Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Well, if when you stated "old" is about the age then I am "old". What I tried to teach to everybody is: you are performing project management activities in your daily life from the time you waked up. The level of formality and detail is up to you. If you follow some guideline is about to you. But each person in this world is performing project management right now. Saving Changes...
Alina FloreaManagement Performance Coach| Alina Florea Coaching | alinaflorea.netBucuresti, Romania
Thank you Sergio for sharing. By "old" I meant project managers with more years of experience under their belt, while by "new" I thought of rookies. I share your view: after all, we are what we sistematically do. So, how can I be in control of budgets (let's say) if in my daily life at home I do not do it? Saving Changes...
John Caron, MBA, PMP, CSMVP - Technology Project Solutions Consultant| Bank of AmericaJacksonville, Fl, United States
I consider myself an old (by age and experience) project manager and up until I earned my PMP struggled with a Risk Platform, allow me to explain. Prior to my PMP, when on projects, I would address Risks and the importance in every meeting. Many participants failed to understand the importance of Risks and I believe it was attributed to my not holding a PMP. After earning this certificate, participants (different projects) value Risk reviews in meetings. Risk was the subject I had to coach prior and this has been alleviated post certification. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Alina,
a common approach to support PM development is mentoring. Mentors should listen to a Mentee and reflect the problems that come up in day2day work. They are mostly older than the mentee, but more important is the experience level.
As a development path, you can follow PMI's Talent Triangle which has Leadership, technical Project Management and Business savviness as 3 areas to develop oneself as a PM. You might look for mentors in all three areas.
For me (and many others), Leadership is the most important one. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
My focus when mentoring or coaching project managers is on tailoring. Often project managers don't know or forget that processes, work products and even technology need to be tweaked to fit their project. Saving Changes...
Christian CummingsOperations Manager| King Technologies, IncMount Pleasant, Sc, United States
The number one lesson I teach any Project Manager, "new" or "old" is that you do not know everything. Old PMs think they know everything because they have been doing it forever. New PMs think they know everything because they just passed the PMP and you have to be smart to do that, right?
I teach them to open the PMBOK everyday. Less than 1% of the population has a photographic memory, so chances are very good not one of my PMs remembers the entire PMBOK. Project Management is not a static endeavor and PMs need constant reminders of this. Saving Changes...
Phil JacklinFounder| OnTheSamePage (www.onthesamepage.io)Wellington, New Zealand
I prefer coaching to mentoring. It's akin to 'give a man a fish and he can eat today. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever'. Coaching is like that. By teaching people to think for themselves, to analyse their own situations, to develop their own tools for deciding the answer, they are able to rely on a toolkit that goes beyond experience. And this is important in project management because there will always be new situations that your experience can't help you on. By coaching, you are giving the Project Manager the tools to be exceptional in all situations. By mentoring you are giving the Project Manager the tools to be good only in certain situations. It takes longer. The immediate results are slower. But the end point is much better than mentoring. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Interesting, Phil. I have always been told the opposite: mentoring is about guiding and directing someone along their path(s) while coaching is about providing tools and techniques to fix immediate, short-term problems. I firmly believe that both have a place in helping people.
I heard a funny take on the fish vs fishing adage: "Give a man a match and he is warm for a day. Set the man on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life!"
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2 replies by Bala S Duvvuri and Phil Jacklin
Apr 20, 2016 9:42 PM
Bala S Duvvuri
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Good one Stephane.
Apr 21, 2016 3:21 PM
Phil Jacklin
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I guess whichever way round the coaching/mentoring definition is, we're both agreeing on the same thing. Better to equip project managers with tools rather than defined answers to a list of situations.
Saving Changes...
Bala S DuvvuriProject Manager| ShellBangalore, Karnataka, India
Apr 20, 2016 6:21 PM
Replying to Stéphane Parent
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Interesting, Phil. I have always been told the opposite: mentoring is about guiding and directing someone along their path(s) while coaching is about providing tools and techniques to fix immediate, short-term problems. I firmly believe that both have a place in helping people.
I heard a funny take on the fish vs fishing adage: "Give a man a match and he is warm for a day. Set the man on fire and he is warm for the rest of his life!"
I agree with Christian Cummings. An experienced project manager or new one-PMP teaches logical & methodical approach to project management. Even a highly experienced project manager without formal project management training, may not be as effective as a new project manager with training & certification. Saving Changes...
