APM Chartered Project Professional and Registered Project Professional Coaching
What is Chartered Project Professional?
Becoming a Chartered Project Professional will be the pinnacle of your project management career. It will evidence the fact that you are among the pre-eminent professionals practicing to a defined code of conduct having demonstrated the requisite knowledge and skill.
For those professionals holding the APM Registered Project Professional (RPP) designation your route to Chartered will be relatively straightforward, but for those of you without RPP you may need some support and guidance to help see you through successfully.
ChPP is available to anyone, from any professional project background not just project managers, but programme, portfolio managers as well as specialist skills such as risk management and project controls.
Who Is It Suitable For?
To achieve the ChPP standard you must demonstrate competence (knowledge and application) of ten core competencies and two elective competences.
Mandatory competences
Evidence needed for all 10
Team management
The ability to select, develop and manage teams.
Conflict management
The ability to identify, address and resolve differences between individuals and/or interest groups.
Leadership
The ability to empower and inspire others to deliver successful change initiatives.
Risk, opportunity and issue management
The ability to identify and monitor risks (threats and opportunities), to plan and implement responses to those risks, and to respond to other issues that affect the change initiative.
Consolidated planning
The ability to consolidate and document the fundamental components of a change initiative: scope; schedule; resource requirements; budgets; risks; opportunities and issues; and quality requirements.
Governance arrangements
The ability to establish and maintain governance structures that define clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities for governance and delivery of change initiatives, and that align with organisational practice.
Stakeholder and communications management
The ability to manage stakeholders, taking account of their levels of influence and particular interests.
Reviews
The ability to establish and manage reviews at appropriate points, during and after change initiatives, which will inform governance of the change initiatives, by providing evaluations of progress, methodologies and continuing relevance.
Change control
The ability to establish protocols to alter the scope of change initiatives, implementing the protocols when necessary, and updating configuration documentation, including contracts to develop, maintain and apply quality management processes for change initiative activities and outputs.
Budgeting and cost control
The ability to develop and agree budgets for change initiatives, and to control forecast and actual costs against the budget.
OR
Financial management
The ability to plan and control the finances of programmes or portfolios and their related change initiatives, as a means of driving performance and as part of the organisation’s overall financial management.
Elective competences
Evidence needed for two
Procurement
The ability to secure provision of resources needed for change initiative(s) from internal and/or external providers.
Contract management
The ability to agree contracts for the provision of goods and/or services, to monitor compliance and to manage variances.
Requirements management
The ability to prepare and maintain definitions of the requirements of change initiatives.
Solutions development
The ability to determine the best means of satisfying requirements within the context of the change initiative’s objectives and constraints.
Schedule management
The ability to prepare and maintain schedules for activities and events for change initiatives, taking account of dependencies and resource requirements.
Resource management
The ability to develop, implement and update resource allocation plans (other than finance) for change initiatives, taking account of availabilities and scheduling.
Quality management
The ability to develop, maintain and apply quality management processes for change initiative activities and outputs.
Transition management
The ability to manage the integration of the outputs of change initiatives into business as usual, addressing the readiness of users, compatibility of work systems and the realisation of benefits.
Resource capacity planning
The ability to prepare and maintain an overall schedule for resource use in related change initiatives, which avoids bottlenecks and conflicting demands, and which sequences outcomes in order to enable the efficient realisation of benefits.
Frameworks and methodologies
The ability to identify and/or develop frameworks and methodologies that will ensure management of change initiatives will be comprehensive and consistent across different initiatives. (In this context, ‘framework’ means the parameters, constraints or rules established to standardise delivery.)
Independent assurance
The ability to gather independent evidence that the information from the change initiative is valid, and that the change initiative is likely to achieve its aims.
Our recommendation is that you do this by following the 70-20-10 model for development. Put simply this means you evaluate your current competence and then use CPD to plug any gaps. For more information read out blog post on using the 70-20-10 for project management development and also the guidance published by the APM on the application process.
ChPP Application Process
There are currently three routes to ChPP status. These are:
- Route 1: for those who have a recognised assessment for technical knowledge. For the moment no qualifications are registered to meet the requirements to advanced technical knowledge. It is up to the awarding bodies to apply to the APM for these to be recognised and we expect to see these emerge over the next few months.
- Route 2: for those who have a recognised assessment for technical knowledge and professional practice. Currently the RPP qualification is the only recognised assessment in this category.
- Route 3: an experiential route for those who do not have a recognised assessment but do meet the eligibility criteria. This will be assessed based on the application and a more detailed interview than routes 1 and 2.
In all cases the process involves a paper application and then an interview (which can be conducted face-to-face or on-line). The RPP application is very similar with a written application and then an interview.
How can Parallel Support me?
The APM provide detailed guidance on how to prepare and complete the application. However this guidance primarily focuses on the application process, and not the longer term steps to achieve the standard. To be successful your application should be based on an honest and detailed review of your competences against the standard. We recognise that every individual may have very different development needs, so if you feel the need for some external guidance then we would be delighted to offer you one-to-one coaching.
Each session is tailored to your needs but we will typically cover.
- A review of your employment history
- A guided benchmarking of your competences against the ChPP standard.
- Support to prepare a CPD development plan to address any gaps in your knowledge, experience.
- The development of a plan to consolidate the next steps
- Advice and guidance across a few chosen competencies
- Advice and guidance against your project track records
Stage One (Written Application) Support - Follow-On Coaching
Each learner will be provided with a ChPP coach, someone who understands the process fully and is able to provide support and guidance in the preparation of the application. This can happen either remotely or in person and face to face. The time allowed for this is approximately one half day per person. This may be undertaken individually or as part of a larger group on a webinar basis or perhaps over the telephone to support those candidates who work remotely, have time or domestic restrictions on travel or would prefer that approach.
The objective is to arrive at a completed application pack for each candidate suitable for presentation to the APM. It must be stressed that the coaches cannot actually suggest content but can advise on the suitability of the content written by the applicant. Further coaching can be made available on an individual basis at extra cost.
Stage Two (Written Application) Support – One Day Interview Coaching
For candidates who have had a successful outcome from the Stage One process there will be a follow up workshop to prepare the candidate for the stage two interviews. This will include a checklist of preparation and during the one day session candidates will be coached on how to develop their interviewing skills around the material they have presented. Candidates will be invited to interview each other and to provide feedback. A short presentation on effective feedback will be provided as part of the session.
Candidates that have been unsuccessful will have the option of undertaking a further coaching session to review the feedback and determine the best way forward, whether to resubmit immediately or consider accumulating more experience or evidence to re-apply in the future.
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