Navigating the Path to Project Manager and Beyond: Insights for Aspiring Change Leaders.

If you are contemplating?a career in project management, you may be wondering how to become a project manager and potential avenues for growth.?

Let us also explore the diverse landscape of projects, and differences you might encounter.?

Before we continue though, let us define some terms to have a common understanding of the project management space.?

Project Coordinator: A?member of the project management team who supports project managers by overseeing administrative tasks, communicating with stakeholders and ensuring resource availability for the project team.?

Project Scheduler: She is?responsible for creating, updating and coordinating project schedules. She also creates resource usage models and predictions.? ?

What is a project??

The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines it as:?

“A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a beginning and end to the project work or a phase of the project work. Projects can stand alone or be part of a program or portfolio.” ?

A project is?unique?in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal. ?

So, a project team often includes people who do not usually work together – sometimes from different organizations and across multiple geographies.?

A report by PWC states that Global capital project and infrastructure (CP&I) spending is set to grow to more than $9 trillion annually by 2025, up from $4 trillion in 2012. ?Half of the expenditure will be dedicated to?power and transport infrastructure projects.?

Project Manager: “The person assigned by the performing organization to lead the project team that is responsible for achieving the project objectives. Project managers perform a variety of functions, such as facilitating the project team to achieve the outcomes and managing the processes to deliver intended outcomes”, PMI. ? A project manager does not test, nor codes or defines requirements. ?

She is the catalyst for change to convert a vision into reality with the help of a team. Make no mistakes, a project manager is in the business of people and change management, more so than just defining and executing plans and following processes.?

Program: “Related projects, subsidiary programs, and programs activities that are managed in a coordinated manner to obtain the benefits not available form managing them individually.”, PMI?

Portfolio: “Projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios and operations manages as a group to achieve strategic objectives”, PMI.?

Chief Project Officer (CPO): Few organizations, acknowledging the strategic importance of projects to achieve the goals, nominate a CPO as a member of the Executive Board and responsible for all project-oriented operations.?

There is not a defined path to become a project manager. Let us consider, as an illustration, one possible route and career advancement post project manager.?

?You will find as many project variations as ways to dress, not only due the domain area but also by the nature of activities entrusted to the project manager and the array of organization arrangements:?

• In some organizations you may be involved in the early stages and pre-sales, and you draft the contract (Statement Of Work/SOW) or help with the business case?while in others you start playing a role once the contract is signed.?
• Budget scenarios:

1. In some organizations the budget is managed by the program manager or delivery manager rather than the project manager.?
2. Time & Materials: The customer pays for the time spent on the project and the expense associated with it like software, hardware, training or travel. The risk of additional time and costs is mostly carried by the requester of the project?
3. Fixed price: The project has to be delivered within the price stipulated by the contract. If the estimates and assumptions turn out to be wrong the margin will be eroded or the performing organization can even lose money delivering the project. The risk is carried by the performing organization?who adds a buffer to the price to mitigate bad estimates.??

• Team composition:?

1. The team members can be working on more than one project in parallel splitting their time across projects or be allocated 100% of their time to the project. Part time allocation is more challenging to manage as the team member may be required to work more on a particular project due to urgent issues and thus being unavailable or less available for other projects during a given period. It can create tensions and difficult negotiations between project managers to ensure people are indeed working their allocated time on the project.?
2. You maybe be working with a co-located team or team members from multiple cultural backgrounds and working in different time zones ?
3. For some projects you may oversee hiring people and building the team while for others you may have no say on the team members.?

• Project can be internally focused or customer facing. While customer facing projects can be more exciting and give you a kick, they can be more stressful as you represent your organization in situations that can be tough when expectations are not being met.?
• In some organizations you may manage a single project while in other organizations you may manage 2 or 3 projects??
• For some projects you may have the full responsibility to manage them,?while in other situations you may be one of several project managers reporting to a program manager.?
• If you are working for in-house projects, they might all be in the same domain area, while if you work for a consultancy, you may be working on a project for a bank and the next project may be for the department of agriculture.?

What distinguishes a project manager versus a senior project manager? You will not find a universally accepted definition. My view on the difference includes one or more of these characteristics:?

• Complexity: Is the project relatively standard and similar to other past projects or is it a completely new and unfamiliar area with a vast number of dependencies??
• Budget: For example, and that varies greatly in each organization, a project manager would lead up to 3M dollars project and a senior project from 3M dollars up.?
• Size of the team and/or the work: from a core team of 5 to?10 people or upwards of 20 people.?
• Strategic project: What is the relative importance of the project for the future of the organization??
• Project Management Office (PMO) contribution: Senior project managers would help drive methodology changes and optimizations?
• Rescue an ailing project: Typically, a senior project manager could be handed over a project gone awry and recover it.?
• Mentoring: A Senior project manager would guide, support and mentor other project managers.?

I would love to hear about your personal journey in becoming a Project Manager.?

What pivotal moments, challenges, or insights shaped your path? Your insights can shed some light and inspire those embarking on this path.?