IPMO-Foundation Certification (IPMO-F)

The International Project Management Officer (IPMO)® certification is the most important industry-recognized series of credentials for project management officers and professionals working in, or associated with, PMO activities and related services.

The foundation level certification is targeted at those PMO team members, project team members, and all stakeholders within the first year or two of their involvement in project environments.

The course explains the foundational knowledge to understand how PMOs add business value to delivery of projects within programs and portfolios.

The knowledge gained in the course will help you build skills from your existing and future workplace experience to become an increasingly competent PMO team member.

By the end of the course, participants will have demonstrated use of the steps and techniques to design, establish, and deliver PMO services. Certified IPMO Foundation members have demonstrated, through a combination of formal training and exam-based knowledge assessment, that they are able to contribute to the successful operation of a PMO in any organization.

COURSE OVERVIEW

The AIPMO Foundation level certification course brings the latest in academic research and best practices together into a PMO lifecycle framework. The AIPMO Lifecycle framework describes how to build a service-oriented PMO that delivers capabilities matched to project, program, and portfolio needs; your role(s) in running, monitoring, and controlling a PMO; what exactly is PMO success; and what is PMO maturity and how are factors connected to influence project success.

You will learn:

  • To view PMOs in terms of services and the associated supporting capabilities
  • How to design and deliver a core set of PMO services
  • The personal competencies that enable service delivery
  • Key tools and techniques (T&Ts) that enable, support, and extend personal competencies

COURSE MODULES

Insights covered in the course materials are those being collated to form AIPMO’s upcoming AIPMO Body of Knowledge. The AIPMO BoK will be comprised of several books that each addresses a particular aspect of the elements of a successful PMO. Course graduates will have a head start in understanding and using the framework of capabilities and linked techniques and tools.

To stand out as an excellent PMO professional, you need to know what is of greatest value to each unique project. A capability is gained from experiencing projects firsthand but is hugely accelerated by prior explanation of how the complex factors that exist in all organizations affect the projects, their stakeholders, and project controls.

This course both immerses you in the world of PMO service delivery and also in the worlds of project control over product development lifecycles. By using the course’s case study, you will see and practice the implications of your PMO’s actions on project success, team moral, and business results.

The use of the case study makes this course hands-on. Attendees work on the day-to-day operational aspects of PMOs by meeting the challenges to improve the running, monitoring, and controlling of a PMO using PMO best practices.

What You Need to Know

Duration

5 Days

Virtual: 30 Contact Hours

Assessment

Exam

Certification

IPMO-F Certificate

  • Understand how PMOs fit into the world of projects, programs, and portfolios
  • Understand the benefits of viewing PMOs in terms of services
  • Know what are PMO capabilities, how they are constructed in terms of competencies, tools, and techniques
  • Understand the AIPMO framework and the phases and processes carried out by a PMO team member
  • Learn the key PMO tools and techniques including templates you can take back to your organization before they are published in AIPMO’s upcoming book on tools and techniques
  • Understand what are the key documents uses to establish, run, monitor, and control PMO and PMO services
  • Be confident knowing what to do in common organizational PMO configuration
  • PMO/project/program/portfolio team members
  • Junior PMO or project managers
  • Project team members involved in the PMO related activities
  • Project/program/portfolio managers with some experience in PMOs
  • Any project or PMO stakeholder wishing to better understand how to run, monitor, and control services in a high-performing PMO setting

In-Class training approach includes:

·        Lecture

·        Team exercises and one-day workshop

·        Group discussions on pertinent topics

·        Detailed case study

·        Presentations and role play

·        Personal coaching (if time allows)

Virtual Course teaching approach (delivered through AIPMO’s Learning Management System) includes:

·        Lecture

·        Team exercises, polls, breakout rooms

·        Group discussions on pertinent topics

·        Detailed case study

·        Presentations and role play

·        Personal coaching (if time allows)

 

  • Ideally 1 year plus work experience, preferably in a project or PMO role
  • Educated at degree level or similar
  • 1 hour, with 50 multiple choice questions
  • Discussing the exam answers

How the Certification Differs from the IPMO-Practitioner™ Level

Both certification courses follow a similar structure utilizing the PMO lifecycle framework and the PMO services framework.

The foundation course provides a strong introduction to the nature of project-based working and introduces the project and program lifecycle and some common methods. These are assumed knowledge in the practitioner course.

Foundation certification course focus is more on the day-to-day activities of a PMO analyst in using the PMO lifecycle services framework. The course covers in detail the role of a PMO team member or a project team member in the processes of designing one or more PMO services, then running, monitoring, and controlling PMO services. The practitioner certification course covers both the PMO lifecycle framework for PMO creation and transition from business need, identify, evaluate and strategize, design, justification, as well as run, monitor, and control the PMO Services and Capabilities but more specifically as required by a PMO manager creating a PMO then running the PMO and team.

The practitioner course requires more extensive PMO and project management experience.

For information: AIPMO courses span Foundation, Practitioner, Expert, Masters and Doctors (Via the Swiss Business School). Expert and above are targeted at the PMO director, consultant, or professionals responsible to design, run, and/or resolve issues in the areas of enterprise project/program management across a collection of PMO at departmental levels.

This is the most comprehensive PMO certification suite in the world. Graduates of the E and higher courses have understanding of the problems and potential of PMOs in an enterprise-wide context. Participants are expected to take their own organization’s needs through the steps of developing PMO structures (entities, local, and shared services), which they then take back to implement in their organization.