How to achieve your chartered status

For the past six years, I’ve been working at Zero Waste Scotland and four years ago, I was given the opportunity to do my Prince 2 qualification as project management was a large part of my role.

During this training, I realised that programme and project management was a discipline in its own right and was a combination of all the elements I’d enjoyed from previous roles. From this point on, my development has focused on progressing in this area, and I have gone on to do my Managing Successful Programmes qualification, followed by my Project Professional Qualification with APM, while working as a programme manager to get experience.

Since the Chartered Project Professional standard is a professional benchmark that demonstrates attainment of a defined level of technical knowledge, professional practice and ethical behaviour, it felt important for me to work towards this so I could demonstrate all that I have achieved since focusing my efforts on this career path.

The benefits of achieving this standard, for me, is that I felt more confident in the skills and knowledge that are necessary to fulfil my role effectively and competently. I’m also the first in Zero Waste Scotland to have achieved Chartered status and I will be using the knowledge I have gained to further progress the internal team, while also encouraging and supporting the professional development of others.

I’m currently seconded to the Scottish Government to provide programme management expertise to a range of programmes in the Circular Economy area and I feel that having achieved the ChPP standard, it demonstrates to others my commitment to the profession.

I also have recently become a Gateway Review Team member and took part in my first independent review. I relied on the experience and knowledge I have gained on my journey to become chartered through the review process and felt confident giving recommendations, specifically around Net Zero and sustainability improvements that could be made.

I strongly advise others who are thinking about a ChPP application to use all of the APM resources available to help them understand the routes that are open to them and to speak to people who have become chartered to hear how they found the experience. I would also recommend the mentoring service that the APM provides to identify someone to work with on your professional development.

Speaking from personal experience, while working through the chartered application process, I had support from my mentor and other project professionals to guide me through the process and provide feedback. This support has been incredibly helpful, insightful and contributed towards my success in achieving chartered status.

I found the ChPP guidance, particularly the excel spreadsheet, helpful in assisting me to determine how to complete my ChPP application.

The application process also gave me the opportunity to reflect on how much I have learnt through training courses, experience and working with more knowledgeable programme managers.

And finally, I thoroughly enjoyed my interview experience; the two assessors I spoke to put me completely at ease and really got the best out of me.