Learning from the New 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.

  New Practitioners  

Whenever I have a team member who has never worked on a project before, I make sure I spend some time with them providing some context, explaining how projects differ from operational work and answering any questions they may have going into the work. However, I also ask them to do something vitally important: I ask them to come to me with anything they see or experience on the project that doesn’t make sense. Part of that is to ensure they have as much comprehension of their work as possible to build their experience from, but part of it is because they are coming to the project with fresh eyes. They don’t have a history of doing things the same way, so if something is inefficient or ineffective, they may well notice it more than someone who has been working on projects for years and has always done things in the same way.

That same concept applies to project managers. When a brand new PM joins a project execution area, they have a huge amount to learn, and that is naturally the focus for them and their employer. They have the organization’s project approach and methodology to learn and master, and they have to adjust their theoretical PM training to the reality of the world of work. They likely also have a lot of new people to get to know, and of course they have to learn about the project or projects they will be working on, why they are important and …

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