Certificate IV in Project Management Practice

(BSB40920)

Employers prefer to hire people who can demonstrate they have real-world experience. A competency-based qualification, such as a Certificate IV in Project Management Practice, proves that you have this experience.

For many employers, competency-based qualifications carry more weight than qualifications which only require you to pass an academic exam. This is because passing an exam may not demonstrate your true competency in the field.

Step 1: Ensure you meet the prerequisites (see below)

Step 2: Enrol yourself in the Ram Education 3-day Certificate IV in Project Management Practice course

Step 3: Attend the course

Step 4: Work with an assessor to validate your role and create your portfolio of evidence

Step 5: When your evidence matches the assessment criteria, obtain your qualification - success!

Ram Education will manage these steps, from start to finish, in order to give you a smooth and seamless experience.

You MUST meet all of the following prerequisites:

• Have at least 2 years’ experience in the workforce
• Have recent experience, ideally within the past 2 years, contributing to the management of projects
• Be committed to obtaining a formal qualification, and recognise there will be a significant investment of your time to create a portfolio of evidence

In your projects, you should be responsible for managing:

• Scope eg: requirements, deliverables and work
• Time eg: the schedule
• Quality eg: ensuring deliverables are fit for purpose
• Communications eg: meetings, emails, lessons learned and reporting
• Risk eg: identifying, and developing risk response strategies
• Stakeholders eg: identifying, and developing stakeholder engagement strategies

Meeting the above prerequisites means that you are eligible to obtain your Certificate IV through a process called Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).

Recognition of Prior Learning enables you to use your real-world projects to create your portfolio of evidence. This can make the process of obtaining your Certificate IV much faster and also ensures that the qualification is 100% relevant to your work.

If you’re involved in construction projects, you may be surprised that you are doing more of this stuff than you think! Our experience shows that candidates who are genuinely contributing to the management of projects are typically able to meet the prerequisites.

Attending the Ram Education Certificate IV in Project Management Practice course will ensure you have the required knowledge for each unit of competency (see below). In addition, our experienced trainers and assessors will help you map your knowledge to applications in your real-world projects, making it easier to create your portfolio of evidence.

In working with you, we’ll quickly get a feeling for whether you have what it takes to obtain a Certificate IV in Project Management Practice. We can then advise you on the best way forward.

• Apply project scope management techniques (BSBPMG409)
• Apply project time management techniques (BSBPMG410)
• Apply project quality management techniques (BSBPMG411)
• Apply project information management and communications techniques (BSBPMG414)*
• Apply project risk management techniques (BSBPMG415)*
• Apply project stakeholder engagement techniques (BSBPMG418)*
• Develop work priorities (BSBWOR404)*
• Organise meetings (BSBADM405)*
• Administer projects (BSBADM407)*

* Elective subjects, which may be selected based on your experience

If you already have a Statement of Attainment (or transcript) for a subject in this qualification, and we assess it as being relevant, you’ll be able to obtain a credit.

You’ll need to gather evidence from your real-world projects to demonstrate that you’re actually contributing to their management. This evidence may include documents, spreadsheets, emails, screen shots or even photos that are linked to a detailed set of criteria associated with the units of competency (see above).

For example, updating your project schedule may link to criteria associated with “Apply project time management techniques (BSBPMG410)” as well as “Apply project risk management techniques (BSBPMG415)”. You’ll also need to demonstrate your involvement in these management processes by having a conversation with your assessor.

During the course, we’ll give you tips and tricks to help you get started, and make the process much easier.

It’s not the end of the world, our job is to support you through this process. For example, you may be missing a piece of evidence, like you don’t have evidence that you’ve identified a risk, meaning that you may need to attend a risk discussion and formally make a contribution.

Note that creating evidence is a normal part of obtaining your qualification – nothing to be ashamed about! It’s also a great way to learn, as it helps you apply best practice methods to your real-world projects, which will help you further hone your project management skills.

This varies wildly with each individual. It depends on your depth of experience, how organised you are, and how much time you have available to create your portfolio of evidence - on top of your other commitments in life!

To give you a rough idea, most candidates are able to obtain their qualification within 2 to 5 months of completing the course, spending somewhere between 10 to 35 hours of effort.

Yes. Ram Education partners with a RTO who has experience in assessing project management qualifications.

Your assessor is only interested in information which proves your competency. We recommend you include only information that is relevant to the assessment criteria, and hide or strike out any commercially sensitive information. For example, if only 2 pages of a document are relevant to your assessment criteria, you don’t need to submit the entire document. Our assessors are also able to sign confidentiality agreements.

The most common risk we observe is candidates losing momentum while creating their portfolio of evidence, leading to delays in obtaining their qualification.

It is important that you meet the prerequisites (see above) and manage your qualification just like you would a project. This is also where the traits of a good project manager come into play, like committing to a goal, showing resilience in the face of everyday setbacks, and asking for help when you need it.

It’s not only up to you though. Ram Education use trainers and assessors who are experienced project managers carrying, as a minimum, Diploma of Project Management qualifications. This means that we understand the challenge you are going through, and are in a position to guide and support you throughout the process.

Contact us.