In spite of the growth in the number of certified Project Management Professionals (PMP) and Certified Business Analysis Professionals (CBAP), the failure rate of technology development and implementation projects has increased. This correlation makes me question the financial value of these certifications. And it offers another example that knowledge, skill, and experience are three separate measures of a human resource. In other words, just because someone is highly knowledgeable about work, it doesn’t mean they can skillfully peform the task, or that they have been doing it for any length of time.
Unfortunately, far too many IT hiring managers and IT organizations equate certification with competence (skill). Ironically, the Project Management Body of Knowedge (PMBOK) emphasizes process. The certification tests a PMP candidate’s level of knowledge of the many processes involved in managing projects. The Standish Group’s recent report is a measurement of results and the results imply a direct, if not at least indirect, measurement of skill. In this case, the skill being measured is project management skill. It’s not unreasonable to conclude that while more people may know what good project management processes are, a declining number were able to demonstrate adequate skill in performing those processes.
I’m sure there are plenty of opinions about the root cause of the rising failure rate of projects. In my opinion, and now based on a decade of evidence, it has little to do with an inadequate level of knowledge of project management processes. Nor does it have anything to do with the range or level of knowledge of topics a typical Business Analyst possesses. There’s no quantifiable evidence to prove that a BA who knows how to draw an accurate and elegant UML diagram is any more skilled at adequately eliciting software requirements than one who doesn’t know what UML is.
In my opinion, project failure rate still points to the same problem it did two decades ago. Quite simply, Business Analysts fail miserably in the skill of eliciting technology solution requirements. For most BA’s the process of eliciting requirements is unstructured, inconsistent, usually incomplete, rarely thorough, lacks focus, is undisciplined, and immeasureable. I know of only one legitimate, structured, repeatable, measurable, and quanitfiably effective elicitation process in IT. Yet I’ve never personally met any BA who’s aware of it. And I’ve never met any BA who knows of another one, or who can demonstrate their own structured, focused, disciplined, and accountable (measureable) method.
The Standish report should make senior IT executives take notice. A stable of certified PMPs and CBAPs on staff isn’t the answer to closing the IT-Business Gap. Nor is Agile or RUP. It’s time to stop over-emphasizing (and over-relying on) the results of a test of knowedge about subjects covered in a book (like the PMBOK and BABOK). It’s time to start quantifiably measuring skill, above all else. Two decades of trying to get by on a narrow band of book knowedge has proven to be the wrong tactic. Time to try another process.
Hi Jim,
I would have to dispute your conclusion, although I will concede upfront that certification is not a necessary or sufficient condition to improvement of project performance. Somebody can be certified and still be ineffective–IIBA has tried to design its certification program to prevent this as much as possible but there’s no way to ensure that people won’t slip through.
That said, there is evidence in the earlier Standish reports that improvements in the understanding of project management performance did in fact lead to improvements in project delivery, with the number of “successful” projects increasing significantly. What we’ve seen is that that number then held relatively steady for some time, which could suggest that we’ve reached the limit of what PM can do (both because project management is only a part of project performance and because some organizations just aren’t culturally able to manage projects well).
On the business analysis side, though, I really wish IIBA had the influence you suggest we have. It’s flattering to hear IIBA and PMI spoken of in the same sentence, but in reality PMI has about 30-50 times our scale and influence (whether measured in budget, members, staff, or any other metric you care to choose). Yes, we’ve grown rapidly but at best 2% of BAs in the US are IIBA members and less than 0.01% are certified. Maybe 5% of BA professionals have read a copy of the BABOK Guide. We simply don’t have enough data points to judge the effectiveness of these programs. At this point in time, few organizations (although the number is growing) have really tried to make an effort to bring their business analysts up to the standards that most would agree are necessary for projects to be successful. BAs don’t receive anything near to the level of support from their employers for professional development, process improvement, and career growth that PMs do and frankly we have a very long way to go in that area.
Kevin,
Thank you for your outstanding rebuttal. Your points are well-taken and I appreciate your perspective.
When “questioning” the value of the certifications, I should have been clearer in my thesis. What I hoped to have conveyed is the difficulty in quantifying the value to the organization – from a “hard numbers” perspective. As a former member or frequent attendee of both PMI and IIBA, I appreciate the financial value of certification to an individual PM or BA. Obviously, certified PMs or BAs are often paid higher rates/salaries than their non-certified counterparts. But I find little evidence to cost-justify the practice (of paying salary/rate premiums).
In other words, too many organizations make the unsubstantiated conclusion that certified PMs and BAs positively financially impact project results. Using the latest Standish report data implies the opposite. I believe the real problem centers on weak interviewing and resource selection skills at the hiring manager level, especially in IT.
Arguably, social skills, business acumen and management skills don’t top IT’s list of strengths. In defense of IT, I do believe that knowledge certifications, in general, are reasonable indicators of a technical position job applicant’s likelihood of competent performance. Unfortunately, this strong and generally reliable evaluation factor is far less reliable with the non-technical, human-centric jobs PM’s and BA’s perform.
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Please cite sources for your statement that “project failure rates are rising.”
Dennis McDonald
Web: http://www.ddmcd.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ddmcd
Follow this link to see the press release source: http://www.standishgroup.com/newsroom/chaos_2009.php. Using this report, and earlier reports from Standish, you’ll see the pattern where, up until this year, results were improving. Yet, the latest report details a recent downturn.