survey

Remember that Survey on Product Management Certification (results here)? And how the Cranky Product Manager warned the certification training vendors NOT to stuff the ballot box in attempt to skew the results?

Well, readers tipped off the Cranky Product Manager about 2 emails circulating the known product-manage-osphere, each from a different training/certification firm.  These huffy emails were apparently sent to product managers who already had some kind of certification. Recipients were urged to take the Cranky PM’s survey and were explicitly instructed to say certification is super marvelous, akin to a holy sacrament.  Why? “In order to maintain the value and credibility of the professional certification you have worked so hard to earn.”

One of these emails even went as far as providing “suggested answers”  for EACH and EVERY question!

Also, these frenetic emails described the Cranky Product Manager as “biased” and “disgruntled”  !!!

How DARE they!

Hmmmppph.  OK, granted, the CPM is disgruntled.  That’s fine.  Disgruntled is practically a synonym for cranky.

But BIASED? What?  REALLY? As opposed to WHAT?

As opposed to YOU, Certification-Training-and-Test-Giving Firm? You who conducts certification classes and proctors exams for a piddly $2000-$5000 per student per week?

Hang on while the Cranky Product Manager calculates exactly how wicked biased you are, compared to her.

OK, assume you get a class of 10 students at least 4-5 times a year. That means 40-50 students. At somewhere between 2K and 5K per student, that means that you make … (hold on, let’s do the math… carry the two, add the five…OK, math done)…

OK, You OFFICIALLY make a BOATLOAD FROM CERTIFICATION. As in, you could probably make a decent 6-figure income for just 4-5 weeks of work per year. As in, your firm earns somewhere between $700 and $1600 per instructor hour.  Sure, there’s some costs involved (licensing fees to the industry orgs, instructor time, classroom rental,  materials, etc), but the CPM has gotta think your profit per hour is very, very decent.

Nice work if you can get it. No wonder you love certification.

So, no, you’re not biased. NO WAY…. No one would EVER think that.

For the record, the Cranky Product Manager receives NO MONEY from any aspect of certification. She does not (currently) hold any certificates or designations, other than an MBA in marketing and a Bachelors in computer science — both from schools you’ve actually heard of, and NOT because they advertise on TV.

That said, if given the opportunity to score a certification without touching her own wallet, the Cranky Product Manager would probably go for it. Just cuz.  She’s curious about what’s on those tests. Plus she’s pretty awesome at standardized tests — she’s sure she’d crush it.

And crush yo’ heads for  calling the CPM biased, beeyotches…

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Reminder: the Cranky Product Manager’s survey on product management and product marketing certification ends on 12/19/2009 at midnight.

Please participate if you haven’t already. And forward it to other PMs, PMMs, and people who hire PMs/PMMs. The Cranky Product Manager is genuinely interested in the responses.  As are many other people.

The Cranky Product Manager will post the complete survey results, including all raw data, very soon. Probably on Monday. But no promises.

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If you follow the CPM on Twitter, you know she’s been pondering the issue of Certifications in Product Management and Product Marketing lately.  Are they worth it? 

And if so, which ones are worthwhile?  There’s the AIPMM Certified Product Manager (CPM), the AIPMM Certified Product Marketing Manager (CPMM), the PDMA New Product Development Professional (NPDP), the Pragmatic Marketing Certified (PMC) one… A sea of initials that no one knows.

If Google searches on this blog are any indication, lots of other people wonder if certifications are worthwhile as well.

So help the Cranky Product Manager, help your peers, and help yourself. Take the below quickie survey.  Forward it to other PMs/PMMs you know.  The Cranky Product Manager will publish full results in about 10 days, and she will also make the entire results spreadsheet available for download on this blog.

And then finally, we can have a better idea whether these certifications actually mean something.

(And if you are a consulting firm that sells training for these certifications, DON’T BE A CREEP AND TRY TO SKEW THE RESULTS BY GETTING YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY TO VOTE).

If you are viewing this in an RSS feed reader, access the certification survey here.

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