Elevator Pitch for Project Management (Part 1)

Alain is a management consultant and expert in project and program management, PMO creation and administration, and project management training. Additional specialty areas include IT Advisory, IT Quality Assurance, Business Analysis and Business Process Outsourcing.

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Topics: Communications Management, New Practitioners, Using PMI Standards

Admit it. You have already been in a situation where--finally--you caught the person you critically need to speak to, may it be to advance your career or solve an important project roadblock. This always hard-to-catch executive is finally standing next to you in the same elevator. You have five floors and maybe a few stops along the way to state your case.

Executive: Remind me, what is it you’re doing?

You: Project management.

Executive: Oh yeah, the guys sending the status report each week. Really, what’s this for, besides slowing down progress and creating unnecessary burdens to the guys who actually do the work?

You: Ummm…what?

(Embarrassing silence)

Boom. Bye bye. Game over. A golden opportunity to shine--gone. Who knows when the next one will be?

So you’ve been challenged. Fair enough, I think it’s normal to have to demonstrate from time to time what we bring to the table as project managers, project management officers or any program/project/portfolio management-related activity.

How do you answer the basic question “What is it that you do, and why is it useful?” in a sharp and punchy way that will bring to light the (sometimes unglamorous) work you’ve been performing in the trenches? We can instantly think of a thousand things we do that are valuable, but if we have to pick one or two, which ones …

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