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Improve Your Project Management: Project management qualifications

by Phil Baguley

The idea that project management is a profession has been gaining increasing recognition for some time now. As a result, there are a number of formal project management qualifications that you can study for.
The qualifying bodies that validate these qualifications include:

The Association for Project Management (APM)
This UK-based independent professional body (www.apm.org.uk) validates a number of qualifications ranging from an introductory certificate up to a Certificated Project Manager qualification.

Project Management Institute (PMI)
This American-based not-for-profit association provides five professional certificates, the highest being that of the Project Management Professional (PMP).

Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB)
The Information Systems Examinations Board (ISEB) is a division of the British Computer Society (www.bcs.org) and validates three certificates in IS project management.

National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ)
There are several NVQ awarding bodies using the UK National Standard in Project Management and offering project management qualifications. These include [?].and training provider Edexcel (www.edexecel.org.uk).

The consensus seems to be that an APM validated qualification is best if you are working in the UK and Europe on non-IT industry projects, a PMI validated qualification if you are working for a US multinational and an ISEB validated qualification if you are in the IT industry.


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