What Everybody Ought to Know About Switching Careers to Project Management
I love it when this community connects with me.
It helps me to know that real people are out there somewhere behind the screen of my laptop.
I can’t believe you all fit in there. Technology is amazing.
How do you break into project management when you have been running your own business for over a decade?
How to get your foot in the door - photo by phos365 via Flickr
C. D. from New York City wrote to me recently asking about this.
I’m going to jump in and out of first to third person, and I’ve updated this to be much more robust than my original reply via email to C. D.
Stay with me.
Here’s the Skinny
C. D. has been running her own freelance business for many years, and even though it’s been great and she does good work it’s time for a change. Her whole life has been running projects, just not in a formal way aside from the processes that have emerged in her business.
C. D. had read my post Run Away! (And Other Helpful Advice For A Career in Project Management) and is confident she possesses all of the qualities we discussed in spades.
“Although I have been managing projects for a while, and I believe I have a natural aptitude for it, I have no formal training in the field, and many of the industry terms tossed around on pmstudent.com and elsewhere are foreign to me. I’ve been heartened to find so much information on the Web, and yet, with so much, it’s hard to know where to begin.” – C. D. in New York City
Seems Like a Good Fit To Me
“It certainly sounds as if you have all of the attributes of a good PM. I completely understand where you are at, I was there about 5 years ago. I had managed a lot of projects, but with an operational mindset and without formal knowledge of project management.” – Josh, from the front of the computer screen
I don’t think she was pulling my leg about being suited for this kind of work either.
I got a distinct sense through our communication that she is a go-getter, very intelligent, and has both the people skills and experience to go places very fast once she gets her foot in the door.
My Take
A few considerations come to mind:
Get Your Foot In The RIGHT Door
I think this is a critical thing that many job-seekers miss, regardless of your role. Look for an environment in which you can flourish first. I have a LOT of experience looking for jobs (hey, I didn’t get fired OK?) due to having been laid off 5 times (so far).
Things have rarely happened to me by throwing my resume out to the job boards. I stopped doing that long ago. When I started researching companies (not jobs), networking as a way of life by helping others (not just when looking for a job), and reaching out directly to people in my prospect companies, things began to happen.
It’s a lot of work and produces results. There is no easy button.
1) Look for companies that are very project-oriented. Medium to large firms who’s business model is geared towards completing projects for their customers are best. Several benefits here:
- Once this kind of firm gets to a certain size, it’s inevitable that they will develop solid, formal project management practices for their business. Otherwise, they die.
- This is likely to be a mentor-rich environment.
- You are more likely to be provided with formal PM training in a company like this.
- You can join in a capacity you are already very comfortable with as a member of the project team; be a sponge, volunteer as much as possible for things related to project management….generate new ideas where you can volunteer even!
One Step Back Now, Two Steps Forward Soon
2) Look for jobs that have titles like “project analyst”, “project coordinator”, “business analyst”, etc. This is a bit hit-and-miss, because different companies call these positions by different titles. I had a job where I was an “MIS analyst” and doing development/process improvement to start out, then transitioned the % of my time spent doing project management up over time.
You will be more likely to land a position like this right out of the gate than to have a significant project handed to you. This goes well with the last bullet from the previous section; make sure you are in an organization where you can volunteer to run small projects, go out of your way to assist and learn from veteran project managers, and establish a great track record in the organization.
Training
As far as training goes, I’m working on something to make getting into PM much easier than it was for me. I floundered around for a long time and ran into a lot of the same things you are describing. Right now, I’m working on training material that gets people past the “beginner” stage. The intent is for this training to be more like “look over my shoulder and see how I do it” rather than a theory-based abstract course.
Hopefully my project management career newsletter helps too. I keep making it better as I get feedback, so if anyone has suggestions for me to improve it, connect with me and let me know!
Your Turn
You right there reading these words right now. Yeah, you!
It’s time to offer up your own advice for C. D. and others in a similar situation. Leave a comment below and let’s have a conversation!
Jul 2nd, 2009 at 8:27 am
I agree with your advice to C.D. and us thus far, but I would add for her to get involved with “not for profits” as well. There are many not for profit organizations that need volunteers to keep them going. They don’t have money to pay for things like systems, or improvement projects, or marketing plans, but they have Boards of Directors who are from the community. Joining one or more of these organizations as a volunteer, bringing skills with you that will help them move forward, gives you a chance to: 1)develop your skills in an incubator like environment, 2)meet people who may be of assistance later or may know someone from another Board who may be helpful, 3)meet other volunteers who come from diverse backgrounds as well. At the same time, you are helping a worthy organization get better. It can be a win-win-win.
Reply
Jul 3rd, 2009 at 9:15 am
I recommend that C.D. continues to expose oneself to PM related topics such as:
*PM Prepcast
*Controlling Chaos
*The PM Podcast
*Jerry Mannas, Napoleon on Project Management
*Max Wideman Comparative Glossary of PM Terms
C.D. is doing the first best thing and that is asking questions. Often it is not what we know, but knowing where to find answers to questions that propel make us standout. After all not one person can know everything, so surround yourself with the right people. This is the basic law of attraction.
Reply
Jul 8th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Hmmmmm……. Given CD has been a successful entrepreneur, why would she possibly want to “get a real job” and put up with the politics, inherent bureaucracy and not-so-occasional incompetence found in most large organizations?
Besides, I am not quite sure I see much difference between being a successful entrepreneur and being a successful project manager? What traits or attributes would you find in one that you are unlikely to find in the other?
She already says she is “good” at project management. So why not pick up any decent book on project management (my all time favorite is Humphrey’s Managing Projects Using Earned Value and if I had only one book to choose, that would be it.) and study it to learn the lingo and then just start doing projects, either for free (plenty of volunteer projects around) or better yet, as an entrepreneur, why not visit the Construction Management Association http://www.cmaanet.org/ and figure out a way to adapt the “construction management approach” (either on a fee based or @risk model) to IT, Telecommunications or other sectors?
I would also advise her not to rely too heavily on PMI’s products, as, IMPO, they tend to represent a rather simplistic and isolated view of project management, rather than a holistic view. In terms of methodology, I subscribe to AACE’s Total Cost Management Framework- Integrated Portfolio, Program and Project Management Methodology. http://www.aacei.org/tcm/ This fully integrated methodology has been around for well over 50 years now, having been developed and tested by the oil, gas and mining sectors. The TCMF methodology is the ONLY one I know that fully integrates Asset, Operations and Project Management into a single model.
Another fine product from AACE is the “Recommended Practices” (RP) Althoug much more technical in nature, (written by and for engineers) the quality of AACE’s products is far in excess of what PMI produces. More importantly, AACE offers both our Recommended Practices and TCMFramework at no cost…… Just visit the AACE site and download them. http://www.aacei.org/technical/rp.shtml
Bottom line here- In actuality, I think all of us already ARE project managers. The question is whether we are “professional” project managers (i.e. defined simply as being able to earn a living managing projects)or are we amateurs. (Doing project management as a hobby or as part of our personal lives)
BR,
Dr. PDG on a slow holiday here in Jakarta (Presidential Elections)
http://www.getpmcertified.com
Reply