SAN FRANCISCO, California – Working in a large organization like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, project schedulers often operate in the shadows, shepherding the project schedule with a keen attention to detail. Amy Minnick, a senior project scheduler with USACE South Pacific Division, has taken advantage of documenting all her hard work - recently earning her Project Manager Scheduler Level 2 certification. Now that Minnick has acquired her certification, she wants to encourage other PM Schedulers to follow her lead.
With less than ten Level 2 PM Schedulers currently in the Corps of Engineers, Minnick feels other schedulers in her region can easily bolster these numbers, since the certification is a matter of documenting work and training that are already a required part of a scheduler’s career.
“This is the first time it's (PM Scheduler Level 2) certifications been available in this career field within the Corps,” explains Minnick. “I think this is an amazing opportunity because it really lays out what you need to do to become certified."
“You are already required to complete these trainings as part of your job – so you might as well document your work and obtain the certification.”
Minnick knows all too well the ease of the obtaining the certification – as she was co-creator of a regional training tracker that consolidated all the PM Scheduler requirements into one place - making the path to certification less daunting for her project-scheduler peers.
“To develop the SPD Scheduler Training Plan, we took all the required training for the USACE Project Manager Scheduler certification and added additional topics that assists each person in learning the tools that are available,” explained Minnick. “That helps them understand SPD specific guidance, and improves their effectiveness as project schedulers.”
“I would say realistically if you're working towards a level two, you could do it in the two-year time span if you're proactive,” said Minnick, who has been a project scheduler with USACE since 2011.
Part of the certification also requires endorsement from the supervisor and attending mainly Proponent-Sponsored Engineer Corps Trainings as well as already required on-the-job trainings.
“If your leadership is on board with training and they encourage it, you will get trained,” emphasized Minnick. “I have all the PROSPECT courses and I was able to apply for this when it became available, because they (supervisors) encouraged and really pushed my training and certifications.”
Minnick says districts and division supervisors need to support their employees to get certified and then allow them the time since it can be a common barrier to completion, particularly attending the PROSPECT courses which sometimes have limited seats and course availability.
Minnick adds that PM Schedulers in the South Pacific Division can contact her for access to the regional training PM Scheduler certification tracker.
She s that in some ways, she was just as excited about creating the tracker than she was about applying for her own certification.
“I want our schedulers to know their worth within their project delivery teams,” said Minnick. “We do so much behind the scenes and this certification adds much-needed credibility to our community of practice.”
For more information on registering USACE Level One/Two Project Manager Scheduler certifications, employees can visit the following link: https://usace.dps.mil/sites/KMP-PPM/SitePages/certifications.aspx