New project for me - PMP!
For a day off, today was pretty productive in terms of my career. Or at least for my career planning anyway.
One of the things I've been meaning to do for a while is get my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. I've been doing various forms of project management for almost my entire time in the technology industry, from that first day in glamorous Butte, MT. My manager at Deloitte told me she wanted me to manage the project database, which included keeping track of all the deliverables for the project, tracking our team's expenses and hours, preparing the invoice for the client, and reporting how we tracked to our budget back to the main office. For someone right out of school, it was a great first assignment, to learn about project management and in general, the inner workings of a client-service project from start to finish.
Getting the PMP certification requires 4500 hours of project management work, which is about 3 years, so I've totally got that covered. I contacted one of my Deloitte managers and she agreed to be a reference for me. My previous manager at Microsoft also agreed, so I've got that part covered.
Another requirement is taking 35 hours of in-class training. The Seattle chapter of the Project Management Institute offers a twice-yearly course that prepares you for the certification exam, which also conveniently counts for this classroom requirement. Unfortunately I missed the spring session because I was drinking daiquiris in Puerto Rico that week. But our local community college offers a whole series of project management courses which you can take as part of a certificate plan, or just individually. I figured out I can take a one day course at Microsoft and two of the courses at Bellevue Community College to meet that 35 hour requirement. And even better, Microsoft will pay for those external courses. The other fabulous thing is that taking these courses also fulfills one of the career goals I set for the year, to take some additional PM training.
I had lunch today with a friend who's a PMP and this set the whole plan into motion. Turns out one of the classes I want to take at BCC starts next Wednesday (how convenient). So I figured there's no time like the present, and asked my manager for approval to take those courses. Which he promptly agreed to, so I signed up for them tonight. I'm looking forward to it. I have always loved the Project Management aspects of being a PM at Microsoft, and now I'm just going to formalize my interests.
After the classes are done in August, I'll complete the online application on the PMI site, and then schedule the exam when I get their approval. I hope to take the exam within a month or two of finishing the classes so the info is still fresh in my mind. And I'll hopefully also stay in the studying frame of mind.
I think this is a good use of working part time - this work will eventually benefit me in my job. I'm really looking forward to my "Planning and Scheduling" course which starts next week, since I've got to work on our detailed SDK project schedule in the next week or so. Perfect timing, isn't it?