Q&A Project Management Careers – Where to Start?

I was wondering if you were able to help with some advice? I’m work within Sales (account management, BDM, etc) with some experience of Sales Management and I was looking at taking a new route for my career and looked at project Management. I suppose I was wondering what kind of qualifications were needed in order to be considered for PM – and also, whether Trainee roles were something that would come up regularly in order to get into PM….most of the roles I have seen require a good solid PM background/with experience…but there must be a route into the career… This question is taken from our Facebook page. You’re right in that there must be a way into project management but what tends to happen when people already have a current career and want to move into project management is that they use what they already have. Project management is an accidental career for many people – for example, if your current place of work needed someone to work on a change – like a new CRM system – they would often find someone already working within the department who would have the skills and ability to help deliver the new system. That’s the beginning of someone’s career into project management. Then you’ll start to look at how I can deliver this change better and start looking at project management courses that suit the industry and projects you work in

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Project Recruitment Changes – One Day at a Time

“I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.” Aldous Huxley So on that note we’re happy to announce that Arras People have just launched their new job and career portal for project management practitioners. We do want to change the world eventually (……muahahahahahhahahahha!) well the world of project management recruitment anyway, and to do that we’ve just made the first stepped change. The first step is creating a platform that allows us to carrying on bringing additional changes to project practitioners – for ones that are currently job seeking and the ones that are interested in developing their career. Today, the platform enables project practitioners to gain control of their data at Arras People; have the ability to manage when they get alerted about new vacancies; are able to benchmark against others based on role and sector and receive exclusive offers. Tomorrow? Watch this space, we’re serious about changing the way project management recruitment works and this is just the beginning.

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How people deal with change

I went along to one of Maven Training ‘s free seminars a few weeks ago – they’re bite size overviews of some of the courses they have on offer and this one was Change Management. That’s change management in relation to organisational change or business transformation – not change as in change control. I love this subject – partly because my degree was in psychology and partly because this was a huge subject area for HP where I used to work years ago. I’m convinced that the change management training course is just a psychology course really because of the huge amount of focus on the people impacted by the change. It was great to have an hour or so top-up on the subject and one of the things that stuck with me after the session was the different types of people – their ways of learning and how they take on new information. So if there is a change in their work due to a larger transformation taking place in the business they’ll either approach it as  Theorists; Activists; Reflectors or Pragmatists .   It’s the Kolb learning styles or experiential learning theory.

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Formal or informal project management?

Many of my conversations with people who are trying to break into a project management role often start with the question, “so why do you want to get into project management?”. The majority of the answers are initially quite woolly. It’s usually something like, “ I enjoy working with a team to get something done ” or “ I’m a great organiser ” or “ I’ve had a taste for it since managing a small project at work “. When I then go on to ask, “Why would someone employ you to manage their projects?” suddenly the conversation has turned just that little bit more serious. Being a great organiser, or getting enjoyment out of working on a one-off project is just not enough. The reality is no-one in their right-mind would employ you as a project manager based on some whimsical romantic notion you’ve got about taking some basic work competencies and suddenly becoming a fully fledged “project manager”. The interesting things about this is that almost everyone in the world is a project manager – and that statement is based on the fact that at some point we all apply some “informal” project management in our everyday lives

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Book Review: A senior manager’s guide to managing benefits: optimizing the return from investments

Optimising The Return From Investments – A Senior Manager’s Guide to Managing Benefits, by Steve Jenner Priced £5.00 Available from TSO bookshop and Amazon Reviewed by Chris Walters   I love books that create a new angle on some existing work, so I was excited to be asked to review this one, from a number of perspectives:   Was Steve going to be able to rein in his exuberance and boundless energy (if you’ve heard him talk benefits management, you’ll know exactly what I mean!) for the topic to be able to talk to senior managers in their own language and keep them engaged? Would senior managers gain enough knowledge to understand the benefit of managing benefits? Is there enough in the book to stimulate and enable action? I wouldn’t have to read a monster tome before writing this review – this one can fit comfortably in a shirt pocket! Starting with structure, Steve covers the following topics in concise chapters: What are Benefits and Benefits Management? Why Do You Need Benefits Management and What Will You Get From It? What Are The Barriers To Success How Do You Overcome The Barriers To Benefits Realization? How Do You Get Started and Sustain Progress

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