I was told by my project lead today, that he had received a certificate in project management and that he had written a project proposal according to some given rules but he wasn't really able to specify which rules in particular he followed. It seems to be called a project charter. But is this really a standard?
He suggested that a project couldn't be called a project, unless it was actually specified/defined like in the document that he handed over to me. It seemed to follow some template indeed, and the overall structure seemed nice.
But anyway, my questions are:
1) Does certificate actually exist in the field of project management. If yes what are they?
2) Is there any standards out there (maybe defined by IEEE) that would define what a project is (how it should be defined, etc.?).
3) Where could I learn about project definition and management. I am not interested in some sort of books written by people who feel they've been successful in running a project and want to share their recipes with others. I can do this on my own. I am more looking for "objective", more formal, standardised approaches to the problem.