I am glad to report that after 5 years I finally did something about getting my PMP credential. Currently in Jinja, Uganda at the source of the Nile on a capacity building contract working with the Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF). The project is named the African Rapid Response Peacekeeping Initiative or APRRP. It’s funded through the US Dept of State’s Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI).
Backing up for a moment, I left the US Marines on Oct. 31 2009 as a major. Working in the NGO world starting with Afghanistan I learned I needed to work on my civilian project management skills. The military gave me insight into planning processes such as the Marine Corps Planning Process (MCPP) and the Rapid Response Planning Process (R2P2). These helped me to understand systems like the 6 Stage Planning process the British implemented and are widely used by many East African community member states. This planning process is used in support of contingency issues or the UN activity in Somalia.
I was working in Haiti when I signed up for a project management boot camp. I took the test a month later and failed. I wasn’t pleased and to be fair I honestly decided to take a break. I was distracted with a 3 year contract in Dhaka, Bangladesh as the Deputy Country Director at Helen Keller International (HKI) on a food security project. I took a refresher course in project management there and applied modest amounts of the curriculum where I felt it would assist us. The most obvious places were in schedule and cost management. Quality assurance and control were paramount to ensuring a verified delivery became an accepted delivery and so on.
Finally in 2020, while working in Uganda I managed to find a testing facility in Kampala and on 21 Feb. 2020 I finally attained my goal and became certified.
Cheers!
Carlo Nino On-Line 