Why Project Management?

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   New Practitioners  

In various elements of my work, I am involved in a number of different speaking engagements each year. All of these present some kind of unique challenge, but all are tremendously rewarding in their own way. One such presentation occurred recently that was much more rewarding than I expected, and it got me thinking about some of the things I want to touch on in this article.

I was asked to talk to a group of undergraduates who were studying a number of different business-related programs. The talk was positioned as an opportunity to provide an overview of project management and answer some questions that the students might have about it as a career choice.

I’ve done similar presentations in the past, so other than asking a few questions about the exposure to project management that students might have had as part of their program, I felt ready for the talk. Experience suggests that these days, students usually have some idea about project management, so I’m rarely starting from scratch—although sometimes there are some misconceptions. I have spoken with students who thought that every day of my life was like an episode of The Apprentice TV show, which (thankfully) is certainly not the case.

Often the most challenging element is the questions that come at the end, and that was certainly the case this time. The group was highly informed and really …

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