IT Project+ Certification for Not Yet Techies

IT Project+ is another cross-platform certification from CompTIA, an IT industry consortium that has come out with other good, non-vendor specific IT certifications to give beginners good foundations in certain areas. IT Project+ is slightly different because although it is aimed at techies, it is NOT about any technical skills.

CompTIA Project+ is for techies who don't want to remain mere technicians, who want to increase their incomes, status and career opportunities by moving beyond their technical fields.

Many techies resist this. They like being techies and don't want to do anything else. Suggest that they learn broader business skills such as how to work in teams, gear their projects toward customers/clients or pay attention to cost effectiveness and they get insulted and defensive. If this is you, you won't get the IT Project+ certification but you need it more than most.

See, to the businesses techies work for, techies are tools -- just like screwdrivers, forklift trucks and copy machines. They perform specific, necessary functions inside the business enterprise. Like any other tool when they're worn out, obsolete or no longer necessary, they're discarded. Getting the IT Project+ certification won't guarantee you continued employment, but will help you get out of this box.

Being human beings, naturally techies hate this and gripe about it -- in this IT employment disastrous period you can see a lot of griping. Yet, in a sense, they bring on themselves.

When you accept being a tool, you must accept a tool's fate. I'm sure every screwdriver thinks that it will always be necessary, but that's not true.

Put your IT background to work in a larger business context and you'll be more valuable and respected by your employer. If you are laid off, you'll improve your chances of re-employment.

As a techie on a project team, you're told to develop an application that can measure widgets and you do so -- that's tool work.

As a project team leader, you assign Jill to develop the application to measure widgets, listen to her gripes, keep her on track, on time, accountable and on budget -- that's higher level business value team leadership and businesses can never find enough good team leaders, so they make more money than coding tools.

According to CompTIA, 33% of all IT projects are late. According to IT consulting sources, 74% of all IT projects are over budget or late and 28% fail. It's probably impossible to know how much money that represents, but it's undoubtedly in the millions of dollars.

IT Project+ is designed to test you on the generally accepted principles and techniques of Project Management.

1. Scope Definition (27%)
2. Preliminary Planning/Project Planning (39%)
3. Project Execution (29%)
4. Closure (5%)

The test is intended as a good beginning and for IT professionals only. Project Management is a technical career field in itself and to learn it in full requires a lot more education and experience. You can get learn more from the Project Management Institute.

A project is a group of activities toward a goal, normally requested by a customer or client. Projects should produce something new and different, not reinvent the wheel. Projects should also have a defined beginning and end.

Projects have three constraints: time, quality and costs.

IT Project+ certification has one test. 85 questions. 2 hours. Requires 63% to pass.

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