Ever failed at a project because you didn't understand how to manage it? A new GartnerInstitute program wants to teach you a better way.
Closing the IT-Business Gap
Ever failed at a project because you didn't understand how to manage it? A new GartnerInstitute program wants to teach you a better way.
- By Thomas Eck
- May 01, 2000
Despite the current labor drought for
qualified IT professionals, you must demonstrate more
than mere technical prowess in order to advance through
the ranks of an organization. Technologists often face
glass ceilings within their companies unless they can
demonstrate a firm mastery of both the business and technical
skills needed to help the organization accomplish its
business goals.
Quite often companies use project management
to gracefully segue a high-potential candidate from a
purely technical role into management. On one hand, the
short-term nature of projects may be an attractive proving
ground for determining whether someone has the skills
desired in a management candidate; on the other hand,
the close ties between accomplishing business objectives
and large-scale IT projects could expose the organization
to a tremendous risk if the project should fail. According
to GartnerGroup research, 51 percent of all IT projects
exceed 200 percent of the planned budget. So the disastrous
effects of a large project’s failure on the company’s
bottom line become readily apparent.
Of course, other industries often have
problems involving incomplete work breakdown structures
that contribute to project failure. But GartnerGroup’s
research indicates that the high failure rates found among
IT projects are due to poor project management skills
among those put in charge. Another bit of Gartner research:
Nearly 30 percent of all IT projects are never successfully
completed. If these failures are attributed to a lack
of skill and knowledge regarding formal project management
techniques, clearly companies must do something to reduce
their exposure to such risks.
Reducing the Risk of Failure
Following on the success of IT-related
certification programs, GartnerInstitute offers the Gartner
Certified Associate (GCA) credential in Project Management.
This certification allows candidates to prove proficiency
in the core competencies associated with formal project
management techniques. By training employees who are entering
into formal projects, companies can reduce the risks associated
with project failure due to poor project management skills.
While the American Management Association
and the Project Management Institute (PMI) offer many
courses on formal project management skills, GartnerInstitute
has specifically tailored its certification to the needs
of the IT profession. One key difference: The courseware
focuses on helping the part-time project manager do his
or her job better; project management isn’t the candidate’s
primary focus.
Taking the time to master the core
competencies in project management should be prerequisite
knowledge for anyone involved in delivering a successful
project—from the project manager all the way down to project
support resources.
Have you ever considered attaining
PMI’s Project Management Professional (PMP) certification?
If you can’t meet PMI’s experience requirements due to
the lack of a college degree or only part-time involvement
in project work, Gartner’s certification track could be
just the ticket to prove your knowledge of the core project
management competencies.
Certification Offerings
GartnerInstitute currently offers two certifications
in project management: the Gartner Certified Associate
(GCA) and the Gartner Certified Professional (GCP). To
obtain the GCA, you must pass a single exam on the core
competencies of project management. After passing this
test, you can choose to simply remain a GCA, add a specialization
in either e-business or enterprise resource planning,
or take the “E-Challenge” to obtain Gartner’s premier
certification, the GCP. Expected to be available by the
time you read this, the E-Challenge is described as an
eight-week project simulation that you can manage via
the Web to help assure that you’re able to put theory
into practice.
Test
Your Project Management Skills |
1.
Your project is about to enter the execution
phase, and you wish to discover which
aspects of the project could be modified
to help improve the project’s outcome.
When should this be done?
- You should never modify the project
plan once the execution phase has
been entered.
- Throughout the project lifecycle.
- Upon discovery of a task that will
not be completed successfully.
- At the beginning of the project.
2. Which
two of the following should be included
in a project requirements document?
- Usability requirements
- Assignment of tasks
- Resource training requirements
- Functional requirements
3. When
establishing a time estimate for a project,
which two are the most important factors
to consider?
- Resource training
- Time estimates to complete each
task
- Resource availability
- The resource’s ability to delivery
quality deliverables
4. Why
should a Project Manager define a formal
change control process?
- Eliminates scope creep for superficial
changes
- Helps identify risks and resolutions
before implementation
- Allows the Project Manager to decline
unnecessary changes
- Helps increase the project schedule
5. Which
formula allows you to calculate the
Earned Value for a project?
- Budgeted Cost of Work Performed/Actual
Cost of Work Performed
- Budgeted Cost of Work Performed/Budgeted
Cost of Work Scheduled
- Earned value is simply the Budgeted
Cost of Work Performed
- Earned value is the original amount
budgeted for a single task or group
of tasks.
Answers at the end
of this article.
|
|
|
First Steps
To help establish the scope of work
required to obtain the GCA, the following is a list of
exam objectives and the approximate breakdown of questions
in each section that will appear on the exam:
Scope Definition, 27%
- Identify and define high-level business-related requirements,
outcomes, and criteria for success.
- Identify stakeholders’ low-level needs and expectations
including boundaries for project budget, duration, and
risk.
- Define manager role/authority.
- Create a scope document that accurately represents
the project size and specifics.
- Build stakeholder consensus and obtain written approval
from stakeholders.
Preliminary planning/project planning,
39%
- Project management plan.
- Requirements analysis.
- Risk management.
- Budget.
- Schedule.
- Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
- Estimation.
- Communication plan.
- Project plan including a close out phase.
Execution, 29%
- Project and issue tracking.
- Change control.
- Quality management.
- Team management.
- Resource management.
Closure, 5%
Your path to better project management
skills begins by attending GartnerInstitute’s IT Project
Management Core Capabilities course. This class is highly
interactive—it’s presented in a format where a problem
is described, the class formulates an answer, the GartnerGroup
research is presented, and then further discussion ensues.
In addition to classroom lecture and interactive participation,
the Core Capabilities class uses many exercises to ensure
that theory is quickly applied to practice.
In a room full of experienced project managers, the highly
interactive nature of the course provides tremendous potential
for learning well beyond the scope of the courseware through
discussion of individual situational experiences. Training
providers currently offer courses in the U.S., Canada,
Mexico, Costa Rica, Australia, and New Zealand. Check
www.prometric.com/
gartnerinstitutecertification to find a provider in
your area.
Those who attend the Core Capabilities
class receive a free license for an online test-prep software
package from MeasureUp, Inc. (www.measureup.com).
Taking the time to run through the practice questions
will inevitably increase your chances of obtaining a passing
score on the real exam. If you want to check out the questions
without taking the class first, MeasureUp will sell you
online access to a bank of 50 questions for six months
for $15.
Despite the value of the Gartner course
for increasing your project management skills, the list
price of $3,250 may be cost-prohibitive if you work for
yourself or a smaller firm. At the time of this writing,
no third-party resources specifically focus on helping
a candidate self-study for the GCA; however, because the
certification is based on formal project management techniques,
you may be able to use resources from PMI for self-study.
By carefully studying PMI’s Project
Management Body of Knowledge, you’ll likely have more
than enough knowledge required for the exam if you’ve
previously been responsible for a formally managed project.
Judgment Day
Once you’ve decided on a date to take
the examination, contact Sylvan Prometric to schedule
your test. The IT Project Management Core Capabilities
exam (test 3G0-101) costs $150 at the time of registration.
Even if you usually finish certification exams with plenty
of time left over, be sure to plan for a full two hours
out of your day to tackle this one—you’ll likely need
it to read through the questions and choose the best answers.
On exam day, be sure to bring the usual
two forms of signature ID to the examination site. Once
in the testing room, you’ll be presented with an 84-question
multiple-choice exam, for which you’ll be allotted 120
minutes to select the best answers for all items. To achieve
a passing score, you must answer at least 63 percent of
all questions correctly. While this may seem a rather
low pass mark for a certification, keep in mind that for
many questions, the majority of answers presented are
correct, however, you must select those that are most
correct for the given questions. If you have difficulty
with these question types, expect to have great difficulties
with the Core Capabilities test; the majority of items
used this format.
You’ll receive your final score when
you complete the test. Within 30 days of passing the exam,
GartnerInstitute should send you a certificate that proves
you’ve accomplished all the requirements to become a Gartner
Certified Associate. If you fail the test, you can retake
it anytime you wish. GartnerInstitute doesn’t mandate
any interval between attempts. Of course, it costs you
an additional $150 for each effort.
Additional Information |
These resources can help
put your project management skills on
track:
Answers: 1.
b, 2. a,d;
3. b, c;
4. a, b; 5.
c
|
|
|
The GCA certification expires after two years; that means
you’ll have to retest in order to assure that you still
have the required project management knowledge close at
hand.
In today’s marketplace, there’s clearly
a need for us technologists to take an increased role
in understanding business requirements. Whether you run
large IT projects yourself or serve as a resource on a
project, Gartner’s Certified Associate credential will
help you add greater value to your career and the organization
you work for by proving your ability to apply formal project
management techniques.