Analysis to Support the Project Management Standard and Certification System Selection

Von Alexander A. Eberle, Helga Meyer, Drew Rosen

Project management continues to grow and is now applied in a wide spectrum of business sectors. There are two main professional organizations that operate at the international level fostering the discipline: the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the International Project Management Association (IPMA). The objective of this research is to help management choose between the two competing standards for implementing project management.

Introduction

Standardization is a process that involves many benefits. In project management different standards have been developed. These are widely used for training and development of human resources, as support for certification programs and as corporate project management methodologies. The latter use bases on the supposition that there is a direct relation between the application of a standard and the performance on the workplace. In particular, by introducing a standard, it is expected to improve communication, especially by harmonizing the project management terminology. Another main expectation is to improve the quality of the project management related processes.

There are two main professional organizations that operate at international level fostering the project management discipline: the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the International Project Management Association (IPMA). The PMBOK® Guide of PMI and the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB) are well known as project management standards. However, the two documents differ under many aspects.

A recent study has shown that in developed countries such as Germany and Switzerland, project management standards still have not experienced a wide diffusion. However, the study has shown that the PMBOK® Guide and the ICB, together with its local adaptation (the NCB – National Competence Baseline), are the most diffused project management standards in that region. In fact, among the companies that apply project management standards, 82.4 % use at least one of the described standards (source: elaboration made from the paper’s authors of the raw survey data of the study, courtesy of Prof. Frederik Ahlemann). The IPMA and the PMI also provide professional certifications that attest practitioners’ knowledge and competence in project management. The previously mentioned standards are the reference documents for the certifications, which in turn, differ as well, especially how the assessments are carried out.

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