You should have gone at least through one complete project life cycle. But you will continue to learn. It depends also on project type and industry. It took me roughly 4 years of project experience after I felt comfortable to call myself project manager, but this is an individual and very personnel assessment, you cannot generalize. To cut it short, from my point of view the minimum is 2 years. Others will certainly also comment. Saving Changes...
If the answer is to be a GOOD project manager, that's a different story and has less to do with years of experience and more to do with the nature of that experience. Someone might have a very short amount of time on a very challenging project, learn a lot, and be capable of applying those lessons effectively in the future. Someone else might spend years on a very simple project, not learn any lessons and be not much better than when they started.
I generally agree with Gladwell's 10,000 hours metric for competency in any field, but you have to look beyond the numbers...
Years don't matter. But ideally one should have gone through full project life cycle and digested it well. It also depends on size of projects..if larger projects, might take more time to be project manager...Small ones but multiple, could be little quicker.. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
I'm with Sante. You are a project manager as soon as you manage a project.
Yes, you will struggle. Yes, you will flail. But you'll survive. The next time you will do things better but hit new challenges. Eventually, you will build up the experience to feel comfortable with discomfort. Saving Changes...
