Resources for Transitioning to Project Management (especially in or from post-production)

I've seen a lot of posts on here about looking for adjacent roles or roles in other industries as things get strange and dire. One role you should look at with a lot of skill transfer is a Project Manager! It's all about process, alignment, and getting things done, and it requires more creative problem solving than you would expect which tickles that part of the brain nicely too. I've continued to see roles like this posted, even in Los Angeles. You can easily rewrite your resume to focus on these kinds of skills too.

Regardless of whether you decide to leave the industry or the role you're currently in, these skills are extremely useful to bring forward when the state of things rebounds.

This article is based on an email I share with individuals who reach out about some of the certifications I've completed over the last few years.

Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and other agile certifications

Scrum is a type of agile project management, and many many teams in tech and beyond use Scrum (or some form of agile, including kanban or scaled agile framework) – it's about learning how to think in agile terms and removing road blocks from the teams you manage. Again, even if you aren't on a full Scrum team, it's really useful.

• https://www.scrumalliance.org is where I got my agile certifications. This includes a couple days of active training and an open book test.

Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma has its roots in manufacturing and is a methodology to improve performance by systematically removing operational waste and reducing process variation. I enjoyed the learning process of this certification the most, although it probably has the least direct applicability to jobs in tech. For me, it's more conceptual – and I'm a process nerd.

• Lean Six Sigma with SSGI?is where I got my certification. Make sure you search for discount codes! This was self-guided and online, with an open book test.

Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)

Depending on the kinds of roles you've had, you might also qualify PMP or CAPM certifications which, depending on industry segment, may put you ahead of candidates or qualify you for consideration at all. These certs are more about having them than learning from them and require a good bit of dedication with an application process and long exam. I qualified to take the PMP with the project management experience I gained through dailies and workflow management.

These certifications do not involve classroom learning and require self-education. CAPM and PMP are from the Project Management Institute. CAPM is more foundational and easier to obtain. PMP is pretty challenging.

• CAPM:?https://www.pmi.org/certifications/certified-associate-capm
• PMP:?https://www.pmi.org/certifications/project-management-pmp

For learning without certification attached, check out?Udemy. There are always discount codes and cheap options.

Because PMP is such an intense process, here's more on what I did and how I did it.

The requirements for PMP are:

• A four-year degree (in anything)
• 36 months leading projects (non-overlapping)
• 35 hours of project management education/training (PDUs)

(CAPM is less!)

I did?Cornell's Project Management certificate?for the education requirement which is quite expensive (I wanted the certificate), but there are many other much cheaper options on?Udemy, for example.?

There is a huge difference between education courses that give you PDUs and prep courses. The PMP exam itself is less about applying your experience as a project manager and far more about studying to pass an exam. The PMP exam is built around how PMI thinks a project should be conducted which is extremely detailed and places the PM and their power at the center of the universe -- which is often not the case!

The Cornell certificate program did very little to prep me for the PMP itself, although that isn't why I did it. It's something to consider when you're planning your approach.

Once you submit your application, you have one year to pay for the exam and schedule it. I recommend signing up for a PMI membership to get the resources and discount on exams. It can take a while for PMI to validate your application and allow you to schedule.

Once you decide to schedule the exam, come up with a study plan that has a shorter timeline, no more than 6 weeks. I did a little?less than 4 weeks because there was a lot of memorization. I studied nightly for about 1-3 hours each night.

Again, the exam is really about learning how PMI thinks projects should be managed -- it's a test of your knowledge of the PM standards, not your real-world learned PM experience. It's an extremely formalized process, but I found it super interesting to learn and pick pieces to apply to my work.?

Exam prep is vital to passing. The exam changed for 2021 so I'm not familiar with the new format and its difficulty. My understanding is that the new version adds a lot more Agile PM concepts which will be useful.

I used these tools to study:

• Joseph Phillips Udemy Course?(they frequently?have sales) for exam prep -- watched it on 1.5x speed over a couple of weeks. (This may also count toward the 35 hours of training.)
• PocketPrep -- a phone app, I signed up for a month and did short quizzes every day.
• PMP PrepCast?-- signed up for their practice exams. After I finished the Udemy course, I did a practice exam every other day until exam day.
• This PMP Exam book?-- I wouldn't recommend relying only on this book to study because it's dry, but it has useful exercises and exam-taking strategies.
• The PMP community on Reddit (of all places) for some level-setting and resource-sharing stuff.

People also mention Rita's 10th Edition, PMPwithRay, and the PMI Agile Guide but I didn't use these.

There are also resources that are useful for learning Earned Value Management and Critical Path Method which have a bit of math in them, but I learned them in my Cornell classes so I didn't use them for this and can't recommend any specifics. Frankly, there was not a lot of math on the 2020 exam I took anyway. Whew!

If anyone has any specific questions as you work through this, feel free to reach out.