I recently got selected for audit on my PgMP (Program Management Professional) certification application. For many people, audit notification would elicit a groan, some mumbling, and probably a fair amount of frustration.

But, believe it or not, I was actually hoping to be audited. Crazy, eh? (now, I wasn't running around the office doing the happy-dance, but I was glad I was selected.)

Here is the reason. At PPM, we claim to be "The Certification Experts". Well, I'm sorry, you can't be an expert unless you have personal experience with something.

Reminds me of a story from when I was younger.

My mother owned a large child care facility. She would have recent college graduates, with degrees in early childhood, show up at the door applying for work. Most of the time, she turned them down. She needed people with practical experience handling kids, not some "theoretical read-it-in-a-book-mumbo-jumbo."

However, this one lady, in her very impressive tweed skirt, heels and up-do, insisted my mother would be "lucky" to have someone of her caliber working at her facility. So my mother gave in and instructed her to go in with the class of 2-year-olds. When my mother checked in about 20 minutes later, the woman was practically in tears. One toddler was crying for his "mama", another had found the box of finger paints and was painting the carpet, and a third had thrown up on her tweed skirt. When my mother asked what the problem was, the woman replied "they didn't teach me how to deal with this in grad school!". With a smirk on her face, my mother escorted her to the door.

She passed that perspective on to me - I feel if you are providing guidance, you should have the experience yourself first. I did not get audited for my first three certifications (PMP, PMI-RMP, and PMI-SP), so I had to simply leverage the knowledge and experience of our staff here at PPM (such as Devin - who was audited for his CAPM) and our students.

But now I'm official. I have walked the walk, so I can talk the talk! =)

And honestly, it's not too bad. Other than the waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

I prepared ahead of time for the potential for audit and submitted two programs that I knew could be easily verified. This made the paperwork a lot easier.

The package of the audit materials was sent overnight delivery and arrived at PMI on Monday, January 24th.

That means, should the 1-week audit time line be correct, I will be getting notified today that I cleared the audit process.

Next step will be the panel review of my program management experience. After that, I take the exam, and then the last step in the process is the multi-rater assessment where individuals I selected have to provide feedback on my program management capabilities. Quite the process, but it will be well worth it in the end!

Stay tuned for more updates on my PgMP!
Belinda