Bridging the Gap: Connecting the PMBOK® Guide’s Best Practices to Federal Project Management Competencies Jeff Beverage, PMP, CSM, CSP, PMIACP

BRIDGING THE GAP: CONNECTING THE PMBOK® GUIDE’S BEST PRACTICES TO FEDERAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMPETENCIES

Jeff Beverage, PMP, CSM, CSP, PMI-ACP One of the many unique complexities of the federal In terms of content, FAC-P/PM courses focus on seven competencies: Requirements Development to engage their counterparts to develop shared language and common understanding of how the Chief Executive Officer project management and Management, Systems Engineering, Test project will be managed. Exploring these topics can Corner Post Management Experts environment is the strong emphasis on managing not and Evaluation, Life Cycle Logistics, Contracting, Leadership, and Business, Cost, and Financial even be a great way to strike up conversation and build relationships with your contractors or your just projects and programs, Management (those last 3 being combined into customers early on in a new project engagement but acquisitions. Simply one competency – Business, Cost, and Financial (Federal Acquisition Institute, 2013). For more put, the acquisition process – buying goods and Management). As noted above, each of these information in FAC-P/PM certification, visit the services on behalf of the federal government – is competencies is geared towards managing in Federal Acquisition Institute’s website at www.fai. heavily regulated to ensure that agencies are being the context of the acquisition with the work gov. effective stewards of taxpayer dollars (PMI, 2017). being executed by teams of contractors (Federal Project management is therefore intricately linked to Acquisition Institute, 2013). Agile is another area contract management. The federal project manager where PMI is moving faster to adopt while most (PM) plans the scope, schedule, and cost within the FAC-P/PM courses are exclusively focused on constraints of their congressional appropriations predictive management concepts, though there (PMI, 2017). Then they solicit, select, and oversee has been more acknowledgement of agile practices contractors who perform the hands-on work of and principles in recent years (Federal Acquisition the project. As such, training and certification for Institute, 2013). federal program and project managers go beyond PMBOK® Guide fundamentals and focuses on acquisition integration. The distinction between FAC-P/PM and PMP® is especially important for PMs in federal government and government-adjacent industries to understand, Most federal agencies require, or at least encourage, not to compare the value of the credentials, but program and project managers to obtain the aptly to recognize that one’s project management named Federal Acquisition Certification for Program education may differ from their collaborators on and Project Managers (FAC-P/PM). Originally the other side of the fence. PMs in both federal modeled after the Defense Acquisition Workforce and contractor roles must invest the time and effort Improvement Act (DAWIA) Career Field Certifications, FAC-P/PM was first established in 2007 and has become the standard for PMs in non-Department of Defense agencies (Federal Acquisition Institute, 2013). Under the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI), PMs can be certified at entry, mid, or senior level with each level having its own training and experience requirements. The FAI is the federal organization that facilitates and promotes career development, provides standardized guidance for FAC-P/PM to all agencies. The certification itself is issued by each agency’s Acquisition Career Manager (ACM) (Federal Acquisition Institute, 2013). Although FAC-P/PM is generally considered to be the ‘federal equivalent’ to Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification, which is issued by Project Management Institute, there are a handful of key differences from both a process and content standpoint. Process-wise, FAC-P/PM has a lengthier and defined training curriculum, varying experience requirements for each level, and no certification exam (though some individual classes do have a final exam). Each level includes 80 to 112 hours of training within a defined set of courses, compared to 35 contact hours to apply for the PMP® (Federal Acquisition Institute, 2013)(PMI, 2017). FAC-P/PM applicants must demonstrate one, two, or four years of project management experience for entry, mid, and senior level, respectively, including one year of federal PM experience for senior level. PMP® certification requires three years of experience (Federal Acquisition Institute, 2013) (PMI, 2017).

“PMs in both federal and contractor roles must invest the time and effort to engage their counterparts to develop shared language and common understanding.”

References:

Federal Acquisition Institute. (2013). Program and Project Managers (FAC-P/PM). https:// www.fai.gov/certification/program-and-project-managers-fac-ppm

Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide) (6th ed.). Project Management Institute.

“Training and certification for federal program and project managers go beyond PMBOK® Guide fundamentals.”