A project management career is exciting and rewarding. Professional project managers are responsible to manage deadlines and to ensure managing the team while ensuring the team sticks to the scope of work while working on a particular project. As a project manager, you need to be creative and must have analytical and budgeting abilities.
So, how do you begin your journey towards a successful Project Management Career?
Career as a professional project manager seems lucrative and rewarding, but it takes a lot of strategies, hard-work and professional approach to become a successful project manager. In this article, we’ve outlined some tips to stay afloat and kick-start a long and successful project management career.
What is the Role of a Project Manager?
If you love to be a leader and keep everything and everyone organized in a group with a goal in mind, Project Management Professional Certification is exactly what you’re made for. Project management is a complex field so you must be ready for a true adventure that you’ll never get bored of. In the field of Project Management, there is no scope or space for dullness. As a project manager (PM), you are responsible to lead projects, from start to end. You will be responsible for planning, execution, control, and completion of the entire project.
As a project manager, you will be the leader of a team, which is why it’s essential to be a sociable and great team player. You must have the ability to work with different types of people and situations. As the builder and controller of the team, being flexible is key. If you have the ability to identify the problems and have a proactive approach to solve them easily, this might be the right career path for you.
How to Launch Your Project Management Career
- Develop your knowledge base and skillset
As a project manager, you must be a master of both soft and hard general management skills to successfully plan and execute the projects. Some qualities are natural and come to you without any effort, but education, experience and hard work can be your keys to develop your skills and increase your abilities to handle project management professionally.
- Soft Skills
Soft skills, also known as people skills, are the skills that we often use to deal and communicate with people on a daily routine. As per various surveys, people with extrovert personality are usually better and stronger at soft skills as they are more talkative and like to communicate often with people of all kinds. They’re also good at building relationships with people.
However, being a leader is not just related to the ability to speak. For example, extroverted people with no knowledge are not suitable for the project manager role. In fact, it can be disastrous.
But the fact here is that those with not good soft skills or new to the field have to work on their soft skills and create the ability to communicate more with people, unlike those who come from a people managing background. Followings are the characteristics of soft skills:
- Communication
- Negotiation
- Conflict management
- Time management
- Decision-making
- Leadership
- Hard Skills
Hard skills, unlike soft skills, are never developed naturally. The term “hard skills” refers to the technical elements of project management. This means, hard skills need to be learned and practiced to master. The ability to understand things may vary according to people; so many people may pick them up quickly while some keep struggling to learn. People more analytically inclined are better and faster learners of hard skills. Examples of hard skills are:
- Risk reports
- Project budget
- Dashboard
- Project schedule
- Project charter
- Team management report
Team Up with an Experienced Mentor
The term “Mentor” is defined as an experienced person in an organization or institute who can help train students or employees on certain qualities. So, finding and working with a professional, dedicated and result-oriented mentor is the key to launch your successful career as a project manager. It not just helps for your professional development but also that of the mentor. The right pair of a good mentor and a dedicated learner is a win-win situation for both parties.
As a mentee, you must devote your time on learning and understanding the technical and professional problems faced by the project managers. This could include dealing with the problems that cause project delivery delays, conflict between team members, etc.
A good mentor is the one who spends time advising and guiding you towards the right way to help you get to the goals. The mentor shall be focused on empowering your abilities to be a better PM and reach the highest level of corporate Pyramid.
Get Certification for Project Management Role
Project management is a role that doesn’t come with just your educational background or experience you have, you must have the certification in the particular field. Deciding on which certification you will pursue is the first step on your journey.
There are two different project manager certifications:
- Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
- Project Management Professional (PMP)
There are many differences between these two certifications and the biggest one here is that you can get CAPM certification without any prior experience as a project manager, while PMP certification is only available for those having at least 4,500 hours of experience. Apart from this, there are other prerequisites required to join project management certification course. It is recommended to first evaluate your experience and what prerequisites you meet to make the final decision on which of the certifications you want to pursue.
Starting your career as a project manager is a lucrative choice with a lot of perks, but it is at the same time a crucial decision that must be taken smartly after analyzing your abilities and skills as a leader. Certification for Project Management can be a great support to launch your project manager career. With practice and dedication, things will become easier in the corporate environment.