Reese Morrison raises a good point in a recent post to his Law Department Management blog. His brief post discusses how more firms are pursuing project management credentials, but warns that marketing certification without demonstrating greater quality and efficiency is just "window dressing." To read his post, click HERE.
The irony here is that firms will have difficulty demonstrating greater quality and efficiency without an active and effective program for monitoring, measuring, and reporting on the legal services provided. Most law firms are woefully unprepared to give objective proof of the value of their services or to quantify claimed improvements in efficiency or quality. Nearly any law firm will benefit from instituting a project management program, but nobody is saying that merely hiring a PMP (or a PRINCE 2 practitioner, or Six Sigma black belt, etc.) is going to ensure improvements in a firm's delivery of legal services.
Having a PMP certification doesn't guarantee you'll be a good project manager any more than passing the bar means you'll be a good lawyer. Memorizing the PMBOK backwards and forwards doesn't mean you can take control of a complex project any more than mastery of a legal subject means you'll shine in court or be any good at negotiating a settlement. There are many facets of a great project manager that no standardized test can adequately measure, just as many of the characteristics of a great lawyer can't be predicted or measured by the LSAT, MBE, MPT, MPRE, or any state bar examination. What the PMBOK can provide is familiarity with a subset of project management generally recognized as good practice by project management experts. It provides a standard framework that will be applicable to most projects most of the time.
The irony here is that firms will have difficulty demonstrating greater quality and efficiency without an active and effective program for monitoring, measuring, and reporting on the legal services provided. Most law firms are woefully unprepared to give objective proof of the value of their services or to quantify claimed improvements in efficiency or quality. Nearly any law firm will benefit from instituting a project management program, but nobody is saying that merely hiring a PMP (or a PRINCE 2 practitioner, or Six Sigma black belt, etc.) is going to ensure improvements in a firm's delivery of legal services.
Having a PMP certification doesn't guarantee you'll be a good project manager any more than passing the bar means you'll be a good lawyer. Memorizing the PMBOK backwards and forwards doesn't mean you can take control of a complex project any more than mastery of a legal subject means you'll shine in court or be any good at negotiating a settlement. There are many facets of a great project manager that no standardized test can adequately measure, just as many of the characteristics of a great lawyer can't be predicted or measured by the LSAT, MBE, MPT, MPRE, or any state bar examination. What the PMBOK can provide is familiarity with a subset of project management generally recognized as good practice by project management experts. It provides a standard framework that will be applicable to most projects most of the time.
So yes, merely hiring a certified project manager is not going to transform your practice if you don't empower the project management team and make a firm-wide effort to help lawyers and staff understand and value project management. Similarly, when hiring a project manager, you need to look beyond the certificate. You have to look at the PM's experience to determine if they have leadership, communication skills, and ability to apply standards to services; a background in legal support services helps (litigation over defective widgets is different than producing widgets).
Project management certification and accreditation is determined by the passing of two exams. The Foundation exam is a multiple-choice test that lasts for up to one hour. The Practitioner test is a bit more complex, mixing in objective testing with multiple-choice questions, and clocking in at approximately three hours.