How Far Can a PM Career Go Today?

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.

  Career Development  

When I first started managing projects, there was a clear demarcation between project management and general management. I had people tell me that a PM wasn’t a “proper” manager, and it was common belief that a project manager would have to remain in the project space for all of their career because they weren’t perceived as being able to transition to a general management role. Or at least, they wouldn’t be able to successfully compete with managers who had spent their entire careers in general or business management.

In the early years of my career, I accepted that. I thought that I would become a program manager over time, and that I might move into a PMO role at some point as they were becoming more common. Portfolio management wasn’t an option in those days. A part of me might have occasionally thought that I would prove all those doubters wrong and move across into a business leadership role, but the practical part of me knew that was unlikely.

Thankfully the world has changed, and at various points in my career I did have those opportunities to take on business leadership roles as well as a lot of diverse project-related positions that young me would never have imagined would even exist. And today, the world has changed even more.

Which makes me think: What can someone entering the project management profession today expect to…

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