Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
How are Project Managers Made?
Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.
Just where do project managers come from? The stork doesn’t bring them, nor are they found in a cabbage patch (well, hopefully)--they are creatures evolved from experience, taking risks, attempting different approaches to problems and isolating those problems so that they have minimal impact.
PMs also have the ability to discern what ideas work, as well as those that don’t. However, successful managers are good at fostering an experimental spirit coupled with a financier’s eye for budgeting and a manufacturer’s temperament for timeframes.
While real life is an excellent teacher, the best formula for a project manager is one that is fortunate enough to gain assistance and guidance through lengthy training, all the while being mentored and taught by a successful and well-travelled PM. This is often not the recipe used however, and many project managers’ careers are slow in starting without this valuable direction.
Project managers seek results in finishing what is assigned and reaching the overall objectives of the project. PMs often get their feet wet in the functional areas of an organization--doing so leads to increased levels of experience in addition to growth in individual responsibility, which in turn can lead to the development of leadership skills. This then can lead to the creation of personal expertise.
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