If you are considering a career in project management, or are wanting to find out more about this field, there are some things you should know. While project management (PM) is an exciting and potentially high-paying career, you have to be prepared and know what you are getting into.
First of all, PM is a term that covers a variety of jobs in many different industries, including information technology (IT), engineering, business, construction and others. If you are a project manager, no matter what kind of company you work for, you must have a fairly diverse set of skills. In PM, you have to be good at organizing, planning, communicating and budgeting. You should be comfortable with talking to a wide variety of people. At times you also have to be a mediator, bringing together different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas about how something should be done.
A project manager has to be able to manage three basic resources --people, time and money. To use an example, let's say that your project involves the development of a new type of computer software.
You will have a certain budget, a time frame within which this is expected to be completed, and people from various departments of your organization (as well as outside of it) that you will have to bring together.
In PM, you have to be able to motivate people and encourage them to stay within the boundaries of the project. Ideally, a good project manager is able to get the best out of people without being overbearing or dictatorial. The goal is to get each faction of the project to contribute their own talents, and also work with people in other areas whose immediate goals and abilities are quite different.
The time factor is something that you can never lose sight of. While in the real world, deadline are often extended due to changing circumstances and unforeseen delays, you really want to aim for completing projects according to the original schedule. This, in fact, will be one of the ways that your competence in PM will be judged. In many cases, getting something done on time is critical to the company's success. In fast-paced fields like software development, if you don't release something by a certain date, a competitor may come out with something similar and take away your (or your company's) momentum.
Staying within a budget is another challenge that must be mastered in the world of PM. If your expenses are always used up long before your tasks are completed, your efforts will not be viewed as helpful. This is now more true than ever, as a difficult and volatile economic situation is forcing companies to strip down their budgets across the board.
PM can be a rewarding career if you possess the interests and abilities to manage all these factors. If you are good with people, able to work under time pressure and budgetary constraints, you may find a lucrative career in the project management world.
