PM Development Strategies

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.

  Organizational Project Management   Talent Management  

Sometimes these days, it feels as though everyone is a project manager. Certainly, most roles are expected to have some basic project management skills, and there are always a number of small projects underway that aren’t considered large enough to be assigned a formal PM, but that still need managing effectively.

But that doesn’t diminish the importance of formal project managers. In fact, project management is an in-demand profession. That’s wonderful, but it does require organizations to think about how people are able to progress their careers into, through and potentially beyond project management.

When I was starting out as a PM, most people came into the role from other roles on the project team—a technical lead or maybe a business analyst. And career paths were then largely limited to within project management itself—you got the chance to manage larger teams and budgets as you progressed.

Thankfully we’ve moved on from that, but what we have now is a highly complex matrix where people can move in many different directions as part of career progression. That complexity makes it hard to develop development strategies, but those strategies are needed both for the good of the employer, and for the success of employees.

No single right answer—but a consistent strategy
I’ve often described a project management …

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