By Michelle LaBrosse, PMP®

Post-PMP® Syndrome (noun) – A group of symptoms commonly found after project managers tirelessly prepare to pass the PMP exam pass it and bring home the gold, and then find themselves asking:  What’s next?

Does this sound familiar to you?  If so, you or someone you know may be suffering from Post-PMP Syndrome.  Here are a few tips to make sure you get the most out of your PMP.

• DON’T KEEP IT A SECRET.  Send an e-mail out to team members and managers letting them know about your achievement.  Talk to your manager about how you might be able to use your PMP immediately to help the organization.  Volunteer to do a “lunch and learn” to help others in your organization learn more about the PMP and prepare for the exam.  Update your resume and any online profiles where you professionally network.  Put your PR hat on and get the word out.

• WALK THE WALK.  The best way to strut your PMP is to show results. Project Management is the art and science of getting things done, and now you can embody that with every project.  In our careers, we are often as good as our last hit.  You don’t have to be a one-hit wonder.  Now, you have the knowledge to keep charting, year after year, with success after success.

• BECOME A STUDENT OF HISTORY.  Abe Lincoln has nothing on you.  With your freshly-minted PMP credentials, you can show ‘em how it’s done.  At the end of every project, capture best practices and lessons learned, creating an invaluable documentation of hits and misses.  You’ll quickly become the “go-to” person who is always in the know.

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About the Author:   Michelle LaBrosse, PMP Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, is the founder and Chief Cheetah of Cheetah Learning.  An international expert on accelerated learning and Project Management, she has grown Cheetah Learning into the market leader for Project Management training and professional development.  In 2006, The Project Management Institute, www.pmi.org, selected Michelle as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the World, and only one of two women selected from the training and education industry.  With a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, LaBrosse has done extensive postgraduate work with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Educational Studies and with the University of Washington Industrial Engineering Program in accelerating adult learning with respect to meeting core business objectives.  Michelle is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Owner & President Management program for entrepreneurs, and is the author of Cheetah Project Management and Cheetah Negotiations.

By Jeff Oltmann

You Can't Avoid Change

Customers change their minds.    Competitors zig instead of zagging.  Technology advances.  Change is constant, and prohibiting it on projects does not work. 

In Flexible Product Development, Preston Smith asks, “Is a frozen specification simply fiction?”  Citing thirteen years of data collection by Donald Reinertsen at Cal Tech, Smith concludes,   “It is not that specifications seldom remain constant during development; it is that they never do.  The concept of frozen requirements is a complete fiction in the real world.”  [Smith, p. 13]

You can’t prevent changes to your projects, but allowing rampant uncontrolled change dooms projects.  Is there solution to this dilemma? 

Make Change Valuable

In The New Project Management, J. Davidson Frame points out that change can be valuable.  [Frame, p. 48]  Companies that react flexibly and quickly can take advantage of market shifts, new technologies, and changing customer desires, giving them an advantage over their slower, less flexible competitors.

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About the Author:   Jeff Oltmann Jeff Oltmann is principal consultant at Synergy Professional Services, LLC in Portland, Oregon (www.spspro.com).  He is also on the graduate faculty of the Division of Management at Oregon Health and Science University.  His specialties include strategy deployment, operational excellence, and project portfolio management.  Jeff is a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience managing successful technology programs.  He ran the Program Management Office (PMO) and a $60M project portfolio for IBM’s xSeries development facility in Oregon.  Jeff’s hands-on program management experience includes program budgets over $100M and worldwide cross-functional teams of over 100 members.  Jeff welcomes your questions and ideas.  You can contact him at jeff@spspro.com or read previous articles at www.spspro.com/resources.htm.

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