Lessons Learned as a Junior PM

Steven is a project manager/contractor in the United Kingdom with experience in service support, service delivery, service management and project management.

  Career Development   Lessons Learned   New Practitioners  

This article is aimed at any new project manager to help them avoid some of the mistakes I made throughout my early years. Managing a project can be a daunting task for a new PM; it is a big responsibility to manage the budget, schedule, resources, risks and issues, etc. This is certainly not for the faint of heart, so any tips you can get as a beginner can be crucial to your success.

The first lesson I learned as a PM was to make sure everything is written down explicitly—and clearly agreed to in writing. It doesn’t take a long time to learn this, but occasionally I still fall for the same trap. It can be so easy to become relaxed on a comfortable phone call with a team member and agree to something on the phone, whether it be a supplier or internal member. You assume that you are both on the same wavelength and have the same goal. Then you speak to this person a few days later and they can’t recall your conversation and what you had asked them to do.

This is common in the time-pressured environment of a project. You’ll find this resource was working on something that had been written down, so follow up the day after to confirm that the details of the task were understood and the delivery date is achievable.

This leads me quickly into the second lesson: follow up with people to confirm that they understand the scope and timing of their actions,…

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