Are there any project managers about please?

[scattercushion17]

Afternoon :)

I wondered if there are any project managers around please who wpuld be happy to chat about their job? I'm looking to possibly switch and would like some advice please but also a general idea of what people's experiences are.

I am currently a team leader/supervisor and have a diploma in events. I work in a supply environment type role.

Looking to PM, the role I would be looking at would be non engineering/IT. I aso can't decide between doing Prince2 or PMP. I know one is more weighted to the public sector so would be grateful for advice on either. Also if there any other courses I can do.

Thanks in advance.

I've been a project manager in the public sector. We used a sort of bespoke in-house version of Prince 2, so at the point of recruitment, they "weren't impressed" by people who had qualified in it "because that's not what we use" . So my advice would be not to go down the route of qualifying before you're in the door, because they might use a different system to the one you've chosen.

I did find it helpful to know my way around a Gantt chart, being able to identify key milestones and stakeholders, knowing some of the terminology and theory associated with project management like Kaizen, Lean etc and knowing my way around MS Project.

Oh, and although I am not a project manager any more, I found the skills I learned in that role to be so useful in every role I've done since. After touch-typing, it's the second most frequently-applied skillset I've developed since graduating.

I manage a largeish project (5 years, team of 30, scientific research). I’m not sure I’m a typical PM though so will watch with interest.

I oversee all sorts of things from overall expenditure across the project, to HR processes and staffing, curate and manage data, report on progress and milestones, and handling comms and marketing, and I have some deliverables and sub-projects of my own.

I’m not formally trained in anything but we use elements of agile and Kanban. I personally favour creative problem solving as a way of getting the team to keep moving.

Echo posters who suggested learning your way around a gant chart, stakeholder management and agile and lean, as well as waterfall. Project methodologies are useful research and for IT definitely read up on the software lifecycle.

I'm a PM in the NHS. We look for Prince or apm when recruiting but it's not absolutely essential. Experience is more important for any PM we have recruited, generally we go for ppl who have worked as a project coordinator/project support and are looking to progress.

Out of interest, what NHS band does a project manager come in at?

Thank you all for your responses and advice. I will look to lean about gantt and more on MS project. I've done a little work work with lean but that was several years ago now.

It sounds like I may have the transferrable skills so I will keep looking for opportunities to develop so when I do look to move I'll have lots of experience to show.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Re NHS PM bands anything from 6 to 8 :)

I'm a retired NHS programme manager and it is important to be able to get facts and figures over quickly and efficiently. Project boards don't like reading lengthy reports, so my project teams used RAG dashboards and project on a page kind of thing - with very easy to read highlight reports.
I ended up being a spreadsheet queen!! Good luck

Hi! I am an IT Project Manager working in a private company but, I frequently work on public projects. My biggest so far I've PMed was worth 5 million and the software is used all over Northern Ireland and soon to be UK. Do you need to know anything in particular?

Thanks @fussy! I’m mid-level senior where I am, but fancied a change to the NHS a while ago (I’m in a comparable public sector type place and have an employment history of research and project management). Interviewed for a band 7, and did well but they couldn’t match my salary (high band 7) apparently because I don’t have NHS experience (seems NHS has a weird system where my 10 years don’t count because they were not in the NHS)

@cinders15 that sounds exciting!

I think i have a lot of of the skillset so my question really relates to anything else i can do to be a better candidate. I think my spreadsheet skills will need to improve and I'll revisit lean etc.

scattercushion17 - Microsoft project licences cost, and NHS budgets are already tight, so I used Excell and created graphics from that so everybody could see it - and I worked in IT!!!

@bumsandtums @stillworkingitout - apologies i missed acknowledging you responses last night. Thanks for responding.

@cinders15 that sounds like a creative solution to the issue!

I think it's worth getting Prince 2, at least foundation. You may or may not use the second part, depending on sector and role. It's 3 or 5 days, last time I looked.

No worries! I agree re: Excel. We have Microsoft project, but I don’t use it much. There is so much you can do in Excel with conditional formatting and the like. We also have Microsoft Teams which I do use quite a bit, that works very well for certain sub teams that I have and is great for group learning. Lots of people use things like Trello or Microsoft Planner to assign tasks to individuals (with automatic reminders). But at the end of the day, a large part of managing projects is being super organised and knowing when key tasks are due and trying to avoid slippage.

I’m a project manager and Prince2 practitioner. There are so many methodologies these days and no organisation seem to be using any particular individual one, but it’s a useful introduction to the principles.

I'm a Programme Manager in financial services.

Prince 2 would be the recognised qualification for us although nowhere uses it in its full form, each company tends to have its own abridged version of it.

That being said it wouldn't be possible to start at a Project Manager level with no previous experience in that role. You'd need to start as a Project Co-ordinator / Project Management Office Support and then work up from there (irrespective of transferable skills).

This is possibly as PMs in financial services are reasonably well paid roles compared to public sector.

Exposure to any other related fields: Lean, Six Sigma, Change Management, Agile, etc would be useful but the experience is the main thing.

Thank you for the further advice and info. All noted

Ref excel - did you oearn on the job? I ask as ive tried to use a package to learn but found it a bit tedious. I think it would be easier if I was using it for an actual project if that makes sense.

Also, understand about working up from coordinator. How much does salary = stress or is it peaks and troughs depending on the stage of the project?

I'll definitely read up a bit on ither areas suggested, thank you.

What are your excel skills like? Mine were ok because I had done a science degree and PhD before starting so had worked a lot with excel and other data processing software. But I don’t really use excel in the same way these days, so some of those tricks I did learn on the job. I think the office.com tutorials are pretty good now - usually videos on how to do things. And my employer does run training on excel and other software. If excel is likely to be a big part of the job, and a high level of competence is needed, then often interviews will use an excel test. But I’ve not seen that for PM jobs here

Apologies for my delayed reply.

I would describe myexcel skills as 'minimal'. . I can get around a set up spreadshest but I would struggle to set one up. Thank you for the link I will check it out.