How to Ace at Google PM Certification
Learning the basics is crucial to begin the journey towards the destination called ‘Project Management’.
As an IT Management Enthusiast, I am always on the run to find intriguing courses to keep my Management adrenaline going. In 2020, as soon as Google announced its ‘Project Management — Professional Certification’, I bookmarked it not only in my browser but also in my brain and desperately waited for its launch. Finally, my wait was over, I saw that the completion time was marked as ‘6 Months’. I knew that I wanted to cut it by half, also with no compromise over the learning and knowledge attainment. For all the like-minded people, I am jotting down a few tips and tricks to achieve this goal.
What is Google Project Management — Professional Certification?
For those who don’t know, Google Project Management — Professional Certification is a certification offered by Google in collaboration with Coursera. This certification has been designed to gain an immersive understanding of the practices and skills needed to succeed in the world of project management.
According to a study by the Project Management Institute, employers will need 87.7 million people to fill project management-related roles by the year 2027. Hence, this certification is a great way to head start your Project Management journey.
Courses Details
- Number of Courses: 6
- Fee: 34 Euros/Month
- Material Format: Videos / Reading Documents
- Kind of Activities: Quizzes /Multiple Choice Questions /Open-Ended Questions /Peer Graded Assignments/Quiz Based Assignments
- Extra Perks:
—100 hours of project management education, which helps prepare you for Project Management Institute Certifications
— 40% off on the globally recognized Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification from Scrum.org
— Access to a US-Based job portal where you can find and apply to relevant project management jobs
— Access to BigInterview to Build your resume, participate in mock interviews and receive job search tips
— Completion Badge from Credly
- Estimated Time for Completion: 153 Hours
- Required Tools:
— Spreadsheets (e.g., Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, etc.)
— Word processing applications (e.g., Google Docs, Microsoft Word, etc.)
— Presentation applications (e.g., Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc.)
- Optional tools: Asana
Here is the link to this Certification: Google Project Management — Professional Certification
Tips to Ace:
Here are a few steps that I followed, and now I am passing the candle to those who are starting their journey.
Be Consistent:
It’s no surprise that in order to ace at anything, one needs to be consistent. The key is to spare 2 hours each day to learn from videos, make notes and do the quizzes/exercises. If due to some unfortunate reason, you had to take a break, then don’t hesitate to ‘start again’ as many times as needed.
Make Notes:
All the courses are divided into small chunks of highly-understandable videos and reading materials. ALWAYS! ALWAYS! ALWAYS! (I cannot emphasize more on this) make notes to help you revise everything rapidly before an interview or whenever you want to look into your personal cheat sheet. It’s a real-time saver.
Utilize Travel Time:
We all commute daily while spending that time mostly on our phones scrolling through social media. It’s time to restrict yourself to utilize that time for learning. The videos provide a good grasp of the concepts and reading materials lead to the details of the topic. So, after grasping the main concepts, the reading materials can be kept for the commute times either to read or listen to the audio (by using text to audio apps). This time can be customized to your own style if you are comfortable learning videos, reading articles, or solving quizzes but the bottom line is ‘USE COMMUTE TIME’.
Self-Reminding Motivation:
I can assure you that there are going to be days when you will tell yourself ‘Let’s skip it today’, that is where you have to ask yourself ``Why did I start this?” and remind yourself of the ‘reason’. IT HELPS!
Treat Yourself:
Set a target for your mini victories. It could be either a course completion or a number of completed quizzes, activities, or anything. As soon as you achieve that target, celebrate your little victory. It keeps your train moving.
I would conclude with the message that Project Management is not something that can be achieved by exactly following textbook steps, it’s more like having a diverse range of Lego Pieces and joining them to create your desired shape. The more variety of lego pieces you have, the more shapes you can originate.
Note: All the prices and materials mentioned are subject to change.
Want to learn more about Google PM certification? Just write me an email at projectsmz360@gmail.com
