by Mike Ososki, PMP – PMI Atlanta Events Writer
The biggest project you’ll ever work on is you. Noel Nicole Ransom-Washington is one confident lady, but she wasn’t always this way. It was a road of years that incrementally taught her how to grow into it. Her PMI presentation was all about inspiring you to do it, too.
You’re doing the work. So why aren’t you moving? Noel shared with us her take on how to turn certification into career growth with PMI. She encourages us to move from passive participation to intentional execution, driving both personal and professional transformation.
Credentials open doors and strategy helps you walk through them. You must learn how to use your credibility, relationships, visibility and strategy to create movement.
Noel’s message answered 3 career growth questions: Where am I now? What’s holding me back? How can PMI help accelerate my next move? You may be considering certification or be certified, but not know what to do next. Or you may be experienced and ready to grow or already leading and expanding.
Don’t confuse certification, experience, and execution with strategy, visibility, and influence. Maybe you’re doing the work now but don’t have the title and are being told that you’re not qualified. Noel advises to “Stop waiting for someone to give you a raise and call that success. You are responsible for your own professional development.” She stopped waiting to be “discovered” or for permission, and focused on what she could control by positioning herself intentionally, with this formula ...
Credential + Capability + Visibility + Relationships + Strategy = Movement
Each level of your PM career has a different risk, mindset, skillset, network, and focus to move up:
- The Executor is trusted to get work done.
- Risk: Known as the person who chases work. Instead, move up like this—
- Expand your skills, your visibility, and your network.
- The Project Leader coordinates people, priorities, and outcomes.
- Risk: Excellent at delivery but invisible as a leader. Instead, move up—
- Strengthen your leadership, communication, and cross-functional influence.
- The Strategic Leader has strong business value and influence.
- Risk: Successful operationally, but stagnant professionally. Move up—
- Expand enterprise thinking and strategic influence.
- The Enterprise Influencer transforms for organizational impact.
- Risk: Execution isn’t a challenge. It’s sustaining relevance, influence & legacy.
- Create impact beyond your role—invest in others.
Instead of a job path, think of this all as a leadership pipeline. Done well, it can take your career into a wide variety of many high level roles.
From the project management perspective, there may be no better collection of resources to help propel your career than PMI. Think of it as a professional growth ecosystem with aspects like these:
- Access – mentorship, study groups, special interest forums, volunteer roles.
- Exposure – leadership panels, executive conversations, networking, speaking opportunities.
- Acceleration – career growth, visibility, opportunities, influence.
Don’t use PMI small. If you feel at all inspired by any of this, pair your feeling with activity. Define your next role. Join one PMI activity beyond dinner meetings. Have 3 intentional conversations. Make your value visible.
Career growth is rarely driven by credentials alone. You drive it by visibility, relationships, community, and intentionality—go for it!