Those of you who read my blog regularly may remember a few months ago when I stated that about this time of the year I would begin to study for my PMP exam. Well, that time has come and what a time for it too. My wife is very pregnant and she is to have our baby by Friday morning or be induced at 5am. Suffice to say we’re going to have our hands full. But I’ve saved a month’s worth of vacation, classes at Bellevue don’t start until November 31st so between then and now whenever the baby is asleep and I’m not, I really don’t have a whole lot to do, so I’ll study.
Since I work primarily in project management as an analyst and I’m supposed to be the project support for all of these various technical project teams, it only makes sense that I have the credential. To be sure my weakest area is not in project management or business; in fact those skills are the reason I got the job in the first place. My weakest area is in the technology involved in application development. I don’t even speak the language right 100% of the time and occasionally come off sounding like an idiot (at least by my standards) when trying to keep up with some of the technical jargon various developers and architects get in to. But when looking at it from their perspective, I’m not there to give technical advice or to make technical decisions or really to provide technical input. I’m there to answer questions related to project management, business needs and occasionally offer some outside perspective. So I’ve decided to shore up my strengths, quantify them and then start working on my weaknesses.
Some people have asked why I would work so hard with a new baby in the house during my vacation. Honestly I know for a fact that once I look at my daughter asleep in her bed I’ll be so motivated to get ahead (financially and professionally) that finding the “will” to study won’t be the issue, only the when.