Many of us had heard the rumor that PMI was going to delay the PMI-ACP pilot results until early next year, and today this was confirmed. The truth is, delays happen. Everyone who has managed a project (waterfall or Agile) has encountered unforeseen issues, so I’m actually pretty forgiving about this, but the communication has been a disappointment.

One of the keys to a successful Agile project is transparency. The team posts its progress for stakeholders to see, and updates are as clear and forthcoming as the deliverables. If there are problems, the team is open and honest about them and involves the stakeholders. They work together to discover the underlying causes and find solutions.

And that brings us to the problem. PMI has not been very open, and in the absence of transparency, rumors began to fly. First was the rumor that too many people passed the initial exam and that PMI was struggling to rationalize the results and the curve. Second was the rumor that they waited too long, and that too many people were on vacation for the holidays. Then there was the rumor that they had problems with the vendor who was involved in the process and that they needed more time to sort this out.

The point is, they are all just rumors. We don’t know exactly what happened, but the communication from PMI was vague and opaque. Part of it read:

“While we originally targeted the end of the fourth quarter for the release of candidate scores, we have unfortunately encountered a delay in our post-pilot process that will consequently postpone the release of scores to the second week of January (week of 9 January). At this time, we expect that pass/fail notices will go out to all of our pilot participants.”

This doesn’t give the stakeholders and customers very much information. We aren’t told the nature of the delay, much less how they plan to address it. Instead, we are simply told that they are going to delay notification and shoot for the week of January 9, 2012.

Again, I’m understanding of delays. I delayed publication of my book (largely to match PMI’s published schedule for the exam), but it does feel like PMI could do a better job of embracing Agile principles, communicating more clearly and openly, and keeping their stakeholders well-informed. It’s almost never too late to start improving project communication.

If you have been involved in the PMI-ACP pilot program, how do you feel about this?