So you want to be a real Project Manager?
Excellent
Now that you have take the time to Formulate what you want - to be a real project manager - it is time to Translate that into SMART goals. We can help you with that.
Becoming and being a real PM requires Skilled Behaviour, a result of the relation and interaction between Competences, Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes and Experience (as seen in the diagram below)
We can help you a great deal with the first four directly. As for experience, we can only hire so many Project Managers ourselves, but we can give you some great advice on how to gain valuable experience!
Here are a few SMART goals - one for each subject - and corresponding next steps suggestions.
"Being able to identify key PM competences and to rate oneself; in doing so developing insight in areas for improvement"
- Course - Introduction to Project Manager competences
- Course - How to do a Project Manager competence self evaluation
- Course - In depth look at and discussion of Project Manager competences
- Resources - Overview of Project manager competences
"Being able to identify PM specific knowledge domains and being able to reproduce and renew that knowledge"
- Course - Introduction to project management bodies of knowledge and project management standards
- Course - APM body of knowledge
- Course - PMI's guide to the Project Management body of Knowledge
- Resources - various articles and documents on PM methodologies, bodies of knowledge, approaches and standards
"Being skilled in applying and tailoring a project management methodology to a specific project environment"
- Course - Introduction to Prince2
- Course - Successful Managing projects with Prince2
- Course - Directing Projects with Prince2
- Resources - Overview of Project Management methodologies
- Resources - Overview of Prince2
"Being able to adopt a specific attitude towards managing projects and people (in that order!)"
- Course - Being a real PM
- Course - Lessons learned from real projects and real people
- Resources - Lessons Learned archive
"Having managed x projects during y years in z industries"
- Resources - Tips and tricks on getting and staying hired
We can now also dispel a few common project management myths:
"All you need is a PMP certification!" FALSE.
All having a PMP proves is that you can take a test.
"Project Management is all about MS-Project" FALSE.
A schedule without a plan is useless.
In a more detailed form the diagram looks like this:
Note: We recognize that Competences overlap with Skills, however, we would like to clarify that when we talk about Competences, we refer to project management/manager specific competences as outlined in the IPMA Competence Baseline (ICB) version 3.0 of the International Project Management Association.