Bridging the Gap Between Understanding and Experience

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Career Development   Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned  

There is a vast gulf between reading about how to do something and seeing it done--or better yet, actually doing it yourself. If someone reads all about how to play the guitar and watches every video of great guitarists playing yet never picks up a guitar themselves, they will probably not sound very good the first time they have that instrument in their hands. They may be ready to start practicing and they may know exactly what they need to do to become a good guitarist, but understanding without any experience will not give them the ability to play the guitar. This principle holds true for any kind of skill, whether it is music, gardening, building a house…or project management.

In project management, there is a steep learning curve due to the myriad of knowledge areas that a project manager should have an understanding of--such as quality management, schedule management, human resource management and so on. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find roles in organizations that specialize in one area such as project schedulers or quality managers. Yet the project manager or program manager is often expected to be able to jump right in and provide input and oversight on many of these areas. Of course, the certified project manager will, at the very least, have gained quite a bit of understanding from PMBOK and other source materials on the different knowledge areas. But …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.