When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a PM!

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development   Talent Management  

One of the questions that I get asked most often is how I started my project management career. It was actually by accident--I was working in the investment department of a U.K. bank when the person responsible for the department’s only project left and I had the worst excuse for not being given their work. It’s been a magnificent ride so far, but it wasn’t exactly a planned career move, so it got me thinking--how should you begin a career in project management?

There are now some schools offering project management qualifications (an incredibly important step forward), but I suspect that very few people have dreams in high school of pursuing a career as a PM. Sure there’s the fame and fortune, and of course the PM groupies are kinda cool, but it doesn’t seem to have the same appeal as some other professions.

So assuming that you have started a career in an organization already, how should you start to focus on project management? It seems to me that there are two very distinct planned paths (as opposed to the “by accident” approach that I took):

Advancement through the project ranks--assuming different roles on a project until taking control as a PM

Advancement through the organization ranks--assuming different operational roles within a company and then applying the skills developed on a project

Let’s look…

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