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Training and education is the underpinning of an effective project management environment. It provides individuals with the skill, knowledge, and competencies needed to implement project management guided by technical and business concepts and practices.
Project management has been emerging in the last few decades as a distinct professional discipline, to the point where institutions of higher learning currently offer a range of credentials from basic certificates to advanced degrees in project management. This suggests that organizations can pursue such professionalism to enhance their own capability and credibility in project management. To exaggerate the point, would you want a doctor, or an accountant, or an automobile mechanic to work on something you own without the best of credentials? Likewise, it better serves the business interests of an organization to avoid relegating its project management practice to untrained individuals.
The pursuit of training and education is a business decision that an organization deliberates relative to helping it to achieve strategic business objectives. The PMO, with its charter to advance the practice of professional project management, plays a key role in advising the relevant organization regarding training and education within the project management environment. Its purpose is to ensure that project participants throughout the relevant organization, from the most senior project manager to the part-time project assistant, apply a professional approach to the practice of modern project management consistent with their levels of responsibility.
This "training and education" function enables the PMO to:
Specify the competencies needed within the project management environment
Identify current competencies within the project management environment
Develop training and education programs to achieve competency objectives
Conduct and manage training and education programs
The PMO normally will implement training and education programs in collaboration with established training managers within the relevant organization. In some cases, as the need presents itself, it may establish a separate PMO position of project management training manager.
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