PMD Pro Forward: Making the World Better one Project at a Time

Abstract

This paper looks at the results and benefits of the first five years of the “Guide to the PMD Pro” and its accompanying certification. The “Guide to the PMD Pro” is a project management standard designed to cross cultural boundaries and provide sound project management practices to those working within the humanitarian and international development sectors. It examines its origins and the story of the international development sector partnering with the private sector and the project management community to develop a contextualized body of knowledge, which promotes good practice, but remains sensitive to cultural variations. The paper goes on to analyze the reasons behind PMD Pro's rapid growth and assesses what impact it is having in seventy plus countries and cultures around the world. The impacts described include an increasingly common language across the development sector to describe projects and increased efficiency and effectiveness in project delivery. In one study, 95% of responding field leaders agreed that the investment in project management training for their team has paid off and 86% of trained project managers made changes to their practice as a result of the training. In the words of one trainee, “It is the reason why some kids in Zambia have clean water, why some clinics were built on time and why a poor farmer in Eastern Zambian harvested. Never has a process improvement training and a catalogue of tools aided our work in the manner PMD Pro has.”