Building on the Foundation
It struck me recently that I must have helped a rather large number of people pass their APMP Foundation Level exam since we were endorsed as an APMP Approved Training Organisation a couple of years ago. There are well over a hundred of you out there who’ve passed having attended one of my sessions, which is well over 10% of the total to have attained the qualification.
Now, we’ve never really seen the APMP accreditation scheme as a money-making operation; BJ and I participate in it because we’re passionate about its importance to the profession. If one calculated our investment in accreditation, and weighed that against our continuing efforts to offer training in this area as cost-effectively as possible, the balance sheet would horrify our bank managers. Indeed, we’ve even donated the proceeds of events in the past to the Association’s coffers; I’m willing to be corrected, but I think we were the first to do so.
But we love meeting the range of people who come into our classes – from different industry sectors, from organisations of wildly differing sizes, from clients old and new. And it occurs to me to wonder how these folks fare after the course. I’d welcome any comments on the following, either here or by email:
1. Has Foundation Level proved useful? Has it helped you learn new tricks, provided you with an injection of confidence, made you more credible with your colleagues, helped you gain a pay rise, strengthened your c.v., been useful in gaining a new job?
2. Not that high a proportion of those passing Foundation worldwide have yet moved on to reach Practitioner level. What inhibits them? Is it time, cost, fear of failure, the breadth of the syllabus, lack of the necessary three years’ experience?
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For myself, I noticed that I suddenly was treated with more respect once collegues started seeing those initials after my name. They no longer treated me as a “glorified word processor.” Also, when I negotiated a new position I found it a lot easier to get my asking salary.
I finally got my Practioner Level Accredidation after a year of looking at the form and being terrified. Some of the questions didn’t apply to my industry and I assumed that I wouldn’t get approved. I learned in talking to APMP members who had gone through the process that I shouldn’t let that stop me. I just explained how my industry did that task and listed what training I did have. I realized after going through my records that I had much more training than I thought. Once I got going, it turned out to be easier than I thought and I had no trouble passing that level. The other thing to keep in mind is that your reference does not have to be your boss. It can be anyone you know in the field that you have worked with at one time or another.
[...] to a couple of readers for their emails in response to my previous post. Both discussed the challenges that may prevent some of those who’ve passed the APMP [...]
7 of my colleagues and I have recently passed the foundation exam (thanks Jon!) and we’re already finding it has improved our profile in the organisation (the fact that we made a point of publicising it didn’t do any harm…)
We’re keen to move to practitioner level but my feeling is that the syllabus is going to be too wide for some of our team who are specialist writers and document managers. Whilst they understand the principles of proposal management they will not have real life examples of following all of these principles in their day to day job. It would be fantastic if the accreditation syllabus could be extended to reflect the large number of specialist roles within bid and proposal management.
Susan – I agree that the practitioner level is very focused on proposal *managers*. But watch this space; I’m currently working on some interesting plans regarding certification for proposal writers. More to follow before very long!
Jon – interested to see what you said about forthcoming certfication for proposal writers. As part of a discussion stream on growing the APMP on LinkedIn we were considering the value of encouraging better tools for collaboration between specialists whose area of activity falls within the broad church of the APMP. Similarly the accreditation could allow one to achieve practitioner level based on deep experience in at least one area of specialism but practical exposure to the others (I think it does this to an extent but clearly many are struggling with the whole process) . Many large professional organisations have specific experience demands, but apply them broadly across disciplines with some sucess. – Mark
[...] recent ponderings about the APMP Foundation Level qualification also made me wonder about the folks who get the highest marks in the exams at the end of our [...]