How to start in Project Management
Whether you’re just starting or experienced in another area, for example engineering or procurement, how can you move across into project management?
Experience is more important than qualifications. Both would be ideal, but I believe most recruiters will look for some experience, which could be a problem if you’re just starting out.
How to start in Project Management?
1 – Volunteer to help on as many projects as you can. Can you assist or shadow the main Project Manager?
2 – When helping, offer to do some of the planning, for experience.
3 – Ask to run some small projects – anything that’s even just a borderline project because it’s really small and simple
4 – Move on up from there – from helping with larger projects to running them, and from running small then medium then larger and projects.
5 – Find a Project Management mentor in your company who you can go to for advice
6 – When interviewed bring Gantt charts and maybe also network diagrams and figures on performance to planned date at budget, to the interview. There’s nothing as powerful as seeing real evidence. Even if a project is small, it shows that the person understands the process.
7 – When applying for an interview, remember you can ring up and ask questions. My top two would be “You’re asking for PRINCE2 (oh no!) in the job spec, and I don’t have that, but I have PMP which is similar, possibly better, and I can show evidence of real projects that I’ve run – should I still apply?” (I love this because the person advertising for a PM probably doesn’t understand PM, so they are bound to say yes to an alternative that they also don’t understand – the much better PMP. The other version of this is “I don’t have a formal qualification in PM but I have run a number of successful projects similar to yours, and I can bring evidence of these to the interview – should I still apply?”
8 – If you DO get a chance to get PMP then DO, it’s brilliant. Yes the exam is boring and nerdy, and involves a fair bit of learning by rote rather than real understanding, but it’s based on a great process and it’s by far the best game in town. Anyone who knows about PM will rate PMP as the best qualification. It comes from the PMI. I don’t think any other qualification comes close to this one. It’s the one everyone has heard of. PMP or nothing.
9 – The absolute best thing to take to any interview is a portfolio of your work. You should include photos, examples of documents you’ve used. As mentioned above – Gantt charts. Include something difficult on the project which you solved and overcame. Again, explain it using photos. And maybe even a comment of thanks from the client.