Project Management Program
If you are pursuing a full-time career in project management, you probably want a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI). It's the gold standard, the ticket to credibility in the project management field. There are many project management programs for getting certified, and for obtaining the continuing education required to keep your certification current.
A project management certificate program must be accredited by the PMI or its completion won't be counted towards your certification. Be sure to check the credentials of any such program before you enroll in it.
There are classroom-based and online project management certification programs. The online programs generally cost less, but many people prefer to learn in a real-time interactive setting rather than through email. Another type of student wants to set his or her own pace and choose the hours of study; some people take quizzes better in the middle of the night than in the early morning. Such students may do better in online project management certification courses.
The basic PMI Project Management Professional certification requires 35 credit-hours (Professional Development Units or PDUs) of documented study in classrooms or online, plus a passing score on a rather extensive test that is administered only in person. Any online PMP certification course or other project management training program should be able to tell you where and when the test is administered, and what it will cost to take it.
A project management graduate program grants PDUs for additional study of the PMI's Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK), the state-of-the-art best practices developed by project management professionals and academic experts. Continuing project management training ensures that a PMP certification remains current, relevant to modern project management, and marketable to employers. Most such training is done online these days, since certified PMPs are terribly busy people with little time for commuting and classroom chitchat.
Software plays a key role in managing large, complex projects. Project management information systems are often enormously complicated programs that require specialized training. A project management software program offered by a software vendor or independent training institution can be a critical factor in getting a job or landing a project. Corporations which have invested millions in project management software packages want people who are adept with these tools. When they hire consultants on a contract basis, they want one who can use the tool that all their employees are familiar with.