CompTIA Project+ Certifications

CompTIA Project+ is another entry-level project management credential, roughly on par with PMI’s CAPM (Project+ fills more or less the same niche that the CAPM does). Instead of emerging from a leading, industry trade organization whose sole focus is project management and related activities, Project+ comes from a computing-industry-spanning organization that puts its credentials together based on input from industry players, representatives from government, academia, research institutions, subject matter experts and other interested parties who must pay to participate in credential design (training companies, publishers and so forth).

Does this make the Project+ inferior to the CAPM? Good question! Because the Project+ preceded the CAPM, we’re inclined to treat PMI’s decision to introduce the CAPM (in 2004) as a tacit endorsement of the Project+ concept (originally named IT Project+ when it was first introduced in 1999).

The biggest differences (and they have their pros and cons) between the CAPM and the Project+ is the experience and background requirement. The CAPM cert requires a high school diploma plus either 1,500 hours of on-the-job project management experience or 23 hours of classroom training in project management. The Project+ certification, on the other hand, makes no such stipulations. While this makes the Project+ easier to obtain, it’s also possible to argue that it’s thus also less valuable or meaningful.

That said, Project+ functions as a workable stepping stone to the PMP, just as the CAPM does. Our gut feel is that either certification functions about the same on the way to the PMP, with the CAPM earning a slight edge thanks to its more stringent requirements. A quick check of job sites (see Table 1) confirms that employers mention CAPM by name more often than Project+.

Table 4: CompTIA Project+ Facts & Figures

Certification Name

• CompTIA Project+

Prerequisites/Required Courses

• None; one year of experience managing, directing or participating in small- to medium-scale projects recommended.

Number of Exams

• One exam: PK0-003 or JK0-017 (CompTIA Academy Partners only) (100 questions, 90 minutes, passing score 710)

Cost per Exam

• $269 USD

URL

certification.comptia.org/getCertified/certifications/project.aspx

Self-Study Materials

• CompTIA Project+ Study Guide, by Kim Heldman, published May 24, 2010, Sybex, ISBN-10: 0470585927, ISBN-13: 978-0470585924
• CompTIA maintains a variety of self-study options including: sample exam questions, exam objectives, CompTIA CertMaster, along with various self-paced, eLearning and other training options.