‘Good Enough’ Is Old Enough

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.

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Topics: Leadership, New Practitioners, Organizational Project Management

A very good friend of mine is a complainer. I’ve known him for decades, and he always has something to complain about—the weather, the government, companies he’s doing business with, employers…you name it. During our last conversation, his complaint was that project managers these days are too young. He felt that people were being given the opportunity to become PMs almost at the start of their careers, before they had a chance to gain any experience or maturity in the workplace.

Are PMs getting younger?
He was only half serious, but it is a comment I hear every now and then. From a practical sense, there definitely are opportunities for people to start managing projects earlier in their careers than in the past, and there are two main reasons for that:

1. Firstly, project management is a discipline that is now taught far more widely in school and college programs, so individuals have the opportunity to enter the workforce with at least some foundational understanding of the discipline. It may not be enough to manage a project in itself, but it’s a solid starting point.
2. Secondly, there is a lot more demand for project managers today than in the past. Organizations are conducting more projects as the pace of evolution accelerates, and there is a shift from maintaining stability to embracing progress. That means that a larger percentage of …

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