Are you considering a career change? Maybe you’ve just graduated from college and are trying to figure out what the first steps in your career will be. If you enjoy planning to the minutest detail, delegating and organizing a team, keeping various stakeholders in the loop, or essentially organizing large group projects, consider a career in Project Management. 

 

What Is A Project Manager

 

A Project Manager is someone who organizes, plans, and executes projects while ensuring the project is delivered on time and within budget. Project Managers are responsible for managing the entire project, which includes overseeing aspects like team and resource management. 

 

In simple terms, a project is like a big group assignment for an organization, while the project manager acts as the team leader who keeps everyone on track to meet the deadline and ensure the project meets the set guidelines. 

 

What Do Project Managers Do

 

Project Managers ensure the success of a project. They oversee both short- and long-term projects and help teams collaborate effectively to deliver projects on time and within budget. The responsibilities of a Project Manager cuts across five phases of the life cycle of a project:

 

• Initiating: Identifying key stakeholders and developing the project charter.

 

• Planning: Involves activities such as identifying quality requirements, identifying human resource needs, estimating costs, determining budgets, identifying required procurements, and more.

 

• Executing: Activities include managing stakeholder expectations, all aspects of managing quality, managing the project team, and so on.

 

• Monitoring: This involves controlling the project’s scope, project costs, quality of deliverables, and more.

 

• Closing: Closing all phases of the project and closing all project procurements

Project managers’ responsibilities are not industry-specific, allowing for various projects and movement across industries.

 

Skills Needed To Become A Project Manager

 

The skills required to be a successful project manager are not challenging to acquire. The hard, technical skills are easily learned, while the soft skills require deliberate attention to get. Some of these skills include the following:

 

Technical project management skills: Of all the required skills for successful Project Managers, technical skills are the easiest to teach because they are largely process based. A project manager who knows, understands, and can speak the language of their organization’s stakeholders will be better able to communicate and lead their team.

 

Leadership skills: According to PMI, 66% of organizations rate leadership skills as the most valuable trait of successful Project Managers. A Project Manager needs to be able to motivate the team to work together to move a project forward and deliver a positive outcome. 

 

Strategic and business management acumen: Successful Project Managers are strategic business partners. They understand how project management ties into and impacts business strategy. 

 

Communication skills: Project Managers must ensure clear and transparent communication between all the key stakeholders. Without effective written and verbal communication skills, a project can easily be derailed, and the buy-in from team members and key stakeholders is lost. 

 

Team Building and conflict resolution skills: A project manager must build a united team focused on meeting the project’s objectives. This requires resolving conflicts and keeping all parties content while focused on a unified aim. 

 

Adapts easily to change: Projects will always have challenges and issues that cause conflict and stress. A project manager needs to be able to adapt to change and remain composed during seeming chaos quickly.

 

Risk Management: Project Managers need to identify potential risks at the commencement of a project and develop plans to mitigate those risks if they should occur. 

 

Recommended Project Management Training

 

There are several project management certifications available. However, the most widely recognized is the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification by the Project Management Institute (PMI). In a survey conducted by the Project Management Institute titled Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey, 10th Edition, survey respondents holding the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification reported higher median salaries than those without a PMP certification. The increase was up to a 23% average across the 37 countries surveyed. Around the world, the PMP certification is recognized as the gold standard in project management. 

 

Another training program worthy of note is CAPM: Certified Associate in Project management. It is not as expensive as the PMP, nor are the prerequisites as rigorous, but it can help you distinguish yourself in the job market and enhance your credibility in managing projects. 

 

If you’re looking for a career that will give you the skills to work in different industries and on various projects, then becoming a Project Manager is the right career for you. Not only does it offer variety, ensuring you do not get bored in your career, but the role of Project Manager is also one with tremendous growth potential.