Am I Prepared to Become a PM?

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.

  New Practitioners  

I hear from a lot of people who want to get into project management, and they have a lot of varied questions about it. But one of the recurring themes is around what individuals need to do to ensure they have the skills needed to become a project manager. The answer’s a lot harder than the question, but I’m going to try and explore it here.

Gather information
To understand why it’s so difficult, think of more general questions. What is a project manager? What does a project manager do? Simple questions, but the answers will be massively varied, even if you only ask project managers.

As a result, potential project managers need to be able to narrow down what they are trying to achieve:

1. Are they trying to be a PM in their current organization, or within their current industry?
2. Are they looking to specialize in certain types of projects (engineering, IT, etc.)?
3. Is project management a step on a journey to something else, or do they see it as a destination career?
4. What skills do they currently possess that may be applicable to project management?

The answers to all of these questions contribute to the personalized development plan for someone who wants to get into project management. But they’re only a start. Individuals also need to educate themselves on what project management in their environment is like.

For most people, that …

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