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Breaking Into Project Management (Part 2)
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
While the project management career path has been defined, recognized and appreciated by large organizations and government, breaking into the field isn’t easy. In the past, project managers carved their own career path by first proving to an organization that a need existed and, second, mastering PM disciplines while on the job. This path can still be taken at small companies that don’t really understand what a PM does or even that there is a body of knowledge, disciplines and rules guiding the field.
Steven Birmingham says many organizations are very low on the “project management maturity scale.” Birmingham teaches communications at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, in Harrisburg, Penn., which offers a master of science degree in project management.
“This is certainly true of a large number of organizations in central Pennsylvania,” he says. “Projects are assigned to people whose main responsibility is not projects. If and when those companies hire a project manager, it may be someone from within who has had project success.”
For companies that fall into that slot, it is difficult for trained, certified project managers to gain a foothold, because the culture does not value or embrace formal project methodologies. For aspiring entry-level project managers, “the barrier to entry …
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