Is project management certification needed to ensure project success?

Many things are written about project management certifications. The closer one gets to the companies responsible for the education and certification the more positive it becomes. But the big question is – does a company need certified Project Managers to ensure project success?

In October 2005, KPMG released the 2005 Global IT Project Management Survey based on their survey of some 600 organizations in 22 countries. They discovered that a measly 2 percent consistently achieved the desired business value, but they also discovered that that the majority of the surveyed organizations had no way of accurately measuring the business value or business outcome achieved from projects.

KPMG’s Global Partner in Charge for Information Risk Management Egidio Zarrella concluded that “across the globe, project performance appears to be sub-standard. Organizations do not appear to be delivering on their commitments” He also states that “…the required value from project investments is not being achieved”.

KPMG also make it clear that 74% of the projects were new products or services as well as business process improvement. These projects are in other words directly targeted at improving the competitive situation of a company and must as such be considered strategic.

Another survey released by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in 2004, “Boosting Business Performance through Programme and Project Management” looked into 200 organizations in 30 different countries.

The survey makes three interesting discoveries.

59% of the reasons behind project failure are, contrary to popular belief, not related to the project manager but to organizational issue and the fact how mature an organization is for running projects. These issues lie within the responsibilities of senior/top management.

Organizational structure and general employee development programs seems to influences the performance and outcome of projects to a high degree. The higher the alignment between organizational structure and business needs, the higher the overall project performance of the organization.

Project Certification does actually matter. It was observed that companies which had certifications also had a positive influence on their maturity level and subsequently their project performance was also positively influenced.

On the other hand project management certification ensures that project teams, management and other stakeholders can rest assured that employees involved in projects consistently apply a standard project management methodology whereby each project team member knows what has to be done. It is however under no circumstance a reason for neglecting the project governance needs of the organization.

There are other issues like scope creep, inadequate business value/outcome management, but I will return to them later in another knowledge paper. The fact is that you can get by running projects without project certification. 27% of the companies in the KMPG survey did, but they were almost all graded as belonging to the lowest maturity level. Out of the highest ranking companies, 80% were operating with project management certifications and standardized project management methodologies.

Conclusion

So project management certification is not the wonder medicine some are making it out to be. The maturity of the organization – or how well prepared it is for handling projects, the governance process & procedures in place and subsequently the organizational structures are much more important.

While having said that, I also have say that no one can get around the fact that companies with a top of the line track record in running projects are working with a high amount of project management certified staff. They have implemented effective project governance procedures and have taken steps to align their organizational structures with their business needs.

It must be clear that success in project management is so much more than hiring a certified project manager, but it does seem like a good starting point.