3 Ways to Use Your Project Skills in Consulting

Bruce is the founder of ProjectManagementHacks.com, a resource for growing IT project managers.

  Career Development   Consulting  

Starting a consulting business is an exciting opportunity for accomplished project managers. For some, the work/life balance and the potential for high income are attractive. For others, the ability to pick and choose your projects is intriguing. By now, you’re intrigued. But you might be wondering: “How do I find out if consulting is right for me?”

Answering that question involves a mini-career project. You might create an inventory of your skills, write notes on which activities you found most rewarding—and that requires introspection about your life goals. It also requires an understanding of how you can take your skills—the ability to manage projects—to the marketplace. Let’s consider three ways you can apply project skills to start a consulting business and develop your career…

1. Become a self-employed project management consultant. If you have achieved success with large and complex projects and programs, you may offer your advice directly to other organizations (PMI Fellow Frank Saladis began consulting to various organizations after leading many projects at AT&T).

However, project skills are not enough to launch a consulting business. You also need sales and marketing skills. An excellent starting point used by many project management consultants is to add value to the presentation by presenting at …

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