PM – Blog 1
My first impressions of Project Management are mixed. While I have already been a part of many projects, and within those projects have lead many projects, I definitely feel that I have many areas in which I need improvement in the area of effective project management.
Personally, I prefer others to lead however this is a challenge that I feel I work at surpassing. Effective project management seems like a very important skill to process in today’s business environment. While searching on monster.ca, I found many positions for project managers. I found it not very surprising that many of the positions that I looked at, asked for a bachelors, or some sort of relevant education experience. They also asked for 5-10 years work experience.
The 5-10 year work experience makes sense. In fact if I were a hiring manager I too would not like to hire a fresh out of college student as a project manager. In a way Project management is a skill that can be taught in school, however to really learn effective project management, one must acquire the skill that only experience can provide. Roger Federer did not become the world’s finest tennis player over night; it took many years of practice, to acquire his level of skill and mastery of Tennis. I feel that in the area of Project management the same concept applies.
Judging from my personal project management past history, I have defiantly seen improvement is in my ability to manage personal projects and group projects. I have by no means perfected this art and will be continually learning and trying to improve my abilities. Although sometimes I am fearful or nervous of projects I take on, I do try to get through with a smile on my face. Meaning that I may not personally enjoy the task at hand, but I will attempt to make the best of it. Like (well not exactly like, because I am not in love with the art of project management) Federer I feel that with enough experience, good projects, challenging projects, and the knowledge that I pick up along the way, at some point in my life I will be adequately trained to take on a project management role in a business environment and succeed in the project. However I am confident that this will take some time.
Included are the URL’s for some of the postings I found:
Bilingual Enterprise Services - Project Manager-Dell Computershttp://jobsearch.monster.ca/getjob.asp?JobID=62615123&AVSDM=2007%2D09%2D18+17%3A26%3A59&Logo=1&q=IT+project+manager&cy=CA&dcjvlid=243
Business Analyst/ Project Manager - RIShttp://jobsearch.monster.ca/getjob.asp?JobID=62603237&AVSDM=2007%2D09%2D18+12%3A47%3A55&Logo=1&q=IT+project+manager&cy=CA&dcjvlid=226 Senior IT Project Manager – ADT - CIBChttp://jobsearch.monster.ca/getjob.asp?JobID=62593255&AVSDM=2007%2D09%2D18+09%3A47%3A03&Logo=1&q=IT+project+manager&cy=CA&dcjvlid=240
1 comment:
I agree with you that effective project management is an important skill to process in today’s business process. When I did research on this topic, I too found that almost all position require at least a Bachelors degree along with several years of experience or some combination of the two.
You made a good point that even though project management can be taught in school. But becoming a good project management needs real-life experiences. Example of Roger Federer was good. Same goes in becoming a good CGA, we all are at the same education level at this point but our experience will distinguish us from the rest of our class mates in the next 5-10 years, depending on our work experience.
You are right about continuously learning and improving though out a person’s life. Learning is a life long process and everybody learns till the day they die. Project manager’s one of the biggest challenges would be to keep a smiling face no matter how difficult the project is. Not everyone enjoys taking on hard projects in life but that distinguishes a good project manager from the rest. A good project manager is not afraid to back out of this challenge.
You seem to have understood that it is not easy becoming a project manager, yet you are confident that you will become a good project manager one day. That I believe is overcoming fear of becoming a project manager. You are on the right track. Good Luck!
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