Project Management Training & Certification

If you were starting over again, would you follow the same path? It’s a difficult question to answer, partly because it’s speculative. At the same time, there’s some value to be gained from that speculation…

Projects are about people, they are delivered by people and their success depends upon the quality and quantity of effort put in by people to delivering results. But for all that we say the development and retention of talent is important, for the vast majority of organizations it is not done well–or worse, not done at all.

When it comes to our projects, we don’t try to get better. Even when we claim otherwise, the sad truth is that we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Even when change is within our power to influence, we don’t make the modifications necessary to improve. And this writer can prove it…

You’ve read a PM book. You’ve taken an introductory course. Your PMP is firmly in hand. What’s next? The challenge for project managers at this point is that there isn’t a really good answer. In fact, there isn’t really any one answer. The most honest and truthful answer is probably, “It depends.” But what, exactly, does it depend on?

The typical project manager found themselves in their role by accident. Developing ourselves in this role also, unfortunately, is often accidental. Stepping back and looking at the development challenge, a model from the past offers excellent insight into how we think about developing our skills as project managers, and what mastery in project management might actually look like.