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Breaking into Project Management

February 4, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Miscellaneous

Breaking into Project Management
By Alora C. Chistiakoff

One of the questions I am most frequently asked is, “What do I need to do to make a career change into Project Management?” That question sometimes comes from people in similar or related fields, like IT Management, or from fields you might not normally expect, like teaching. Most often, though, this question is posed to me by people who have already experienced a degree of success in their field and are either looking for something new, or looking to build on what they’ve done in the past and see Project Management as a way to accomplish that goal.

And particularly at a time when so many people are suddenly finding themselves facing (potential) layoffs, it is often the opportunity to explore making a change. So for people thinking about making this change, I have a few stock recommendations to make:

Join The Project Management Institute

Not only join it, but list it on your resume as a Professional Affiliation. Joining PMI provides value in several areas: it bolsters your credibility to be a member of the organization that is regarded as the standard-bearer for the industry; membership automatically subscribes you to PMI’s regular publications, which are great learning tools for practitioners; it provides networking opportunities via local chapters in your area or field-specific Special Interest Groups (SIGs); and it provides discounts on training materials, events and certification tests. All in all, someone who is trying to break into Project Management cannot afford not to join PMI. Of course, as with anything else, it is not just enough to join PMI, but to actually take advantages of the resources they have to offer.

And an added bonus, if you are a student at all, you are eligible for the student discount on membership, which brings the cost down to a very affordable $30 per year.

Start Studying

Increasingly, local community colleges are offering courses in Project Management as part of their business programs. If that’s not an option for you, then look online for programs that cover Project Management basics to get you started. Beyond that, be sure you are reading the publications PMI sends you, and find online blogs and publications specific to Project Management that you can make a habit of reading. (See the Project Management section of my links page for specific examples.) Like all disciplines there is a special “language” project managers use. In order to convince someone that you can walk the walk, you must first show them that you know enough to talk the talk. So find a mentor you can learn from, attend networking events (which you should always be doing, anyway) so that you can hear about other people’s experiences, and give yourself the chance to start working on your elevator pitch. It’ll take time and tweaking to get it right, so better to practice over cocktails than to wait until you’re in a job interview.

Get Certified

Almost anyone breaking into Project Management is immediately faced with the daunting discovery that getting a PMP requires years of work experience in the field before you are eligible to take the test. Yet a surprising number of people do not realize that the CAPM, the Certified Associate Project Manager, test does not require anywhere near the same experience (not to mention that it’s an easier and shorter test) - in fact, your experience can be as a member of a project team instead of the leader. And don’t worry about finding CAPM-specific study and training resources. Use those designed for the PMP. The test is made up from the same database of questions used to construct the PMP, there are just fewer of them, and they are basically limited to the text of the PMBOK, instead of relying on as many scenario-based questions.

(Quick note here: the current PMBOK standard is version 3.0. The newest version just came out at the first of the year, and is version 4.0. If you expect to take your test prior to this summer, you will want to target 3.0 before it is phased out. But if you do not expect to get to the test before the second half of the year, then get the materials to prep for the 4.0 test. There are enough changes in terminology that you’ll be better off if you are sure to prep for the version of the test you will be taking.)

And while the CAPM is definitely the “junior” certification, it demonstrates both your commitment to your transition as well as a basic grasp of Project Management fundamentals. Even better, the nation-wide salary average between CAPMs and PMPs is actually very small.

Re-write Your Resume

As I’ve said before, throughout my career I have been a project manager, even though there were many times that was not actually my title. So part of what my resume has to reflect is that I have gained project experience in each role that I have held. It is entirely reasonable to assume, that if you have spent a decade in most any professional field, you have probably developed more Project Management experience than you may realize. What’s even more important to understand is that, as soon as you start studying and learning about the formal steps involved in Project Management, that you’ll begin to recognize patterns in your previous projects that help you understand why some failed and others succeeded.

So start a list: list each position you’ve held, and then under that, list each specific project that you actually managed or participated in. Remember: a project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. So an IT Manager who built out a NOC in a data center, or a teacher who developed and rolled out a new curriculum across a school district, or an office manager to developed and deployed a new hire on-boarding process, or an HR specialist who crafted and launched a new benefits program are all examples of project leaders, and in almost no case would that person have previously held a job with “project manager” in the title.

Once you have this list, use it to start building a functional resume. Even if you don’t end up using this in a job hunt, it will be a worthwhile exercise for you to understand just how much Project Management experience you really do have. (Though, in reality, it is not at all uncommon for project managers to use functional resumes, specifically because it is a great way to focus our readers to the experience we most want them to see.)

A cautionary note: Project Management is most often associated with two very specialized fields: information technology and construction. And while these two fields are highly specialized, they are most definitely not the only ones that use Project Management and hire project managers (or hire managers with Project Management expertise). Business Process Improvement projects are one of the most common types of non-IT/construction projects that managers execute, so don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you’ve never lead a team through testing use cases for deploying a CRM that you do not have any Project Management experience. It comes in all forms, and — along with managing people and daily operations — is usually one of the fundamental requirements of any manager, in any position.

One last word of advice: as the economy terrifies (or forces) companies into laying off their staff, the market is awash with highly experienced project managers, including the always-bright-and-shiny PMPs. If what you really want is to get into the field, then don’t get discouraged. Your expertise in another field is something you want to use to your advantage, not hide from. Businesses seek out employees that can provide value, and while there is great value in effective Project Management, the trick is to show how several years in a specific field or industry can help make you a better project manager. Maybe it means finding the ideal niche market, e.g. a teacher leaving a school district to work as a project manager for an educational software firm or textbook publishing house; or a career HR Benefits professional leaving in-house back office functions to work at as a project manager for Charles Scwabb; etc.

There are lots of options, but as you work on re-branding yourself, don’t put so much effort into demonstrating Project Management experience that you short-change the rest of your experience.

Alora C. Chistiakoff has spent a decade managing projects, leading change initiatives, developing teams and implementing technology solutions in startup and entrepreneurial environments in the Bay Area, NYC and now Austin, TX. She blogs regularly on business, leadership and career management at The Pragmatic Contextualist.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 people have left comments

I would like to gently disagree with any notion anyone has that everyone need PM certification. Consider by way of analogy the field of medicine, which has ordinary folks doing first aid and EMTs who show up to perform life-saving techniques as 1st responders. Neither of these groups needs a full medical degree or years of specialized training. Yet they use serious, science-based protocols established by the more highly-trained professionals to make their contributions. So, too, in PM. The vast majority of project managers can simply USE tools established by PMPs and get great results within their unique field or industry. And the field (industry) of PM and its certification juggernaut is not really that beneficial for them. To read my full rant on this, go to:
The Accidental Project Manager –
http://www.michaelgreer.com/accidental-PM.htm

Mike Greer wrote on February 4, 2009 - 2:29 pm | Visit Link

Nice posting. I, too, would caution against worrying too much about PM certification. A certification could certainly help to increase a person’s visibility in a crowded field of project managers, but I often wonder how much of a difference certification makes in project execution.

I visited the topic of project manager selection criteria during a research project I conducted a few years ago. I was able to identify the attributes that were considered when selecting project managers for twenty-five large IT projects. For those interested, the findings are available at http://managementhouse.blogspot.com/. Readers will note how high PM certification was valued in my project sample.

Jeff Edwards wrote on February 4, 2009 - 11:10 pm | Visit Link

Hi Alora,
I agree that your general recommendations are sound and appropriate, however, I do want to alert you that there are many other professional societies that represent the practice of project management other than just PMI. While PMI may be the largest, and the most well known, does not necessarily make it the “best” or “most respected”.

The International Project Management Association (IPMA) is a European based alternative, which offers a much more flexible organizational model (country organizations which join under the umbrella of IPMA) and they offer COMPETENCY (as opposed to knowledge) based credentialing.

There are other specialty organizations, such as the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering INternational, (AACE) which serve the oil, gas, mining and process plants very effectively. AACE offers credentials that directly compete with those offered by PMI and are, IMPO, much more technically demanding and tough to earn. If you are really into project management, and want a credential that means more than just memorizing terms and some inputs, outputs, tools and techniques, then the AACE credentials offer the next step up the ladder.

Another organization that is up and coming is the International Council of Systems Engineers (INCOSE), which tends to favor IT in the government sectors, while for general construction, the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) offers specialty certification in that application of project management. Given construction project management has been around officially for more than 50 years, CMAA probably represents the most mature incarnation of project management.

And for those who really want to get ahead of the PMI crowd, there is the Systems Dynamics folks. While this organization also has been around for 50 years or so, the thinking processes of the systems dynamics practitioners are quite different from those traditionally found in PMI, and again, IMPO, Systems Dynamics is probably where the future of project management lies.

Hope this helps shed more light on the options available to those interested in project management as a career path objective?

BR,
Dr. PDG, Singapore

http://www.getpmcertified.com

Dr. Paul D Giammalvo wrote on February 5, 2009 - 7:53 am | Visit Link

Mike:

I absolutely agree that a certification is in no way indicative of a skill set. The reason I recommend it to people making a career change into project management, is for the same reason people have an easier time getting a job with a college degree: it is one of those things that is, on paper, valuable to get past the ‘gate keepers’ when applying for a job. Especially for those whose education and background is in another field entirely, getting certified is often the quickest way to demonstrate that you are branching out.

I actually have a pretty basic philosophical objection to the whole certification industry in general, because I think it’s basically a money-making scheme. However, I also can’t dismiss that it has value for people who are trying to get up to speed quickly enough to make a change and are trying to sell to a potential employer that they know enough about project management to be worth rolling the dice on hiring them.

Thanks,

Alora

Alora wrote on February 5, 2009 - 2:04 pm | Visit Link

Jeff:

I completely agree. Like I said: the advice I listed here is targeted at people who have an education and work history in another field and who are trying to make a change by breaking into project management. I am in no way a blanket advocate for fostering the money-making machine that is the certification industry, but when I look at a woman who has spent more than a decade as an elementary school teacher, whose BA and MA are both in education, and whose work history has only minimal project management experience, she has to look at other ways to round out her resume in order to make the transition she is looking for. One of the easiest ways to do that is to get certified. Whether I like it (or agree with it) or not, it makes a big difference in her ability to get her resume past the the screener in HR to actually be able to try to sell herself to a hiring manager/organization.

Thanks,

Alora

Alora wrote on February 5, 2009 - 2:10 pm | Visit Link

Paul:

Great list. Thank you. And yes, you are quite right: my list was targeted at a US audience, and at someone who is trying to get their resume approved by HR screeners rather than rejected. And while some of the other organizations have great value for specialists in a particular field, in terms of making the most of a broad sweep, in the US PMI is still the place to start because it is the name that recruiters will recognize.

Again, my opinion on its value is secondary to the fact that a resume is a marketing document. And if a candidate is trying to demonstrate that they have a solid understanding of project management when their job history doesn’t clearly indicate that, the value of a PMI certification (again, in the US) is the brand that PMI has (for better or worse).

Over time, some of the larger international PM organizations will begin to truly compete with PMI for US name recognition among non-PM professionals, but for the moment, PMI is the only brand they know and it’s the one that will give candidates the biggest bang for their buck up front.

Once in the door, other training and methodology avenues or specialties will usually crop up as being more valuable, but they have to get in the door first. And people moving into project management from other fields have a tough sales job (especially in this economy, with so many experienced PMs being out of work), and the advice outlined above — though definitely US-centric — is specifically designed to help get people past some of the knee-jerk reactions they are most likely to encounter while making a transition that many people consider incongruous or out of step with their previous experience.

Thanks for the other list of organizations, though. Great stuff!

~Alora

Alora wrote on February 5, 2009 - 2:21 pm | Visit Link

Sorry. To clarify, I said:

“PMI is the only brand they know…”

What I should really say is that: PMI is the only brand that a candidate can safely assume a recruiter or HR manager knows and is on the look-out for when it comes to screening potential candidates for PM roles. Other organizations may be “better” and ultimately provide more concrete value in terms of PM skill sets, but in the US, the PMI brand is still the one that is going to be most helpful getting you in the door for an interview.

Alora wrote on February 5, 2009 - 2:47 pm | Visit Link

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