• Projects can be assigned to none, one or multiple departments
• Different Users can see different User Interfaces based on their departments
  • It filters out EPT’s and Custom Fields
• Can be used for OLAP database data filtering
  • See the “Guide for IT Pros for Project Server 2010”, Departments section on the OLAP database detail information
• Different groups can have their own custom fields
• (Note:  a custom field NOT assigned a Department are global)
• Projects associated with different departments will only show their custom fields
• Portfolio Drivers can be associated with departments
• Driver prioritization can be associated with departments
• Departments allow for Enterprise-wide consistency AND different processes, forms and fields for different groups
• Departments are NOT tied to the RBS directly