Top Five Project Management Skills for IT Professionals

The best thing you can do to enhance your IT career is stay up to date on training and get certifications. A lot of work done in IT today is project work.

Adding project management skills to your skill sets will greatly enhance your worth and your ability to contribute to your company.

The top five project management skills an IT professional should look at to add to their toolbox include:

PMP – Project Management Institute’s Project Management Professional

Individuals who hold PMI’s PMP credential demonstrate a proficient level of project management leadership skills, and as a result are able to command salaries that exceed those of their non-credentialed counterparts.  To be eligible for a PMP credential, you must meet specific guidelines that objectively measure experience, education and professional knowledge.

For more information about PMP certification visit the Project Management Institute website.

CAPM – Certified Associate in Project Management

Designed specifically for project team members, the CAPM credential is aimed at improving overall project success by helping to ensure project management knowledge. To become a CAPM credential holder, you must meet specific guidelines designed to objectively measure experience, education and professional knowledge.

For more information about CAPM certification visit the Project Management Institute website.

ITIL – Information Technology Infrastructure Library

ITIL offers three certifications. Foundation which offers inside into ITIL processes and relations. Practitioner which is a specialist in the design and execution of processes. Manager which is for those responsible for the setup and implementation of ITIL.

• The Foundation Certificate enables people to understand the terminology used within ITIL. It focuses on foundation knowledge with regard to the ITIL Service Support and Service Delivery sets as well as generic ITIL philosophy and background. It is a prerequisite for the Practitioner’s and Manager’s Certificates in IT Service Management.
• The Practitioner Certificate focuses upon the understanding and application of the specific processes within the IT Service Management discipline.
• The Manager’s Certificate is aimed at experienced professionals, who will be involved in managing service management functions.

For more information about ITIL certification visit the Official ITIL website.

CBAP – Business Analysts’ Certified Business Analysis Professional

Certified Business Analysis Professionals are experts in identifying the business needs of an organization in order to determine the best solutions, a role that is increasingly seen as a vital component of any successful project. More and more companies are recognizing the CBAP designation and the value and expertise that these professionals bring to their organizations.

For more information on CBAP certification visit the International Institute of Business Analysis website.

ISO 20000

ISO/IEC 20000 is the first worldwide standard specifically aimed at IT Service Management. It describes an integrated set of management processes for the effective delivery of services to the business and its customers.

ISO/IEC 20000 is aligned with and complementary to the process approach defined within ITIL from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

ISO/IEC 20000 consists of two parts:

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 is the formal Specification and defines the requirements for an organization to deliver managed services of an acceptable quality for its customers. The scope includes:

• Requirements for a management system;
• Planning and implementing service management;
• Planning and implementing new or changed services;
• Service delivery process;
• Relationship processes;
• Resolution processes;
• Control processes; and
• Release processes.

ISO/IEC 20000-2:2005 is the Code of Practice and describes the best practices for Service Management processes within the scope of ISO/IEC 20000-1. The code of Practice will be of particular use to organizations preparing to be audited against ISO/IEC 20000 or planning service improvements.

For more information on ISO 20000 certification visit the ISO/IEC 20000 website.

COBIT – Control Objectives for Information and related Technology

(COBIT) is a set of best practices (framework) for information technology (IT) management created by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and the IT Governance Institute (ITGI) in 1992. COBIT provides managers, auditors, and IT users with a set of generally accepted measures, indicators, processes and best practices to assist them in maximizing the benefits derived through the use of information technology and developing appropriate IT governance and control in a company.

For more information about COBIT visit the ISACA website.