The Exhibit shows the typical learning time for the different project management education paths.  While working as a consultant at a top-tier consulting firm takes about 1,800 hours of learning, and MBA project management programs require a similar amount of study time (1,350 to 1,728 hours), a candidate for the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Professional^® (PMI-PMP^®) credential spends only 105 hours studying—including 70 hours working through the exam questions.  This means that a PMI-PMP^® candidate must spend about 94 percent less learning time than a McKinsey consultant spends on average in 2.5 years (or an MBA student throughout his or her studies) and—like preparing for the German driver’s license test—is mainly concerned with memorizing the pre-defined exam questions rather than learning how to deal with often unexpected and unstructured issues and new challenges.

On average, a consultant at a top-tier consulting firm like McKinsey & Company leaves the firm after about 2.5 years (Anonymous 2013; Loos 2023).  By this time, a consultant has typically developed all the transferable skills that are in demand on the labor market (Movemeon n.d.).  As a consultant at McKinsey & Company (n.d.), you complete five to nine weeks of training in the first two years.  Assuming an average of 7.5 weeks of formal training over the 2.5 years that a consultant typically stays with a tier-one consulting firm, this equates to a total of 300 hours.

According to Byrne (2018), MBAs working at McKinsey & Company reported working an average of 72 hours per week, while the average was 63 hours per week at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and 58 hours per week at Bain & Company.  After deducting the usual absences for vacation, illness, etc., it can be assumed that there are about 42 working weeks per year (Lexware.de n.d.).  Multiplying this figure by an assumed 60 hours per week gives an average working time of 2,520 hours per year.  Over 2.5 years of consulting, this amounts to 6,300 working hours, from which the 300 hours of formal training must be subtracted, leaving 6,000 working hours.  Of course, this remaining working time consists not only of learning experiences, but also, for example, of some well-known analytical activities that do not teach you very much.  However, the actual project work is “learning by doing” with guidance and regular feedback from more senior team members (Case Interview Hub 2023), so that a high degree of learning can be expected in the daily work routine.  Typically, the learning curve is very steep in the first few years as a management consultant.  Under the assumption that approximately 25 percent of work time is spent acquiring new skills and building knowledge, the first 2.5 years as a management consultant involve 1,500 hours of informal learning time.

The Master in Project Management from Colorado State University Global (CSU Global) (n.d. a) requires a total of 36 credits, of which 24 are core courses and 12 are specialization courses.  One credit equals one hour of contact time per week and two hours of individual preparation/follow-up time per week over a 16-week semester, for a total of 16 hours of contact time and 32 hours of student preparation/follow-up time (CSU Global n.d. b, U.S. Department of Education 2008).  To earn 36 credits, 1,728 hours of study are required—assuming full-time study with five eight-hour days per week, this equates to 216 study days or 43 weeks, of which 72 study days, or 14 study weeks are course contact time and 144 study days, or 29 study weeks are individual study time.

The Master of Business Administration in Project Management at Capella University (n.d.) requires a total of 45 quarter credits in the so-called GuidedPath*—at least 24 quarter credits in the category of core courses, at least 16 quarter credits from the specialization courses, and 5 quarter credits for the completion of a capstone course in the last quarter.  Typically, one credit requires three hours of study per week (U.S. Department of Education 2008).  Quarter courses at Capella University last ten weeks (Capella University n.d.), so a total of 1,350 hours (= 45 credits × 3 hours/week × 10 weeks) of study can be expected for the MBA program—assuming full-time study with five eight-hour days per week, this equates to 169 study days or 34 weeks.

To register for the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® exam, a candidate must have completed 35 hours of project management training or hold the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)^® credential and have completed at least 23 contact hours of project management training (Project Management Institute n.d. a; n.d. b).  According to Fuchs & Consorten Unternehmensberatung (n.d.), a total of 70 hours of additional in-depth work is required to work through a catalog of exam questions.  Thus, a total preparation time of 105 hours can be assumed, which corresponds to approximately 13 eight-hour working days.