Background
I was recently asked the same question by product managers and business analysts on whether they should pursue PMP. It is a great question considering that it is paid. Not many organizations (if you are employed) reimburse it. I have been part of waterfall, agile and hybrid initiatives. As someone who has both PMP and agile certifications, I am stating my point of view here.
Multi-year initiatives
Many organizations today are going through multi-year initiatives such as digital tranformation or new businesses starting to get on to their digital journey. These times are challenging because a 2 or 3 week sprint will not most likely noy deliver value to customers. So, you ’d need to come up with MVPs/MLPs (Most valuable product/most lovable product - whatever acronym your organization prefers :D). Here you ’d have product deciding the MVPs. You ’d need to partner with delivery management (i.e. program managers).
Estimation
In these times, customers want to see constant value. Estimation of the MVP is important to understand realistically how long it would take to build. As a team, we want to be as lean as possible. That will also help your product managers/ business analysts to suggest changes to the MVP. That way your customer is always receiving value.
Risk Management
When you come up with your MVP, think of the risks of what would happen if you get this wrong? What is the worst thing? In what ways can you minimize the risk? Can you try on your new features with a small set of customers?
Agile execution
You have MVP decided. Instead of a big-bang approach, we go on with 2 week sprints to check our progress and communicate should there be challenges. Also, if you see that there are changes in the dates you had originally estimated then they can be communicated much sooner. You can find a way out instead of letting the customer know last minute.
You have better tools to track initiatives than MS Project. For example, Atlassian’s JIRA is a good one.
Final Thoughts
I have seen strong supporters of both waterfall (PMP) and agile (PSPO, CSP). But the reality is that you need a bit of both to complete your intiative successfully. You can have beta customers to test out your initiatives. That way you know what reaction to expect. Not one size fits all and so decide accordingly!!! You can certainly pursue PMP, if you want to learn more and can afford it!